Title: Motherhood
Words: 1259
Warnings: n/a
Notes: An experimental stream of consciousness fic to see if I could write as Krul at all.
• • • • • • • •
She wants little now except for blood; such is the curse of an eternal life. And Krul has certainly never wanted to become a mother. At her turning, she was too young to desire that life settle in her womb, and uninterested in marriage even while she heard whispers of a suitable suitor or two.
But she dearly wants to want.
Perhaps that is why she collects the children instead of simply draining them dry – an imitation of a morality and a taste she does not have. Killing women and children are intuitively "bad" things, though she cannot for the unlife of her recall precisely why, except that female humans are apparently weaker than their male counterparts.
She would say that children are uncorrupted, clean, and pure, but that is a tall order when she witnesses the squalor and rabble in her underground city. Krul cannot feel for presumptuous brats that seek to destroy one another when logic and sense would dictate they band together and ensure their collective survival. She wishes to feel anything other than curious disdain, but all in all, gazing down at her hapless human citizens is not at all unlike observing a colony of roaches. Perhaps worse, because she does not think cockroaches would ruthlessly maim, murder, and pillage one another's bodies.
• • • •
The blond child is different, and it is not only because he comes from the Hyakuya Orphanage. He has doomed himself for the survival of another – perhaps not all humans are worthless.
She dares not speed his death, though it is not fear of the seraph in his veins that stays her hand. She has long forgotten piety and fear to an almighty God, and the marvelous cathedrals and echoing songs of the churchyard are memories so dusty and old she no longer knows where to find them. The only memories she clings to are those of Asura, and they have both lived for so long that they no longer have need for their human lives.
At least, Krul does not. She has no idea of what goes on in Asura's head these days – for he is still alive. If he had been turned to dust, she is sure she would know.
Mikaela is unlike the others. That is why she turned him – among other reasons. The chief reason, she tells herself, is that she needs the seraph. The other is that he is so very different. She knows of humans who have demanded eternal life, begged for it, scorned it and then clutched it with all their being – she knows of no one who would spurn the gift whilst it lies within their reach. Humans are selfish, incorrigible creatures – perhaps more so than vampires. The perseverance and tenacity of her little dog amazes her. The strangeness of the sense of wishing – an almost-feeling, ephemeral and barely there – to protect such a puny existence does not go unnoticed by the queen.
• • • •
Speaking of her missing seraph makes Mikaela more pliant. It gives Krul some kind of pleasure to hear him talk about the black-haired boy, and somehow, it reminds her of the devotion she has to her brother. Or perhaps it is simply because she has the opportunity to see other emotions cross the child's face, other than pain, anger, and fear. It grows rather boring to view the same thing over and over, after all, and he should at least be entertaining. That is what the violin lessons and swordplay are for – although Ferid is swiftly removed from his self-imposed position as tutor.
It would do no good to distress her pawn anymore than necessary, after all.
• • • •
Her sacrificial lamb visits the pews often. She does not know why; perhaps the cross calls up images of his life's purpose, and he finds kinship in the man who died on the holy symbol. Or maybe he seeks repentance – for something she does not know. It is not as if he could have done anything else; Ferid Bathory is a master manipulator, no match for a twelve-year-old child. Mika's anger and resentment confounds and amuses her.
Yet, looking at him, she can just barely remember – benches filled with people, their colourful clothing illuminated by flares of sunlight streaming in through glass windows.
Her vampiric hearing allows her to hear his low intonations. It would be difficult not to – her age and her quality raise her high above anyone else in Sanguinem. It is with a thoughtless, automatic motion that she chases Ferid away from the room occupied by a single person, all while her ears are trained on Mikaela's whispers.
They are frequently the same. Today, they are, "I'm so sorry, Yuu-chan. Please forgive me. Please be safe."
He repeats them, over and over, like some kind of mea culpa. She can practically hear the proverbial sound of knotted cords striking his back.
• • • •
It is difficult to find a sunband for her prodigy, her spawn of blood, but it will not do to keep him within Sanguinem forever. Neither he nor she will allow it. Nor will Krul allow him to attempt to kill himself by wandering into the sunlight unprotected – he has tried that once, and will never do it again lest he wishes to personally be privy to a fate worse than becoming a demon.
There is no such fate that she is aware of, for there is no other fate that awaits a vampire – but that is not something he needs to know.
When Mikaela first dons the guard uniform and slips his sunband on, something inside of her chest moves. It is not her heart – no, it is not even a movement. It is an unfurling of warmth in her body that at first alarms her with its abruptness. For a single second, she is rendered completely speechless and without an idea of what she ought to do. Then she swiftly recovers her countenance and orders him outside.
If the sun chooses to take him, so be it; she will not care in the slightest for the dog – well – she will not care so much as to be inappropriate for a pet.
Mikaela steps into the sunlight and does not turn to dust; for the first time, Krul witnesses him in the scene of daylight. His tall form betrays his tenseness and unease, though the bulk of the uniform hides most of the signs. The queen knows him well. She feels her lips twist into a smile. She wonders how monstrously unpleasant it must look to him. Oh, to be misunderstood by the young, how cruel one's offspring can be –
Wait.
• • • •
What is this sensation – ?
Is it how one feels…to "be a mother"?
What a twist of fate, to consider the seraph whelp a child, much less her child. Krul has never liked children. That is why the suddenness of realization makes the fact she considers her spawn family of some kind startles her so. She cannot even place where it began, if it in fact began anywhere.
Perhaps it is not a feeling after all. Perhaps it is merely constancy and the mind's desire to explain anything and everything as conveniently as possible.
She knows, privately, that any explanation she gives herself is completely untrue. It is simply a matter of tact. It would be awfully idiotic to allow any other vampire to realize queen Krul has caught feelings – much less allow her silly son to notice it himself.
That word is so odd, yet she does not mind settling it neatly on a shelf beside "brother".