Man, Monster, Hero
One shot inspired by the movie, Dracula Untold. I own nothing except a little creative licence. Other source: Wikipedia. Text taken directly from the movie in italics and underlined.
"Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster." But behind the monster and the hero, there is also a son, husband, father and prince.
~X~
"What kind of man crawls into his own grave in search of hope, hmm?"
The vampire was right—this place was a tomb. The mouldering darkness of the cave was heavy with the stench of death, and the carpet of bone testament to the fact that this was a final resting place for many. Yet the Wallachian prince believed that the risk he was taking in climbing into this hole would not be a fatal one for him, at least not today. He had brought hope in here with him, slim, yet fuelled with determination and purpose. After all, he knew what it was that the vampire needed, something more valuable than just his blood.
"A desperate one. The Turks threaten to destroy my kingdom. Power like yours...it could stop them, save my people, save my family."
Prince Vlad's last moments with his family before he left them in the care of Dumitru came to mind. The Sultan, Mehmed, had wanted to take Ingeras hostage, along with one thousand other Transylvanian boys. Up until the point at which he would have to leave Ingeras in Ottoman care, the prince had tried to convince himself that that was what a good ruler would do to keep the peace, as Vlad's own father had once done. There was no other path that would not lead to war with the powerful empire on his doorstep, and he did not have an army to speak of with which he could resist.
Mirena had almost shattered his will with her pleading, reminding him of the reassurances he had given her when trying to win her hand, but it was Ingeras himself that had truly broken his heart. His boy had wrenched himself from his mother's arms and with conviction and without hesitation bravely declared that he would go. He had taken Vlad's hand and walked by his side to where the Turks were waiting to take him away to strange and cruel lands.
Old hurts had clawed their way to the surface. Proving a father's loyalty was not a burden that should be placed on any child's shoulders, even the child of a prince.
Vlad knew only too well what it would do to Ingeras, having experienced it himself. His time as child hostage had made Vlad strong, and he had learned to rule well, was respected by his people, but the lesson had been harsh. He did not doubt that Ingeras would be a good ruler one day, selfless and capable of putting duty first. Vlad tried to make the right choices, be firm but just, but the prince struggled to apply the word 'good' to himself. How could he, after what he'd done? No matter how deeply he buried it, the emotional scars he bore from his adolescence were always there, and the bloody reputation he had made for himself was a constant reminder.
After he had killed the Turks, Prince Vlad had tried to convince himself that had he complied, then Wallachia would always be cowed and subservient to the Ottomans, but it was only an afterthought.
Princely duty and maintaining the peace had come second to his love for and need to protect his family.
"How supremely noble, Lord Impaler."Sarcasm dripped from the monster's mouth."House Dracul, son of the devil..." He spat the title as if it were a curse.
"You are mistaken." The prince corrected his demonic host."It means 'Son of the Dragon, Protector of the Innocent'."
His father, Vlad II, had taken the name 'Dracul' after joining the Order of the Dragon, founded by the Holy Roman Emperor to fight in the name of Christianity against the Ottomans. That same year Prince Vlad's uncle Alexandru had taken the Wallachian throne. Not a coincidence, as gaining favour with deeply religious Europe was a calculated political move. Five years after Alexandru I Aldea ascended to rule, a sickness had taken him, and Vlad II Dracul rose to power.
His father's rise to power was not uncontested, and when Vlad Dracul decided he needed more support for his rule against Transylvian usurpers than Europe was providing, he had gone to the Ottomans he had once fought against. This action had plunged the region into even more turmoil than it knew already, but with Turk assistance Vlad Dracul regained his throne. Part of the deal had been an annual tribute of boys for the Ottoman army, strengthening the Turks and at the same time weakening Wallachian forces to make them more reliant on the Ottomans. His youngest sons, Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, had also been sent as royal hostages.
In Europe, propaganda from his former allies was rife and the title 'Dracul' no longer meant 'dragon' but had been twisted into 'devil' in honour of Vlad II's switch of loyalty. And as for his claim to be Protector of the Innocent, how had Vlad Dracul protected his own children? Maybe the distorting of his inherited title wasn't too far from the mark.
Both young Wallachian princes had been eager to do their father proud, much like Ingeras had been today. At age thirteen Vlad had been sent into Hell on earth, where his humanity had been whipped and taken from him, twisting and warping his innocence to leave a cold, bloody void in his soul, all in the name of maintaining his father's position. Radu, his younger brother, had fit in with the Ottomans better, but Vlad had had to try harder, had been pushed further, had had to sacrifice more of his soul in order to earn his place...
He could not do that to his own son. The Sultan's demand was higher than he was willing to pay, regardless of what his father had done before him, but how much would the resistance cost? That was the reason he had crawled into this cave, to do a deal to minimise the harm that his actions would cause when war was visited upon his country.
"Do your people know how many innocents you have killed? Was it hundreds?"
"Yes."
As if he were nothing, the vampire lifted him by his throat and crushed him against a rough stone pillar, far across the cave from where he had given his answer. A jolt of pain shuddered down Vlad's spine.
"Lie to me again and I'll open you from your belly to your brain and feed you your intestines."
"Thousands," the prince croaked as he sucked as much air as his host's grip would allow.
"And when you put them to the stake what did you feel? Shame? Horror? Power?"The monster continued his interrogation, yet Vlad was sure he already knew the answer.
He thought of his father and of a conversation that had taken place many years ago, before his bloody ascent into adulthood with his Ottoman captors. Once the innocent child prince had brought up the subject of the Ten Commandments, confused by the fact on one hand that he was being trained to fight and win battles, whilst also being taught that to kill was a sin. His father, as a soldier of God and therefore sure to know the right answer in young Vlad's eyes, had explained that these were dark days and that God understood that to survive a good man may be caused to kill another man, often in the name of God himself. However it was still a sin to kill an innocent—unforgiveable in the eyes of the Lord and a sure path to eternal damnation.
Vlad had learned different lessons in the care of the Turks. He had learned that to fit in and be accepted he had had to pray with them, to their god. He had learned that to kill was essential to survive, and innocence or not became irrelevant in pursuit of political power. He had commissioned a suit of armour fit for the son of the dragon, scaled with a red dragon on black on his breast plate. He had grown strong, fierce, and accustomed to cold cruelty.
Yet still he had had to go further. Where once they had wanted him to prove himself in battle, to take resistant villages, they now wanted him to take regions, and that was when he had discovered the greatest weapon in his arsenal—fear—and it pleased his Ottoman hosts that he had learned to use it well.
The memory of a forest of impaled bodies drifted across his conscious memory. Not all of them had been soldiers, not all of them wicked men, and many, many of them innocents. He had not killed them in the name of God or Allah, but out of necessity, for ambition, to make his father proud and simply to survive. What did that make him?
"Answer me!"The vampire had become impatient for him to speak.
"Nothing. I felt nothing. A greater crime than the act itself." He should have felt sickened. He should have nightmares every night and suffer for his actions, but he had been praised, celebrated, and sent home to Wallachia to take up his father's throne when the time had come. He had the love of a woman as beautiful on the inside as she was to look upon, and he had been blessed with a strong, healthy son. He had been able to leave his past behind, locked away like his dragon armour.
If God punished those who killed the innocent, it seemed that he had overlooked Vlad, who had gotten away consequence free. If anything it felt like the dark cloud of his reputation had secured ten years of peace. Or at least it had until he had killed the Turks who had come to take away his son. It had felt good to defy the Sultan the way he had, but he knew that the refusal would have repercussions.
How ironic that fighting to protect those he loved threatened to bring doom upon him and his country, when unspeakable and calculated violence had not.
"Then why spill blood if not for the pleasure of it?" The monster asked, and the prince did not doubt that the monster took sick enjoyment in what he did. It had never been something in which Vlad took joy.
"Because men do not fear swords, they fear monsters. They run from them. By putting one village to the stake I spared ten more. Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster."
Vlad knew only too well how to use fear as a weapon. Without an army it was the only way to make Mehmed think again. Unless he cemented his position and reminded the Sultan of the respect 'Lord Impaler' once commanded, the Ottomans would roll over his lands and destroy Vlad, his family and his people.
"And you believe you know what it is to be a monster, hmm?" The vampire nicked the prince's neck with a nail as sharp as a razor, and his red eyes filled with hunger. Vlad's stomach churned with horror and fear as a monstrous tongue like the tentacle of an octopus slithered out from the demon's mouth to taste the trickle of blood that escaped from the wound. The tongue withdrew behind the vampire's pointed teeth, and the prince exhaled in relief. "You have no idea...but I'm going to show you."