I, that was proud and valiant, am no more; —-
Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
He had nightmares of the look on her face as she fell; as he grabbed her by the waist and turned them around, his body hitting the rocks, the bones in him shattering with the force of it… but not enough to kill him. Now he could no longer remember why he had thought that taking the first force of the hit would have been better. How he could have thought he could protect her that way. Her frame had never been frail, and yet her bones still broke like glass. It made no difference to her body, and Vlad had not know enough about physics back then to understand why that was. He had only known the certainty of her maiming: heard the blood flooding the inside of her, in places where it should not go. She would drown in her own life, from within.
He had known that, even as he turned himself, frantic and afraid, to speak to her, to see her. To beg… he who had never begged to anyone before but his god.
And to no avail. It was too late. She had known that before he did. She had faced it before he did.
Their way of being stretched even in death it seemed, with Mirena looking straight at the undeniable truth and not flinching.
He had not been able to do the same. He could not.
When he had taken the first drop of blood in his body, he had not been thinking about the full extent of what it meant. Not clearly. The heaviness of the curse, like a sword strapped by a thin thread atop his head, was ever present, and the half-existence it would mean for him, that could not be ripped off him either. But when Mirena lay there, life deserting her with each small breath, all these weights had been pushed down violently by the talon of grief. All reality diluted into this simple fact: she was in his arms and she was dying. The strength of a hundred men could not save her. All that power meant nothing. His only son was in the hands of his enemies and the burn of the rising sun behind him meant that Vlad would not be able to save him either.
It had all been for nothing, he though desperately.
But Mirena thought differently. Even death could not rob her of hope, not even tragedy could diminish her bravery. There is still time, she told him, but Vlad felt it in his heart: time had run out. For her and for him both as well as their people.
But not for their son.
It was in her eyes, as well as his: deathless conviction. She did not care of damnation, if it would save their boy. And neither had he. A curse of old had seemed like nothing, it had not mattered then. Pain and rage, and grief - they had taken over. Giving in to Mirena's plea as she lay dying had been done out of desperation, yes, but by the time Vlad sank his teeth in her throat and sucked the last of her life away, he had already decided his existences as a monster would be a short one.
He took her life... and as he did so he was not even aware that he was killing one of his most beloved.
That more than anything, would haunt him through centuries to come. That at her throat, he had known the savagery of an animal, and not even the presence of mind to feel sorry that he was undoing his own love with his very hands. He would soon enough though. Animal and man met in him, as he felt the curse of what he became melt and take root, like a festering in his soul.
He had saved his son, with her blood still under his nails. And ended his accursed existence as an act of penitence. His last act...
Useless, of course. Dying became a privilege for Dracul, son of the devil.
He had been so recent to the shadows then. A newborn monster is not so different from a child really. Time had taught him the crevices and shades of the dark, and all its hidden pits. It had taught him control of his powers and mastery of his senses. It was in time that the true extent of his curse had manifested itself in a way Vladimir had never dared to imagine. When he had awakened a true vampire at Mirena's throat, having drained her of her lifeblood, he had thought that that had been what the vampyr of the cave had meant: that by killing her had been how Vlad would destroy everything he ever held dear. He had thought that was the moment when his curse displayed in full. His heart never stopped feeling the guilt of it, and that certainly helped reinforce the conviction.
But it was not destined to be as simple as that.
Time… time above all, and the way it did not pass for him, seemed to be the greatest master of punishments.