"I'll let you go, I'll set you free, and when you see what you need to see, when you find you, come back to me"- "Come Back to Me" (David Cook)
"Are you sure you don't need my help, Mr. Nile? Because I'd be more than willing to-"
"Yes, Thomas, thank you," Seba replied, smiling assuringly at his head stockroom assistant. "For the past week, you have dedicated your nights to preparing for the Council, working diligently and without pause. You deserve at least a few minutes' rest. I will summon you to resume your work when I am done with this end of the hallway."
"All right, if you're sure... thanks, Mr. Nile," Thomas replied gratefully. Seba watched as Thomas turned and sauntered back down the hallway, undoubtedly heading straight for the Hall of Khledon Lurt-the mountains's meal Hall-for a glass (or two) of wine. Seba made sure he was alone before grabbing the handle of his very large and loaded wooden cart and turning back towards the awaiting hallway ahead of him.
He had been down this hallway before. In fact, he had been down (and memorized the location of) nearly every nook and cranny in Vampire Mountain. Being the mountain's highly respected, elderly Quartermaster, Seba oversaw the stocking and subsequent delivering of vampiric necessities (at least one coffin and bottles of blood, among other things) to vacated chambers. The job was hardly ever demanding because not many vampires kept a permanent residency in the mountain; they were nomadic by nature and preferred to move out of the mountain once they were fully trained. However, with the traditional Council, followed by the Festival of the Undead, fast approaching, the mountain was filling quickly with visitors old and new, and Seba had felt compelled to personally lend a much-needed hand to the preparation efforts.
The old vampire went about his route, glad for these few moments alone during which he could collect his thoughts. It had been almost a decade since Seba himself had wandered down this particular end of the sleeping quarters, and he tried not to think about what he would find a little further down the hallway. Instead, he continued inspecting each room as he came to it, making sure everything that his workers were supposed to have delivered earlier was satisfactory and accounted for. Some guests that had arrived early were already settled in their rooms, and Seba paused to converse with them and take requests for supplies if they needed anything additional.
Try as he might to stall the inevitable, Seba finally found himself standing before the chamber that, on his own insistence, had not been disturbed since it had been vacated. The curtains draping over the room had once been a bright shade of red, but due to the many layers of dusts and cobwebs now lining the curtains, their original color was hardly distinguishable. Even from the outside, the room seemed pitiful and abandoned and lonely.
Not allowing his emotions to get the better of him when there was work to be done, Seba forced himself to walk right past the room's curtained threshold without a backwards glance.
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It wasn't until the very early hours of the morning that Seba and his workers finally finished their duties in all the sleeping quarters of Vampire Mountain. It had been a long, grueling job-especially for Seba, who, due to his old age, tired more easily than the others-so it was with great relief that the vampires put aside their jobs in exchange for a few nights of relaxation and chats with old friends.
Unlike his companions, who were merrily engaging in conversations with each other, Seba was not in a very jovial mood. Seeing the empty, deserted room had jostled his thoughts and he needed time to sort them out. Finding an unoccupied table to sit at, he politely asked a Hall waiter for a small mug of ale and looked around the crowded room, observing his surroundings. There were all sorts of vampires already in attendance: muscular ones and scrawny ones; people he recognized and people he didn't. Seba paid them little attention, instead choosing to scan the crowd in vain for a flash of bright orange hair that could have only belonged to one person: one of his assistants, Larten Crepsley.
It had been nearly ten years since Seba had last seen Larten. he tried not to dwell on their last conversation, for it had not been a pleasant one. Larten had violently declared that he wanted to quit his training to be a General, and Seba had responded by allowing him to do just that. The rebellious vampire had not returned to the mountain since then, and though Seba had a sinking feeling against it, he desperately hoped that Larten would be present for this Council. He wanted to tell Larten all of the things that he never got a chance to during their last encounter: that he had, and always would, care for him; that no matter what Larten chose to do with his life, all that truly mattered was that he be content with who he was.
Seba also wanted to tell Larten how much he had missed him since his departure, but he felt that would be hypocritical of him to say, since he was the one who had encouraged Larten to leave in the first place.
Seba's stream of Larten-centric thoughts was suddenly interrupted when a set of double-doors opened at the back of the Hall and a group of exhausted-looking palace guards emerged from the threshold, their shifts apparently over for now. Among them was a fairly young vampire: Wester Flack, Seba's other current assistant. Upon seeing his mentor, Wester abandoned his fellow guards to take a seat at the elderly vampire's table.
Doing his best to push all thoughts of Larten aside for now, Seba turned his focus to Wester instead, grateful that he still had at least one assistant in his company. Smiling proudly, he inquired how Wester's latest shift had gone. Wester could only shake his head uncertainly in response.
Being a palace guard was more than Wester had bargained for. For one thing, he had never expected to get the job at all. Being slightly clumsy and slow to learn, he thought that it would be at least a few more years of training before he would anyone would even consider appointing him. However, Seba had been convinced of Wester's promising abilities far more quickly than he himself had, and before long, the Quartermaster had approved another trainee worthy of the honorable position of a palace guard.
For another thing, Wester never expected the job to be so... lackluster. Before completing his training and being given his first assignment, he had imagined a nightly routine of stopping vicious intruders in their tracks and heroically defending the vampires inside the castle. In reality, however, nearly all of Wester's nighttime shifts were consisted of little more than ten hours of standing still as a statue beside his partner, gripping his spear and keeping a vigil for the outside dangers that seemed determined never to come. Because of the constant stream of guests arriving for the Council, tonight had been the most exciting watch of Wester's career so far, even though all he had done was request that visitors "address themselves to the gate" over and over again.
The only incentive that had kept Wester sane all night was the possibility that he might see Larten, his best friend and "blood brother" of sorts, approaching the castle for the first time in a decade. Seeing the other guards greeting their own returning friends had been like a kick in the stomach to Wester. He had been looking forward to spending another Council and Festival with Larten. He wished more than anything else that he Larten would be around to trade stories with him, to spar with him, to joke with him.
To Wester's extreme disappointment, his wish had yet to come true.
Wester sighed and locked eyes with his mentor, determined to get the nagging fact out in the open.
"Larten's not coming." It wasn't a question.
All pretense gone, Seba nodded sadly in agreement. "I figured as much," he sighed, taking a sip from his mug.
"It's been too long," Wester complained. "Ten years. I figured he'd be back by now."
Seba secretly thought the same, though he didn't openly admit this to Wester. Instead, he went on to say, "As I have told you before, we must be patient. If we rush Larten or try to otherwise interfere with the path that destiny has paved for him-"
"The path destiny has paved for him," Wester suddenly interrupted with a sneer, "or the path you have paved for him?"
"Meaning?" Seba asked calmly, despite the venomous tone in which Wester had just challenged him.
"If you hadn't sent him away, he'd be here right now." Wester knew he was pushing his limits with Seba now, but he didn't care; he missed his best friend so much that at this point he was willing to let his frustration and anger at Larten's prolonged absence get the better of him.
"You very well know, Wester Flack, that I did not 'send him away,'" Seba icily corrected, stung by Wester's retort. "He left on his own accord."
Seba and Wester both knew that that statement was only half-true, that Larten probably wouldn't have been so eager to leave without Seba's constant insistence that it was the best thing for him to do, but neither commented on it. They knew it didn't matter so much why Larten had left; the fact was, he was gone and wouldn't return for some undetermined amount of time. Instead of continuing to point fingers, they both took deep breaths to steady their rising tempers until the will to yell and fight had deflated out of both of them like a balloon.
Finally, Wester broke the silence.
"I just wish there was some way we could help him."
"As do I," Seba sighed. Wester had no idea how fervently his master meant it. It had broken Seba's heart to witness Larten's struggle to find a place in the world, to hear about him struggling out in the world on his own. As foolish as it was, Seba would have liked nothing more than to hold Larten's hand securely in his own, just like he had when the orange-haired vampire had been a small, timid boy. Just that small gesture had once been enough to assure Larten that everything would be okay, that there was someone on his side watching out for him.
But Larten was a grown man now, and Seba was painfully aware of it. The time had come for Larten to learn to be his own guiding hand in the world. Seba just hoped-no, he knew-that his assistant was strong enough to face the challenge.
Larten would find his way in the world, and when he did, he would come back to them.