Ironically, in spite of taking a 300 year long slumber once before, sleep was not a luxury Alucard often afforded to himself, yet living in the company of Maria had forced him to adapt. Often, he would drift into a light and dreamless sleep, but as he lay upon his bed and consciousness left him tonight was not to be such a night. Within moments he was lost to the grasp of the realm of dreams and drifting deeper with every passing moment, every gentle rise and fall of his chest. The room around him melted away into nothing as he slept, to be replaced in his dreams with an all-too-familiar scene.
As he became more aware of himself and where he was, the Dhampir was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. Of all the places he could find himself, why did it have to be Targoviste? He hadn't felt as overcome with this particular sense of anxiety since a similar incident had occurred as he stormed his father's castle once more with the intent to bring the entire structure down.
The streets were dark and the embers of a bonfire were rising, as if to paint the blackened sky with flecks of blood, foreshadowing both the impending fate of the one bound to the pyre and that of the city itself.
Had fate given him a second chance? A means with which he may set right the wrongs of the past? Alucard mused to himself as he broke into a run with a burst of inhuman speed and shot off like a bullet in the direction one person who he had, in his own eyes, failed most. Racing through the darkened city streets with purpose, he was greeted by an image that had quite literally been burned into his memory, exactly as it was before.
What appeared to be the entire population of Targoviste assembled outside the church and stood before them, bound to a cross with kindling piled high beneath her, was Lisa. His heart sank at the sight of his mother, but as the pyre was to be lit, his anxiety changed to determination and desperation.
He would save his mother's life this time, maybe then his father would not be forced to tread down the dark path he did and Wallachia would not be drowned in a tide of blood as it had been when he failed the first time. He prepared to move in an instant with his dark powers, yet when he attempted to leap forward, through the seemingly endless sea of spectators, his legs would not move no matter how much he willed it. Panic spread throughout the Dhampir's body as his eyes locked with his mother's.
He desperately wanted to scream out to her, to call out with the intent that he might still be able to prevent the chain of events that would unfold from this one tragedy and yet his voice would not come out. Physically and vocally paralysed, Alucard could only watch. His mother's last words were too far away for him to hear when they were lost in the zealous fervour of the mob assembled in front of him, but as the pyre was lit and the scent of burning flesh filled the air, the dying screams of his mother were all he could hear, ringing though his head as clear as a bell.
Maria had not intended to make a habit of checking upon Alucard as he slept, but she was roused very quickly from her own repose by loud groaning coming from the Dhampir's room, gently pushing open the door with an audible creak of the wood, Maria entered. His room was small and sparsely furnished. A simple nightstand next to his bed, a chair in the corner, a simple wardrobe which contained what little he had in the way of clothing and personal effects and an open window through which the soft light of the moon entered with a gentle glow, but out of place, on the simple bed, lay Alucard, who looked to be in a great deal of distress, moaning and thrashing about as he slept.
With a sense of apprehension, Maria gently approached him to hopefully rouse him, though she didn't want to startle him and reached over to the chair in the corner so as to sit next to the Dhampir and more closely observe him. Almost as if on-cue, when Maria went to sit by Alucard's bedside, he sprung awake with a loud scream, startling Maria such that she did not sit in her chair so much as fall into it. Though he was awake, Alucard was not yet aware that Maria was in the room with him, before he sensed the rapid beating of Maria's heart next to him. It was significantly faster than he was both accustomed to and comfortable with.
Maria had managed to steady herself in the chair and attempted to compose herself before looking up as Alucard didn't so much turn to face her as he did whip around in her direction. The more she looked at him, the more distressed he appeared. He had broken out in a cold sweat which clung to his body through his nightclothes, and his lustrous white hair was dishevelled from all of his tossing and turning, yet even now, she could not tear her gaze from him. He was otherworldly, certainly, but undeniably beautiful, with youthful features that betrayed his true age yet made him look as if he were only barely older than she was.
Maria found herself unable to deny that she felt a definite physical attraction to the Dhampir, who seemed to glisten in the pale moonlight. Becoming conscious of how she looked at him, Maria snapped back to reality and raised her head to meet the eyes of Alucard so as to avoid staring too long at him. He made unflinching eye contact with Maria, his characteristic gaze was as always, focused, somewhat guarded and a little distant, for often he had much on his mind and this much the young Vampire Huntress had grown accustomed to, that was simply part of what made him who he was to her, but there was something there that she wasn't quite sure she recognised. Maria was certain she might have been seeing things, but for a moment there was another emotion captured in Alucard's eyes, something that she sworn resembled a cornered animal, something vulnerable.
"Maria." Alucard began, breaking the silence between the two. "What brings you to my bedroom at this hour?" his tone might have been drier than he had intended, but his words themselves were shaky, his breath was heavy and laboured and his body trembled.
"Well uh… I couldn't really sleep." Maria replied, as she leaned closer to him. It was a half-truth at least. "And you were making a lot of noise. I got worried."
"…I see."
"Are you alright?" Maria asked, though it felt silly to do so, she could tell he very clearly wasn't just by looking at him. As she shifted uncomfortably in the chair, Alucard cleared his throat and attempted to steady his breathing.
"I am fine. There is no need for concern." He replied, but a twinge of guilt stirred him. Recently he had vowed to himself to try and be more open with Maria, for as much as he had tried to deny it, as much as he had initially tried to push her away, her presence gave him comfort, her company was somewhat welcome and made the strain of his entire existence a little more bearable, and sometimes, when he looked upon her, he felt an unfamiliar emotion stir within him, but now was not the time for uncertainty. It was a time for honesty.
"Forgive me, Maria, that was not entirely truthful of me. I did not mean to keep it from you, but I wish not to cause you unnecessary anxiety." He gestured towards where, only a few weeks ago, she had been dealt a particularly nasty wound by the foul Incubus, Magnus and he had almost lost himself if not for Maria and Richter's timely intervention.
"It'd worry me more if you didn't tell me something was bothering you."
"…I suppose."
"Alucard. I'm fine, honestly I am, besides, I've been fighting against Vampires since I was a little girl, I'm much tougher than I look." Maria laughed, and playfully tapped Alucard's arm.
"Mm." Alucard nodded and attempted to force what may have resembled a smile before letting out a sigh. "I had a dream. For perhaps the first time since I awoke."
"A nightmare?" She inquired, surprised. Maria had known that he had seen some horrific sights in his time but she hadn't known him to dream. Alucard swallowed hard.
"…Yes. Of a sort." The hybrid began. "It was less of a dream and more of a memory."
Alucard shifted over to the other side of his bed and gestured for Maria to join him. Even though he had picked the chair himself at Maria's insistence when she had taken him to the marketplace, he knew it was not especially comfortable and he expected that the pair of them would be talking for a good length of time, so Maria may as well be something resembling comfortable.
"It's best you recline here, Maria, this may take some time." Alucard stated, as he attempted to get comfortable himself.
"Oh… um…" Maria stammered. Of all the things that could have happened tonight she hadn't expected Alucard to ask her to climb into bed with him. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and stood up from the chair and lay upon the bed. The spot where, moments before, Alucard lay, was surprisingly still cold. Though, Alucard's skin had always been cool to the touch for as long as Maria had known him. She wondered if he, himself felt the cold before deciding that may have been the reason he always dressed in heavy cloaks and the like. Alucard's sigh as he prepared himself to recount perhaps his most harrowing memory broke Maria from her train of thought.
"My memory was… of Targoviste, in the year 1475." Alucard began. His gaze squared at the wardrobe directly ahead of him. Maria watched him intently. "It was without a doubt the catalyst that truly set all of this in motion. My mother…" Alucard exhaled through his teeth and his brow furrowed. There was not a way to tell this story without causing himself distress, but Maria deserved the truth, she had lived with him for quite some time now, and after the incident with Magnus, he owed her at the very least this much. "My mother… was a remarkable woman. A woman of science, with the dream of becoming a great doctor. Her desire was to leave the world a brighter place than when she entered it. But her tools of science, her medicines and her various medical tools were mistaken for objects of witchcraft."
"…I'm sorry to hear that, Alucard." Maria whispered, quietly. It had struck her a bit harder than she expected, but as Alucard glanced over to her to make sure she was ready to continue, she nodded.
"The bishop seized her, branded her a witch and sentenced her to the same sentence all witches receive. My Father, he had been on a journey, walking the world as a man at my mother's behest. He wasn't there to stop it." Alucard grit his teeth. "And neither was I. She was raised high upon a cross, which was to become her funeral pyre. I had arrived at the scene before she met her fate and attempted to make my way through the bloodthirsty mob to make it to her. But she dissuaded me. Even then, in that moment, in spite of everything, her compassion for her fellow human beings led her to accept her fate. Her last words were to my father, begging him not to hate humans for this. If he could not live with them, she wished at the very least, for him to do them no harm."
"…She sounds like she was a truly amazing woman." Maria confessed, as Alucard's expression shifted. He sighed aloud and bit his lip. She knew this couldn't be easy for him, but she felt as though perhaps she may have understood him somewhat better than she did before.
"She was, but that didn't matter to the people of Targoviste. To them, she was but another witch, fit only to be burned. My mother was innocent, truly innocent and yet…" Alucard's voice became hoarse and as Maria observed him, his body language made it more than apparent that he was hurting. The shaking from earlier had not subsided as he spoke, and with each passing word that left the hybrid's lips, it seemed as if his trembling worsened. Maria couldn't tell yet whether the cause was sadness, fear or rage, only that he was struggling hard to recount his memory to her. "My father had arrived back from his travels far too late to stop the execution, and I myself was unable to act promptly enough to stop her from being taken in the first place. It was this one, dark day that set everything in motion, solidified my father's hatred for humanity and caused him to tread down the path of a tyrant."
Alucard paused, for a moment, a look that Maria could only assume was pensiveness wore upon his face. His breathing may have settled somewhat, that much was certain, but his body trembled still and he gripped onto the quilt of his bed with such force Maria feared he may tear through it with his bare hands. He was not of steel nerves and much like Maria herself, even Alucard had his own vulnerabilities, but this was not a side of the Dhampir that she had ever seen. She swallowed, and broke the silence.
"Alucard, you don't need to force yourself to tell me this. If it's too painful for you, please, I want you to stop." Maria pleaded. She had, admittedly, appreciated that Alucard was a little more willing than usual to open up to her about himself, but she didn't want it to come at the expense of his own sense of wellbeing. When he hurt like this, she could feel an ache deep within her own chest. He shook his head and released his grip upon the sheets, exhaling deeply.
"No, it is fine. I will continue." He replied, his voice a little hoarser than normally. Maria couldn't tell for certain but she was sure based upon the sound of his words passing his lips that he was certainly dehydrated, or at the very least, thirsty.
She had considered her recent discovery that Alucard himself used to partake of the blood of humans and wondered if perhaps she should offer him her wrist or her neck, that perhaps if he truly needed human blood to survive perhaps she could at the very least provide him with quite literally his lifeblood. She felt her heartbeat begin to race once more and made a considerable effort to stifle the blush that would stain her cheeks if she continued her current train of thought, and that much she knew he would sense at the very least if the moonlight did not cast its glow upon her.
"I-If you're sure." Maria stuttered. Alucard raised an eyebrow at her sudden loss of composure. The mood in the room had been significantly heavier than he had intended and perhaps, Maria had sensed this and was attempting to raise his mood. Was this simply her way of trying to cheer him up? He put that thought to bed and nodded at Maria, locking his eyes once more with hers.
"I… went to my Father, after what happened in Targoviste. I wanted to convey my mother's last words to him, to tell him I shared in his grief, perhaps knowing that I, too, had lost as he had would have swayed him. That's what I had thought at the time." Alucard massaged his forehead as he spoke. "But he would not listen to reason. His grief was too great and his rage burned far too much for me to salvage what was left of him as a man. If my words would not influence him… perhaps, I thought at the time, my actions would. We came to blows and I…" The Dhampir paused and gestured to the grisly scar on his chest, lightly running a digit over the disfigured flesh. He had carried that mark with him for over 300 years. A physical reminder of his own failure that he could never erase, no matter how much of his power he used.
Maria winced slightly, she had seen the scar before and when she had prodded Alucard about it but a few months ago he simply said that it had been an accident when he was younger, implied it to be a simple bit of boyhood mischief, but she never expected the true origin of his wound to have been quite so tragic. "What little empathy remained in him… what little remainder of the man my mother loved so dearly died with her that day." Alucard's body shook violently at the memory.
"Alucard…" Maria wished she had more words of comfort for him. That she could offer him more than just an ear to listen to his woes, she searched desperately within herself for the right words to say to him, but no matter how deeply she looked inward, she could not find them. But perhaps this was not a time for words. What little apprehension she had meant little against the weight of Alucard's need for comfort. Instinctively, Maria edged closer to him and wrapped her arms around him in a warm and gentle embrace. Alucard's eyes widened at this sudden display, which awoke something within him. Something he had not felt in centuries. Without a word, emotions once thought lost to him resurfaced and he wept silent, bitter tears.
"Maria… do you think that I could have changed things? If I had been faster, my mother would not have been taken. If I were more eloquent, my father may yet have stayed his hand." Alucard's voice was choked, and softer than Maria was used to hearing from him, almost as if a whisper. "I fear that by my actions and my own inaction, I may have doomed humanity to be forced to endure the full brunt of Dracula's dark might... and doomed myself towards committing patricide. Twice, I stormed my Father's castle with the intent of settling accounts with him, and twice I was forced to remove him from this world. It weighs heavy upon me, even now. "
"I don't think what happened was your fault, Alucard. Truly." Maria confessed. She shifted her embrace slightly to place one of her hands upon the Dhampir's back. "Richter told me once… back in those days, the Belmonts were excommunicated by the Church out of fear of their abilities and that they opposed some of the Church's more extreme policies, including the dismissal of Science as witchraft. It wasn't your fault that things happened the way they did. Please, don't blame yourself."
"These are not my only failures, Maria." Alucard stated, through grit teeth. "I've failed Lyudmil as well." Lyudmil. Even now, the thought of his former vassal and friend wrenched Alucard's heart and threatened to tear him in two. Perhaps, before his previous companions, Lyudmil was the only person who Alucard could have called a friend, a brother. The closest he knew to love was what he felt for Lyudmil. That much, he was certain of. They had taken in the beauty of his homeland together and yet, when Lyudmil begged to be put down with his dignity intact, as a human, Alucard was unable to find it in himself to grant Lyudmil, dear, sweet Lyudmil, the mercy he pleaded for. "…I was the one responsible for turning him into a vampire. When he needed me most, I failed him. When we saw him last… I thought perhaps I had a second chance to make things right. But I failed him again and he's no longer in this world. Because of me…" Try as he might, Alucard could not suppress the tide of tears that stung his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks and onto Maria's back. He continued to tremble, sobbing silently in Maria's arms.
"You loved him, didn't you?" Maria asked softly, as she raised a hand to gently cradle his head.
"You could… say that. We were closer than friends, that much is certain, yet we were less than lovers. But I felt a certain closeness to him that I…" Alu leaned back slightly and his eyes, though wet with tears, a flood which he could not yet stem the tide of, met with Maria's own. "I haven't felt that way in a long time. Not since Lyudmil."
"Oh?" Maria inquired, from his tone Maria could only infer that he felt something similar now.
"…I'm sorry, Maria. What happened to you… with Magnus… because of me you were gravely injured. I hesitated when I saw Lyudmil once more and because of that..." Alucard hesitated.
A sudden throbbing in his chest that he was not at all accustomed to sprung into life at the sight of Maria. He felt nervous in a way that did not become him. "Because of me, you were hurt. If anything were to ever happen to you, Maria, I'm not sure what would become of me. Try as I might to avoid it, you have become… precious to me. I do not wish to lose you as I have lost everyone else I have ever cared for." Maria's face flushed slightly at his words before she smiled softly at him.
"Alucard, you have nothing to apologise for. I'm here because I want to be. I don't blame you for what happened. It's okay. But if it'll put your mind at ease then… I forgive you." Her voice was warm, and the Dhampir found her tone to be truthful. Then she let out a soft laugh. "I said it once and I'll say it again. I'm much tougher than I look. I made it through your father's castle twice. I'm not a frail little girl. I'm here, I'm alive and I won't go anywhere." Maria pulled Alucard closer to her such that his head was now resting on her chest. The steady beat of her heart began to bring Alucard a degree of comfort that he had not felt since he was but a boy. Almost instinctively, he reclined into Maria's soft embrace and now he could truly take comfort in her presence, she was so warm to him and he could physically feel the life that ran through Maria's veins.
"Alucard… I have a request."
"What might that be, Maria?" He responded, curious. He wasn't particularly used to Maria asking much of him outside of simple things.
"…This may sound strange but… may I sing to you?"
"If it may please you, Maria."
Maria took a deep breath as Alucard settled deeper into her warmth and gently began to run a hand through his hair and began her song.
"Here, the goddess of happiness cries and in this time this lullaby…" Maria's voice was soft and gentle and within an instant, Alucard recognised the words she sang so sweetly to him. His tears did not subside, but now at least, they were not bitter tears of regret.
"Sings her song of the dream she has, the sadness fills her eyes… End of love, love is gone. No more dreams to dream about, so life is done." She continued to lull the Dhampir to sleep once more, as his trembling gradually began to wear away with each word that passed the young woman's lips. There was something warm and safe about the way Maria held him tightly to her. Something familiar, but he could not put his finger on it.
"If it's so, cut the thread, it's time to let it go… Tears, they flow to the thirst of the gods, the ocean's roars drowned out by rain." As Maria hit note after note, Alucard's eyelids began to feel heavier and his consciousness was beginning to dwindle. The more he fought to stay awake, the more tired he began to feel, but he had solved the mystery of what this feeling reminded him of. Here, in Maria's arms, his head pressed against her chest and taking in each and every beat of her heart and his body taking in her warmth, he knew he had felt this before. Centuries ago, as a young boy, held close to his mother.
Whatever he had with Maria felt like home now, and she brought warmth back into his once cold life, as if it had once been but a sketch and she was the colour that brought it all back to life. A small, yet tender smile played upon the Dhampir's lips. This was his mother's song to him. How Maria had come to know it was a mystery to him still, but not one he had any desire to solve now. For now he was content to be lulled into a peaceful sleep by both Maria's voice and the gentle beating of hear heart.
"Blameless wolf carries on alone, the silence now surrounds him… Sooner than dreaming ends, morning of the dawn will bring another day… Turn around, you have found a different place to dream." As Maria finished her song, she could sense the Dhampir beginning to drift back off to a peaceful sleep once more. Gently, she rested her head upon Alucard's own and whispered to him softly, as her own fatigue began to catch up to her and she too, desired rest.
"Good night, Alucard."