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vladdocs · 4 years ago

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From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula - Constantin Rezachevici [Professor Constantin Rezachevici is chief researcher at the Nicolae Iorga National Institute of History, a member of the Romanian Academy, and Professor with the Faculty of History at the University of Bucharest. He is author of The History of the Neighbouring Countries and the Romanian People in the Middle Ages (1998).] ___________ The name “Dracula” has witnessed periods of both brilliance and fame. It became famous in the second half of the fifteenth century through the actions of Vlad Tepes (Dracula), ruler of Wallachia (1448, 1456- 1462, 1476).i It has continued to exist, although less known, through his legitimate descendants, the noble family Dracula of Sintesti and of Band, established in Transylvania between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Families that originated from Vlad’s marriage to a close relative of the Hungarian King Matias Corvin in February of 1462 can provide an explanation of the Szekely ancestry wrongly attributed to Vlad Tepes and his literary metamorphosis the vampire Count Dracula. As a result of the novel of Irish writer Bram Stoker, the name “Dracula” has obtained universal fame during the modern epoch. The origin of the name “Dracula” has a very interesting history, very different from what has been commonly believed. For a long time, many theories have existed about its genesis, ranging from the claim by Grigore Nandris that it was the genitive Slavonic form meaning “the son of Dracul” (Vlad Dracul was the ruler of Wallachia from 1437-1442 and 1444-1447) to the false connection with a coincidentally similar Romanian word “dragulea”, meaning the dear one or lover.ii All these theories are connected to the starting point of this name exclusively for Vlad Tepes, until this popular name, meaning “son of Dracul” became confused with the Romanian word “Dracul”, meaning “the devil” (Andreescu 149-50). To clarify matters, Dracula (Draculea) has represented from the beginning a new popular Romanian form (from the name Vlad Dracul) applied to Vlad Dracul’s famous son Vlad Tepes (Andreescu 156, Stoicescu 201), while the nickname given to Vlad by the Turks was “Tepes”, the Romanian word for impaler. Even before Vlad Tepes’ reign in Romania, the boyar Albu had called Vlad Dracul (which was a nickname known outside of Romania), simply Draculea (Andreescu 150-51), the popular exclusively Romanian name. The Venetian messenger Bartholomeo de Jano and his contemporary Greek chroniclers Leonicos Chalkokondyles and Critobul of Imbros have also called him Draculea (Andreescu 154-55). Even Iancu of Hunedora, who executed him, made mention on December 17, 1456, of “infidelem Drakwlam wayvodem” (Documenta 461). In the end, the Turkish chronicler Asakpasazade, referring to the year 1442, calls Vlad Tepes “Dracula” instead of “Draculea” (Cronici 88), while the Serb janissary who wrote from 1496 to 1501, called him “voievodul valah Dracula” (Calatori 125), which in English means the Wallachian prince Dracula. It is clear that Draculea (Dracula) was a popular nickname for Vlad Dracul, meaning a person belonging to the Order of the Dragon. For his son, Vlad Tepes, the name “Dracula” became through affiliation an alternative, not only a nickname, with the side effect of increasing his bad reputation, with its diabolical meaning, even though originally, in his father’s days, “Dracul” did not have a malevolent meaning. Vlad (the father) had obtained the nickname “Dracul” in connection with his receiving the Order of the Dragon from Hungary’s king Sigismund of Luxembourg, at Nürnberg around February 8, 1431. The German name for this order was “Drachenordens,” and in Latin “Societatis draconistarum.” The Order of the Dragon, which some confuse with a decoration, was really an institution, just like the other chivalric orders in medieval times.iii As a model, Sigismund of Luxembourg took

the Order of St. George (Societas militae Sancti Georgii) created by the king of Hungary Carol Robert of Anjou (1308_1342) in 1318. Its statute from 1326 requires the protection of the king from any danger or plot against him; the symbol of the Order of the Dragon was a red cross on a silver field and a black mantle. With the exception of the last object, these are also found in the new order. In a battle with the anarchical Hungarian nobles and in the background of the other battles for the possession of Bosnia, Sigismund of Luxembourg and the queen Barbara Cilli created the Order of the Dragon on December 12, 1408, mainly meant to protect the king and his family, with the help of a big part of the Hungarian nobility, led by the families of Gara and Cilli. The statute of this Order of the Dragon, elaborated by the chancellor of the Hungarian court, Eberhard, bishop of Oradea, maintained only in a copy from 1707 and published in a Hungarian edition in 1841, has remained almost unknown, even to the investigators of this problem. The analysis of this important document shows that the order aimed at defending the cross and at the destruction of its enemies, symbolized by the ancient Dragons (Draconis tortuosi) with the help of St. George. The battle was against the Turkish pagan armies and the husits, who were outside the Orthodox nations who were faithful to the cross and to King Sigismund (Romanians etc). Barons, priests and leaders of the kingdom gathered below the sign of the dragon, submitted to the cross and proclaimed loyalty to King Sigismund and the queen. The members who founded the order were 24 nobles of the kingdom, led by the despot Stefan Lazarevici, the leader of Serbia, among whom were Nicolae of Gara, the Hungarian prince, Stibor of Stibericz, the prince of Transylvania, Pipo of Ozora, the Ban (local ruler) of Severin etc, in general great local noblemen. They were all engaged in serving with loyalty no matter the price, the royal couple, their family and their friends. The symbol of the order was, after the statute of 1408, a circular dragon with its tail coiled up around its neck. On its back, from the base of its neck to its tail, was the red cross of St. George, on the background of a silver field. According to the first Medieval encyclopedist, Isidor of Seville, it was a “serpens,” a dragon that lives on land. As the years went by, the Order of the Dragon expanded, including two classes, a superior one, whose symbol was a dragon being strangled with a cross stretched out on its back, which, especially from the late fifteenth century to the seventeenth century surrounded a family coat-of-arms. Sometimes foreign members were allowed in, but only as allies, who did not have to take the oath of eternal loyalty to King Sigismund of Luxembourg, for example, the king of Poland, Vladislav Jagiello, his former brother-in-law Vitautas (Witold), the great duke of Lithuania, King Henry the fifth of England, the members of the Italian families Carrara, della Scala and leaders of Venezia, Padova and Verona. During the life of King Sigismund, from 1408 to 1437, the Order of the Dragon became the most important noble political association in Hungary, loyal to the king, the main political force in the kingdom, second to the king. Immediately after being established, it served as a model for the setting up in 1409 of the Spanish order of Calatrava. Into this prestigious European chivalic institution, which was symbolized by the dragon, was admitted the aspirant to the Wallachian throne, Vlad (Dracul) in February 1431, in his position of vassal of Sigismund of Luxemburg, according to the statute of the Order. Admission was into the superior

class of the order. The symbol of this class evolved up to 1431 in two phases: the first one, as it has been reminded earlier, was a dragon with a cross drawn on his back, between its wings, from the base of the neck to its tail and lasted from 1408 to 1418; the second one, until the death of Sigismund of Luxembourg, was completed with another cross perpendicular to the coiled up dragon, having on the equal sides of the cross the writing “O quam misericors est Deus” (vertical) and “Justus et paciens” (horizontal). This sign was worn on a sash, like in the portrait of Dichters Oswald von Wallenstein in 1432. The necklace of the order was made of two gold chains joined by the sign, a Hungarian cross with a double bar above the coiled up dragon. But on the seal, another dragon was represented, with a big body, with dented wings, not coiled, only two feet with a free tail, with a very small Greek cross on its chest. Sigismund of Luxembourg himself introduced in 1433 the seal for the Order of the Dragon of this type, one of the last seals he made as a Roman-German emperor. Unfortunately, the symbol that Vlad Dracul had wasn’t kept. But the elements of the symbol of the Order of the Dragon on his royal seal of 1437 clearly show that Vlad Dracul was the possessor of the Order of the Dragon necklace: the Hungarian double cross, instead of the Latin cross; the dragon illustrated on the reverse of the six silver and bronze coins that were beat by Vlad at Sighisoara in Transylvania (or after his occupation of the Wallachian throne) is similar to the dragon in Paolo Uccello’s picture, St. George and the dragon; and the coat-of-arms from the episcopacy built by him at Curtea de Arges. Furthermore, he transformed the dragon from the seal to his personal coat-of-arms, not directly but as an original heraldry composition. This coat-of-arms was carved from stone, and represented the dragon attacking a lion, the headed snake, the dragon, emerging victoriously from this battle, therefore illustrating metaphorically Psalm 90 (“You will step on lions and on vipers and walk over lion cubs and snakes”). This phrase’s purpose was to symbolize the victory of Christianity and that of Vlad Dracul over his enemies. In this case the dragon was a benefic symbol, and the picture of Vlad with his name (Dracul, Draculea-Dracula) had a positive meaning which was only common in Wallachia during his reign. The spreading of the image of the dragon by Vlad Dracul through the large circulation of seal, small coins and heraldic stone carving had a powerful impression on its Romanian subjects. This was increased by the Order of the Dragon necklace, which no other Romanian ruler had worn, and even more so the ceremonial costume of the Order of the Dragon knights - red garments and green mantle. Thus, Vlad Dracul, the father of Vlad Tepes, has forever remained in a bond with both versions of his nickname. This paradox has been interpreted incorrectly. The dragon of the order with the same name was not an evil element during the fifteenth century, but a positive symbol of knighthood. The dragon choking itself with its own tail, which in Occidental St. George heraldry and iconography, from where it originates, represented the defeated Satan, becomes, in the absence of the saint and of the cross, a Christian chivalry order of positive significance. The circular dragon, strangled by its own tail, is represented on the coat-of-arms of many noble families in the Hungarian kingdom who were the descendants of some of the knights who were part of the Order of the Dragon during the reign of Sigismund, until the seventeenth century. This supports the fact that the Order of the Dragon enjoyed great prestige throughout the first half of the fifteenth century. In Transylvania, it also appeared in the coats-of-arms of the families

Bathory, Bocskay, Bethlen, Szathmary, Rakoczi and many others, even though the Order of the Dragon had lost its importance after the death of Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1437 and it practically disappeared with the demise of the members who had been admitted by him. Over five millennia of the dragon’s universal existence, it went through many transformations until the fifteenth century and it was known as a fabulous creature, sometimes with the head of a vulture, other times like the animal represented on the Order of the Dragon, with the body of a snake and the wings of a bat. The European Dragon had a lot of sources: Greek mythology (dracon), Roman_Greek tradition, Celtic mythology, the Bible, the Apocalypse, the lives of saints and Oriental influences. During pre- Christian times, the dragon often had a beneficial meaning (often connected with fecundity) and perpetuated in folklore until the late Middle Ages. However, in literature, culture and clerical Christianity, starting from Bibical text, it takes on a different role, and in the fifth century it becomes a symbol of Satan -- “draco iste significat diabolum” (Le Goff 58). This dragon, identified with Satan, was defeated and was dominated by spiritual forces but was not killed; rather, according to the symbolism of Celtic folklore, at some extent, “they even became allied with it” (Le Goff 45), by numerous saints and bishops of the Occident. In the art of Roman influence, the crutch of the bishop often has a defeated and twisted dragon at its tip. Both St. Michael and St. George, whose cult began to spread from the Bizant during the eighth and throughout the tenth, and respectively eleventh centuries, defeated the dragon physically in a fight. In Occidental heraldry, the physical strength of the dragon was said to have been in his head, but also in its big and strong tail, which in the nineteenth century was considered the illustrative element of the dragon. All this European clerical and folklore heraldry, strengthened in a millenary existence (from the fifth century to the fifteenth century) can be identified in the basic illustration of the Order of the Dragon, the snake-like dragon that is strangling himself with his own tail, which, according to tradition, is twisted three times around the dragon’s neck, signifying that he had been subdued by means of Christian spiritual powers, and the dragon with big paws and wings was the symbol of the one who was defeated by the Saints Michael and George. However, we must also remember the fact that, despite the fact that it had been defeated and subdued, the snake-like dragon and the flying dragon still were evil and the symbols of Satan. In the Romanian space to which Vlad Dracul and his son Vlad Tepes belonged, the dragon, named “balaur”, a thraco_dacian word, or “zmeu”, a slavonic word, had its roots in geto-dacian antiquity, whose military flag was representing a snake with the head of a wolf, included the large category of dragons used as flags, which one finds from the times of the Greeks and Romans until the fifteenth century. This divinity represented on the “geto-dacian” flag, became known in the time of the Roman ruling of Dacia as “draco” (in Romanian “drac” (meaning devil). Along with Christianity, it spread all throughout Europe, and came to symbolize Satan. However in pagan terms, as the Romanian historian Vasile Parvan observed, “out of all the Romance languages, the Romanian language was the only one in which ‘draco’ has the meaning of an evil spirit, demon or devil, whereas in others, the word only has the meaning of snake or dragon” (228-30). In Romanian folklore, even the snake, which in certain conditions, has the ability to turn into a dragon, has a strong malefic meaning. If “Dracul” and “Draculea” have a positive meaning in connection with the Order of the Dragon during Vlad Dracul’s time and later on during

Vlad Tepes’ reign, the same words have an exclusively negative, diabolical meaning, synonymous to the Romanian word “dracul” (the devil), without doubt in connection to the bloody and law_enforcing character of Vlad. In 1459, the aspirant Dan III, accused his rival “Draculea” (Vlad Tepes) of collaborating with the Turks, aided and guided by the devil (Tocilescu 71-2), and in 1460 mentioned “the law-offender and barbaric tyrant, unfaithful and the devil that is Vlad Voievod” (Harmuzeki 53). During Vlad Tepes’ captivity in Hungary (1462-1475), the representative of the pope in Buda, Nicolaede Madrussa, declared that he saw “their tyrant Dracul, a name which they [Romanians] use for the Devil” Papacostea (164). In 1486, the author of the Novel about Dracula voievod, translated in Russian, referred to “Dracula in Romanian, and in our language - devil, that’s how evil he was” (Panaitescu 200, 207). Although Vlad Tepes and his descendants have never used the symbol of the Order of the Dragon, he has inherited the nickname of his father Draculea/Dracula, which has become a family name (outside the country). And his successors in Transylvania, the Dracula (Draculea) family kept this name until the seventeenth century, settling in the sixteenth century among the “secui,” not far from the place where in 1897, Bram Stoker, located the setting of his novel and the Transylvania castle of “Count Dracula.” This way, over a long period of time, from the name of a small pagan deity (Greek, dracos, Latin draco), by means of the name of the Order of the Dragon (in German Drachenordens, Latin Societas draconistarum) to the fifteenth century Romanian nickname of Dracul/Draculea from which the nickname and then the family name, Dracula, comes and was used in 1897 by Bram Stoker, at the suggestion of the Hungarian Jewish orientalist, well known scholar of his time (Florescu & McNally 142-3). If the Order of the Dragon did not exist, with all its symbols and its being awarded to a Romanian Ruler, the name “Dracula” would not be famous today. _____ Works Cited: Andreescu, Stefan. Vlad Tepes (Dracula) intre legenda si adevar istoric. Bucharest, 1976. Calatori straini despre tarile romane. Bucharest, 1970. Cronici turcesti privind tarile romana. Bucharest 1966. Documenta Romaniae Historica. Bucharest, 1977. Florescu, Radu & Raymond McNally. In cautarea lui Dracula. Bucharest, 1992. Harmizachi, Eudoxiu. Documente privitoare la istoria romanilor. Bucharest, 1911. Le Goff, Jacques. “Cultura ecleziastica si sultura folclorica in evul mediu.” Pentru un alt evmediu, II. Bucharest, 1986. Nandris, Grigore. “A Philological Analysis of Dracula and Romanian Place-names and Masculine Personal Names in -a, -ea.” The Slavonic and East European Review. 36 (1959): 370-77. Panaitescu, P P (ed), Cronicile slavo-romane din sec. XV-XVI publicate de Ion Bogdan. Bucharest, 1959. Papacostea, Serban. “Cu privire la geneza si raspandirea povestirilor despre factele lui Vlad Tepes.” Romanoslavica 13 (1966). Parvan, Vasile. “Contributii epigrafice la istoria crestinismului daco-roman.” Studii de istoria culturii antice. Bucharest, 1992. Stoicescu, Nicolae. Vlad Tepes. Bucharest, 1976.

#Vlad voda #Vlad Tepes #Vlad Dracula #vlad the impaler #Ladislau Dragkwlya #documents #history #wallachia #romania #vlad dracula tepes #order of the dragon #Constantin Rezachevici #From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula

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simonalkenmayer · 5 years ago

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I’m utterly astonished that that dimwit thinks vampires, of all things, are Jew coded. I’m a Jew, for reference. I saw that you already went into how absurd it is to link us to a worldwide but very varied phenomenon, that of premodern vampires, so I won’t get into that.

I’m very familiar with how easily monsters can be made off of the generic “outsider” mold, and how frequently a given culture will think of jews when it thinks “outsider.” That’s how we get things like goblin imagery (which is divided into the healthy goblincore and the unhealthy JKR goblins). Dwarves, too, hit that spot—Tolkien literally based them on Jews, although he later apologized and said the offensive bits were unintentional. One could argue that the idea of deals with the devil are Jew coded, since meeting a hook-nosed figure at a crossroad and making an exchange is connectable to ancient Jewish traveling merchants, but

But vampires? Seriously? Pale, sallow, reclusive, rich, blood drinking... it’s a stretch to say the least, considering that modern vampires are pretty directly coded after wealthy christian aristocrats, who are more predominantly given those traits than either poor Jewish ghettos or wealthy Jewish merchants were. Hell, you look over the traits ascribed over modern vamps and you find a direct inversion of Catholic ideals, from a more literal communion to immortality to the sanctity of holy symbols. The sun/silver/mirrors are associated with ideas of purity that Judaism barely gets into, but that have been a big thing in the Church ever since they started absorbing pagans. Don’t even get me started on holy water. The archetypal modern vampire is literally based on the son of a pseudo-Templar, that’s where the name Dracula (son of the dragon/devil, after the Order of the Dragon knights) comes from.

The difficulty I have is the lack of historical perspective. These myths predate the modern imagery of “the Jew”. Those tropes are only since about the Middle Ages. And the simple fact is that it has evolved many times since then. The large nose only dates from about the late 12th century. This person is looking at Ancient myths with more modern concepts of descriminatory tropes. Not to mention the fact that how monsters are PRESENTED visually is far different from the source material.

Let’s examine Dracula. (I prefer not to, but oh well). Stoker was very concise in his description and it was not a pleasant one. Hell, the bastard had hairy palms and halitosis. And yet, every single film adaptation presents it differently, though all largely based on Bella Lugosi’s classic portrayal of dark sex appeal. If Tod Browning and Karl Freund decided to take from Antisemitic tropes to develop the character, yes it would be bad, but it would not be the original tale. It would be a version of it.

They’re asserting the myths ORIGINATE in antisemitism. It’s not only not so, but only certain versions contain any sort of trace of antisemiticsm. Not to mention,

Jews are not the only group who have been defined by facial features, especially the nose. Africans and indigenous peoples have also been portrayed with exaggerated noses. Asian groups have been portrayed with allond shaped eyes and so on. Why do they instantly assume that I am leveraging antisemitic tropes? And what benefit is there in putting facial feature tropes into a pale white body? Jews have never been portrayed as pale. In fact paleness is a sign of virtue, innocence, and of course superiority in most visual paradigms to do with discrimination. I mean really. It’s a contradiction.

The series of logical fallacies and contradictions is absurd.

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cincinnatusvirtue · 5 years ago

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Vlad III Dracula (1428/1431-1476/1477) AKA Vlad the Impaler. Voivode of Wallachia and real life inspiration for the modern popular conception of the vampire.

Some historical figures are steeped in more mythology and it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. This could well be true of one especially seen to be viewed as the inspiration for one of the most popular monster figures of contemporary culture. Let’s look in more detail at what we know of the real life, Dracula, Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia...

-Vlad was born between the years 1428-1431 in what is the modern nation of Romania. At the time Romania was divided among different provinces, Transylvania in the north, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Moldavia in the east, a part of modern Romania and Moldovia and Wallachia in the south just north of the Danube river border with Bulgaria.

-He was born in the town of Sighisoara in Transylvania, the town was largely a merchant town controlled by Transylvanian Saxons (Germans) burghers and located in the Kingdom of Hungary. Transylvania was populated by Hungarians, German Saxons and Romanians (Vlachs/Wallachians).

-Vlad was an ethnic Romanian with roots in the nobility of Wallachia & Moldavia. His father was originally from the House of Basarab, but their branch became known as Draculesti. Vlad’s father was Vlad II of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Dracul, due to his membership in a Christian military order sanctioned by the Catholic Church, the Order of the Dragon. Their mission was to prevent the spread of Islam into Europe, namely from the threat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire that had conquered much of the Balkans in Southeastern Europe by then.

-The sobriquet Dracul was Medieval Romanian for “dragon” and Dracula as Vlad III would be called or Vlad Dracula meant “son of the dragon” as relates to his father. In modern Romanian, Dracul means the “devil”.

-Vlad’s mother is unknown, Vlad II’s first was unknown but some historians now believe his mother to have been Eupraxia of Moldavia, a relative of Alexander I of Moldavia.

-Vlad II Dracul would serve as voivode of Wallachia on more than one occasion, due to his family’s noble status. The term voivode was used mostly in Southeastern Europe, taken from the Slavic languages to mean roughly warlord, or later as prince. It mostly used in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia & Croatia, Poland, Ukraine & Russia as well as Romania and Hungary.

-In 1436 his father came to power as voivode of Wallachia in the south of Romania following the death of his half-brother Alexander I Aldea. At the time, Wallachia found itself caught in a power struggle between rival factions and interests internally as well as in the wider context of the rival ambitions of Moldavia, Hungary and the Ottomans. Nominally, the voivode of Wallachia needed the blessing of the Hungarian King, Sigismund of Luxembourg, later Holy Roman Emperor or the Ottoman Sultan.

-Vlad II was made a member of the Order of the Dragon by Sigismund and given his blessing on the grounds, he protect Roman Catholicism, despite himself being a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

-Vlad was supported by the Hungarians whereas his brother had paid homage to the Ottoman Sultan. However, in 1437 Sigismund died, followed by rebellion in Transylvania which weakened the Hungarian position. In order to protect his own precarious position on the throne, he now chose to deal with the Ottomans and traveled to the then Ottoman capital in Adrianople, modern Edirne, Turkey. In return for Ottoman patronage he agreed to annual monetary tribute and had to serve on military campaigns in support of the Turks. Becoming their vassal. The Sultan at the time was Murad II.

-Vlad II supported the invasion of Hungarian Transylvania serving as Murad’s guide and aided the Turks in capturing 30,000 slaves for them. However, he also sought to placate the new Hungarian king, Albert of the House of Hapsburg by releasing some prisoners taken. He hoped to maintain a balance between patrons, leaving both the king & sultan to be wary of his intentions.

-Albert died in 1439 and was replaced by the young King of Poland Wladyslaw III, now King of Hungary as well. He appointed John Hunyadi, a Hungarian as Voivode of Transylvania in 1441. Hunyadi asked Vlad join him on a renewed Crusade against the Turks. He would meet Vlad in the Wallachian capital of Targoviste.

-Vlad II was accused of betraying Turks by their governor of Bulgaria following a Hungarian victory in 1442. Murad ordered Vlad to Adrianople to prove his loyalty. He named his eldest son, Mircea to serve in his stead, possibly suspecting danger. He was indeed arrested by the Ottomans and held prisoner for a time.

-The Turks tried to invade and annex Wallachia proper in 1442 but were defeated again by the Hungarians under Hunyadi who placed Basarab, Vlad’s cousin the new voivode.

-The Turks realized working with Vlad once again, maybe in their interest. In order to secure his throne once more, he made a new pledge to the Ottomans, to supply an annual blood tribute of 500 Wallachian boys to serve as janissaries in the Ottoman army (Christian boys forcibly converted to Islam and trained to be personal guard of the sultan). He also had to leave two of his own sons as hostages in Adrianople for training in Turkish culture and the ways of Islam. These two sons were Vlad (Dracula) & Radu.

-Vlad II was back to power in Wallachia in summer 1443 under unknown circumstances. During the subsequent war between the Hungary and the Ottomans he was to remain neutral. His sons were to be released if a peace deal with Hungary was signed. However, the papal legate to Hungary prevented its signing and encouraged the war to continue with the disastrous Battle of Varna (1444) fought in Bulgaria which resulted in the Turks defeating a Christian coalition of several nations, Wladyslaw III was himself killed while charging the Ottoman sultan’s position, nearly succeeding only to be stopped and saved by his bodyguards.

-The war between the Crusaders & Turks raged on over the next couple of years and gradually Vlad came out of his neutrality to fight against the Turks, meanwhile he may have believed his sons were murdered during their hostage stay in Turkey.

-In fact Murad had not killed Vlad’s sons, instead they were given an education in all matters, including Turkish warfare, military structure, governance, language, history and Turkish and greater Islamic culture. Vlad Dracula was reported to have been far more resistant to the Turks attempts to earn his favor than his brother Radu who is believed to have become a potential lover of Murad II’s son the future sultan, Mehmed II.

-In 1446 he made peace with the Turks once more on his own, but his relations with Hungary and Hunyadi in particular was worsened, he still believed his sons had been murdered having not heard on their condition. Meanwhile, Hunyadi wanting to make sure Wallachia remained a Hungarian and not Turkish vassal was prepared to now replace Vlad II once more, he had given shelter to another cousin of Vlad’s and pretender to the throne of Wallachia, named Vladislav or Dan. He invaded in late November 1447, during this invasion Vlad II fled but was caught and killed along with his son Mircea, betrayed by the boyars (Romanian aristocracy) who were possibly paid off by Hunyadi and the Saxon burghers who saw Vlad and his back and forth with the Turks as harmful to their political and economic influence in the area.

-Vlad Dracula meanwhile now as eldest surviving son of Vlad II had a claim to the throne of Wallachia and the Turks wanted a client to continue their influence. Taking advantage of his cousin Vladislav II ‘s absence from Wallachia to support Hunyadi in the Battle of Kosovo 1448, with Ottoman support he snuck back into Wallachia and was proclaimed voivode, becoming Vlad III, but his reign only lasted a month as his cousin returned with an army that he couldn’t compete with. Dracula fled back to Turkey.

-His exile in Turkey soon transferred to Moldavia where he was taken in as a guest of his possible maternal uncle and brother in law of his father. He travelled between Moldavia, Transylvania and Hungary during this time, at times conversing with Hunyadi in the hopes of restoring himself to the throne. However, Hunyadi saw him as not as useful having concluded peace with the Turks in 1451 and denied the right of him settling in Brasov, a major center of Transylvanian Saxon mercantile power, crucial to Hunyadi’s power base.

-Nevertheless, Vlad procured some support from Hungary and in the late summer of 1456 invaded Wallachia to overthrow his cousin Vladislav II, who did indeed die in the invasion, some sources state by Dracula’s hand in one on one combat.

-What followed was the consolidation of his second and ultimately most lengthy and notable reign as voivode. Vlad III set about settling old political scores and implementing reforms to his lands.

-First, he dealt with the boyars that had killed his father in conspiracy with the Saxons by purging them and killing hundred of them during a feast. Those not killed were put to slave labor towards building his castles and fortresses. He also at this time sent a letter to the Transylvanian Saxons asking for mutual aid against the Turks, whose politicking he felt jeopardized his father’s rule and whose harsh treatment including beatings and whippings as a hostage made him resentful of them.

-He also made land reforms and had some property from his victims (former boyars) confiscated to compensate his new supporters who in turn pledged loyalty to him.

-Dracula passed new laws as well which included punishment for crimes committed by nobility & commoners. Criminals, beggars, transients & committers of adultery among his own people were punished, sometimes with death. His preferred form of capital punishment was what became most associated with him, impalement. Using wooden stakes hammered into the ground, his victims would be placed upon the stake which would pierce the body and leave the body in great agonizing pain and left for public display as a deterrent for others. Impalement was often a slow form of execution and thought to take hours or days to complete death. Blood loss and damage to the vital organs would ultimately be the cause of death, the impalements depicted in this time, could be done frontally or dorsally, some may have been vertical for the victim as well, but the contemporary artwork from the time only depict the frontal or dorsal aspects. The frequent use of impalement earned him the moniker Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler.

-Dracula during this time, continued his tribute to the Turks whose sultan sent 1451 was Mehmed II, the Conqueror. So named because he at long last achieved the goal of his ancestors, the completed conquest of Constantinople, the capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in 1453. This successful siege swept away the last remnants of ancient Rome and consolidated the links between Ottoman controlled Asia Minor and Southeastern Europe. Mehmed had known Vlad during his childhood imprisonment and had probably become lovers with his brother Radu, known as Radu the Fair or Handsome. Radu didn’t officially convert to Islam but he was more receptive to the Turkish education and attempts to control him than his older brother Vlad.

-Dracula used this time not only to reform his own land but to partake in a Hungarian civil war in Transylvania. He invaded and sacked the villages around Brasov, killing Saxon families including women & children by impalement. His attack wasn’t for wanton cruelty so much as to secure his position since the Saxons were harboring another Wallachian pretender that could usurp his throne. They agreed to peace and to hand over the pretender as well as have mutual trade for Saxon & Wallachian merchants in both Transylvania & Wallachia. Vlad’s agreements with the Saxons would be off and on over the years, alternating between peace brief periods of war, usually consisting of raids. Vlad laid claim to parts of Transylvania as well during this time.

-Hunyadi had died in 1456 and eventually a son of his Matthias Corvinus, in part aided by Dracula’s raids against the Saxons was elected King of Hungary in 1458. Convinus would like his father and Dracula’s father before him also play politics siding both with and against one another. Initially he had peace with Dracula but later supported a pretender, Dan III against him only to have Vlad defeat Dan’s ad hoc army in battle, killed Dan and then raided southern Transylvania once more, killing peasants in the surrounding area, both German & Romanian who had supported his ouster. However, peace was concluded by 1460 with Corvinus & the Saxons.

-Sources vary and aren’t conclusive but suggest Dracula’s problem with the Turks was renewed by 1461, due to his lack of paying tribute, some said he stopped paying tribute in 1459 others only in 1461. This brought him into conflict with Mehmed.

-Finding out through spies that Dracula was negotiating with Corvinus, Mehmed sent emissaries to demand Dracula’s personal presence in audience with the sultan. As the story goes, Vlad found out that he was to be arrested at the border on the Danube river like his father decades before. While meeting with the emissaries, he had them executed. Supposedly during an audience, Dracula asking them to take off their turbans as a sign of respect, when they refused on religious and political grounds, Dracula obliged them and instead had nails hammered into their skulls so that their turbans would never leave their head again. He sent the executed envoys returned to the sultan, essentially an act of war.

-Dracula knowing Mehmed would now find reason to invade Wallachia, decided to preempt him and go to war. Hoping a new Crusade would materialize with Hungarian support. He first lead his troops to the fortress of Giurgiu, along the Danube river. There disguised as a Turkish official and being fluent in Turkish deceived the garrison commander into opening the gates to let him in. He and his guards overwhelmed a portion of the garrison and let in awaiting other troops to sack the city and kill the Turks.

-From the sack of Girugiu, Dracula’s army crisscrossed Ottoman Bulgaria, along the Danube river, killing mostly Turkish soldiers and settlers but also some Bulgarians who were Christian as well, this may have been out of necessity if they had loyalty to their Turkish overlords. By his own account in February of 1462, 23,000+ were killed by his troops. Wallachian settlers in Bulgaria joined in his cause too, declaring themselves liberated.

-Dracula wrote to Corvinus of his actions in the hope of spurning an alliance with Hungary. He wrote of the need to defend Christendom and protect Catholics, though he had been raised Eastern Orthodox, he had functionally become Catholic.

-Mehmed responded by raising an army, the size of which varied according to the sources, some suggest as big as 150,000 troops and others as small as 25,000-60,000. Mehmed personally led this army and was accompanied by Radu, Dracula’s younger brother, who had become a Ottoman loyalist. Mehmed sought to replace Vlad with the more receptive Radu at this point.

-The sultan and his army crossed the Danube in summer of 1462. Realizing he was outnumbered, Dracula began an scorched earth policy, burning crops so the Turks could not live off the land. Meanwhile, Vlad fled to Targoviste.

-Schooled in Turkish warfare, he knew their methods, strategy and structure and as such he hoped exploit any weakness he could. The Turks encamped near Targoviste on June 17-18th 1462, Vlad would lead a daring charge into the Ottoman encampment with the goal of either abducting or killing Mehmed. Knowing the loss of the sultan would demoralize the army, they would likely retreat in the chaos. Nevertheless, the so called Night Attack did not succeed in its goal, as he attacked a subordinate commander’s tent and not the sultan’s. It roused the Turks to action, despite their initial surprise. Vlad managed to escape at dawn having fought his way back out of the camp.

-Vlad retreated to the Carpathians abandoning his capital to the inevitable. However, Mehmed and his army came to a now famous and horrific sight at the abandoned Targoviste. A field full of 20,000 impaled corpses, a mix of men women and children, including Turks impaled on stakes, creating a so called “forest of the impaled” it measured by some accounts larger than several stadium sized venues combined. Mehmed was said to be alternately sick or impressed with the sight, either way astonished.

-Vlad then hid at Castle Poernari located in the mountains near the Arges river valley northwest of Targoviste. Here in the isolated mountaintop fortress with a commanding view Vlad awaited any movement from his enemies. Nonetheless, Mehmed ordered Wallachia abandoned having suffered attrition through the scorched earth tactics with was causing starvation and thirst among his troops and no decisive action to boost morale.

-Dracula harassed the rearguard of the retreating Turks in guerilla warfare marked by ambush and hit and run tactics. Nevertheless, his brother Radu was gathering support from the local boyars who were tired of warfare and Dracula’s strict criminal justice and authoritarian rule. Not only did he gather boyars to defect to him, Radu promised the Transylvanian Saxons restored trade rights and lasting peace, all parties finding him more agreeable than his brother, they turned on Dracula, aside from a host of devoted loyalists. Dracula was driven from power in late 1462, ending his seven year longest period of rule.

-Radu ended up accomplishing the goal of Mehmed by diplomacy and a show of force where the sultan had failed with show of force alone. Radu would reign uninterrupted for the next 11 years and voivode of Wallachia. Fulfilling, the promise of increased Turkish influence in the area at the expense of the Hungarians.

-Radu’s reign was marked by some conflict with his future son in law, Stephen III of Moldavia.

-Dracula meanwhile fled to Hungary, hoping for help from Corvinus who did not intervene during the Turkish invasion of Wallachia. Instead, Corvinus charged Dracula with trumped up charges of treason and imprisoned him first in Romania and then Hungary proper at the citadel in Visegrad. Vlad would remain there for the next 14 years.

-Meanwhile, Radu ruled Wallachia until a dispute with the Ottoman in the 1470′s lead to his dethronement though he would be restored a few more times albeit briefly.

-Records of his life during imprisonment do not survive. He was only released in 1476 when the Hungarians felt he could be of use once more to drive away the latest Ottoman puppet on the Wallachian throne. He also had to officially convert to Catholicism, the brand of Christianity he and his father had agreed to defend while remaining Orthodox in affiliation.

-The new Ottoman puppet was Basarab Laoita. Vlad had moved to Transylvania in 1475 but was called elsewhere by Corvinus to fight the Turks in Bosnia. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Moldavia but were countered by a Hungarian force consisting of Stephen Bathory & Dracula.

-The Hungarians launched a two pronged attack into Wallachia with the intent of forcing out Basarab and Ottoman influence and placing Vlad on the throne, this was confirmed in late November 1476. Vlad once more had made peace with the Saxon merchants of Transylvania and was restored this third and final reign as voivode.

-His reign was short lived, less than two months after regaining the throne Dracula was on the defensive against a renewed Ottoman invasion backing Basarab Laoita. Dracula would be killed in battle with his retinue, fighting to the very end.

-The Turks hacked his body to pieces and sent his head to Mehmed in Constantinople as a confirmation that Vlad was at long last dead and no longer a threat. The location of the burial for the rest of his body is not known but widely speculated to this day.

Epilogue:

-Vlad Dracula later most famously served as both the name and partial inspiration for Irish author Bram Stoker’s 1897 Victorian gothic horror novel, Dracula which in turned popularized the modern vampire myth, with its association in Transylvania etc. Stoker never visited Romania but he did read up on its history and the folklore of the area which along with Slavic sources had plenty of vampire references. He came across the name Dracula and made it the central character’s namesake but beyond the name and location of his characterization, little else from Vlad’s life was taken into account for the novel.

-In his own time, German and other sources note and portray Vlad as cruel, sadistic and authoritarian in his rule. This is portrayed in both print and woodcut artwork of the 15th century and later. Some portrayals going so far as to say he dined outdoors amid the forest of impaled victims and dipped his food in the blood of dead and dying, perhaps somewhat influencing the literary vampire connection. These sources are mostly believed to be exaggerated propaganda from biased sources, especially the German ones given Dracula’s antagonistic relations with the Saxons. Undoubtedly, he did engage in impalement and other forms of execution and torture, but realistically he was not the only ruler in that time period to engage in such cruelty.

-Some historians also tend to view his widespread capital punishment and strict justice system as a political means to an end, rather than for mere enjoyment or barbarism. Vlad would have viewed it as a matter of political necessity to maintain a balance of power amid so many warring interests both internally and externally. Given the warring influences, any such widespread torture and execution of the populace was likely to alienate enough factions and ultimately undermine his rule so as to guarantee it was short lived and he like many of his contemporaries and holders of his title held short reigns or multiple reigns for quick time periods.

-Today, in Romania he is still revered as a folk hero by some. With some people believing his methods were justified and others less so. Those who support his memory positively, praise his defense of the country from the Turkish threat, the German economic influence and Hungarian meddling, they also praise his justice system that they view as ridding Wallachia of corrupting internal influences such as the boyars. His detractors of course cite his methods as brutal, arbitrary and authoritarian. Whatever view one takes, Vlad III Dracula’s name is one hard to forget nowadays and his memory lives on far beyond his own short life...

#history #military history #military tactics #capital punishment #15th century #romanian history #romania #vlad the impaler #vlad tepes #dracula #ottoman empire #wallachia #1400s #transylvania #vampire #bram stoker

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antihero-writings · 5 years ago

Text

Inverted Recurrence

Fandom: Castlevania Symphony of the Night (but with the Netflix series characterizations)

Summary: It's been three hundred years since Alucard saw Trevor and Sypha. When he sees a version of them in the inverted coliseum...he just can't seem to win the fight against them.

So he loses. Over and over.

(The inverted coliseum boss fight from Symphony of the Night, but with the Netflix series characters)

Notes: First of all, warning!! There will be swearing in this fic!!

This is a fic for the game Symphony of the Night. However I used the characterizations of the characters from the Netflix series. This is also why Grant is not present, even though he's present in the actual fight. (I wanted to include him, especially because they took him out of the show...but because they took him out of the show, and because I have yet to play Dracula's Curse, I didn't feel like I could properly characterize him to have him in the scene.)

If you enjoyed this I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment! They make my week, and really help motive me to keep writing multi-chapter fics like this one!

I’ll also post this on my Castlevania blog @symphonyofthewrite if you want to check it out there!!

Chapter 1:

Alucard hit the ground of the save room…which happened to be the ceiling, breath and heartbeat crawling through his chest like fire ants.

“Well…fuck.”

******

Fire consumed the werewolves’ snarls, echoing through the stone hall, and he continued up the corridor without a glance back.

Alucard paused to think; count the rooms.

He wiped the blood off his sword—well, not his sword, that is to say, he still didn’t have his mother’s sword back from that dickhead, Death, so he was using one he had borrowed from one of those green skeletons upon its second death.

“Are you prepared?” he asked his fairy familiar. “If my thinking is correct we’re coming upon the main part of the coliseum. This could get”—he adjusted his grip on the sword and inclined his head to the side. “Interesting.”

She folded her arms and bowed. “I am prepared for whatever comes our way, Master Alucard.”

He grinned back. “Good.”

He marched forward, and, sure enough, the upside-down version of the coliseum center revealed itself. The same room where he had fought the Shaft-possessed-Richter in the right-side-up castle. The sconces spilled blue fire endlessly to the ground, fixed to columns that didn’t reach the ‘floor’, in a circle around an overthrown throne. A throne which held no one now, as if he were a gladiator in an upturned universe, a slave of the games, watched by an invisible sadistic god, hosting this for their own pleasure.

The doors shut themselves behind, and in front, of him with a loud thump, closing off his exits.

Yup. Interesting.

He stood on guard, aiming the sword at the pentagonal spinning coffins in the center of the room, his mind cycling through what might step out;

Let’s see, skeletons? Zombies? Ghosts? No it’d be something more advanced than that. Maybe dragon would walk out? Or maybe he’d fight the embodiment of of emperor Nero himself? That might be fun.

When their lids creaked forward, and the first enemy stepped out it did not, in fact, have rotting skin, or a malevolent grin…It looked like a man.

A man with brown hair, blue eyes—one of which a scar fell across—sauntered over to Alucard, the Belmont crest gleaming on his chest.

Alucard froze, eyes widening.

The man groaned when he saw Alucard—but not in an undead way, more like a man who was annoyed—and, unlike many of the monsters, he spoke:

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard.”

Alucard fought werewolves and demons, things that spit fire, things that turned him to stone, things that would eat his soul out if given the chance, and he didn’t even break a sweat. Not much could make his heart hammer these days.

But this—

“Trevor! What have I told you about speaking your mind?!” Alucard had been so focused on Trevor he hadn’t noticed the other enemy: a woman in blue smacked Trevor on the back of the head.

“Uhh that it’s what everyone should do it all the time?” he rubbed his head.

She pulled on his ear.

“Okay, okay! Easy on the moneymaker!”

Alucard’s eyes stayed open wide, as if he was afraid if he closed them they’d disappear and he’d remember he was dreaming. The golden irises oscillating beneath waves of memory, the sword at his side twitching.

“Master Alucard?” the fairy’s voice was muffled behind the sound of his heartbeat.

He fought reanimated flesh, and first-animated metal, he fought things straight out of books, things he wished were mere fantasy, and never once did he stand paralyzed.

But this…this made his blood thump cold and relentless in his ears. This made his heart start churning with questions, his head ache with memory. This made his throat tighten with sentimentality long forgotten.

The fairy couldn’t hear the words he breathed.

Three hundred years is a long time. Even if he spent most of it asleep, time has a way of weighing heavy on the chest.

They were arguing amongst themselves, while the fairy was asking him questions, but he couldn’t hear any of them. As if he was beneath many tons of water, the pressure slowly crushing him.

Being immortal has never been the blessing humanity thought. Watching your friends, your family, die is hard enough, but when you know you won’t be joining them wherever they’re going for a long time, if at all, things get more complicated. The pain, then, isn’t just loss…it’s the knowledge of what you’ll never lose. Watching your friends die, while you, standing at their death bed, look the same as you did when you met them sixty years ago, like you’re taunting them, like you’re some cosmic joke… Watching them die, while you have millennia left to spend grieving, making new friends and watching them die too, just living… it isn’t exactly something you’d spend one of your three wishes on.

Sometimes he wished he was mortal. Human. That the blade and arrow would sting more, that words would mean more, that he’d remember the things his friends told long ago, under moonlit skies. He wished he could feel something, that he could feel fear and horror and hope. That the fight would pump in his veins. That he could grow old, and die, and wouldn’t have to live a thousand more lifetimes before death took him away. Sometimes he forgot how to appreciate life; they say death is what gives life meaning, after all.

Seeing his friends from centuries ago, his friends who he had argued with, played games with, laughed, cried with. Friends who he had watched die, who he had mourned, grieved long ago back again…

“What’s the matter?” Trevor put his hands on his hips, noticing that he was standing their dumbstruck. “Cat got your tongue?”

Alucard backed up on shaky legs, biting his lip until it bled.

He was twenty years old again. Twenty years old and they were in a snowy woods speaking of God, mothers, old books, and how lonely they all were, on their way to defeat Dracula for what they didn’t realize then was only the first time.

“Master Alucard!” the fairy fluttered in front of his face—how long had she been calling him? “What’s going on?!”

His lips were sealed shut; he couldn’t answer her even if he wanted to. His eyes gravitated past her toward the two behind her.

It had been so long. So long since those lonely nights. So long since those sunny days. So long since he’d seen their faces. So long since he’d heard their voices. Seeing, hearing, them now was like medicine, like sobriety. Like reminding himself he hadn’t made them up after all—(because sometimes it felt like he had). So long…So long since he’d been with his friends. So long since he’d had friends.

“I did want to resolve our differences.” Sypha shrugged. “But, we’re going to have to show you what we really think of you now.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself. It was nice—well uh…it was something knowing you.”

“…What?” Alucard’s breath made clouds in these snowy woods.

Trevor glanced up at him, unspooling the morning star whip—the one that he had once used to fight the night hordes with together…or at least a version of it…it didn’t look quite right.

“It’s a real shame”—he said like it wasn’t much of a shame at all—“but…we do have to kill you now.”

“We have a reputation to keep.”

“You know, vampire slayers and all. Can’t have the son of Dracula walking around.”

Alucard had to keep his breath from catching on itself and tripping.

He backed up, turning to see Sypha holding out her hands in a combat posture.

He shut his eyes and shook his head quickly, clearing the snow from his eyes, reminding himself the woods were nothing but memory; he was here, in Dracula’s upside-down castle fighting phantoms of his friends.

They’re not real, he told himself. They’re not your friends. Trevor and Sypha are gone. They’re just one of Dracula’s tricks. He’s using them to get to you.

He felt something wrap around his leg.

“Master Alucard!”

“It’s nothing personal.” Trevor spoke, “Except if you count the fact that we’d only do this to you because you’re the worst.” He yanked on the whip and swung Alucard by his leg into the far wall at full force.

Sypha held up her arms beads of light before her fingers, then brought them together, making spikes of ice jut out from beneath the walls, stomping towards him.

He pried himself from the wall and jumped out of their way.

Trevor threw a cross at him—one made of bones—but it came back without finding its mark.

Before Sypha could send her jet of flame at him, Alucard burst forward knocking her down.

“Attacking poor, innocent girls now? So that’s how you want to play it, huh?”

“Who are you calling ‘poor’ and ‘innocent’?!” Sypha crossed her arms, “I can handle myself thank you very much!”

“Oh—I—uh—I didn’t mean it like that!”

Sypha scowled at him.

It was like they walked straight out of his memory. …Were they really not real?

Trevor jumped up, raising his whip.

You don’t have to do this, Alucard wanted to reason with them.

But he knew. He knew this wasn’t them. They were only a shell. A reanimated memory. Empty. There was nothing in there to reason with.

Alucard blocked his attack with his shield, and crouched down, slicing his leg, knocking down. But before he could send the sword through his chest, Sypha raised her arm and incased him in a block of ice.

The fairy broke him out, but this had given Trevor enough time to get up, throwing another bone cross. This time it knocked Alucard to the ground.

Sypha floated before him, ready to blast him with fire. This time Alucard teleported, slashing Trevor in the back.

“You filthy vampire bastard.”

Why them?! He wanted to demand of Dracula, but that was all-too obvious.

Alucard disappeared in a column of gold, then reappeared, opening his cloak and sending fireballs towards Trevor, who extinguished them by swinging his whip.

He dodged Sypha’s ice spears, but Trevor took this opportunity to power up, and once Alucard was out of their way he began throwing continuous knives at him.

Alucard turned into a bat to avoid them.

Sypha incased him in ice for the second time, returning him to human form. The fairy broke him out.

Before Sypha could cast her next spell Alucard turned into a wolf and bowled Trevor over, leaping into the air to bite Sypha’s leg—

But before his teeth clamped down on her leg something caught in his throat—something too close to sentiment—and he fell to the floor, himself again.

In the moment’s hesitation Trevor wrapped the whip around his neck.

His eyes glinted, and his mouth quirked up. “See you in hell.”

******

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart Alucard,” Trevor grunted as he sauntered down from the wagon, smirking.

“If it isn’t the��bastard Trevor.”

Sypha ran up to the dhampir and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you again Alucard!” She released him, putting a hand on his cheek and smiling. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

“Well being half-vampire does have its benefits.”

They turned to look at Trevor, who was hanging back, rubbing the back of his head.

Sypha put her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow at him. Trevor sighed.

“Good god, I never thought I’d say this but…” he looked at his feet. “I missed you. …You and your stupid, ugly face.”

"I have something to say to you as well.”

Alucard promptly flipped him off.

Trevor made a face, groaning, “I try to say one nice—”

Before they could blink Alucard had wrapped his arms around them.

“I missed you too. …You don’t even know how much.”

******

Alucard hit the floor of the save room—which happened to be the ceiling—at full force, the world returning like a punch to the face. Once he regained his senses, he coughed, balling his hands into fists before him, breath harsh in his throat, heavy on his chest.

“Well…fuck.”

“…Master Alucard?”

He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to talk to much of anyone. He didn’t even want to think. To be here at all, in this castle. He half wished this save room didn’t exist so he wouldn’t have to go back there and do it all over again.

She fluttered up knelt in front of him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

Those eyes flicked to her. Eyes which were often soft and warm…now they were full of cold fire.

“I hope it’s not rude of me to ask…Who were those people?”

He didn’t reply at first, dropping his gaze, letting his breath rise and fall like ocean waves ripping through him, filling his eyes with saltwater.

“…Nobody.” He murmured low.

“They…” She paused a moment, trying to figure out how to delicately phrase things, “didn’t seem like nobody.”

He sat up. “…They’re not real.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the burgeoning headache. “Dracula’s just trying to fuck with me.”

“Oh, indeed, I understand that.”—He shot her a reproving glance, so she continued more delicately—“…But most of Dracula’s minions don’t look human…not to mention they don’t know you…It appears to me whoever they represent were important to you.”

He didn’t respond.

“And…they did know you, right?”

He looked down to see her wringing her hands.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“It’s just…”

It dawned on him he smiled, shifting onto his knees. “That I’m the son of Dracula.”

She opened her mouth to say something, her wings beating and stopping nervously, looking down.

“Well it is a rather strange thing for them to say isn’t it? I mean, it can’t possibly be true.”

He smirked. “What if it is?”

She fluttered up to him, examining his features closely, her mouth open the whole time.

“You are?!”

He lowered his face closer to hers so she could feel his breath, his fangs glinting, “You scared?”

“Not scared, more…confused. I mean how can Dracula have a son? And—”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to go into the details?”

“I don’t mean that!” She smacked him lightly. “I mean…How can you be his son?”

“Why can’t I be?”

“Well first of all you don’t look like him—”

“Oh? And how do you know what Dracula looks like? Have you met him?”

“Well…I…” Her eyes darted between him and the ground, apparently grappling with the idea that he knew quite well what Dracula looked like. “This castle is full of Dracula’s supporters… he seems quite persuasive.”

“I’m not sure I’d say that—over half of them are creatures without reason or free will enough to know, or care, who they’re following.”

“Still…he has no shortage of allies.”

“What’s your question?”

“…How are you not one of them?”

He smiled. “I like to think I have a little more sense of right and wrong than mindless beasts.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean…you’re so kind. I wouldn’t think Dracula’s son—”

“I’m not only the son of Dracula.”

She paused, thinking, before looking up. “Your mother.” Her wings fluttered as she gained understanding, floating up to his face. “It was your mother, wasn’t it? That memory we saw. The Succubus. You said that your mother never said those things.”

“Yes, she said quite the opposite, in fact.”

She fluttered back and forth—the fairy version of pacing—trying to wrap her head around it all.

“Was she married to Dracula?”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Lisa… and she was mortal.”

“Did he love her?”

He smirked at the innocent and naïve question.

“Very much. Enough that he’d destroy the world for her her.”

She paused, looking at the ground. “Is that why we must defeat him?”

He gave a small nod.

“It seems such a sad reason to have to kill him…for love.”

He looked off to the side, not saying anything.

“Come on.” He stood up. “It’s time for round two.”

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symphonyofthewrite · 5 years ago

Text

Inverted Recurrence

Fandom: Castlevania Symphony of the Night (but with the Netflix series characterizations)

Summary: It's been three hundred years since Alucard saw Trevor and Sypha. When he sees a version of them in the inverted coliseum...he just can't seem to win the fight against them.

So he loses. Over and over.

(The inverted coliseum boss fight from Symphony of the Night, but with the Netflix series characters)

Notes: First of all, warning! (As evidenced by the summary) there will be swearing in this fic!

This is a fic for the game Symphony of the Night. However I used the characterizations of the characters from the Netflix series. (This is also why Grant is not present, even though he's present in the actual fight. I wanted to include him, especially because they took him out of the show...but because they took him out of the show, and because I have yet to play Dracula's Curse, I didn't feel like I could properly characterize him to have him in the scene.)

In case you've only watched the show, but are still interested in reading, I'll put a little summary of the things you need to know about the game in order to read in the replies!!

If you enjoyed this I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment and/or reblog! They make my week, and really help motive me to keep writing multi-chapter fics like this one!

I’ve also posted this on my general writing blog @antihero-writings if you want to check it out there!!

Chapter 1:

Alucard hit the ground of the save room…which happened to be the ceiling, breath and heartbeat crawling through his chest like fire ants.

“Well…fuck.”

******

Fire consumed the werewolves’ snarls, echoing through the stone hall, and he continued up the corridor without a glance back.

Alucard paused to think; count the rooms.

He wiped the blood off his sword—well, not his sword, that is to say, he still didn’t have his mother’s sword back from that dickhead, Death. Due to this, he was using one he had borrowed from one of those green skeletons upon its second death.

She folded her arms and bowed. “I am prepared for whatever comes our way, Master Alucard.”

He grinned back. “Good.”

The doors shut themselves behind, and in front, of him with a loud thump, closing off his exits.

Yup. Interesting.

He stood on guard, aiming the sword at the pentagonal spinning coffins in the center of the room, his mind cycling through what might step out;

Let’s see, skeletons? Zombies? Ghosts? No it’d be something more advanced than that. Maybe a dragon would walk out? Or maybe he’d fight the embodiment of emperor Nero himself? That might be fun.

When their lids creaked forward and the first enemy stepped out it did not, in fact, have rotting skin, or a malevolent grin…It looked like a man.

A man with brown hair, blue eyes—one of which a scar fell across—sauntered over to Alucard, the Belmont crest gleaming on his chest.

Alucard froze, eyes widening.

The man groaned when he saw Alucard—but not in an undead way, more like a man who was annoyed—and, unlike many of the monsters, he spoke:

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard.”

But this—

“Trevor! What have I told you about speaking your mind?!” Alucard had been so focused on Trevor he hadn’t noticed the other enemy: a woman in blue smacked Trevor on the back of the head.

“Uhh that it’s what everyone should do it all the time?” he rubbed his head.

She pulled on his ear.

“Okay, okay! Easy on the moneymaker!”

“Master Alucard?” the fairy’s voice was muffled behind the sound of his heartbeat.

He fought reanimated flesh, and first-animated metal, he fought things straight out of books, things he wished were mere fantasy, and never once did he stand paralyzed.

The fairy couldn’t hear the words he breathed.

Three hundred years is a long time. Even if he spent most of it asleep, time has a way of weighing heavy on the chest.

They were arguing amongst themselves, while the fairy was asking him questions, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. As if he was beneath many tons of water, the pressure slowly crushing him.

Seeing his friends from centuries ago, his friends who he had argued with, played games with, laughed, cried with. Friends who he had watched die, who he had mourned, grieved long ago back again…

“What’s the matter?” Trevor put his hands on his hips, noticing that he was standing there dumbstruck. “Cat got your tongue?”

Alucard backed up on shaky legs, biting his lip until it bled.

“Master Alucard!” the fairy fluttered in front of his face—how long had she been calling him? “What’s going on?!”

His lips were sealed shut; he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to. His eyes gravitated past her to the two behind her.

It had been so long. So long since those lonely nights. Since those sunny days. So long since he’d seen their faces. Heard their voices. Seeing, hearing, them now was like medicine after years of sickness, like sobriety after spending years drunk. Like reminding himself he hadn’t made them up after all—(because sometimes it felt like he had). So long…So long since he’d been with his friends. So long since he’d had friends.

“I did want to resolve our differences.” Sypha shrugged. “But, we’re going to have to show you what we really think of you now.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself. It was nice—well uh…it was something knowing you.”

“…What?” Alucard’s breath made clouds in these snowy woods.

Trevor glanced up at him, unspooling the morning star whip—the one that he had once used to fight the night hordes with together…or at least a version of it…it didn’t look quite right.

“It’s a real shame”—he said like it wasn’t much of a shame at all—“but…we do have to kill you now.”

“We have a reputation to keep.”

“You know, vampire slayers and all. Can’t have the son of Dracula walking around.”

Alucard had to keep his breath from catching on itself and tripping.

He backed up, turning to see Sypha holding out her hands in a combat posture.

He shut his eyes and shook his head quickly, clearing the snow from his eyes, reminding himself the woods were nothing but memory; he was here, in Dracula’s upside-down castle, fighting phantoms of his friends.

They’re not real, he told himself. They’re not your friends. Trevor and Sypha are gone. They’re just one of Dracula’s tricks. He’s using them to get to you.

He felt something wrap around his leg.

“Master Alucard!”

“It’s nothing personal.” Trevor spoke, “Except if you count the fact that we’d only do this to you...because you’re the worst.” He yanked on the whip and swung Alucard by his leg into the far wall at full force.

Sypha held up her arms beads of light before her fingers, then brought them together, making spikes of ice jut out from beneath the walls, stomping towards him.

He pried himself from the wall and jumped out of their way.

Trevor threw a cross at him—one made of bones—but it came back without finding its mark.

Before Sypha could send her jet of flame at him, Alucard burst forward, knocking her down.

“Attacking poor, innocent girls now? So that’s how you want to play it, huh?”

“Who are you calling ‘poor’ and ‘innocent’?!” Sypha crossed her arms, “I can handle myself thank you very much!”

“Oh—I—uh—I didn’t mean it like that!”

Sypha scowled at him.

It was like they walked straight out of his memory. …Were they really not real?

Trevor jumped up, raising his whip.

You don’t have to do this, Alucard wanted to reason with them.

But he knew. He knew this wasn’t them. They were only a shell. A reanimated memory. Empty. There was nothing in there to reason with.

Alucard blocked his attack with his shield, and crouched down, slicing his leg, knocking him down. But before he could send the sword through his chest, Sypha raised her arm and incased him in a block of ice.

The fairy broke him out, but this had given Trevor enough time to get up, throwing another bone cross. This time it knocked Alucard down.

Sypha floated before him, ready to blast him with fire. This time Alucard teleported, slashing Trevor in the back.

“You filthy vampire bastard.”

Why them?! He wanted to demand of Dracula, but that was all-too obvious.

Alucard disappeared in a column of gold, then reappeared, opening his cloak and sending fireballs towards Trevor, who extinguished them by swinging his whip.

He dodged Sypha’s ice spears, but Trevor took this opportunity to power up, and once Alucard was out of their way he began throwing continuous knives at him--which Alucard turned into a bat to avoid.

Sypha incased him in ice for the second time, returning him to human form. The fairy broke him out.

Before Sypha could cast her next spell Alucard turned into a wolf and bowled Trevor over, leaping into the air to bite Sypha’s leg—

But before his teeth clamped down on her leg something caught in his throat—something too close to sentiment—and he fell to the floor, himself again.

In the moment’s hesitation Trevor wrapped the whip around Alucard's neck.

His eyes glinted, and his mouth quirked up. “See you in hell.”

******

“Well if it isn’t the cockwart, Alucard,” Trevor grunted as he sauntered down from the wagon, smirking.

“If it isn’t the bastard, Trevor.”

Sypha ran up to the dhampir and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you again Alucard!” She released him, putting a hand on his cheek and smiling. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

“Well being half-vampire does have its benefits.”

They turned to look at Trevor, who was hanging back, rubbing the back of his head.

Sypha put her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow at him. Trevor sighed.

“Good god, I never thought I’d say this but…” He looked at his feet. “I missed you. …You and your stupid, ugly face.”

"I have something to say to you as well.”

Alucard promptly flipped him off.

Trevor made a face, groaning, “I try to say one nice—”

Before they could blink Alucard had wrapped his arms around them, holding them so fast and so tight it nearly made them fall over.

“I missed you too. …You don’t even know how much.”

******

“Well…fuck.”

“…Master Alucard?”

She fluttered up knelt in front of him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

Those eyes flicked to her. Eyes often soft and warm…now full of cold fire.

“I hope it’s not rude of me to ask…Who were those people?”

He didn’t reply at first, dropping his gaze, letting his breath rise and fall like ocean waves ripping through him, filling his eyes with saltwater.

“…Nobody.” He murmured low.

“They…” She paused a moment, trying to figure out how to delicately phrase things, “didn’t seem like nobody.”

He sat up. “…They’re not real.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the burgeoning headache. “Dracula’s just trying to fuck with me.”

He looked away. He didn't want to talk about this. Not now. Not with a creature who--however well meaning--could barely begin to understand the horrors of immortality.

“And…they did know you...right?”

He looked down to see her wringing her hands.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“It’s just…”

It dawned on him and he smiled, shifting to his knees. “That I’m the son of Dracula.”

She opened her mouth to say something, her wings beating and stopping nervously, looking down.

“Well it is a rather strange thing for them to say isn’t it? I mean, it can’t possibly be true.”

He smirked. “What if it is?”

She fluttered up to him, examining his features closely, her mouth open the whole time.

“You are?!”

He lowered his face closer to hers so she could feel his breath, his fangs glinting, “You scared?”

“...Not scared, more confused. I mean how can Dracula have a son? And—”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to go into the details?”

“I don’t mean that!” She smacked him lightly. “I mean…How can you be his son?”

“Why can’t I be?”

“Well first of all you don’t look like him—”

“Oh? And how do you know what Dracula looks like? Have you met him?”

“I’m not sure I’d say that—over half of them are creatures without reason, or free will, enough to know, or care, who they’re following.”

“Still…he has no shortage of allies.”

“What’s your question?”

“…How are you not one of them?”

He smiled. “I like to think I have a little more sense of right and wrong than mindless beasts.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean…you’re so kind. I wouldn’t think Dracula’s son—”

“I’m not only the son of Dracula.”

“Yes, she said quite the opposite, in fact.”

She gave a sad smile. "...It sounds like you loved her very much."

He gave an almost imperceptible nod as he looked away.

"I'm...sorry that happened to her. That's ...awful. Humans can be brutes at times."

"Yes." He agreed softly, before adding, "But not always. And not all of them."

She paused herself, then began fluttering back and forth—the fairy version of pacing—trying to wrap her head around it all.

“Was she married to Dracula?”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Lisa… and she was mortal.”

“Did he love her?”

He smirked at the innocent and naïve question.

“Very much. ...Enough that he’d destroy the world for her.”

She paused, looking at the ground. “Is that why we must defeat him?”

He gave a small nod.

“It seems such a sad reason to have to kill him…for love.”

He looked off to the side, not saying anything.

“Come on.” He stood up. “It’s time for round two.”

******

Notes Cont.:

For the cartoon, I actually wrote this fic before I watched S3, so when I was trying to come up with memories for after S2 with Trevor and Sypha all I could think of was simply them arriving back at the castle. Then reading it after watching S3 I realized their reunion would probably go differently :'( ...I decided to keep it as-is because I really have no clue how that's gonna go in later seasons, and because I felt people might like reading about a nice version of them coming back to him anyways.

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nyxshadowhawk · 6 years ago

Text

Nyx’s Complete List of Goth Names

Abaddon: From Greek, means "destruction" or "demon of the pit."

Acheron: The River of Woe in the Greek underworld.

Achlys: Greek primordial goddess of poison, misery, and sadness, personification of the death-mist.

Adonis: Means "lord" (as in Adonai). In Greek mythology, the most beautiful youth in the world, loved by both Persephone and Aphrodite. Died tragically.

Adrian/Adrienne: English, from Latin; means "from Hadria" (the Adriatic Sea). I've heard sources saying it means "dark one," but I haven't been able to confirm this. It's still a really cool, kind of gothy name. (Also the real name of Alucard from Castlevania.)

Ahriman: The Zoroastrian devil/evil god.

Akeldama: Means "field of blood," a place in Jerusalem associated with Judas.

Alastor: Greek, means "avenging spirit."

Alcmene: (Female) Means "might of the moon," Heracles' mother in mythology.

Alecto: One of the Erinyes (Furies), the goddesses of vengeance. Means "unceasing."

Altair: The brightest star in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle), from Arabic, meaning "the bird."

Amaranth: (Female) Greek; a mythical purple flower that never fades, a symbol of immortality.

Amethyst: A dark purple crystal, associated with wine and preventing drunkenness.

Andromeda: Greek, means "thinks like a man," the name of a princess in mythology, a constellation, and a galaxy.

Anubis: Jackal-headed Egyptian god of death and embalming.

Arcana: From Latin "hidden, secret" (literally "to shut in a chest"), refers to secrets or mysteries. Also refers to the groups of cards in a tarot deck (the major and minor arcana).

Arianrhod: Means "silver wheel," Welsh goddess of the moon, stars, and the flow of time.

Artemis/Diana: Greco-Roman goddess of the hunt, the moon, and virginity

Asmodeus: Means "wrath-demon," a Goetic demon appearing in a number of texts, representing luxury, sensuality, and lust. (Also Asmodai)

Asphodel: A white flower planted on graves, said to grow in the Greek underworld, and therefore heavily connected with death.

Astaroth: (Unisex) A demon in the Ars Goetia (from the Lesser Key of Solomon), described as a male demon and a Duke of Hell, but the name likely comes from the Phoenician goddess Astarte (or Ashtoreth), who is a version of Ishtar (Babylonian) and Inanna (Sumerian).

Astor: A French and German name from Occitan, meaning "goshawk." A goshawk is a bird of prey. I've read on naming sites that this name was originally a derogatory term for young men with hawk-like, predatory characteristics, but I haven't found anything to confirm this. This is the name of my alter-ego and one of the main protagonists of Shadowbook.

Astra/Astrid/Asteria: From Greek, "star." In Greek mythology, Asteria was a Titaness of astrology and prophecy, the mother of Hecate. An aster is also a star-shaped flower.

Atropos: The last of the Moirai (Fates), who cuts the thread at the end of life.

Autumn: The darkening part of the year, when everything is dying, and Halloween happens.

Azrael: The name of the Angel of Death, means "whom god helps." (Also Asriel)

Azazel: A Watcher's name, means "scapegoat." Taught humanity the arts of weaponry and cosmetics. Commonly associated with demons and evil.

Baphomet: A goat-headed, winged deity associated with Satanism; obscure etymology.

Bastet: Egyptian goddess of cats.

Belial: A Hebrew name meaning "worthless," a name of the devil or a demon.

Belladonna: Also called "deadly nightshade," an extremely poisonous plant that causes hallucinations and death.

Bellona: Roman goddess of war

Bezaliel: Means "shadow of God" or "damaged," a Watcher's name.

Blodeuwedd: Pronounced "bluh-DIE-weth," means "flower-face." A Welsh goddess who was turned into an owl.

Bram/Brom: Technically short for Abraham ("father of a multitude"), the author of Dracula, Abraham "Bram" Stoker.

Bran: Welsh, "raven." The name of Bran the Blessed, a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology.

Branwen: (Female) Welsh, means "white raven" or "fair raven."

Breksta: Lithuanian goddess of night, dreams, and twilight.

Caligo: Latin word for “mist,” “gloom,” and “darkness.” (Calignes is the plural, which could also work) (feminine)

Calypso: Greek, "she who conceals." The nymph who kept Odysseus imprisoned on her island.

Carmilla: A lesbian vampire from the gothic novel of the same name, predating Dracula. The name seems to have been invented by the author.

Cassius: Roman, "empty, hollow."

Ceridwen: Welsh enchantress or goddess who stirs the cauldron of poetic inspiration.

Cernunnos: Celtic forest god depicted as having a stag's antlers.

Chiroptera: Literally means "hand wing," the order of bats in taxonomy.

Circe: Means "circle." In Greek mythology, a sorceress who turned Odysseus' men into pigs (and later helped them).

Cora: From the Greek name Kore, meaning "maiden." A name for Persephone. (Also, Coraline.)

Cornix: A princess transformed into a crow by Athena in Ovid's Metamorphosis.

Corvus/Corax: Corvus corax is the scientific name of the common raven.

Crimson: Dark, rich red, the color of wine or blood. One of the Gothiest colors that isn't black. It's very easy for this to sound banal or cringey, especially if it's a character's given name, so use with caution. Scarlet works, too, if you want something easier to use as a given name.

Damian: From Greek, means "to tame," tends to be associated with demons or vampires, a bit cliche at this point.

Dantalion: A Goetic demon, the name is particularly cool.

Desdemona: A tragic character in Othello, comes from Greek and means "ill-fated." Can be shortened to "Mona."

Desmodus: The genus of common vampire bats. (D. rotundus)

Devana: Slavic version of Artemis/Diana, goddess of the hunt.

Dorian: The corrupt, depraved, nearly immortal and astonishingly beautiful protagonist from The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Turns out Oscar Wilde invented the name; it did not exist before the book was written.)

Dracul: Romanian, "devil" or "dragon." What really needs to be said?

Ebony: A very dark wood.

Echo: In Greek mythology, a nymph who was cursed so she would only repeat the names of others; died while pining after Narcissus.

Edgar: Anglo-Saxon, "rich spear." The name of the one and only Edgar Allen Poe (also, my cat).

Eidolon: A type of spirit or ghost in Greek liteature. Also a genus of bats.

Eirlys: Welsh, "snowflake."

Elatha: An Irish god, described as the "beautiful Miltonic prince of darkness with golden hair." Not sure what the source for that is, but cool!

Elvira: Spanish, means "foreign true," a stereotypical Goth name (and the name of the Mistress of the Dark!). Actually, I first ran across the name in reference to a vengeful ghost called Elvira Blood in New England folk legend. Spooky!

Empusa: A kind of Greek female demon (similar to Lamia) that served Hecate.

Endora: Comes from the Witch of Endor, a Biblical sorceress.

Endymion: In Greek mythology, a handsome shepherd whom Selene fell in love with. Zeus granted him eternal sleep so he would never age. Means "to dive, to enter."

Erebus: Greek primordial god and personification of darkness.

Esmeralda: Spanish name meaning "emerald." (Also, the heroine in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

Ethelinda: Anglo-Saxon, means "little serpent."

Euryale: Greek, means "far-roming," the middle Gorgon sister.

Eurynomos: Greek chthonic spirit of corpses.

Eventide: It could work as a name.

Fenrir: A wolf demon in Norse mythology, the son of Loki.

Finvarra: Irish, King of the Fairies (and sometimes King of the Dead), a benevolent entity that ensures a good harvest and abundance.

Gabriel: The angel. Means "warrior of god." Gabrielle also works (and is the name of Lestat's mother).

Gehenna: A Hebrew name for Tartarus or Hell.

Golgotha: From Hebrew, "skull," the place where Jesus was crucified.

Grimm: The surname of two German brothers who recorded a classic collection of oral folklore and fairy tales, many of which are very... well, grim.

Habundia: A Celtic name for the queen of witches and night creatures, possibly another name for Nicnevan. Etymology uncertain.

Hades: The Lord of the Underworld in Greek mythology (also the name of the Underworld itself).

Hawthorn: A type of shrub steeped in folklore, associated with fairies and with Beltane (1st May).

Hecate: Greek goddess of witchcraft, magic, the occult, the moon, necromancy, the Underworld, and the crossroads. Means "worker from far off."

Hellebore: A type of evergreen flower, some species of which are poisonous. Believed to summon demons, also believed to cure madness.

Hemlock: A plant used to poison people.

Herne: "the Hunter," a ghost that haunts Windsor Forest (sometimes identified with The Horned God).

Hesperos/ia: The evening star.

Hypnos: The Greek god of sleep.

Iblis: Satan in Islamic lore.

Idris: Welsh, "ardent (passionate, fiery) lord."

Igor: Russian, "bow-warrior." Became famous as the name of Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant, even though he doesn't exist in the book and his name in the original Universal film was Fritz.

Ingram: Swedish name meaning "Ing's raven."

Iolanthe: Greek, means "violet flower." (eye-oh-LAHN-thay)

Iseult/Isolde/Isolt: A tragic lover in Arthurian legend.

Jasmine: A type of flower, in this case referring to Cestrum nocturnum, or night-blooming jasmine.

Kali: Hindu goddess of destruction, name means "the black one."

Kasdaye: Means "hidden power," the name of a Watcher (another name for Tamiel). (Unisex)

Kiara/n: Gaelic, means "little black one."

Kimaris: A Goetic demon. (Male)

Kokabiel: Means "angel of the stars," a Watcher.

Lacrimae: Latin word for tears.

Lamia: A female demon in Greek folklore who devours children. The name of the witch in the film version of Stardust.

Lenore: A variant of Eleanor (also a good name), means "foreign," the lost love of the protagonist of "The Raven," also has her own poem.

Leshii: A Russian god of hunting, similar to Veles

Lethe: River of Forgetfulness in the Greek Underworld.

Leviathan: From Hebrew, "twisted in folds," a Biblical sea monster. Sometimes associated with Midgard's Serpent.

Libitina: A Roman goddess of corpses, funerals, and the dead.

Ligeia: Greek, the name of a Siren, also the subject of a Poe story of the same name.

Lilah: Comes from the Arabic Leila, meaning "night."

Lilith: Means "of the night" or "screech owl." In Hebrew mythology, Adam's first wife and the Queen of Demons. She refused to submit to Adam, so she left Eden and began screwing around with demons. Often considered a succubus or vampire, or a champion of feminism. A lilim is also a succubus or incubus.

Loki: Trickster god in Norse mythology with ambiguous morals.

Lorelei: German, means "murmuring rock," the name of a German Siren.

Lucius/Lucifer/Lucien: All mean "light" or "light-bringer," a name associated with Satan.

Lucy: From Dracula, also could be a shortening/feminization of Lucifer. (Still means "light.")

Luna: The Roman personification of the moon.

Lycoris: A Greek word that means "twilight," the name of an Asian red flower, associated with death and the underworld (much like Asphodel).

Maeve: Comes from Gaelic, means "the intoxicating one." Associated with the Fairy Queen Mab.

Makaria: Greek goddess of blessed death, a daughter of Hades and Persephone.

Mania: Etruscan/Roman goddess of the undead, ghosts, and underworld spirits, goddess of madness. Also a modern medical term referring to a specific mental illness.

Mara: A name steeped in darkness, referring to a nightmare spirit (nightmare), a (benevolent) goddess of death in Latvian mythology, a (male) demon in Buddhist mythology, and a Sanskrit word meaning "death."

Medea: In Greek mythology, the sorceress who helped Jason, but then went on a murderous rampage when he left her. Considered to be a priestess (or, rarely, daughter) of Hecate.

Megaera: One of the Erinyes (Furies), the goddesses of vengeance. Means "grudge."

Melanie: Greek, "black" or "dark."

Melantha: Greek, "dark flower."

Melinda/Mindy: English, "black serpent."

Melinoe: Greek goddess of ghosts, nightmares, and madness, a daughter of Hades and Persephone.

Mephistopheles: The name of the devil in the Faust legend, could be from Hebrew and mean "disperser of lies," or from Greek and mean "does not love the light."

Merle: (Unisex) from French, "blackbird."

Mina: From Dracula. Short for Wilhelmina, a German name meaning "will-helmet."

Morana/Marzanna: Slavic goddess of winter and death.

Morgan/Morgana: From Welsh, means "sea-circle," the name of Morgan le Fay, a sorceress in Arthurian Legend (who may be good or evil, depending on your interpretation).

Morpheus: The Greek god of dreams, the main protagonist of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. (Also, The Matrix.)

Morrigan: An Irish goddess of death, battle, and ravens, name means "great queen."

Morwenna: A Welsh name meaning "maiden." ("Morwanneg" is the name of the witch in Stardust.)

Nepenthe: A magical drug from the Odyssey that cures sorrow and causes forgetfulness.

Nephthys: Means "lady of the temple," the Egyptian goddess of the dead, mate of Seth and mother of Anubis.

Nergal: Mesopotamian god of death, war, and destruction.

Nicnevan: Queen of the Fairies in Scottish folklore. She is the Scottish version of Hecate.

Nightshade: A family of plants including tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants, but also the notorious deadly nightshade.

Nisha/nt: A Hindi name meaning "night."

Nocturne: Self-explanatory. Refers to a night prayer, a musical composition evoking night, or a night scene in art.

Nyctala/Nyctea: Two obsolete genera of owls. Nyctala is the genus of Boreal owls before it was changed to Aegolius, and Nyctea was the genus of Snowy owls before it was changed to Bubo. Both probably mean or are related to "night."

Nyctalus: A genus of bats.

Nyctimene: A princess from Ovid's Metamorphoses who was so ashamed at having been molested by her father, she refused to show her face in daylight. Out of pity, Minerva (Athena) turned her into an owl. Also a genus of bats.

Nyx: A Greek primordial goddess and personification of the Night. (also Nox)

Oberon: From French, means "elf-ruler," the name of the Fairy King in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Referred to in one scene as the "king of shadows").

Obsidian: A shiny black volcanic stone.

Onyx: A type of banded stone, most famously black. (The word comes from the Greek for "fingernail.")

Ophelia: A tragic character in Hamlet, which probably comes from Greek and means "help."

Orcus: A Latin word for Hell, and a Roman god who punished the dead (possibly an epithet of Hades/Pluto).

Orion: A hunter in Greek mythology, and the famous constellation.

Orlok: The name of the ugly-looking vampire from Nosferatu.

Orpheus: Greek name, possibly comes from the word orphe, "darkness." The name of a demigod with an impossibly beautiful singing voice who attempted to rescue his love from the underworld, failed, and then died tragically.

Pan: Greek goat-horned god of nature, herds, and lust, induces "panic."

Pandora: Name means "all-gifted." In Greek mythology, the name of the first woman, who opened a box that unleashed evil upon the world.

Pandemonium: The capital city of Hell in Paradise Lost, name literally means "all demons."

Persephone: Greek Queen of the Underworld, wife of Hades, and goddess of springtime. You probably know her story. Her name might mean "thrasher of grain" (which would make sense for an agricultural goddess), but could also mean "slayer."

Phaenon: Means "shining" in Greek, refers to the planet Saturn (which has long been associated with darkness in mythology, being the furthest planet from the sun that is observable with the naked eye).

Pluto: Hades' Roman name, also the ninth planet, or what was the ninth planet.

Ransley: An English name meaning "raven's meadow."

Raven: This is by far the most cliche Goth name there is (I originally created this list to provide alternatives to the name “Raven”), but it’s classic, it’s simple, it’s unisex, and it’s undeniably Goth.

Ravenna: Self-explanatory, also an Italian city.

Renwick: Scottish surname meaning "raven settlement."

Sable: A word referring to the color black.

Salome: From Hebrew shalom, "peace." The daughter of Herod and Herodias, unnamed in the Bible, who requested the head of John the Baptist and danced the Dance of the Seven Veils.

Samael: Means "venom of God," a vicious angel of death, the mate of Lilith. He is not technically a fallen angel, but a servant of God who does the dirty work.

Sekhmet: Egyptian goddess of war and destruction, with the head of a lioness. Her name means "power" or "might." Her epithets included "Mistress of Dread," "Lady of Slaughter," and "She Who Mauls." Ra had to stop her from killing people by getting her drunk on beer that was dyed to look like blood.

Selene: Greek personification of the moon. (Includes "Selena" and variants.")

Senka: Basque name meaning "shadow."

Seren: (Unisex) Welsh name meaning "star."

Seth: A name of Set or Sutekh, the Egyptian god of evil, chaos, and storms. He killed his brother Osiris and cut his body into pieces, and then was defeated by Horus. His head is that of an animal that looks kind of like an aardvark but is not an actual existing creature (at least not anymore). He was associated with the color red and the desert. His name possibly means "one who dazzles."

Shadow: Self-explanatory.

Silas: From Greek, means "from the forest." In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, it's the name of a [spoiler]vampire.

Silver: The color of the moon, and it looks nice with black.

Sinistra: Technically, it's Latin for "left," but it obviously has "sinister" connotations.

Skiá: Greek word for "shadow" or "shade."

Skotos: Ancient Greek word for "darkness," especially the darkness of death or the netherworld, or obscurity.

Skuld: The last of the Norns (Fates), representing death. Means "debt."

Sombra: The Spanish word for "shadow."

Somnus: Roman name for Hypnos, sleep.

Spyridon: Greek name referring to wicker baskets, which implies wealth. Could also be connected to the Latin spiritus, which means breath or spirit. Usually shortened to Spyro.

Stella: The Latin word for "star."

Stheno: Greek, means "forceful." The eldest of the Gorgon sisters.

Styx: The River of Hate in the Greek Underworld, the most famous of its rivers. The souls of the dead are ferried across it by Charon, and the gods (foolishly, if you ask me, seeing as they always regret it) swear on the Styx to make unbreakable oaths. The word "Stygian" means "of the River Styx" and refers to something very dark or abyssal.

Summanus: Roman god of nocturnal thunder.

Sylvia/Sylvana: Latin, "from the forest."

Tanith: Phoenician, "serpent lady."

Tartarus: The deepest hell-pit of the Greek Underworld, where evildoers are punished.

Tempest: A wild storm, from the Latin for "time."

Thanatos: The Greek personification of Death.

Tiamat: Babylonian primordial dragon goddess.

Tisiphone: One of the Erinyes (Furies), the goddesses of vengeance. Means "murder-retribution."

Tristan: Welsh, "riot, tumult." (Although it sounds like the Latin tristis, which means "sad.") The name of Isolt's lover in Arthurian Legend, and the name of the protagonist in Stardust.

Valerian: Roman, means "strength" or "valiant," also the name of an herb.

Vega: (Unisex) Latin from Arabic, means "falling" or "swooping," a star in the constellation Lyra. It is one of the brightest stars in the entire sky.

Veles: Slavic horned god of cattle, forests, magic, and the underworld.

Veliona: Slavic goddess of death

Velvet: A fabric that most goths love to wear.

Vervain: An herb (verbena), meaning "sacred bough," considered a magical or holy herb in multiple cultures.

Vesperus: (or just Vesper), a Roman name meaning "evening." (Vespera for a girl)

Vespertilio: A genus of bats.

Victor: The first of the trio of gothy male "V" names, means "conqueror," as in "victory." Frankenstein's first name. (Victoria also works for a girl.)

Vincent: The second of the trio of gothy male "V" names, also meaning "conquering," from Latin.

Vivian: The Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legend. From French, means "lively." (Another name for the Lady is Nimue, which is Welsh and may be related to the Greek word for "memory." She sealed Merlin in a tree.)

Vlad: The third of the trio of gothy male "V" names, the name of Vlad Tepes or "Vlad the Impaler," the real-life Romanian prince who inspired Count Dracula. It's Slavic and means "ruler."

Willow: A beautiful and mournful-looking tree.

Winter: The dark, cold season. Unisex!

Yvaine: Scottish, means "evening star," the name of the star in Stardust.

Zagreus: The name of a chthonic Greek god who was potentially a son of Hades and Persephone or Zeus and Persephone, considered in Orphic lore to be Dionysus before he was dismembered and reincarnated.

Zillah: Hebrew name meaning "shadow."

#names #goth names #writing #gothic names #character names #mythology #gods and goddesses #literature #gothic lit #name list

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thenightling · 6 years ago

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Daenerys is Dracula and this is not a bad thing...

Just as most of Game of Thrones is an allegory for War of the Roses I am convinced Daenerys Targaryen is Vlad the Impaler in allegory.

Vlad (born in 1428 or 1431 - the exact date is uncertain) and his younger brother were hostages of The Ottoman Turks when they were boys. Vlad’s brother ultimately sided with the Turks. Vlad was released at age seventeen and became the ruler of Wallachia (what is today Romania).

Daenerys was sixteen or seventeen when she lead her people (in the TV show version). That is the age Vlad AKA Vladislaus Dragulya (modernized to Dracula) was when he first took the throne of Wallachia.

It should be noted that when Vlad ruled Wallachia The War of The Roses was raging at the same time. Most of Game of Thrones is an allegory for The War of the Roses and while that was happening Vlad was dealing with his own troubles in Eastern Europe, this further suggests that I am right in my belief that Daenerys is based on Vlad the Impaler.

When the Turks demanded a tribute (which involved gold and five hundred slave boys, annually) Vlad responded brutally. Vlad was very against the idea of his people being taken as slaves. Especially knowing that the slaves they wanted were mostly children and many would be forcibly used as soldiers, and others turned into eunuchs (highly sought after type of slave in the Ottoman Empire, men whose male anatomy had been removed). Vlad was fiercely against this. (Much like Daenerys) And he had brutal punishments for his enemies including impalement, crucifixion, and... roasting alive.

These are similar punishments that Daenerys had for her enemies.

Also Vlad learned the art of impalement from the Turks when he was a child captive. Daenerys used crucifixion against those who used that as a form of punishment / execution for escaped slaves.

Like Daenerys, Vlad took a cruel punishment that had been used by his enemies against his own people and amplified it against them and as a scare tactic against those that might threaten him or his people.

Vlad’s brutality caused him to be mistrusted, feared, and resented in the West. Daenerys’ reputation in the North isn’t any better...

Vlad was known as Dracula (Son of the Dragon) where Daenerys was Mother of Dragons. Vlad even officially used it as his surname as a way to denounce his cousins (House Bassarb), whom he held accountable for his father and older brother’s death.

Khaleesi also sounds similar to the name the Turks called Vlad, Kaziklu bey (Meaning Impaler Lord).

Like Daenerys, Vlad made it a point to learn the language and customs of his enemies though he (again, like Daenerys) did not allow these practices in his own land. One story famously claimed Vlad asked some Ottoman emissaries to remove their hats in his court as he found it rude that they wore them in his castle. When they refused, saying that keeping their hats on was their custom, Vlad had their turbans and hats nailed to their heads to send a message to any other men sent by the Sultan to leave their customs (Mostly including enslaving his people) in their own land.

Like Daenerys, Vlad’s sense of justice was harsh but apparently effective such as the story that a golden, jeweled, goblet was placed in the village fountain at Targoviste (His capital) and all could use it. No one dared to try to steal it for fear of his severe punishments.

Unfortunately, also like Daenerys, it seemed he was more often feared rather than actually respected.

Vlad the Impaler tragically lost his first wife when their castle was attacked by Ottoman Turks. Her name has been lost to history but the river tributary that runs under Poenari castle in modern day Romania (formerly Wallachia) was named for her. Râul Doamnei (River Princess) is a tributary of the Argeș river.

Many people think Vlad lived in Bran Castle but the reality is Romania uses Bran Castle for tourists because it’s structurally safer and easier to reach on foot whereas Poenari has been crumbling for centuries and his high on a hill / cliff. Vlad’s first wife’s last words were apparently “It is better to be eaten by the fishes than to be a prisoner of the Turks.” before throwing herself into the river tributary under the castle.

Like Daenerys, Vlad was in an arranged marriage but unlike Daenerys his was with his second wife, not his first spouse. His arranged mariage wife was the relation (Cousin or sister... or both?) of the king of Hungary. When Vlad had been imprisoned by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (under false charges of conspiring with the Ottoman Turks) he was only released after he married Justina Szilágyi de Horogszeg (Matthias’ relation) and converted to Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy.

Also both Vlad and Daenerys have a long stream of names.

Vlad III of Wallachia was known as Voivode (Warrior Prince), Țepeș (meaning Impale, a name given posthumously.) Kaziklu Bey (Impaler Lord), and Dracula (Son of the Dragon.) = Vlad, of House Bassarab, Third of his name, Warrior Prince, Impaler lord, son of the dragon. “Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons”

Also Vlad is technically first of his name when you consider he took Dragulya (Modern spelling and pronunciation: Dracula) as his surname. His father was Dracul. The A at the end is important as it indicates “Son of” or “little” dragon. Vlad, like his father before him, was a member of The order of The Dragon, a knightly order sworn to stand against the invading Ottoman Turks.

In modern Romanian Dracula means “Devil” but in the fifteenth century it meant Son of the Dragon. His father (Vlad II) answered to Dracul (Dragon). The root word was probably the Latin Draco (Dragon).

Historically Vlad was also rather short but fierce, much like Daenerys.

Notice any similarities?

Vlad was eventually assassinated by his enemies and his head delivered to the Ottoman Sultan. This was early in the year 1477.

LIke Daenerys there were rumors of Vlad dabbling in black magick and other strange things.

Despite how Vlad’s enemies remembered him, he is still known as a hero in Romania (formerly Wallachia).

Some legends say he’ll return when his land needs him the most (much like King Arthur). Other modern fictions like Dracula: the Company of Monsters and Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula book series claim loyalists retrieved his head and restored it to his body for proper burial. And eventual resurrection...

There’s also the popular Gothic novel that tells of him rising from his grave as an undead monster and posing as his own descendant and Count of Transylvania for centuries...

When Vlad’s supposed burial place was exhumed in 1931 (same year the first official film adaptation of the vampire novel was released, starring Bela Lugosi) all they found were animal bones, perpetuating the modern myth that Dracula rose from his grave as a strigoi (alternate name: Moroi) AKA A vampire. This was first suggested in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and later inferred in the film Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula).

Horror actor Christopher Lee (who famously played the vampire version of Vlad in the British Hammer horror franchise and several other adaptations of the character between the late 1950s and mid-1970s) suggested, in the documentary titled “In Search of Dracula” (The documentary is based on the book of the same name) that Vlad was possibly buried under the floor of a chapel near where he had been assassinated.

Further note: His head (which was supposed to have been delivered to the Ottoman Sultan) is also unaccounted for...

It should also be noted that the fictional vampire version of Dracula had a special kinship with wolves, whom he called “The Children of the Night” and said of their howling, “What sweet music they make!” He could also turn into a wolf at will and could communicate with them the way Daenerys talks with her dragons.

In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, the vampire version of Dracula befriended a white wolf at the London Zoo. The wolf was named Berserker and bears a striking similarity to Jon Snow’s wolf, Ghost.

The fictional vampire version of Dracula could also turn into a bat and communicate with bats. I don’t know if anything in relation to weather control will come up with Daenerys but the fictional vampire version of Dracula could conjure storms.

And for those who doubt the fictional vampire was based on Vlad the Impaler, and think they just share a name merely because the name was chosen late in the writing of Bram Stoker’s novel I present this quote: “He must indeed be the Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk.” - Doctor Abraham Van Helsing in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897.

There are as many (if not more) parallels between Daenerys and the historic Dracula, as there are with the Lannisters and the Lancasters in the real War of the Roses (which was an admitted inspiration and loose basis for Game of Thrones and the original novels).

#Game of Thrones #Game of History #Vlad the Impaler #Dracula #daenerys targaryen #George R. R. Martin #War of the Roses

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weissfai-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Love Bites.

AePete AU

"There are no accidental meetings between souls."

Pete is a vampire. AND NO – he is not some sparkling diamond vampire – though whoever look at Pete will say he is a sparkling Prince – but no – Pete is not a twilight vampire nor is he Bram Stroker’s Dracula vampire.

He is a half Noble vampire. His mother is a powerful dragon seeker while his father is a full blooded Noble.

The Nobles are an ancient and powerful race that possess great strength, speed and telepathy as well as various blood related abilities, such as the talent to grant similar powers to others via contracts "of blood and soul". They reside on an island nation, known as Lukedonia, that cannot be detected by human senses. They have guarded humans against predators and the forces of nature as long as they have existed, due to a genetic inability to ignore the slaughter of the weak, helpless humans. Thousands of years ago, they were worshipped as gods by various cultures around the world.

However, the Nobles are nearing extinction due to a scarcity of females to mate with. With their lifemates, male Nobles live emotion-filled colorful lives. Without them, the males fight the madness that causes them to choose between suicide or the thrill of killing humans by draining their blood, becoming soulless vampires in the process.

But he doesn’t apply to these category as he is not a full blood Noble.

Pete is a gentle and way too sweet and shy half Noble that his father deem him unworthy of the gift and vanished him, and because his mother loves Pete so much – they both abandon the life in Lukedonia and travel and after a hundred years of traveling to different countries, they settle to Thailand.

Pete’s mother was born in Thailand. She loves the country, the people, the beauty and the serenity of the land.

Pete and his mother change their surname to fit in with the Thai people and they settle on an old mansion. His mother told him to live like a normal boy and because Pete doesn’t crave blood like ordinary Noble, he is free to go out even on sunlight. As he is also a part Dragon Seeker, he doesn’t turn into ash or die if the sun hits his skin. He is what the others may call Day Walker.

Pete’s mother looks at her son. She worries about Pete as the first to being a half Noble and half Dragon Seeker boy to ever live. Most of the half-breeds die at their 50th years of age. But Pete is nearing his 300 years of age and though he is the same as the Nobles who lost their colour of sight, Pete never changes. He doesn’t crave blood (though she gave him blood via blood bag through blood bank), doesn’t go dark, every night she administer a soul and spirit check on his body but its clean… more like pure. Her son has a purest white soul.

Putch heard about the legendary Noblesse but never given it a thought. For all her life, she knew only of one Noblesse and that person is not half but a full blood Noble.

Putch told Pete to live his life freely. Whoever he chooses, whether it be human or of the same kind, she will support him.

Pete met Ae.

Pete was walking out of his campus when again the pain in his head hits him, the pain and disoriented blurry visions keeps on popping out in his head. He wasn’t aware what’s happening in his surrounding when he heard a shout and someone drag his body and both of him and the other stumble in the ground with a loud impact.

‘Are you driving to hell?! And you! What the hell are you doing not looking where you’re walking?! Are you planning to die?! If you are, choose a place where I’m not there!’

Pete doesn’t understand what’s happening but his heart then begun to hammer and his visions doubled… the ground… its grey… he looks at his surrounding and he was blinded by the burst of colours.

COLOURS!

He can see colours…

But the only time a Noble can see colour is when they find their lifemate through voice or connection.

‘Oi! Are you okay?!’

Pete stumbled once again on the ground and clutch his heart tight.

Its beating crazily and there’s a line.

A magic being woven.

A connection being form.

Pete found himself being raise by the person and for the first time he looks at him.

Pete gasped.

Black obsidian eyes looks at him.

‘Are you okay? You’re bleeding!’

He what?! Impossible!

He looks and yeah, he is bleeding. But why?

That’s their first meeting.

The man who gave him colour and light ~ Ae. A small boy but with sturdy muscular body and a harsh foul mouth.

Ae cannot help but feel lucky and at the same time with the thinking: “Did I ever save the whole country on my past life to have a friend like Pete?”

Each and everyone who knew Ae will know that he is a brute. He doesn’t have any sweet bone in his body, he doesn’t even have a STOP DON’T SAY IT brake on his mouth. He will say what he want to say especially to some idiots who lacks braincells.

Pond calls Ae: “Son of a Beast! He will kick his only best friend and whacks my head if I so much get on his business and be nosy! See this! See this?! That’s his fist! My skull already has a dent in the form of his fist!”

Ping: “The greatest man but has the foulest mouth on the planet. He doesn’t care nor doesn’t give a damn what other people will think. I have never been the receiving end of his fist and kick so I’m happy to say that he is still a friend I can count on.”

Bow: “Tactless beast! He just made someone cry when he flat our rejected her. But that’s what I like about Ae, he never take advantage of people and will always be there to help others.”

Can: “Ae is the bestest of the best man out there! He doesn’t give a damn and will help me even though he doesn’t know me! He is a great bastard buddy!”

Captain of the Football Team: “Ae is our MVP. He may be 174 cm shorty but he can kick those asses good bye! We love Ae in this team. He brings glory to us! Well except when he beat us Sports Science when he is an Engineering Major…”

LadyBoys: “I don’t know how the hell a muscular, sexy abs, yummy muscles belong to that shorty with foul mouth! This is an outrage! He even give me the middle finger when I told him if he wants to spend the night with me! Such barbaric action against me a lady!”

Pete chuckles to the different description of Ae.

For him, Ae is the opposite of what they say and he cant help wander why. Ae is sweet to him. Ae never finds him annoying and he is always pinching his cheeks or ruffling his hair. Ae told him that he likes his hair, soft and silky (well he is a half-Noble so his hair is entirely different from humans)

Ae never rush him when they are eating. Its hard for him to swallow cause he is not used to eating the food Ae gave him, he eats either fruits and drinks blood via blood bags from blood bank. So its really really hard for him to swallow any meat and vegetables.

Ae cares about his safety that Ae will bike all the way to his apartment and drop him off (when all he did was walked, he is a Noble so walking for an hour or so is nothing to him, or he can just jump building to building or well, fly – he is not human after all)

The Engineering Department won the game with Ae’s two points versus Sports Science and instead of joining the seniors and juniors at the party, Ae went to Pete. Pete was alarmed when Ae was at his apartment. Pete looks at the full moon and this is the time that he is very weak and the blood bags are not stored in his freezer where he usually storms them.

He has been feeling weak for the couple of days and the blurry visions and headache keeps on attacking him.

Ae was worried because Pete promise to watch the game only he didn’t show up. Pete never miss a game and he was not answering his line messages as well.

‘Pete, what’s wrong? You’re so pale.’ Ae was scared for Pete. Pete’s skin is milky white with a blush but the Pete before him is pale as ghost.

‘Ae… please go. I’m okay. Please please go.’

‘No! I will be here! Tell me what to do!’

‘Ae please! Go!’

Ae was angry now when Pete seems to be pushing him.

Pete was crying and Ae doesn’t know what to do. Ae tried to hug him but Pete pushed him - a little bit strong that made Ae stumbled and hurt.

‘OH! AE! Im sorry! But please please. I don’t want to hurt you! Please go!’

Pete was scared – he can feel hunger.

He had never felt his way before.

He can smell it… the delicious smell of blood. He clench his teeth and told Ae once again to go.

‘No! I will not go!’

‘Ae please… I don’t want you to hate me… please’

Ae is crying now as well, ‘Please tell me Pete what’s wrong with you?’

‘Ae… I… I- please just go.’

‘No!’

‘Ae!’

Then everything on Pete’s memory become a blur and then darkness.

He doesn’t remember anything.

What he remembers is the sweet taste of blood in his lips.

He woke up and was shock.

He was scared.

‘Ae?’

Everything – his surrounding is full of blood. Dried blood.

‘NO! NO! AE!’

‘What?’

‘Huh?’ Pete looks up and saw Ae running to him. Ae in his shorts and wet hair.

‘Pete are you okay?’

‘Ae?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ae!’

‘Yes! That’s me! I mean yes what?’

‘You-you’re okay… what-what? Blood?’

‘Ah. Well… First of all, Pete this is not my blood. This is the blood from the bag inside your freezer. And well, some of them are your blood.’

‘What happen Ae?’

‘You kinda turn dart vader last night. You push me – well more like – haul me – good thing it was a soft sofa and went to the freezer, you open the blood bag and drink it, but you throw it away saying ‘It taste like rot’ and then you look at me-‘

‘Ae! Oh my! Did I hurt-‘

‘I’m not hurt. I understand what’s happening even though I don’t believe it – but you well, your eyes turned blue and your fangs kinda shows and told me your are so thirsty. I offer you my blood-‘

‘NO!’

‘Well yes, but when you are nearing me, you bite your own arm. And told me to get out.’

‘Then why are you still here?’

‘I can never leave you Pete. You look like your dying. And you were speaking about soul contract or blood contract-‘

‘GOD NO!’

‘Well – I don’t want you to suffer… and I understand that you need blood. I gave it to you freely.’

Pete then put his trembling hands to Ae’s neck, removing the towel, and yes, there it is his bite.

‘Ae! Oh God! I’m so sorry!’

‘Pete don’t be. I agree with it.’

‘No! no! You don’t know what it means-‘

‘It means that you’re going to drink my blood from now on. That my blood is the only blood you’ll ever drink.’

‘Ae why? Why didn’t you leave. I’m a monster Ae. You should have left me…’

‘Pete. We have been fighting last night more than hours – me telling you to drink my blood while you insisting I get out. You even threatened to kiss me and enchant me with your other spell from your mother side and I still stayed.’

‘Why? Why Ae?’

Ae smiled and put his two hands on Pete’s cheek, ‘Because you are not a monster. You are a pure cute vampire. My vampire.’

THIS IS NOT THE END. There will be a proper chapter by chapter story fic. Thank you.

Author’s Note : I was looking for another name for Vampire when I remember about the webtoon that I’ve read years ago (its still on going) it’s a Korean manhwa title: NOBLESSE. I borrowed the title or the race and some places. I just don’t want to say just a vampire.

#love by chance #lbc #aepete #hcs #vampire #noble #weissfai writes

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