#Sleet the Wolf | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

grawlix-ness · 10 months ago

Text

Nest

How much harm could an appreciative ogle between long-time associates bring?

Word Count: 7,323

Characters: Sleet, Dingo, featuring appearances from Robotnik and a OC

Pairing: Sleet x Dingo

A/N: rated PG - heads up for sexual humor, unabashed pandering to the furry gaze, and implied cartoon bird violence

This is largely meant to be a set-up/introduction to my version of the Underground setting.

Sleet had barely managed to stifle any involuntary squeals during Robotnik's presentation of the Red Whiptail. Modular, capable of traversing multiple biomes. Gleaming cherry-red exterior, optimal voice recognition, rotary plasma cannons, and a sophisticated targeting system. Not to mention the seat warmers. Dingo was not as good at self-control as Sleet was. His unimpressed "I dunno. Looks kinda like a lobster, don't it?" was mortifying.

The wolf covered for him, as he so often found himself doing. "At risk of sounding forward, sir. I-I humbly request you be patient with him, Your Royal Greatness. Dingo’s a dolt, yes, but he's good for it, I assure you!" Thankfully, Robotnik had acknowledged both interruptions with an annoyed lip twitch and nothing more, leaving them to perform their duties. He must have been in a decent mood.

A shiny, new ship and he successfully talked Robotnik down from roboticizing them. Everything was coming up Sleet. Almost everything, anyway.

"You know," Sleet said, frowning at his hulking accomplice's feet-dragging gait, "you could at least pretend to be enjoying yourself."

Dingo countered. “They could at least make it more fun. Buncha milksops. They don’t even fight!”

“Aristocrats don’t fight.” Sleet, for one, found collecting tribute refreshing. A nice change of pace from tracking Freedom Fighter movement.

Dingo’s response was a caveman-like grunt, as he always did when faced with hard truths and things he couldn’t punch. Sleet rarely saw him this surly. When they were freelancing, Dingo would simply redirect any agitation by way of giving their quarry a generous amount of pummeling. But this particular job didn’t require knuckle dusting, so there was this new dynamic, all this groaning and moaning that Sleet was decidedly not a fan of, even if Dingo’s pouty lips were mildly amusing.

“Why’m I even here if there’s no skulls that need crushing?” He slung a money bag stuffed to its seams over one massive shoulder. “I should be crushing skulls.”

“That’s easy,” Sleet playfully swung his own more manageable bag by his side, drinking in the pleasant clitter-clatter of stolen riches. “You have a discouraging aura.”

Dingo considered this explanation for a beat and then his face soured. “Oi! Are yew tryin’ t’say I stink?” His accent had a tendency to flare up whenever he was upset.

Dimwit, Sleet thought, though with more amusement than ire or disgust. He risked placing a hand on his snarly partner-in-crime’s arm and patted it reassuringly. Dingo’s face softened. “I’m saying you’re the ace up my sleeve. When people see your mug and monstrous physique, they’re more likely to listen, less inclined to cheat in business. And you make a good pack mule. There’s that too.”

“Er, you lost me when you said sleeve,” Dingo admitted. “What’s this about a mug and a mule?”

“Just accept the compliment. I don’t give them often.”

The most recent tributary, a bejeweled goat woman, called out and waved goodbye to them after seeing them off her residence. Despite her gesture, Sleet could tell she was more than a little relieved to see their backs. Her purse-rat yipped profusely under her arm, as purse-rats were wont to do. Sleet was surprised Dingo didn’t bark back. He must really be glum.

“Hey, Sleet?” asked Dingo, as they retraced their steps, passing manicured topiary gardens, marble statues, and a small fleet of Swatbots on patrol.

“Yes, Dingo?” He braced himself to hear a silly question.

“Your hand.”

Sleet looked down and found that he had yet to remove it from Dingo’s bicep. He pulled away posthaste. “I—uh—” Sleet brought a fist to his muzzle to cover a bout of staged throat clearing, then opened his mouth only to come up empty. All the self-assured remarks the wolf tried to muster up evaporated on his tongue, which felt unusually heavy. Out of options, Sleet screwed his mouth shut and ducked away from Dingo’s quizzical gaze. The Red Whiptail coming into view offered a much welcome change of topic.

He thrust his bag into Dingo’s chest—the mutant just barely catching it—then beelined for the vehicle. “Move it. We’re burning daylight.”

“Hey, wait up! Ain’t daylight su’posed to burn?”

The new car smell was transcendent. Not for the first time, Sleet wafted the scent towards him, as one would when sniffing a fine wine’s bouquet. He sighed relishingly. Who said a military vehicle couldn’t also be a luxury vehicle?

Their last ride was neither. It was supposed to be a tentative arrangement. Sleet’s partnership with Dingo, too, was once intended to be a tentative arrangement. Despite himself, he had a knack for picking up strays and hangers on. Out of the two blunt objects, Sleet had considerably less amity towards the vehicle, the Dinghy. It wasn’t his first idea for a name, but it stuck, and the title was certainly apt. Dingo liked it well enough, finding humor in their similar sobriquets.

No self-respecting bounty hunter would be caught dead driving a lemon, so whenever anyone of importance asked, Sleet said it was Dingo’s ship. It might as well have been his. He was in evidence everywhere, what with his crumbs from his foodstuffs on the patched-up seats and yellowed carpeting. Many a pine tree air freshener tried to make a dent in its corn chip funk-shroud, and all failed.

After storing the Mobium with the rest of the day’s haul, Dingo flopped into his seat with even more inelegance than usual, propping his legs up over the arm of the chair. He reclined, languid and limp. Had it not been for all his lumps, his defined muscles and paunch, he would have resembled an understuffed plush toy.

Sleet squinted at the pitiful creature, shrugged, then went to his respective seat—the driver’s seat in front—and put the Whiptail into gear. It started easily, he noted, whereas the Dinghy tended to resist. “Computer!” Sleet beckoned. “Be a dear and find me a shortcut to the Harrigan Estate.” Hands flourishing, he unconsciously doubled down on his bravado to distract from whatever was going on with Dingo.

A robotic voice monotoned, and Sleet heard Dingo startle a bit. The mutant wasn’t used to all the bells and whistles yet. “Shortcut located.”

The dash lit up. Sleet, humming, skimmed over the projected map, then shooed it away. “That’ll do, computer.” He gripped the Whiptail’s yoke, or joystick as Dingo designated, ever the unsophisticated provincial. Sleet pulled and—

“Y’don’t have to call ‘im that.”

The Red Whiptail settled back to the ground. Sleet peered around his seat. “What?”

“Robotnik. You don’t have to call ‘im Your Excellency. Your Most Brilliantness, Your Mercifulness, all that rot. He’s just a guy.”

Sleet felt almost offended on Robotnik’s behalf. “Just a guy?”

“He’s just another guy, this is just another job.”

“That is our employer. Be respectful.” No stranger to perfidiousness, he could hardly believe he was saying it himself. In truth, Doctor Julian Robotnik was a commendable individual. A mysterious offworlder with nothing to his name turned iron fist despot overnight. His technology was unmatched, all-powerful. If you weren’t with him, you were against him, and Sleet couldn’t have moved quicker to perish the thought. Who was he to look a gift alien in the mouth? “And anyway, if he’s as smart as they say, he’s probably got this thing bugged. He could be listening in.”

“Well, I don’t respect nobody! ‘Specially not some bloomin’ cue ball nerd! C’mon, Sleet, can’t we, y’know. . .” He pounded a fist into an open palm, then twisted to further flatten the imaginary Robotnik. “Then take the money and run? Like that time when—”

“We can’t always take the money and run.” Just like before, Dingo only grunted. “Oh, don’t be like that. I’m looking out for us. The world’s changing, we have to change too. It’s business. And business is . . .”

Dingo finished flatly. “Good. Business is good . . .” He turned away and stared at the wall with the bland, unseeing look of the defeated.

Clearly, the computer was unfamiliar with the term shortcut. When Doctor Robotnik mentioned the Whiptail was experimental, Sleet figured he meant experimental in design, not that it was a prototype.

Surely the Harrigan Estate couldn’t be near a swamp. Or was it the Harrington Estate? Just as no self-respecting bounty hunter would be caught dead in a lemon, no self-respecting blue blood would be caught anywhere near a swamp. Maybe it’s a tactic to keep others out, Sleet thought. He wasn’t big on swamps, and it seemed to him most Mobians weren’t either. Smart Mobians anyway. The oppressive heat, the hidden quagmires, the sloshing through leech-rife, waist-high water. The pollen! Barely qualifies as habitable.

For miles and miles, Robotnik’s influence was conspicuous in absence. The swamp must have had nothing of value, or he simply hadn’t gotten to razing it yet. Sleet wasn’t about to pretend to understand the good doctor’s inner machinations. All he was thinking was how flammable swamps were.

One little spark, and it’d light up like a busted fusion ripper on a summer’s day. The hypothetical inferno made Sleet smile. He considered sharing this fantasy with Dingo, knowing how much they both enjoyed wanton destruction. However, he had the feeling this wasn’t the best of times. Their talk from before still loomed over them.

With a sigh, Sleet mentally threw his hands up, choosing to trust the Whiptail and its state-of-the-art specs and kick back a while. All the green was making his eyes glaze over anyway. He put it into autopilot. Every now and then, the gentle and steady hum of the ship’s engine was interrupted by the racket of Dingo’s paddle ball endeavors. Endeavors was truly the most apt word. The mutant’s lack of coordination made the game a nigh indomitable feat. He had wrested the sorry excuse for entertainment out of his rucksack earlier.

Dingo was something of a pack rat, and over the years he had accumulated a veritable collection of junk. His rucksack carried the “essentials”, said essentials largely consisting of late night infomercial and tourist trap goods. At any rate, Sleet was glad Dingo found the paddle ball.

Usually Dingo occupied most if not all of the ride ambience. Rather than the inconstant plonk-plonking of successful paddle ball hits, and the more frequent muttered expletives following the misses, he would fumble his way through retelling a vulgar joke he overheard, or ramble about how unfair it was that companies retired ice cream flavors. Vacuous, unfiltered, and generally one-sided conversations, talking just to talk.

Sleet used to be annoyed by the chatter, but it’d since become a sort of a background noise, familiar and, somehow, comforting. Its absence had made him ill at ease.

The wolf refrained from any probing. Dingo had grown judicious enough over the years to afford him the same wide berth dignity whenever he was discontent. Sleet was returning the favor. Still, the faintest specters of concern continued to mount on his conscience and stir in his chest.

He had a hunch why Dingo was in a mood: The Red Whiptail was a replacement. Robotnik didn’t make his feelings towards their previous vehicle a secret. According to him, it wasn’t even worth scrapping for parts. Why Robotnik was so bothered by its presence in the first place, Sleet didn’t know. Rules were rules, and rust buckets were expendable.

Sleet wasn’t much for sentimentality. Sentimentality made one soft, he steadfastly believed. He had yet to see anything to convince him otherwise, and he’d sooner die than chance it. Try as he might, Sleet’s teachings didn’t rub off on Dingo in the slightest. Although, very little in general managed to get through his thick skull.

Indeed, Dingo was a sap, sentimental to an excess. He would hole up in his quarters for hours on end, tending to his scrapbooks, getting glitter and glue all over the place because his ham hands weren’t made for precision work. He would go into gift shops and try on shirts, before remembering he doesn’t like shirts, hanging the eviscerated aftermath back on the rack and opting for something dinky and juvenile to put on the dashboard instead. He would make up anniversaries and get upset when Sleet didn’t remember. It was pathetic, really. Embarrassing.

The big lug was so engrossed with mementos, that he wore his signature ratty pair of green shorts as a symbol of mutual growth. Earlier in their partnership, they would fight. If Sleet was ticked off enough, and he knew he had the high ground, things got physical, and clothes got tattered. Now, Dingo, overly affectionate oddity that he was, refused to have his shorts mended, even though Sleet had offered several times. It was absurd. Infuriating! He had to be doing it just to get under his skin.

But the pants did look good on him.

Real good.

Sleet wasn’t used to being behind such a clear windshield. The Dinghy had accumulated so much grime over the course of their misadventures Sleet had abandoned the idea of ever cleaning it—rain existed for a reason, and that reason was to clean stuff he didn’t have the time nor patience for. Dingo thought the muck gave it character, so he too rebuffed the notion. Thus Sleet rarely ever saw Dingo’s reflection, let alone his own. In the Red Whiptail, however, he found himself staring. Naturally, being a mountain of muscle, there was a whole lot of Dingo to stare at.

The way his tongue peeked out between his plump lips as he focused on the ball, the way his arm muscles clenched with every successful bounce, the way his emerald eyes glimmered, rapt, ablaze with intensity. . .

How much harm could an appreciative ogle between long-time associates bring? Or an unwitting bicep grope for that matter? Sleet was merely admiring Dingo’s continued bulking efforts.

He’d been too busy reassuring himself of this to notice the incoming flock of reptavians. So transfixed was Sleet, he scarcely registered that Dingo cried out, “Bird strike!” The volume of it was just enough to wrest him from his daze. He didn’t take evasive action in time. The Whiptail was bombarded by a panicked, fluttering mass of feathers, scales, and sharp, little talons. It careened, Sleet having overcalculated his swerve, and spiraled, quickly losing altitude, dropping like a stone. All the while, adding to the confusion, the ship’s alarms blared ear-bleedingly loud and its lights flashed a harsh, angry-looking red.

“Pull up, pull up, pull up! Computer, do something!” cried Sleet, hands aggressively taut around the yokestick. “Useless—TREE! TREE!”

There were in fact trees, plural, on account of them crashing into the swamp’s dense canopy. Much ooching and ouching and eeking was had, the latter mostly coming from the panic-stricken driver. After practically hitting every tree branch, The Red Whiptail collided with the earth and rolled over at least thrice, jostling wolf and mutant dog about, before hydroplaning into what could only be described as a glorified mud pit.

Miraculously, it had landed right side up. Its engine made a planiative, shuddering sound, something of a robotic death rattle. The alarms began to fade, but Sleet couldn’t appreciate the auditorial reprieve, for his heartbeat was pounding in his ear.

It wasn’t until Dingo piped up again, cheering and hooting, that Sleet fully understood the sorry state of affairs his unrestrained ogling had gotten them into. “Woo-hoo!” The mutant banged excitedly on his armrests. “What a rush! Let’s do that again!” Only he could find good cheer in a crash landing.

“No!” Sleet whirled on him, seat swiveling. He made a big X gesture with his arms then emphatically slashed the air. Dingo flinched and shrunk down. “No woo-hoo! You fool, this is the least opportune time to woo-hoo! This is no woo-hooing matter!”

There was a beat of silence, barring the muted sirens of the Whiptail and the squelching of pond scum settling around its hull. Dingo fiddled awkwardly with two fingers, poking their tips together. His encore was hushed. “Woo-hoo. . .”

Sleet placed his head in his hands, pulled down on his eyelids, and let vent something between a wail and a groan. Behind him, the once-immaculate windshield creaked, laden with scratches and reptavian-shaped smears. He couldn’t bear to look at it. How could he have crashed the Whiptail on the very first day of owning it? What am I going to tell Robotnik? He’ll be incensed!

Dingo seemingly read his mind. “Pfft!” He waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll be fine! Tell ‘im the bloody thing fell on its own. Dropped right outta the sky. I’ve seen ships do it before.”

“What?!” Sleet lifted his head, reeling back at the very notion. “And insult his craftsmanship? No, I’m not doing that.”

The mutant remained adamant. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry, Sleet. We’ve been in stickier situations.” His eyes lit up with delayed realization. “Hah! Sticky!”

“Mm, yes, you’re quite the comedian, aren’t you?” said Sleet dryly. “A regular cut-up.”

Predictably, Dingo took no offense, grinning proudly instead. Sarcasm was not something he trafficked in. “Hehe, yeah!”

Sleet muttered a few tired nothings. Blast it all. Blast the glass for being so clean! Blast his loins for being so fallible! Why’d his body choose today of all days to turn to mush? Or was it his brain? The difference didn’t matter. He was angry at himself, scientific musings notwithstanding.

Grumbling, the wolf stood on his seat, popped open the Whiptail’s dome, and peered out. Straight away, muggy swamp air assailed his nose, and he recoiled at the stench. Reptavians, superficially turkey-like in countenance and with long tails that echoed that of anole lizards, honked indignantly from the surrounding trees, collision victims turned spectators. With the resonating knob on their beaks, they created a strange, distorted racket, like geese trapped in an h-vac.

“I don’t think they’re happy with you, Sleet,” observed Dingo.

“You,” Sleet glared at him over his shoulder, “stay put. I don’t want your poundage rocking the boat, so to speak. And don’t touch anything!”

Dingo sighed, his earlier melancholy returning to his voice. He craved action. Badly, judging by the saliva that eked from his mouth. The mutant looked down and accepted reluctantly. “Righto.”

After bidding Dingo a satisfied nod, Sleet, grunting not of effort but of exasperation, hefted himself up on top of the Whiptail and perched.

Smoke was pouring out from beneath it, and its conduits hissed. The wings, though heavily dented, were still intact. Most striking of all was the abundance of iridescent feathers littering its entirety. If the initial blunt force trauma hadn’t done the pests in, the thrusters certainly did, a scent similar to cooked poultry faint on the air.

A pair of talons swooped down, ripping free a lock of hair. Before he could even yelp, another zipped past and grazed his ears.

“Hey!” Sleet shook a fist toward the sky. “Do you have any idea how long that takes to coif? How much hairspray I go through?!” A third reptavian zipped towards him. He batted it away, only for another to quickly take its place and nick his nose. “Ow! Lousy lizard-chickens! I—” His posturing was undercut by a rapid-fire succession of violent sneezes, during which Sleet’s foot slipped. He teetered over with a gasp, arms windmilling desperately.

“I gotcha!” Unusually timely and accurate, Dingo caught him by his cape before he fell into the murky, curdled water. Sleet scrabbled up to safety next to him. The ship had dipped a little at Dingo’s bulk, not enough to cause alarm. Once recomposed, the wolf gave him a small nod, mumbling agreeably. An approximation of a thank you.

Dingo was versed enough with Sleet’s shorthand. “Anytime, mate.” He knew it was silly, but the Trailian addressment always gave him pause. The wolf hoped it didn’t show in his face. “It’s guivre nestin’ season. They’re prob’ly flying someplace hotter.” Sleet’s face thankfully appeared to be the last thing on his mind. Dingo had a stint in the Quokka Scouts as a pup. He was quick to remind Sleet whenever he got a chance. The usefulness of these wildlife facts fluctuated. “Guivre use the heat from volcanic vents to warm their eggs. At least that’s what I heard on the nature channel. Er, when there was a nature channel. Hey, did you know they’re menoguh . . . manipedi. . . they don’t ever break up! S’real romantic.”

“Their coupling patterns are of no concern to me. Do these beasts eat Mobians? Are they venomous?”

“No, but they do keep grudges.”

Sleet glanced balefully up at the guivre that continued to circle. “I can relate,” he said, raising his gun. Instead of a volley of blaster bolts he produced a volley of sneezes, the force of which knocked him back unceremoniously onto his tail and elicited a sympathetic “ooo” noise from his partner.

The honks from the trees suddenly sounded a lot like laughter. Sails deflated, Sleet returned his gun to its holster and glumly wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He winced at the abrasiveness; gauntlets didn’t make for good tissues.

“Gee, Sleet,” remarked Dingo, voice softer now, “ya comin’ down with something?”

Sleet growled. “I don’t get sick! I haven’t been sick since I was a pup. It’s allergies. Clearly. From the pollen.” He gave him a pointed look. “Although it certainly doesn’t help that you shed everywhere.”

Dingo’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry.”

A lesser individual may have faltered at this display, at those wibbly, apologetic eyes and wilted ears. Sleet was no lesser individual, he vehemently reminded himself. “You ought to be.” There was some ice to it, a bit more than he intended.

Not enough ice to dissuade Dingo. Stubborn thing. “Can I make it up to you?”

He sighed. “Your tenacity is nothing short of unspeakable.” Sleet oscillated between finding said idiosyncrasy moderately admirable or extremely obnoxious. One thing was certain: Dingo was an interesting specimen.

The mutant’s thick brows briefly furrowed in consternation, the telltale sign he wasn’t sure if Sleet had complimented or insulted him, and then he smiled. “You won’t regret it. Promise.”

“Heh,” Sleet sniffed, partly out of wry amusement, partly because of nasal drip. “Just be quiet and stay out of the way. I need to make a call.”

“Y’sure I can’t just push us outta the muck? Turn me into a tugboat or something?”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the last time we tried something like that you ripped the Dinghy in two. I’d rather not risk it with the good doctor’s gift. Save your strehn. . . s-streeENG. . . ACH–CHOO!” That one hurt. Luckily, the loudness of the sternutation spooked the remaining guivre off. Vengeance another time then, Sleet decided, massaging his aching temples.

“Gadzook’s height.”

The malapropism caught Sleet unawares, and he choked back a laugh. Dimwit. “You always know just what to say.”

Dingo beamed at this. Sleet found it hard not to smile back.

Dressed down to his one-piece undersuit, Sleet untangled himself from his seat—as his condition worsened, he’d taken a page out of Dingo’s book and tried becoming a droopy plush toy. It wasn’t as comfortable as his colleague had made it look.

The computer’s voice recognition was off, as was the air conditioning. Against his and his sweat-soused neck’s wishes, the Red Whiptail had automatically shifted into a hibernative state, reserving its power. He could have barred that by switching a few levels and turning a few dials. Or so he presumed anyway; Sleet never read manuals in their entirety.

Its mutiny was for the best, he begrudgingly accepted. Sleet knew he might not have been able to make his important call otherwise.

Torque was an old friend. Something like that, at any rate. The tamarin mechanic was at least sixty percent more reliable than anyone else Sleet and Dingo regularly associated with. She’d always been good to them when gigs were slim, and even before that, when Sleet was a pup, she looked out for him.

Well, “looking out for” was a relative term.

She was a businesswoman first and foremost, a grandmotherly figure second. It was clear to him in retrospect she’d kept him around during his early years because he was small and limber, good for squeezing into tight fits, such as rusty old carburetors or the air vents of competing repair businesses.

Eventually, Sleet got too big for vents and too restless for simple espionage jobs. Bounty hunting scratched his adrenaline itch and put larger sums of money on the table. In spite of the less agreeable occupational hazards, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

I probably wouldn’t have met Dingo, Sleet thought, and he felt something within his chest bloom, almost flutter. The moment was short-lived. Curse him and his soppy sappiness! Alone for five minutes and I start skipping down memory lane! He shook off, shook his head free of any more cerebral peregrinations. Sleet immediately regretted doing so, temples aching in protest. Once everything stopped spinning, he looked at the control panel’s touch display and swallowed, half-nausea, half-trepidation, then punched in the comlink number.

The video feed, produced in front of the ship’s windowpane via a projector nodule, didn’t buffer long before he was greeted with the industrial, and impossibly greasy, trappings of the shop floor and his potential savior’s begoggled face.

Her dark mustard boilersuit was shopworn and scungy, begrimed from all manner of motor oil. Torque’s right arm was a robotic limb discreetly kitted out with multitool upon multitool—total overkill in Sleet’s opinion, but Dingo found it ceaselessly fascinating. Its metallic fingers preened at the sweeping ashen mustache sprouting from her muzzle, grayed from both age and wayward embers oft ensnared in the wispy vibrissa.

Behind her, proletarians of various stripes and sizes grubbed away, dismantling, rebuilding, and barking at one another for tools. Primates made up the bulk of the machinist field, though it was not uncommon to see members of the procyon and muridae families also among the ranks. It was generally believed these groups were more dexterous, light-handed. Whether or not the theory held water was anyone’s guess. Those with nimble fingers certainly weren’t in a rush to test it and risk their financial security.

“Sleet. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Her low, craggy voice was presumably the result of years of unchecked smoke inhalation and caterwauling at employees. Or customers, if she was so inclined. Aged to a register as murky as her vigilance to health code violations, she always either sounded annoyed or deeply uninterested. She pushed her eyewear up to her forehead and studied him for a moment, finishing with a snort. “You look like crap.”

“You’re a paragon of grace as always, Torque.”

The tamarin nearly cut him off. “You sound like crap too. Where’s your better half?”

And Torque likely meant that literally. Dingo was a sucker, and she found his negotiating skills not only hilarious but profitable. He enjoyed her company well enough too, mostly because she always had sweets on her. Sleet partook in no such thing; his palate was far too refined for grandma candies, and monkey hair and pocket lint inevitably found their way inside the wrappers.

“You won’t be borrowing him anytime soon,” Sleet puffed out his chest with some difficulty, a rasp leaving his lungs. It wasn’t easy to boast with congestion. “We’re full-timers now.”

“I heard. Congratulations on becoming a lap dog. I was hoping you’d come to your senses before that robot-obsessed screwloose made it official.”

“Come to my senses? I see things more clearly than ever before. My place is by Robotnik’s side. Not piddling about with yokels.”

“That’s what they all say. You see one dictator, you’ve seen ‘em all.” This left Sleet to wonder how old she was. Wonder was all he could do, since when he last gave into curiosity and asked, she shot him the ugliest look and charged extra on the Dinghy’s tuneup.

“Yes, well, that robot-obsessed screwloose is developing weapons beyond comprehension and has surveillance everywhere, so I advise you hold your tongue.”

“I’ll sleep on it. Enough about Robotnik. I'm assuming you didn’t call to catch up with a—what was that quaint word you used? Yokel?”

“Our ship’s bogged.” He withheld the details, knowing he would never hear the end of it otherwise. “We need a lift.”

“Why don’t you ask your dear friend Robotnik?” She paused, then laughed. “It’s one of his ships, isn’t it?” The laugh quickly became a cackle. “You always were bad at taking sharp turns! Like that time when—”

Sleet interrupted before she could finish any embarrassing aerial anecdotes. “I’m not asking Robotnik because you still owe us after that live transport fiasco, remember? As if I needed another slobbering beast to care for.”

“Huh. I do? Musta slipped my mind.” She scratched her face, jostling free a swath of soot and dandruff. The sight made Sleet’s nose itch.

“Yes, your mind does lean slippery.”

She laughed again, quieter, more of a chuff. It carried a note of wistfulness. “Takes one to know one. Alright, Mr. Big Shot, once I pinpoint your coordinates I’ll send my boys right over.”

“Right over?”

“Right over.”

“Meaning removal and repair for free. That’s how favors work. No fees, no tax. No catches.”

“You wound me, Sleet. I’m not that bad.”

“You’re right. You’re worse.”

Torque smiled broadly, displaying her canines’ dental crowns. The projection failed to accurately translate how the golden prosthetics shimmered in person. “We yokels have to make ends meet somehow. But I accept your terms, as lously expressed as they were. Drink some tea or something, kid.”

Sleet stopped her before she disconnected. “How is it?”

Her simian face scrunched in confusion. It took her a moment to catch his drift. When she did, Torque jabbed a finger at him and waved it up and down, clearly vindicated. “I knew you’d miss that bucket of bolts. She’s fine. Rusty as ever. Untouched. Unsold.” The tamarin played with her whiskers, saying mock-longingly, “Not a huge market for us biddies.”

“I don’t miss it. I’m not asking for myself, I’m asking for Di. . . ” He trailed off. “I’m asking about my cut of the sale.”

Torque looked unconvinced. She didn’t linger on it though. “Take care of yourself, Sleet.” Her voice held a somewhat bittersweet affect that Sleet wasn’t sure if his increasingly foggy brain imagined.

They both got off the line. Sleet stared at the blank projector for a moment longer, then turned away and quietly fumed. “Better half . . . bah!” He crossed his arms. “Even if it were true, I’d be the better half.”

And yet, he heard it so often. There had been a time when Sleet sharply corrected positors of such a ludicrous idea, but he’d since grown slack in rectifying the flying rumors. They were harmless, and he’d be a fool to pass down all the deals and discounts awarded to couples. Dingo, thankfully, was none the wiser to the innuendos other bounty hunters sent their way.

It wasn’t real. It would never be real.

There were moments. Moments of weakness, fleeting moments that he kicked himself into forgetting. He was deep in a moment right now for pity’s sake, sitting inside the evidence. As much as he wanted to blame the birds, he was . . . at least partially responsible for the crash.

His headache surged. Sleet took it as his cue to stop navel-gazing so hard over the L-word. You are a bounty hunter. You are not some lovesick pup. You are not weak.

Then the comm chimed. He answered without checking the address. “I swear, if this is about honeymoon spots again. . . for the last time, Torque, we’re not—”

“AHEM.”

Sleet’s ears sprung erect, and his heart propelled itself into his throat. “Your Grace!” The wolf jumped out of his seat and issued his choreographed greeting at once, dropping into a slight curtsy. His ingratiation was sloppier than he would have liked, betrayed by the headrush he received in doing so. He rose. “S-sincerest apologies, Your Majesty, I thought you were someone else.”

Robotnik’s decent mood had come and gone. “What’s the holdup?! You should have been back ages ago, have you collected my tribute or NOT?!” Literally red in the face, he slammed down a fist on one of his throne’s arm rests. “I didn’t give you that ship for joyriding!”

“I would never, I assure you. Dingo might, but not me. I’m the conniving one.”

“I don’t care what you are! You’ll be the roboticized one if you don’t give me a good excuse for your delinquency!”

“I’m doing double duty,” Sleet said, partly expecting to hear a snicker from over his shoulder. Dingo could never keep it together at the mention of the word duty. Thankfully the mutant was still away, presumably chewing on rocks and harassing the local wildlife.

Sleet wasn’t familiar with human facial expressions—Robotnik was the only one he’d ever encountered—but it seemed to him that the man looked intrigued, his brow having arched. “Double duty?”

He straightened, feeling confident about the baited hook he set. “Collecting tribute and running recon. My file mentioned my expertise in cloak and dagger activities, yes?”

The tyrant’s frown returned, and he sighed. “I have surveillance bots for that.”

“Surveillance bots are not as personable as me, sire. Inorganic beings often cannot engage in amenable conversation with organic beings. I know people. I know how to get them talking, keep them talking.”

There was a pregnant pause as Robotnik appeared to consider Sleet’s explanation, fingers interlaced. His flushed color subsided. Finally, he said in a stony, hushed tone, “If I find out you’re lying . . .”

Sleet suddenly found himself too fatigued to be threatened. Body temperature flaring, the cold floor of the Red Whiptail was calling his name. Perhaps he could use his cape as a makeshift blanket if he got too frigid. With the first suggestions of sunset, the swamp wasn’t as warm as it’d been. He rubbed at a puffy eye and said. “I’ll be roboticized, I understand, sire.”

At the sound of flapping wings, Sleet jolted from his fugue state. His breath caught. Had the lizard-chickens come back? To finish him off in his weakened state?

Instead of a vengeful flock of reptavians, however, only one large, orange pelican with a heavily distended pouch approached the window. The evening sky echoed its color. It landed ontop the hull and, through purple spectacles, peered expectantly inside.

Groaning, the wolf got to his feet, stalked over to the dashboard, and pressed the button that opened the dome. Some of the Whiptail’s controls were still functional. The list was growing thin.

“Where have you been?” Sleet scowled at his transmutated partner as he descended from the roof. “And why a bird? After what happened earlier, I could have shot you!”

“I was a bird when I left. Easier to trav—”

“I was starting to worry!”

The pseudo-seabird roused, giving his wings a good shake, then waddled closer. Sleet made a frustrated noise at the down that Dingo-Pelican produced. Hadn’t they just discussed shedding?

“Aww, you were worried about me?” Dingo’s voice was somewhat garbled, as one might sound when talking around a jawbreaker.

Sleet’s nape bristled. “No!” The exclamation came out shriller than intended. His chagrin, and the heat that stole over his face, doubled. He was glad his fur was thick enough to hide his blushing. “I was starting to get worried you’d gotten ME into trouble. Starting being the operative word.”

“Trouble’s exciting! Trouble’s good! Good like business! And even if I did, I’d get you out of it anyway.”

This was true. Dingo’s relative indestructibility and dogged loyalty came through. Sleet could always count on him to make a dramatic entrance, do a little rampaging here, a little rampaging there, bash a few more skulls, and then whisk him away.

He could also always count on him to give him stress-induced split ends.

“Whatever. Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Dingo-Pelican dumped his gular pouch’s contents on the floor—his rucksack, and shockingly clean, too—then turned to Sleet and spread his wings wide. Sleet was also versed in Dingo’s shorthand: zap me. Once returned to form, the mutant reached inside the bag, extracted a thermos, and presented it proudly. “I made ya soup.”

Sleet had sat back down against the wall. “I’m not sick, Dingo. It’s allergies.” A meaty paw extended the thermos anyway. Stubborn thing. The wolf accepted his offering, eying it suspiciously. “This wouldn’t happen to be poison, would it? You’re not exactly discriminating with your ingredients.”

“Poison?!” Dingo barked out a huge laugh that made Sleet’s ears flatten and pull back. Having an inside voice wasn’t a concept Dingo subscribed to. “You’re such a kidder! That’s a good one, Sleet. Naw, it’s vegetable soup. S’made with love.”

“Mhm, right. So, poison.”

He laughed again before sitting down next to Sleet and explaining, “I know you have a delicate, non-mutant stomach, so I didn’t use anythin’ exotic. No swamp ingredients. I use fresh veggies in my protein shakes, plain regular stuff. I packed some o’ those. Oh, by the way, the mini kitchen gadgets you said were a load of hooey work like a charm. You owe Mr. Blendy and his friends an apology.” The instant of sass was just that, an instant, and Dingo returned to his usual congeniality. “Anyway, I figured I could maybe skip the shake today if it means I’d help a friend.”

Sleet hitched slightly. Not at the word, but at how earnestly he said it.

“Well, go ahead! Drink up! Doctor’s orders.”

He would have quipped about his lack of a medical license, except now that he had the thermos in his hands he was feeling peckish. Can’t be that bad, he thought. Dingo was a decent chef when he wasn’t making up his own abnormal recipes.

Sleet uncapped the flask. Steam rose to greet him. He breathed it in, and his sinuses rejoiced at having a homespun humidifier. Turned out there was a smell better than new car. Sleet gave the soup a slow, experimental sip, then hummed in surprised delight and eagerly went for more.

It was savory, sapid, the hearty bouillon a balm for his throat and his spirit. Could be even better with meat. He considered briefly what guivre tasted like, then thought better of it. Cantankerous as they were, their texture would likely be too tough.

He eased his head back and sighed, eyes momentarily closing in tranquility, an emotion Sleet found all too rare a commodity. “I needed this. Thanks. My friend.” He realized how clipped his gratitude sounded and winced a little at its inacquency. Giving thanks that weren’t dripping in sarcasm was difficult.

Dr. Dingo was pleased regardless, a full-toothed grin breaking across his face. Patient satisfied, he went about feeding himself, chomping into some oddly-shaped swampy fruit or vegetable or something or other he had pulled from his bag. It squirted out juice, a speck of which catapulted onto Sleet’s cheek. On any other day, that would have been a shoutworthy offense. Instead, Sleet observed that he was only slightly irked and wiped it away.

For a while they sat like that, enjoying their repast in relative silence—Dingo’s tusks and jowls often exacerbated his mouth sounds, and Sleet’s sniffles hadn’t altogether abated yet.

Then, the mutant paused and looked thoughtfully at his tuber thing’s half-eaten carcass. Sleet had never seen him so pensive before.

“Hey, um, Sleet?” said Dingo abruptly, rubbing his thumb across the thing’s skin in a self-soothing manner. “I’m sorry, for being kinda a butt earlier. I’m just not used to all o’ this change. S’all happened so fast. We had a routine, y’know? This Robotnik bloke, he’s come in and turned everythin’ upside down.

“When he said to get rid o’ the Dinghy, I wanted to throttle ‘im so bad. If it were up t’me, I woulda clobbered the conehead after he shot at our feet. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, shoots at our feet!”

With one emphatic squeeze, the malformed kiwi burst. He let its green puréed meat slip through the gaps between his fingers, massive chest expanding and contracting with ragged breaths that sounded more apt for a bull than any canine.

Something within Sleet squirmed. Frissons rippled up his back. Fear? Titillation? He readily accepted the former.

Dingo relaxed his hand and quickly rebounded from his sudden bestial spell, paying no mind to Sleet’s saucer eyes or bobbing throat. “But you seem so . . . ” He wiped his sullied hand on his pants and made an indecisive noise. “I’unno, what’s it called? Fulfilled? I’m not good with vocabulistuaries. Look, what I’m tryna say is, I don’t wanna lose this” — the mutant gestured between, vacillating— “I don’t wanna lose us, lose our thing.”

The mangling of the word vocabulary wrenched Sleet from his stupor. “Our thing?”

“Y’know, our thing. Our groove.”

“Our dynamic?”

Dingo nodded solemnly, gaze averting again.

“Muffinbrain,” Sleet lightly punched Dingo’s arm, “I’m not going anywhere. This new job isn’t as perfect as I hoped. I didn’t appreciate being shot at either. But an opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime. Not to mention, Robotnik will have us roboticized if we say otherwise.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that part.”

“Precisely why I’m staying. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.”

He snickered before affirming, “Yeah, you’re always looking out for me.”

Again, the earnesty, how he spoke with his whole big, bleeding heart. It seemed to come so effortlessly to Dingo. Sleet didn’t know whether to be jealous or sickened of his abilities or warmed by it. Warmed appeared to be in the lead as the wolf continued, albeit slowly. “I’ve acquired, well . . . I’ve developed a slight fondness for your company. It’d be difficult, I think, to find a new partner. You’re irreplaceable.” How on Mobius does he do that? That was like pulling teeth!

Dingo’s teary-eyed look was not unexpected. He collected himself, straightening. His spirit renewed, he endeavored to let the whole world know it. “That’s right! No sweaty pink humie is gonna tear Sleet and Dingo apart! Dinghy or no Dinghy, we’re a team!”

Sleet pinned his ears back again. “Volume.” Dingo repeated his declaration in a whisper, eliciting a sigh and headshake of fond exasperation. After a moment, the wolf admitted. “We did have some good times in that cruddy thing.” It was certainly more roomy.

Dingo agreed, then prompted with a little gasp, “Hey, y’know somethin’? We’re sorta like the guivre. They’re moving on because there’s better nesting grounds. We’re moving on too.”

He stroked his goatee in consideration. “I suppose that’s a suitable comparison, yes. Though I’m certainly much more handsome than those scabrous buzzards—did you see the wattles on those things?”

Dingo belly laughed. “Yeah, they’re ugly!”

Sleet joined in as well, though less vociferous. For a considerable duration, they were overcome with mirth, practically falling over each other. When it ebbed away in winded wheezes and hoos, Sleet became acutely aware of Dingo’s close proximity. Aware of the sweet, citrusy scent lacing his breath, of the lush fur over his frightfully squeezable, robust physique. Aware of his eyes, beauteous, like the burning core of a Thermal Obliterator 2000. Sleet tensed, and Dingo, pressed against his side, belatedly realized his transgression.

Just as the penitent mutant made to scoot away, Sleet hooked an arm around his personal space invader’s wide torso as best he could and pulled him back into place, leaning his wearied head against his shoulder. It was a move that surprised them both.

Any second thoughts Sleet had volatilized upon snuggling into Dingo’s wrinkly ruff. “Forget pack mule,” he breathed, “you make an even better pillow.”

“Hohhh, Sleet!” Dingo’s wagging tail thrummed against the floor. “That’s so sweet of you to say!”

When Torque’s boys arrived, a part of Sleet was a little disappointed they were uncharacteristically punctual, but soon his more rational side won out. If they hadn’t shown up, he might not have ever let go.

#sonic underground #sonic fanfiction #sleet sonic underground #dingo sonic underground #m/m fiction #furry writer #furry writing #furry fiction #writeblr #writers on tumblr #emotionally constipated wolf #sleengo #slingoposting

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dragongirlpoet · 16 days ago

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Dark Signs 4

Summary: Alucard races against time to get to Castlevania before Simon does. But the Belmont isn’t the enemy, or is he? Dark forces and shocking truths haunt the vampire prince as he searches for you. Will you and your beloved ever meet again? (Dual POV, Alucard + you, both happen simultaneously, off-canon)

Themes: Dark fantasy, gothic horror, MDNI I 11.5k words

Warnings: Death, blood, gore, violence, biblical references, mentions of suicide, self harm, anxiety, depression, SMUT

Notes & tags: To the lovely people who have and will read this little fic of mine, thank you. I adore Alucard & the Castlevania franchise dearly. I know some of you have been waiting, I hope this chapter makes up for it ❤️

@s-i-l-v-e @kawaiiskeletoneggsnerd @celly-fahrenheit @skychaser777 @sylum @cumsluut @cottoncandyclouds-stuff (tagging the usual, lemme know if I missed any, or if you wanna be tagged/removed)

Pt I I Pt II I Pt III

Alucard

The moon appeared wan.

It was a blanched yellow — sickly, like the face of a discarded corpse on the brink of necrose.

It would take more than a keen eye, a vampire perhaps, to discern my amongst the sleet of heavy snow. Though the brutal blizzard had slowed to an ebb, the punishing cold meant that only a creature such as I could prowl the forest — unarmed, unfeeling, unhuman.

My estoc tailed me as I stalked, silent as the air in a grave. No living soul made so bold as to appear even in slightest privy to The White Wolf. I could sense everything there was in the playground of my castle — nightshades straining to burgeon in the undergrowth, the miasmic decay of a fox carcass some 20 feet from where I was, and an arctic owl roosting in a cavity of a frozen willow.

That willow…I remember it. I knew it well.

Wallachia had been fast approaching its summer solstice. Daffodils, in full bloom, were lush at the pinnacle of their flourish. Their native toxins, otherwise grievous to mere mortals, stood all but benign to my love — “I alone am immune to these so called poisons. It’s a shame people see peril in place of beauty. I like them, they so very much remind me of your eyes.”

Her words to me were breathtaking, always. A placid warmth, quite like the clandestine ray of sun through a break in nature’s foliage. It falls on you, hushed and unassuming, irrevocably lovely.

“I can build you a fortress, by the ocean, away from the stir of Wallachia.” I said to her as we plodded through the woods, our muscles stiff from hunting elk all dawn.

I shadowed her footsteps, trailing the other half of my question after her. “Somewhere only we know. Where daffodils bloom evermore. Would you like that?”

“Hmm, let’s see. Far away from the towns…how then would I get to the markets? Church? The dress merchant?” she replied in mock distress, right hand twirling her steel dagger. The face of a wolf lay emblazoned on the cross-guard, mane extending to its hilt. It bore my likeness — I had it forged to resemble my shield.

“We are to tarry at the villages every Moon’s day. The folk anticipate it, you know that. Who else will bring them medicines and teach the children how to read?” She put me wise to our promise.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure the children quite miss their favourite magician.”

“I prefer alchemist, thank you very much.”

“Magician sounds much less frightening.” I smirked.

“Oh? And a pale, unearthly, hovering mortal with fangs is more hospitable?”

“I imagine my charm…elevates when I float.”

I’d always known I was funny.

Throwing her head back, she let out a deep chuckle, the veins on her neck made all the more palpable. Every throb of it seemed to cause my own to thrash against my ribs. I forced myself instead, to regard the satin flush on her cheeks as she laughed.

We were matched in wit and knowledge — a most gratifying repose — after having spent years engaged in senseless parley with a dimwit like Belmont. Sypha definitely has her work cut out for her.

Attempting to seek cover from the relentless sun, my beloved alas settled under a goat willow, its branches vast and leaves a sprawling golden green. I fixed my gaze on her in earnest, eager for a response to my yet unanswered question. Was she evading it?

Panic rising in my chest, I again pressed, “Anywhere you like, I’ll take you as I always do. What do you think?”

Avoiding my scrutiny, she sulked, “Who will I haggle my wares to?”

Thump, thump.

“Where did you…have you been pillaging the attic for dust-ridden jewels? Enlighten me, darling, the need for these..trifling travails, when you live in a castle?”

A jest, to mask my unease.

“It’s passes the time. It’s thrilling. I quite enjoy it.”

“Then I’ll take you.”

“But you know I can care for myself, Adrian.”

“But it’s not safe.”

“But I am skilled in combat. You taught m….”

“But it’s not enough.”

My discountenace came too swift, too reckless.

“I have a great many foes. Foes that span dimensions, foes that want you dead. I cannot allow it.”

The forest expanse plunged into an uncomfortable silence. Lakes seemed to still, leaves collapsed to a wither and blackbirds stifled their serenade. Her eyes were on me — forlorn, defeated — but it was my turn to refuse hers. I pondered, at that moment, if she could descry the truth behind my adamance, that my fear far extended beyond angels and demons.

I was eternal, yet I dreaded as any mortal man might — would she fall in love with another? A comely knight perhaps? She would have a life of her dreams, away from monsters, void of sin.

And I’d be forgotten, forsaken, a wandering ghost in search of redemption.

Shove.

It came out of nowhere. I was forcefully pinned against the coarse willow bark. I struggled to withdraw from my grim phantasy, focus alas narrowing to my bride, her face inches from mine.

She had a blade to my throat.

Disoriented and amused, a small laugh escaped before I managed, “What are you doing, darling?”

“Is this skilled enough for you, my Prince?”

“What…”

“You dropped your guard. A costly mistake. Now you’re at my mercy. Beg me to let you go, Alucard.”

“What did you call me?”

“That’s your name, is it not?”

The mischief in her glare was telling, a kind of insolence dared not a soul to wield — save for her. It was maddening.

“Alright. I’ll indulge your little…impudence. Please, don’t let me go.”

She stared, dark eyes gone soft, searching…as if she too, was sentient to my pain, my fears…as if she too, had broken into pieces. I watched as tears glazed her vision, and when the first drop of crystalline cascaded down her cheek, she held my face, velveteen fingers etching sacred salvation.

I was no son of God, but her touch was the safety of an answered prayer.

“My heart is yours, Adrian. I will go where you are. To the heavens and the depths of the oceans. I will go with you. If hell is where you’ll descend, my soul will find yours.”

Poetry, as always.

I eased into her love, kissing her, yearning her. It was a kismet tale of how the Sun surrendered his golden orbit for the Night. Only, she had heartened him to glow fearlessly — iridescent… free — so her stars could ascend in his divine light. Under the willow, the shadow dared dance with the sun, embracing like lovers do.

Under the willow, the Sun bowed down to the majesty of Night’s nocturne.

She pulled back by a fraction, wanting to break our kiss, but I’d leaned in, going where she took me, closing the space between.

“Adr…” she muffled, struggling to escape my insistent grasp. “Adrian. My love, I…” Kiss. “Can’t…” Kiss. “Breathe.”

Fine, I’ll let go.

Forehead to hers, I grinned like a lovesick fool.

“Does this now tame your tempestuous heart?” Her voice was all breathy.

“Not quite enough.”

In the distance, a euphony of sounds rang through the woods — a blackbird’s ballad — they had once again begun to sing. An aria so hauntingly beautiful it seemed all the forests’ carnate creatures ceased their fluster, stilled their very being, all but to exist in its orchestral grace.

I pulled my sweetheart in closer, guiding her hips to sway, reminiscent of nights where we would slow-dance in my Great Hall to a minstrel’s sonata.

Ever defiant, withal, my beloved had a penchant for testing me. Cool metal began skirting the base of my throat, this time falling past the scar on my chest, circling alas, above my heart.

She was tracing the wicked blade around my nipple.

Smirking in disbelief, I shook my head.

“What are you doing now? I was being romantic.”

“Playing with my food, since you begged to be prisoner.” She replied, words all coy.

The lilt of the blackbirds unfurled into a siren song.

“Did I?”

I let my voice drop to a dangerous rasp, black cape hovering over her. “What if you’re the captive, and I’m the one pulling your chains?”

Nothing good ever comes with taunting a vampire.

Mouth grazing her ear, I whispered, “Show me just how subservient you can be.”

She sucked in a breath before falling to her knees, those eyes like saintly sin peering into mine, gaze dripping with desire.

Cherry lips roaming my inner thighs, her hands worked effortlessly to unfasten the girdle holding my cape together — an extremely ill-suited attire for hunting, but she had implored me to don it, contending that it pleased her greatly. I had already begun to tense in my trousers, but she appeared to delight in tormenting me. Her fingers were strung through my waistband, caressing my abdomen, dallying…Did she want me to beg?

Prolonging my agony, she stuck her tongue out to trace the very prominent outline of my erection, making certain to soak every single spot of fabric with her saliva. Dhampirs could go for long periods without breathing, but in that moment, my chest rose and fell like tumultuous tides in a seething sea.

“Darling, darling, please…take me…” I pleaded, reaching down to pull out my length, catching her by surprise. I levelled it at the opening of her lips, too eager, too hungry, for her warmth. She pouted her dollface, dismayed I’d taken matters into my own hands. That only served to further rile me. Left with little choice, I tugged her bottom lip apart, urging her open, and as she did so, as she encased her mouth around me, I came apart, bright and free like the first light of daybreak.

Her own sounds of pleasure were blatantly suppressed. Her licks started tame, delicate, grazing my most sensitive spot. My most sensitive spot…fuck…she continued lapping at my pre-load, rubbing her thumbs at the base of my cock, yanking, slackening…repeating the motion…fuck…

My hair was tied up, loose curls draping my face — she’d harangued me for wearing it the same way always, so I’d let her experiment. Now, running my hands up the base of her hair, curling them into my fist…I was merely returning the favour. Tugging… pushing… trying… to be as gentle as I could. But my lust was brutal, and my hips jerked forward at an inhuman pace. “Harder darling, ahh…good girl…” How much could she take? It was my turn to experiment.

“Mmphf…” She shifted.

I halted at once. Was she hurt?

“Darling…did I…”

She glanced up at me, eyelashes black as a winter solstice’s night, shaking her head.

Wanting to prove once more she was undaunted by all the cares in the world, she pushed further in, swallowing more than half of me.

Immediately she choked, tears rimming her eyes.

‘My love, please…stop…ahhh…”

I can handle myself, her measured stare let me know she wanted to keep going.

I was utterly lost in the vespers of panic and arousal. Over and over again she engulfed my sex, head rising and dipping, astutely apprised of all the right ways to devastate me. I was so close, too close, to my approaching release, when…what??

She had pulled away, but her manner remained wanton. It would seem the forcible dhampir had once more fallen quarry to his damsel.

“My Prince, I beg. May I?”

Another moment, another blade with which to wager my life.

Still reeling from near orgasm, I stared at her in confusion, at the honed weapon bearing into my thigh — wherefore her fascination with sharp objects?

She stayed kneeling, waiting, as though for permission.

Permission…

Ah yes…

Consent…for a deed so dark, so depraved, surely the church she’d grown up in would burn her if they knew. Reason whispered caution, yet this was hardly the first time I’d allowed it.

“Just a little.”

I was the devil incarnate, afterall.

Thereupon, she slit my skin open. Blood river spilled out like the Holy Grail, overfilled and awaiting reverence. It trickled past my knees, and the mere sensation of it exalted me. My pants were pulled down to my ankles — I stood naked and vulnerable, cut wide, hers for the taking.

She could dig graves in my heart, pummell me with poison arrows, and I’d yield completely to her. Despite it all, she was the one devouring my lifesource in supplication. That tongue of hers…it did unholy work. Up and up the crimson trail she went, bestowing my skin with vulgar licks, snaking towards its provenance like a hunter claiming a well-earned reward.

I began trembling. My breath became one with the impregnable sea — climbing and crashing with every violent intake. I watched in intoxicated lust as she finally, finally latched her lips onto the place she’d cut me open, drinking my blood as if I were her God.

I spared little effort to hinder my moans, whimpering so deplorably one would have thought me smothered to death. The trills of the forest went quiescent once more, as if afeared to intrude on a vampire’s sacrilege.

All that was present was the raging throb of entwined hearts and tangled desire — though hers was more rapid, my own roared like the fury of a turbulent thunderstorm. They melded together like the perfect harmony of sky and ocean, boundless and omnipotent.

My beloved taking my blood was pure rapture. The gush of my essence weaved itself into every passage of her body, laying immortal claim to her being.

“...feels so good darling…” each gasp more strangulated than the former, “...don’t stop…please, please…uhghhh…”

Acknowledging my plea, she sucked harder on my blood, head positioned so decadently within my thighs. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been grinding my cock into her hands, and when she lay blood-stained nibbles all over my hard sex, I was wholly ruined. Sweat beaded through my pores as it did hers, amid my being vehemently aware of another wetness between her legs. Though not visible past clothing, I could feel her pleasure drenching her undergarment, arousal dripping so fervently I could well taste it on my tongue. I locked my fingers through her hair, the softness of it dissipating in my unbridled grip. I was so overcome by desire.

More and more she took from me, feasting as if she were made of the night, until I knew where I was no longer. The blood drinking…I felt my human slipping away, descending with it a darkness that threatened to alter my consciousness…

Thump, thump.

The sensation swelled to an uncontrollable need, awakening something in me, something unearthly, something malevolently monstrous.

“That’s enough.”

I said it before I couldn’t.

“But I want more,” she beseeched, pristine blood spilling from her lips as she spoke. They streamed down her chin, desiccating like wilted rose petals on her neck.

I watched her through half human eyes, begging for the aversion mortals so avoided like the plague.

“No.”

You should stay away from me. Stay away, before it’s too late.

“Then bite me, Adrian. Please. Let my blood be forever in your servitude. You never have to hide who you are with me.”

She had spoken true my heart’s darkest desire.

Shadows creeped into every muscle, every bone, every crevice of my soul. I remained unmoving, as if being still would somehow vanquish the vampire out of me.

Stay away.

An uncanny shift in my mouth started to take root. Freed alas from the cages of inhibition, my fangs began to distend — longer, sharper, deadlier. This was what she wanted, right?

My fingers, woven so intricately in her hair, started to descend heedlessly down her neck. I traced them about her veins, violet and turquoise like sublime shades of the ocean. She shuddered at my touch, tilting her head to offer more of her supple flesh. Blood hammered at her vessels, throbbing so intensely as though seeking to claw out of her skin.

I was the potence of a blood moon, the hunger of a starved wolf. So spellbound in her longing, I gripped the blades of her shoulders, mouth poised a breath beneath her neck. Against my lips her honeyed blood burned, sweet bride…my fangs ache for you…

I leaned in, nearer, closer, warmer, so warm…

Just a bite, mine forever…

Stop this now, Alucard.

“Mmphh…”

“Forgive me my love, but I cannot.”

The wound on my thigh was no more.

Face buried in her neck, I grappled for air, body convulsing wildly from trying to banish my bloodlust to hell. I was riddled with shame at how easily I’d succumbed to my immortal thirst. She could only hold me tighter, cradling me as if I were a child;

quell, quell,

the tempest,

that befell.

The both of us knelt in quiet embrace, unravelling in the graveness of what we’d done.

“I’m sorry, my love. I was too careless. I never should have asked. Adrian I…what’s wrong?”

A contusion the size of my palm, battered a punishing purple, marred the hollow of her neck. It ran all the way across her shoulder blade, pervading past her arm. Suppressing my appetite had cost me, cost her, — I had almost crushed her bones from the unhuman force of my grip.

I could see my own horror reflected in the blacks of her pupils. I had no memory of the deed — the idea that I’d been blind to my grotesque impulses rendered me numb. My angel did little to acknowledge her injury — was she as far gone as I was?

“My darling, I…I…”, voice cracking as I spoke. “I hurt you. I would never hurt you.” My eyes skimmed over her sickening bruise, her body, desperate to make certain I didn’t kill her. “I’m so sorry my love, I’m so sorry…forgive me…”.

She took my face in her hands, kissing my brows with a softness only she could provide. “You’re not to blame, my Adrian. I’m perfectly well, I do not feel a thing,” she reassured by prodding her livid skin.

At once she winced, albeit fleeting. “See? I’m not bluffing.”

She was bluffing.

I could feel the pain radiating off her body. It seared onto my own like scorching steel, spreading onto every nerve.

“My love, I implore you, do not coax me. Let’s return to the castle. There are salves and herbs and…”

“Adrian.” She steadied me. “I’ve had far worse. Lost a fight to the village children, if I’ll have you believe. Perhaps I should have given them more gruel and less stew.”

I managed an uneasy smile.

Our foreheads together once more, I cupped her angel face, savouring a love I was never granted.

“You have all consumed me, my love. You have made me…tender, whole, the most radiant kind of human. I adore you, wholly.”

Love letters to her, and I’ll write an eternity more.

“Promise you’ll never leave me.”

“I promise.”

The willow now resembled a sepulchre of forsaken souls. Their long-perished physical bodies coiled and dangling as if begging to be remembered, begging to be looked at one last time, begging to be more than ash and bone and clay.

A sudden gust of winter’s spell swept around me, throwing into the air ice particles…and her scent.

I whipped around, heart racing in my wolf body. I searched for it again, utterly frantic, but the draught came and went like evanescent embers. An inexplicable, chimeric vestige clung to her perfume. My breathing became labourious as I scrambled towards the castle, only to…only to…

The spell. It had shattered.

The acrid stench of rotting carcasses remained, as it had a near century ago, as if the curse of Castlevania had allowed decay to cling onto its foundations and drag any semblance of life into purgatory.

I wanted to drown in my own blood. The doors were flung open — did she wake? Was she taken? Why wasn’t I there to protect her?

As I stepped into our once home, I felt my lungs begin to crush in.

Lightless, funereal, shrouded with the sombre gloom of the blood moon…they threatened to pry my insides open. Everywhere I looked, they were all fragments of the same morose portrait — a former fortress reeking of blood, sin and death.

Darling…

I called out her name once, twice…countless times over. All that greeted me was the haunting affliction of my own voice. There was never a day I would not think of her. Ever and again, I would reach out for her hands, turn over in my bed, pour an extra glass of wine…I suppose I got too old for play pretend. She never came back.

My dhampir footsteps became sluggish. It became increasingly torturous to move past my old chambers — the room where I’d killed her loomed in the distance.

A loud ringing erupted in my ears, causing me to lose balance. I held onto the stone for support, breath coming up shorter each time. In the darkness, a pipe organ began to play. Who dared trespass into my home? The chapel she used to devote herself to the almighty, I went there one night after she died. That was the last time I ever heard one.

Malady of the mind, it seemed the being who composed the chorus did possess. Though not particularly gifted in the modus of musics, I was wholly aware of the clashing chords — its erratic rhythm struck another like songbirds thrown into disarray. It echoed through the castle, blanketing the manor in deranged melancholy.

Hark hear,

Ye whistle

Of a raven black.

Strange tales,

Stow in missal

Sion triumph wreck.

Might of olde,

Ye bairn behold!

Fields of gold,

Born of cold.

Of a raven black,

Ye whistle

Hark hear, hark hear.

Part of me was not of this world; I was made of flesh far more grim than ghosts and revenants. Yet the monstrous melody deeply unsettled me.

My vampiric senses could grasp the presence of naught, still the music ascended, rising into a rousing crescendo, louder, louder, louder.

“Who’s there?!” I bellowed, my sword drawn full.

The symphony stopped.

All that could be heard was the hysteric gasps of air I so struggled to take.

“Adrian…”

I went rigid.

“Mother…” I choked, tears running down my cheeks.

She was as real as the day I lost her — ethereal in ivory robes, beautiful, carved of silk. In her I saw myself, what it was to love, to protect, to be human.

With her arms outstretched, she beckoned for our embrace. I crumbled into her maternal love, feeling so terribly small, like a child again.

“Mother…I missed you, so very much…”

“I know my sweet boy, I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to watch over you,” she cooed, hand brushing my hair.

Home. She felt like home.

“Am I beyond salvation? I’ve…murdered…humans…I killed her…I know not what I do no longer…”

Centuries ago, I had deliberately flashed my fangs at one of my mother’s patients, scaring them. She did not chide me. In its absence she would often plant a kiss on my cheek and utter words of consolation, of warmth, as she did now.

“My Adrian…it is no easy feat, navigating life as a dhampir. You are your father’s son as much as you are mine. In you there is a light that burns like no other. It is there. I know it.”

My tears would not cease.

“I love you, Mother. I could not save you, forgive me…”

Gone with the wind, she faded into dust. The words I so wished to hear did not come.

“Son.”

Weeping and wide-eyed with horror, I froze once more.

No…no..this cannot be…

Hands, their claws sharp and blackened, braced my shoulders from behind.

“My boy…after all this time, are you still ashamed of me?”

I could not face him.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

I watched as Dracula’s hands coiled tighter around my chest. If it was affection, I could not tell.

“My son. Fear not of what you truly are. We are forged of dark gods…my power, it flows through you…a gift. Wield it how you wish, drink from who you wish, kill…”

“Stop.”

I was unable to hide the quiver in my voice.

Even in the endless dusk, I could make out my father’s shadow towering over me. If only I would move closer to his eminent presence, our shadows would fuse, I would be Dracula.

“Why won’t you look at me, son?

Look at me!”

Crimson crypts in place of eyes shot in front of me, forcing me to stumble backwards onto the oak wood floor. Dracula appeared how I had left him — tortured, grieving, staked through his heart.

I clambered backwards on all fours, feeling a fear as I’ve never felt before. Each step he took towards me seemed to drive the stake deeper, provoking the wound, splaying more and more blood onto his tunic, onto my face…

“Father…forgive me…”

The clamouring of voices began again, threatening to rip me apart. My father continued to reach for me.

Too much…too much.

“Ughh…”

A piercing silence followed at once.

Bent over, I stared at my own blood spilt on the oak.

My estoc was thrust into my chest. All I had to do was push the blade a little lower, just a little…and my heart, already broken, would shatter from the ashes once again.

I allowed myself to wallow in the pain, in the excruciating sting of metal through muscle, steel through bone. Just a little lower…

The scurrying of cells, so desperate to stitch me back together, they could not understand why I refused the lifeline.

And so I bled. I bled until I started to choke and wheeze and tremor. But I would not die.

Would I?

Slowly, powerlessly, I crawled with the strength of an emanciated human towards our bed chamber, leaving a trail of blood in my wake. The spot where I drank from her… I know not how I’d summoned the magic, I could not recall it, but I awoke to the vault where I’d buried her.

Cherry wine doused in sacred blood — her scent indulged all my senses at once. The ground…stained with her lifesource. Or mine? The threshold…her blood smeared. The coffin…open. It was open.

I staggered forward. Daffodil petals lay wilted in the empty divan, gathering in a compressed middle where her body used to lie. My heart went fatally taut.

For the first time in my unfathomable darkness, I could breathe easy, if only for a moment. There was that surreptitious ray of sun again…hushed and unassuming…

That scent again…what was it?

Alas my wounded mind wouldn’t leave me be — it clawed at every trench and trough, exhuming all that was sinister. You let her die again.

“Where are you? Where are you darling?” Tears rained from my eyes as I struggled to survey the vault. I could make no head or tail about its anomaly. How did she leave? Simon…

The spell had been infallible, foolproof even, when I’d cast it — all that was within Castlevania would be ensconced in a Veil of Oblivion. No thing, sire nor soul could enter nor leave, save for I, Alucard, blood-spawn of Dracula. The plan was simple. She would wake from her slumber, I would be her knight on a white horse, and we would live happily ever after.

I knelt over her lingering presence, mind imprisoned in a pit of trepidation. “I cannot lose you again…come back to me…you promised…you promised…”

A numbing ache shot up my arm. My sword, it had maimed me more than I’d liked. In one swift, reckless motion, I yanked it from my flesh, demon blood splattering on her casket. I clutched at the gaping wound, so morbidly aware of the pain, of her absence…of what I needed to do.

—

Ballad. My good horse, black as sorrow and gallant as sin, together we rode through the bleak winter solstice. Castlevania seemed a distant memory, yet it had been barely a day since I’d escaped that wretched grave. The sun didn’t rise. Trees lay barren and arched, their deformed silhouettes like pagans seeking deliverance from the blood moon. Ballad’s gait was slower than usual — I made no motion to rush her, she was, after all, no creature of the night, and her senses were stifled by the frigid fog.

Darkest night of the year, yet there were no stars in heaven’s oscillation. All that was within our parameters was the cardinal mist that hung like death. Nothing felt as it was supposed to — the air hovered curious, bitter, and we passed no living, faced no dead. Fitting, perhaps, for the resolve I was soon to execute.

Would I tell her? Would I tell her what I’d wagered to keep her safe?

The Veil of Oblivion, it was magic that drew from the damned. One so perilous, one so dark, one that only an execrated witch like Salome could manifest. She had pledged herself ardently to Dracula’s cause, everything that I’d been fighting against, but when risked losing the one you love, you’d turn despicable too, no?

“I’ve been expecting you, Alucard. What you ask…I could give you that and more…so much more. Oh, but what in return, dhampir?” She had reeked of suffering and plague.

“Take my blood. Use it for your spells, trinkets, whatever sorcery you deem fit. You could not have Dracula’s, but I am giving it freely. Its power is unmarked.”

“Tempting…but you take me for a fool, dhampir. I am Salome, most revered enchantress in all of the lands…” her cackle sounded like a cat being boiled alive, “…do better.”

“Name your price.”

The witch leaned in, her grey-translucent eyes glistening like a reptile who’d just ensnared prey.

“You feel too much, son of Dracula. Emotion, that which drives mortals to misery. But you cling on to it as though you’re not of Hell. Give it to me — your humanity.”

“Souls of a thousand damned. That I’d avow.”

“Your humanity, vampire.”

My stare remained unwavering.

“Know the weight of what you’re asking, witch. A fragment, nothing more.”

I could still recall the pain as she, in all her sinister glory, extracted that fragment. Years of joy and love and laughter, ripped untimely from my soul. I’d been a broken man after it; a messenger of Hell, a vessel of darkness, an overture of death.

And I was about to do it all over again. My sweet angel, I needed to know where she was. If it meant to lose everything, I’d do it. I’d do it all for her. I’d do it all for love.

“Halt!”

Ballad reared as I reeled her reigns in. She was none too pleased at the sudden command. Pleas for aid, for God, rang in my ears before I could catch sight of the chaos. But it was no ordinary bedlam. Up ahead lay Targoviste — where my mother was burned at the stake.

Fury and heartache settled heavy in my chest. A hundred years, I’d not seen the square. It only served to remind me of all the people I had loved and lost. I could turn away, set the course for my own path…what good was mercy if I were no longer human?

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph…

“...is for good men to do nothing.” Incandescent in gold, like the loveliest bride, my beloved spoke to me as if I were wreathed in a euphoric dream.

I nudged Ballad ready. “Steady now, girl, we’re riding into the fire.”

As the ravaged town came into view, the pungent fumes of flames, flesh and the unmistakable malodour of night creatures assaulted my nostrils. My dear horse took a sharp turn, gruffing, stomping her hooves as if to warn me. She was aware, just as I was, of the eldritch presence that dwelled beneath the earth — lurking, waiting, biding its time.

I hurled my sword through the cursed night, and, like a soldier of valour, it pummelled into the eyes and throats of the undead, tunneling its way into their foul bodies until they dropped dead like vermin on the ground.

Ballad continued charging forward with me on the reigns, trampling over debris, fallen martyrs and charred bodies. Hellish snarls and human squalls clashed like fire and water in a ceaseless night, dragging the entirety of Targoviste into a nether-bound inferno.

People were fighting tooth and nail with anything they could scavenge — rocks and spears, crosses and bibles — mothers hid their children while fathers sparred like heroes. Few were truimphant. In the midst of my rescue, I witnessed the fragility of mortals. But most of all, I remarked that, even when hope seemed to teeter on a string, those…humans…fought with all but clothes on their backs and faith in their hearts.

I grappled to hold on to that shred of ruth, willing it to stay. Do I remember? Compassion, joy, laughter…the emotion dwindled on and off, like a candle reaching the end of its kindle, gone…but not quite.

“Have you come to save us?”

In between blood and sweat, I glanced down at the child, a girl, obscured behind a crumbling well. She had tears in her eyes and gashes on her skin. I ripped my shield off a monster I’d killed, partially shaken by the sight of a helpless daughter of none.

“Where are your parents?” I didn’t want to know.

“A monster…a…ate… them…I’m scared.”

I lifted her into my arms. She wrapped her tiny hands around my shoulders, sobbing into them. Something welled in my chest — it was neither panic nor despair.

“Shh, it’s okay, you see my little horsie here? She’ll take you, and whoever we can find, to the… church, over there. Stay inside. I will keep you safe, I promise.”

—

In the rampage of ruins, the empty church was the only safehold. It had remained unscathed in the height of horror. Consecrated, then, enough to serve as temporary refuge. I turned back to glimpse at the shivering survivors within its walls, at the little girl, now huddled up to a stranger. She peered at me with bright eyes, as if to inspirit me. I threw her one last glance, and sped away on Ballad.

The battle seemed to stretch on for miles, with wails of terror being heard from beyond the square. The creatures — vile and uncontained, they came from every corner, every dark recess…I had not encountered an army such as this. There seemed little motivation for their attacks, unless…this was merely a distraction, a harbinger for the apocalypse that was to follow.

More charged at me. I rose on my horse, daring the beasts to come closer. “Ballad, now!” Well acquainted with my habits, she at once veered off course as I scattered into a cauldron of bats, revealing sharpened wooden stakes mounted onto stone walls behind me. Ambushed, the fiends that had been assailing us crashed into them, their bodies peforated with bleeding caverns.

“Into the church! Go! Hurry!” I yelled over the roaring flames. Most complied, others remained to fend off the monsters with me. The light in my heart continued to flicker.

Could I save them all?

A swarm of colossal hounds aimed for the people, and, with one hand brandishing my sword, I intercepted the attack, holding them off. With all my might, I propelled into the snarling beasts, cracks shooting up their limbs, before I vanished and re-emerged above them, slicing through their heads.

It would seem my efforts did little to thwart the heinous war. There were just too many.

“Help!”

I scanned frantically around for the source of the plea, and…crash!

I was sent flying into stone and debris, the sudden blow paralysing me. The winter stood unrelenting, but I had only felt the immense heat from a conflagration beside me, and a scythe wedged in my stomach. As I struggled to regain my vision, I could make out a mass of black running towards me…Ballad…

It happened too fast.

A wretched beast swooped in from behind, impaling my dear horse in her barrel. She continued riding. I ripped the sickle off me, dashing for her, when she whipped around and charged into the creature with all that she had. Rising behind my mare, I drove my sword into the monster, making sure to cleave out all its insides.

As if rest assured I was safe, Ballad collapsed onto the ground before me, grunting as blood gashed out of her body. “No…Ballad…stay with me girl, please…I need you…” tears streamed from my eyes as I watched her chest rise and fall, slowing each time, finally taking her last breath.

I knelt on the ground in anguish and defeat.

Around me the bloodshed continued, the shrieks of monsters and man booming into the infernal night like a death toll. It was as if I were trapped in a bad dream once again, enslaved by a pestilence from which I could not escape. I could only watch, powerless, as everyone around me perished to ashes.

Rage inciting my bloodlust, I tore into the creatures, draining their blood in all my immortal grandeur. “Show yourself you fucking coward!” I bellowed into the void, willing for the malevolent mastermind to dare manifest. “You send your worthless beasts, yet you cower in the shadows like a festering corpse…” I let out a long, unbridled laugh, mouth smeared with bloody fluids of night creatures.

My act of messiah had run its course. Every second that trickled by was time lost to find my angel. To hell with playing hero — the world can burn; amidst the fanning flames of doom and despair, I alone walk the charred earth with my betrothed.

I quickened my pace, half terrified of that resolve. Without her, without Sypha, without Trevor, becoming Dracula seemed near inevitable. If only Belmont were here…if only…

A rumble, a shockwave, then a crash.

“Ugh…”

A battered man lay on the ground a distance away, clutching at his ribs.

He seemed to have fallen from the sky.

Incensed I had yet to stage another rescue, I compelled myself to keep my course, but something shimmering in the corner of my eye stopped me in my tracks. I treaded to where the mysterious man tumbled, and as I got closer, the glint of metal, the heat of overt masculinity, and the blatant reek of a third class ingrate…

“What the fuck.”

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I slammed Simon Belmont into the pavement. The corner of his temple split into a stream of blood.

“Where is she? Where did you take her?!” I spat into his scarred face.

He seemed delirious, taking unusually long for someone of his caliber to register who I was. Utterly useless…wholly unworthy of the Belmont crest…

“Th…the…” A pathetic blabber was all he managed.

I gripped his throat and crushed harder on his windpipe.

“Speak you lunatic, or I’ll fucking murder you.”

Between our violent tussling, the air around us went eerily still. All that could be heard were the rabid breaths of old foes.

A sudden prickle shot up the nape of my neck, as though a vengeful spirit had hissed its hateful exhale. My blood ran cold. That presence…

The ground beneath us began to tremor. Buildings fell apart, trees were yanked from their roots and people perished into crevices. It quaked so forcefully the earth started to split open.

Somewhere in the abyssal cavern, from within the depths of hell, rose a towering creature not born of light.

“Son of Dracula…we meet again.”

I felt a rip in my conviction.

Behind me, Simon had launched into battle with night creatures, his metallic whip flailing around the horde, playing executioner of the damned. He had been yelling at me, but I couldn’t make out the words above the babel. He can die, that bastard.

“Heavy is thy heart, dhampir. Another favour you seek, I hear. Come, do tell your dear old friend what it is you so desire.”

“It was you. You did all of this.”

“I did. But I am no saviour. Sit on the fences of darkness and light, I do not.”

“Where is she!!”

“What would you wager this time?”

“You dare ask for a boon? We made an oath!!”

The fury in my voice turned frost into fire.

I hadn’t known it, but I later became aware I had been shaking, sharpened nails digging into my palms as blood fell like crimson tears onto white ice.

The witch cackled, the dark, weeping flesh that hung about her writhing as she did.

“You mar my name, vampire. My word is sacred, as the church is to deceivable humans, but you, Alucard, are callous… arrogant. You remain blind to truths that lay before you.”

I appeared behind the demon in a second, spearing my sword into her formless body before she could finish. She all but laughed louder, a hollow, rotting chasm materialising at the spot where I’d impaled her. The steel began to quaver and rattle, and no sooner expelled such a malevolent force I thought I’d felt my bones shatter and my blood roil. Into the hard earth I plummetted, close to losing consciousness.

Wails, bloodshed, fire…they encircled me like vicious vultures at a distance, sights and sounds drowned out as though I was thrown into a vacuous orbit.

Breathe, Adrian…

Pallid silhouettes dangled before my pained vision. It had started to snow once more. Amidst the baleful umbra, a sliver of light lay lambent in the sky. Beneath the gentle fall of snow, fates soul-bound like stars aglow…

Everything slowed. The light remained my sole existence. Brighter and brighter it shone, blinding, beckoning…

“Is this, what you’re searching for?”

High up in the clouds, in the clutches of the demon, hung the star.

My star. I saw her.

I saw only her.

—

You

More…I want more…

And so I drank.

My first human, a lowlife swine I had chanced upon maltreating children, and the gall he had to do it in front of the church. Foundlings, they must have been, for the little boys and girls seemed dressed in nothing but rags, pleading for their beating to stop. A boy, oldest I reckon, with the courage of a steed, stepped out and shoved the man. He received twenty lashings as punishment. I had been watching in the shadows, and I could scarce bear it no longer.

I had been the victim of violence at the hands of my father. My mother had passed, and I had not known comfort and joy till the church took me in. In the midst of burnt leather against skin and cries against taunts, I emerged, sudden as a wild tempest. With all the immortal might and hunger Adrian had bestowed upon me, I dragged the vermin scum to the banks of the Dâmboviƫa river, where I now lay hunched over his expired corpse, draining every last drop of his foul blood.

I was one with the blood coursing through my veins, infiltrating any and all alcoves in my body. My virgin thirst — it was an awakening…a torture, a rapture. I began to shiver from the unfamiliar assault, yet relish in its hypnosis. My fangs remained impaled in the human’s neck, his flesh and bones shrivelled beneath me like parched wax, utterly succumbed to his due judgment.

If Adrian were here, he would have told me to pay heed. I could not stop drinking, and I could not stop shaking. It felt as if I had been submerged in a vast ocean, I’d been flailing my arms and legs to ascend the flood, screaming for mercy only for grey waters to surge like torrents into my lungs.

I think I was going to die.

Adrian, where are you…

His name could have been a call for the heavens, for I alas released the dead man, collapsing onto the glacial river bank. My heart, if I even had one, thundered unbearably loud. I could feel the ventricles around it contract, crushing my organ as though to rid me of the blood affliction.

Was this, then, my judgment? For taking yet another life, for wanting the blood curse, for loving a dhampir? “Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”

Though the river had been frozen over, the ripple of life teeming under the ice continued to echo in my ears. I felt like dying, yet my senses were undividedly sentient to all that was alive. I lay under the stygian night, staring through tear-soaked eyes at the pale moon, making out the strange shadows that it beheld. Adrian had kept journals detailing the movement of celestial objects — “you my love, shine brighter than any star.”

But there were no stars that night.

My mind unwittingly wandered to the first encounter I had as a vampire.

I’d been walking for miles, for weeks…months, perhaps? Freezing, weak, so hungry. I had retched more times than I could remember, body entirely hostile to my diet of animal blood. Through forests and ravines I treaded, barefooted, with nothing but my sword and dagger. No bearing nor plan braced me, save for the undying hope that I’d find Adrian.

By God’s good grace, I stumbled upon a village, but there stood only a handful of folks peddling commodities in the crux of winter. “What…what is the year of our…our lord?” my voice had strained against the cold as I uttered my first words since I’d awoken. It felt strange, as if all the years of sleeping had erased any memory of tongue. An old man, selling bread by the street, face worn away by time and hardship, shrank back as I approached. He clutched at a cross he wore around his neck.

“...By the power of God, I…I… command, command thee to disappear!”

What?

“Good sir, I need only know the year…”

The old man backed away into a wall, trembling, as if he’d just witnessed his reckoning.

“Take…take whatever you want, just please, please, spare me. I have a daughter…I beg of you…”

I stared at his face, then at the protruding veins on his neck, baffled by his reaction. Surely a woman such as I was hardly a threat…

“...my, my lady, here,” he gestured frantically to the bread on his cart. “Take them all, you look hungry…”

All manner of couth notwithstanding, I, with the eagerness of a starved peasant, shoved the loaves of bread into my mouth. Blood of dead animals — that was all the sustenance I had to keep me from dying, and bread appeared as a feast.

With wild terror in his eyes, the old man managed, “...the year is 1576, my lady,” and he fled.

My legs gave way. A century…I’d doomed Adrian to live in infamy over what I’d done.

And then I vomited. Again.

Lying by the river, that moment had seemed so long ago. I blinked, the tears on my face frozen stiff, like anguish that was here to stay.

Perhaps I ought to have remained in the castle until Adrian returned…would he return? An unwelcome, disquieting thought overcame me — what if, in all the years of waiting, he’d finally allowed himself to move on? To love another? And all of the pain, suffering, all of this, would have been in vain. I had longed to be as he was, to love him whole and true, and now that I was turned, I felt more alone than ever.

My heart once more burned with an unbearable ache. I had never loathed myself more than I had in that moment, for I had dealt an irreversible hand to Adrian. Reckless, selfish, impudent…and he was the one who had to pay for it.

—

My vampire prince stood waiting, arms tucked behind his back. He wore his golden hair as he always had — dreamlike, falling past his shoulders like gilded armour. Sunlight poured in, diffused, through the tall windows, the Great Hall’s stained-glass scattering its rays into a prismatic Arcadia.

Adrian kept his eyes on me as I descended the curved staircase. I let my hands glide down the silkened marble, studying not its noble facets, but his handsome face. Music from a harp echoed carelessly in the background.

“You are a sight to behold.” Adrian smiled as he took my hand in his. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

“Always.”

Adrian was born of the throne. There was a quiet power to his movement, his presence commanding soft surrender to all that he graced. My prince led me into a gradual step, sweeping the gold-trimmed tiles as though we were flowers adrift on Spring’s warm billow.

There were no masks and no pretending, just the sanctity of the moment, of star-crossed lovers, of when two souls could just…be.

I lay my head on his chest, his heartbeat a gentle melody. My eyes followed the shadows our bodies cast on the floor, against the soft glow of the waning sun.

He pressed his lips to the crown of my head, kissing me, whispering deep secrets he’d hidden in his heart. “I want us to stay like this forever. Just you and I. All my scars that I carry, your love disburdens. Let me love you as you have me, darling. We’ll soar as birds do, unafraid, free.”

The sky above us turned overcast.

A sudden flash of lightning tore through the now darkened skies, our shadows splitting into volatile fragments. The Great Hall began to tremor, dislodging the ceiling vaults. They hung precariously above us, pendulating to the call of the wind.

“Adrian…what’s happening?”

“Focus on me. Don’t be afraid.”

He drew me in closer, enveloping me in his arms. My eyes welled up. Death didn’t frighten me. No, losing Adrian, that was my greatest fear. I love him. The sky and earth could rip us apart, and I’ll love him with my last breath.

“I love you.” I whispered through tears.

All around us, debris fell like snow, gathering in a circle along our velvet robes. Perhaps in a thousand years, noblemen would rediscover our abode, and they would tell the story of a vampire and his bride, so in ardour, so together, unflinching even, in the face of death.

We carried on dancing to the haunting tune of the harp, ignorant of the destruction. The ground below bellowed, forming cracks like serpents snaking their way through tiles. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Keep dancing, my darling.”

And so we did. The ceiling came crashing down, dragging with it pillars and vaults. Adrian held on tighter to me. “Adrian…I…”

One last rumble, and the stained-glass windows erupted into shards of glass, the shattering so loud I began to whimper. The iridescence was no more, just dust and stone and lovers tangled in a crumbling castle.

“Keep dancing, my darling…”

—

A nightmare…not so different from the one I was living, then. Waking up from a slumber I did not wish to have, I gasped for air, my exhale coming out as smoke against the night sky. How long had the sun not risen? I rolled over in an attempt to heave myself off the icebound gravel…only to collide into the scum corpse, his waxen, ghost-like eyes fixated on me.

Panting, I pushed away, but I couldn’t move my arms. They had been frozen — melded, into the earth. Could the undead still feel pain? I was soon to find out. I held my breath, and yanked.

Nothing.

I pulled again, and again, and…crack. A profound pain disoriented me. My flesh was ripped raw from my bone, parts of skin still adhered to ice. Threads of tendon or tissue or I could not recall what Adrian had taught me, hung like soaked spiderwebs from what was left of my arms.

“Fuck!!” I yelled into the dusk before I gave it one last pull, severing my flesh entirely. It was macabre and terrifying. I began sobbing from the pain, watching as blood poured into the frost like crimson rain.

I stumbled against a tree, staring at my mutilated limbs. From deep within a clearing, an all too familiar snarl arose. Not now, not now…

My cadaver-like hands reached for my sword. They would not grip. The steel slipped through my frictionless and bloody hands, each time landing on the frozen grassbed with a loud clang.

In a rapid flash, the night creature lurched at me from the thick of the trees, knocking me onto my back. It pinned me down with its many arms, or legs, foul fluid from its mouth leaking onto my face as I wrestled to gain dominance.

Being a vampire had indeed amplified my strength, had it not been for my half-functioning limbs, and the torrents of blood I’d ruminated, I would have torn through its heart. Spired-like teeth closing in on me, I sent a kick into the creature’s eye, buying me mere seconds to ponder my next move.

I rolled out from under the thing, and raced towards my only form of defence. The growl of the beast trailed me. I ran, and it followed. I ran, and it followed. My laboured breaths were the only thing ringing in my ears, and before I could offer a silent prayer to God, I was dragged and swung violently into a large stump.

The moving hound loomed over my motionless body, ready to eat its fill. I closed my eyes. I let its monstrous weight crush my body, let its rancid breath revolt me, let its spindly legs impale my chest…before I let it writhe with my sword lodged in its head.

Vampires regenerate. Albeit in fleeting moments of death. My arms had completely healed — they were whole and new, pale, feline, everything…everything that ached to hold Adrian one more time.

On that cold bitter night, nightmares were perennial. The monster that I’d killed, it was just the first of many, innumerable more to come. And like grim tribulation, they did come. I was lithe and shrewd with a sword. I moved quickly, bit off, even, pieces of their hellbound flesh, but it was a battle I could not win alone.

Bloodied, weakened and starving for nourishment, the ring of night creatures appeared to me as murky, indistinct orbs.

Death did not frighten me.

A sudden heat…was that fire? In a single blow, the creatures — near half of them, exploded into balls of flame. I had collapsed at that point, I wasn’t certain if I’d make the next sunrise. The fighting went on, and that…man…my legendary saviour…

He had a chain around my neck.

“You…” he spewed, beads of sweat dripping off his scarred shoulders. He had on the Belmont crest.

“Your Alucard is a madman, and you will be the one to stop his genocide. You’re going to do as I say, and you can finally reunite with your villain vampire, after which I’ll flay both your skins off your bones.”

A wild succour settled in my heart. Adrian is alive.

“Wh…where’s Alucard?”

“You’re going to help me find him.” The Belmont paused, scrutinising my face. “My grandparents showed me portraits of you, you know. Of your cursed dhampir. Spoke of you two as though you were a gift to the family…when really they should’ve long sealed you both in coffins.”

I stifled a cry. I never got the chance to say goodbye to Trevor and Sypha.

“Belmont…I…”

“Do not speak as if we are acquainted. I am Simon Belmont, not my grandfather. And we leave, now.”

At that, he hauled me up by my neck, as if I were an animal that needed to be caged. Into the night he led me, yanking his chain when I slowed. All way, I had been shivering in my white dress. It was stained with blood and grime, its sweeping train sodden with melting ice and remnants of night creatures. I craved warmth, rest, blood…but he didn’t need to know. A gentleman would offer his coat, at the very least, but Simon was filled with spite and loathing. I knew not why.

“Can you believe it?” He scoffed, directing his question forward, as if I did not exist. “I found you before your darling did. Oh to have Alucard begging at my feet…”

Adrian was looking for me. That was all that mattered. I didn’t need to put the pieces together. I just needed to find him.

“Why do you resent Alucard so? The Belmonts are family to him, to us. And I know…” I coughed, Simon’s metal chain boring into my neck. “...I know, having you like this, it breaks his heart.”

Simon stopped walking. He turned back, his face livid with rage. “Vampires do not have hearts.”

Beyond our trail, my senses discerned smoke and faint shrills of help. We were approaching a town. “Simon. There’s trouble in…”

A third voice broke our conversation. It was neither human nor vampire.

“The Belmont…and the dhampir’s bride…” the woman cackled, her reptile-like eyes flitting between Simon and I.

The odour of dark magic hung onto her like a sickness.

Simon stepped in between the intruder and me, hand gripping his Combat Cross. “I do not extend compassion to witches like you. Say what you want and be on your way.”

“Oh good hunter, I need only a moment, I promise. I am Salome, enchantress of the lands.”

The witch then turned to me. She scrunched her bark-like nose and began sniffing the air, thereafter breaking into a slow, languid, smile.

Something inside me whirled.

“I have waited so, so long…and there you are.” Her eyes dropped to my dress. “So precious…oh…” Long fingers — leathery and skeletal — reached out to caress the air around me. A chill ran down my spine. I wanted to leave.

I unsheathed my sword at once, and saw that Simon had his whip already furled in his hand.

“Why the hostility, my fair maiden? I can take you to your dhampir, your Adrian.”

If she had only said it to rattle me, then it was an act accomplished. My breathing became uneven, steel quivering in my hand.

“Your time is up, enchantress. Leave. I won’t ask again.” But Simon was a man of endeavours, and words meant little to him. He was not about to lose his quarry.

His Morningstar had struck Salome’s arm, branding a hole in her roughened skin. In a manner that aghast me, her body dispersed into a tenebrous vapour, rising into the air, casting a malefic shadow over barren canopies.

Higher and higher she rose, entrails emerging from its smog, alas culminating into an entity bereft of shape and shame.

“Release me, Belmont!”

He didn’t need to.

My chains were sundered. By blackened vines. Vines that were wound about Simon’s body, threatening to pulverise the proverbial Son of Belmont. He threshed against them, whip flying mercilessly, but Salome had the wrath of a demon scorned.

With the last of my resolve, I struck the formless witch over and over again, my consciousness waning with each thrust of the blade. I thought I had exchanged a glance with Simon, before he was hurled into the distance and vanished from view. Belmonts always survive, I think.

I began to suffocate in the tendrils of the witch.

“Take me…take me to Adrian…” I murmured, voice barely audible.

“Will you die for your prince?”

“Yes.”

The world around me began to spin. I was adrift on nothing, journeying through fire and penance. Where was Salome taking me? In a half-sleep, I felt the half-swelter of flames, sensed the half-quell of snow.

I heard voices, and the witch spoke.

“Is this, what you’re searching for?”

I was among the clouds, suspended so high in the depravity of her claws, and in a supine position, I could only turn my head.

…It was like seeing him for the first time.

My vampire.

“Adrian…”

I love you. I’m sorry, I am so sorry… all the words, all the pain, it was not enough. I was engulfed by the seas; sinking, never to see the light of day. Seeing him there, it was me ascending the flood, rising for air at long last.

Adrian was my beginning and my end.

Our souls met first, I think, colliding into each other, entwined, mourning our time lost. I could not reach him, but in a place that transcended passages of time, I was already in Adrian’s arms — safe, never to part.

He fell to his knees, weeping, the guilt he’d carried for a century crashing down along with it. “My love…my love…” I heard him say my name, too many times, as if he could not believe I was whole and breathing. “Is it really you?” he sobbed, choking on his contrition.

It broke my heart. Seeing Adrian so…defeated, a shell of his former light…I wished to take on his grief as my own and drown in the absolution of what I’d done. What had a century done to him? How much had he to suffer? He was paler than I remembered, and the bones about his face stuck prominent in places it shouldn’t be.

Despite it, his eyes remained that of God’s gold, his face gifted still, of Heaven’s token. But there were shadows that clung to him that whispered of terrible, terrible things.

“A reunion…how wonderful…” Salome mocked.

“I will feed your ashes to the wolves before you can touch her again.” Adrian wore a gallant mien, but I knew better. He had never been more afraid.

“How does it feel? To possess such…power? Power that you were born with, power that I had to sacrifice everything for! You wield it so carelessly, you are not deserving of it, son of Dracula.”

“Let her go!!”

“You are but a fool, Alucard. The bishop warned you, didn’t he? One that you took for drivel…I care not for you, nor your bride. Not the bloody Belmont always in my sight…”

My gaze shifted inadvertently to Simon flanked by night creatures. He made it.

“Ugh…” I flinched as the witch tightened her coils around me. Adrian rose to his feet, his sword ready for slaughter.

“No…what I want…” Salome, with deliberate slowness, extended a decomposing finger towards me. I struggled in her shackles — she was going to take my heart.

“...is here.”

She had her hands on my womb.

My body frosted over. I couldn’t breathe.

How was this possible?

The witch discharged a ravenous laugh and turned towards Adrian.

“Your child. Your flesh. Your blood.”

He clutched at his sword, knuckles gone white from the force, half-trembling in disbelief and shock.

“Its power is…unfathomable. Those born of Hell…they crave it. Why do you think the bishop wanted to burn her? So you’ll forgive me if I devour Dracula’s revered bloodline. After which you can have the corpse of your beloved.”

Adrian snapped. There was a tenor to him I had not recognised before. Disappearing into the snowfall, he emerged once more in the height of Salome, and, with a wave of his cape, expelled the fury of fireballs that tore into her. Tendrils of darkness emanated from where she took the blow.

My dhampir was relentless with his Hellfire. That rage, I’d seen something close to it when pagans attempted to revive Dracula. And those eyes… the whites of them gone dark, void of humanity…

With his shield as fortified armour, he slammed it into Salome with a force that could split the heavens. I was weakened, not bested. I could help…and then a thought came to me. She wanted the blood potence of our child? I was going to kill her with it.

A strange hum coursed through me as my fangs sliced through her entrails. The sensation was overwhelming; whatever that was racing in my veins threatened to blow the arteries out of my skin. I didn’t let go.

The wicked witch contorted in rage. “You bitch. What did you do?!” And, with all her vengeance directed at me, sent a sharpened talon into my throat.

I watched as Adrian went pale with fear.

Blood gushed out of my wound, of my mouth...I began to choke on it. The pain…I could succumb to the torture and end the strife…but our child, our beacon of light…I will keep you safe.

Adrian went manic. His rage was boundless — so potent that the night sky had erupted into a macabre shade of red at his wrath.

Summoning his sword, he pierced it into the witch’s formless face, driving it in over and over until parts of her began to decay, melting like molten ash into the earth.

“Do not touch her!!”

The neverending pursuit of power…when will it cease? Under snow that crumbled like exhumed remains of the dead, we were all just pawns of Hades waltzing to the dance of death.

“The tragic prince. So powerful, so damned…everything that you ever loved will be taken away from you.”

A piercing crack of the whip silenced the witch. In a lachrymose state I watched as Simon’s Morningstar split a part of her form. She continued to disintegrate.

I continued to asphyxiate.

“Give me your bride, and we can end this. Refuse me, and all of Targoviste will burn to the ground. Your beloved or your people. Choose, Alucard.”

Lightning struck the sky crimson and boding. Adrian scarcely seemed human. A bloody hearth surrounded him, and his sword emanated the fury of a cursed God.

“You will never touch her again.”

And with his parting words to the witch, he pummelled his exalted estoc into her core. The earth trembled under the weight of her destruction. I was released at last, but the aftermath of her implosion pelted me so far backwards I lost sight of Adrian. I was falling, falling into darkness, into nothingness, so akin to the night Adrian had turned me.

Under that cold winter sky, I was the star that had fizzled out. Further and further I descended from Heaven’s grasp, snow light on my skin, sorrow heavy in my heart. Such a cruel thing; love.

It binds then banishes, as though we were made to ever only yearn, never to own.

My love…

I heard Adrian’s voice.

Amidst the infernal tempest, I saw the face of an angel. He was soaring through the ruination, towards me. But there was an oddness to the way he moved, as though part of what I remembered him to be was fading away. A moment of clarity had me privy to his wounds — he was greviously maimed, splotches of blood stained his torso and…his leg…there were bones where there should have been flesh.

I reached for him. His eyes met mine; in them I caught a glimpse of our little family, bound by forever. In all the years, I could almost hold him. I need only hold him…

Adrian flung his arms out, a shiny fragment of something suspended in the air around me. Another hovered beneath Simon, who was crouched in the belly of the beast. In that same consequence, my sweet prince was thrown towards the crumbling abyss of Salome, the last of her devouring all that she could seize.

No, no…

I willed myself to fly, to wield gravity, anything, so I could lift Adrian away from the grasps of death. But I could only fall, through frost, tears and blood. I had to watch, to merely do nothing but watch, as the gold in his eyes dimmed out into the sweeping storm of blackness.

“I love you.”

I held on to his words, before I was pulled into a vacuum.

—

There were things, prickling my skin. There was a quietness, a lull. There was the sun, scorching such warmth. I was sprawled on my back, bones gnawing with every movement. Where was I? I forced my eyes open.

The portal that I had fallen through, no remnants of it were left behind. Adrian was gone.

What lay beyond me were endless fields of gold. Rows and rows of Daffodils, in full bloom, stood swaying in the brisk summer air.

I could hear the crashing waves of oceans.

And in the middle of it all, forged in all its majesty, awaited a castle.

Adrian had kept his promise.

Pt I I Pt II I Pt III

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