A Conversation Between Shadows
Smirking at his companion's dubious expression, Barnabas Collins sipped the thick, red, (and, to one such as he) more-intoxicating-than-wine vintage from his goblet.
"So, you really are a drinker of blood, a... I believe the term is 'vampire'?" Atem asked.
"Sadly true." Barnabas sighed. "For two centuries I have existed within this curse of darkness."
"...Only two?"
"You make it sound like the blink of an eye." If his tone seemed a touch defensive, Barnabas felt it could be excused. He would not be mocked by a mere child!
Contemplating the contents of his own wineglass, Atem mused, "Two hundred years is a blink of an eye to one who has survived three millennia."
Three thousand...? "But you are not a..." Barnabas stumbled a bit over the odd phrase. "...A 'drinker of blood'?"
Atem held his hand, palm down, over the table. Shadows rose from... somewhere. Barnabas could not discern their exact origin, only that one instant there was nothing and in the next, wisps of darkness twined about Atem's fingers like the ghosts of black kittens.
"No." Somehow, Atem's gaze seemed as ancient and weighted as that of the Sphinx. "I am not of the darkness. I am Darkness."
Note: This double drabble is complete. It takes place in the same universe as chapter 4 of "Five Lives Ryou Bakura Never Lived," entitled "Starting Over."
This is another of the snippets I discovered in some old files. I've been trying to make them into postable ficlets, since I know the planned longer stories will never be written.
I may add some more ficlets to this universe (there is at least one bit in my old files, but it will have to be cleaned up quite a lot to make it readable), but this particular bit is finished and will not have any more chapters or notes added.