Chapter 7: Dark Past
Part I
Long after Araydia had gone to sleep, D laid awake looking up at the ceiling. He did go to sleep. He was quite bent on the fact that he might actually get through a whole night of sleep when he woke up around the early hours of the morning. Now the hunter couldn't get back to sleep, thus looking up at the ceiling.
Surprisingly, the symbiot hadn't decided to bother him. D was left to his own thought. The hard wooden floor was really starting to get uncomfortable now...
The man quietly stood up, careful not to disturb those who could get through a whole night asleep, and wandered over to the window behind the bed. He looked out at the town. It was like all the others, only this village was smaller, due to the population so near to the forest, and a rumored Vampire.
A crucifix atop almost every building, the main light post lamps on either side of the streets were always left on. Though the town was in clear focus in front of him, his attention was elsewhere.
`Why do you hunt Vampires?
`It's not like `D' actually stands for Dracula...'
The hunter looked out at the tall redwood trees looming behind the town. So tall...so dark...what the forest held beyond those trees was their secret. How old were they? What had they seen?
The symbiot's amused yet muffled laugh could be heard. "Trees reminding you of yourself?" It smirked. "You are much like one, you know...never knowing where you're going to be planted. How tall you'll grow. How you'll live, and look..."
"And what parasite's you'll end up with."
"Hey!"
"Hush...you'll wake her up." D said in a monotone voice. His gaze sank slightly, his heart felt too heavy.
"These town's look like so much of the one's so many years ago, don't you remember? Town's like these all over the world..."
Yes, D could remember.
A time when humanity didn't have much hope. A time when other people controlled and ruled over you. A time when the whole world was engulfed in darkness, and only a small kindle of light was visible...
"Junior..." A man called, elbows propped on a finely carved wooden table with hands neatly folded. "Junior, are you paying attention?" The man called once more, his chin resting firmly on his folded hands. Long claw-like nails at the end of each finger.
He wore a white, poofy-sleeved shirt with frilled cuffs. A black vest laid firmly pressed against his chest with curled locks of long dark brown hair falling loosely across his shoulders. The room was lit by candle light and a chest board in front of him.
"It's your move."
A young boy of about eight snapped out of his daydreaming and at the chessboard in front of his. His father always beat him at this game, and he hated loosing! The boy threw a fit.
"I hate this game!" He said with a funny accent and threw the board on the floor, the pieces of finely carved ivory knights and horses falling everywhere.
"Young master..." called a servant standing beside them.
"Let him go." Came the voice of the man sitting at the table. He hadn't flinched a bit and his hands still remained neatly folded. Shadows flickering across the room made his face scarcely visible. "He's got to learn you don't always win in life."
"I shall pick these up, your Lordship."
The little boy, dressed as finely as his father, ran through the stone corridors. Pictures mounted on each side of familiar ancestors all lit by elegant candle-light.
"Young master!" Shouted a servant running up behind him.
He was a werewolf, completely covered in silver fur and garnished with fine clothes. He caught up to the little boy on all fours and then sat down, dog-like style.
"Young master, you seem displeased, would you like to try another game? I'll let you win, I'm not that good."
"Oh shut up. You HAVE to let me win. You have no idea what it's like being me." The boy shouted, trying to talk fast through fanged teeth. His European accent was exactly like his fathers.
"But, young Dracula..."
"Oh stop calling me that. Go find something else to do than bother me, I want to be left alone."
Young Dracula pushed open one of the tall gold trimmed doors. He wasn't very strong yet, but he managed to keep the door open long enough for him to squeeze through. He always came to this room when he felt mad or sad. It wasn't his room, it was, to him, a special room.
`This must be the grandest room in all the castle.' He mused to himself.
This was the room that held fine paintings of all the most important people in the Aristocrat family. Deep within the many paintings and hallways, was a painting of his mother. He loved to stare at it.
When young Dracula finally came across it, he sat down on the rugged floor and looked up at it.
She had straight, long black hair that looked like silk across the fabric of her gown. She was very pale and had a somewhat long, defined face. Her lips were bright red and her eyes an almost glowing ice-blue. Indeed it was a lovely portrait...
Little did she know her son spent hours wondering what it would be like to talk to her. He felt she was the only one who would understand him. He longed for her...and yet he couldn't even remember her.
"Junior...?" called the soft voice of his father, barely an echo.
The young boy just looked up at him. The dark, regal man who was his father sat down beside him. The man reached out a brushed a stray strand of brown out of the boys face with a claw-like nail.
"Tell me my son, what is bothering you?"
The boy was quiet for a moment. "What was she like...?"
The noble Dracula, Lord of all the creatures of Darkness and King of the Vampires, chuckled amusingly to himself. "Is it bothering you why a Vampire would love his prey and sire a son with her? Well, I'm not so black-hearted as you may think."
"You're not answering my question."
The man sighed. "She was very beautiful. Pleasant to be around and good mannered. I always believed no matter how human she was, she was fit to be an Aristocrat."
That was the only answered the boy really received from his father. He barely talked about her and everyone could tell he loved the dark-haired woman very much. In fact, he still did. The only thing her son really knew about her was that she was dead. He was once told she died during childbirth.
"She's the only one who understands me." The boy spoke up. "She knows what it's like...to crave other things than blood, have pity for the mortal and be the only one who can enjoy the sunlight."
"The sunlight...?"
The boy instantly realized his mistake as his father stood up.
"You are NOT a Human!" Dracula shouted as his voice echoed off all the cobblestone walls. "You're a Vampire to be raised by our traditions and next in line for the throne! Don't you DARE betray me now!"
And with a whirl of his cape, he spun around and walked away. All the boy could hear was the thudding of boots leaving him. He bent his head over his hands and cried. If only his mother was here...
For the next month, young Dracula did everything he was told without complaint and little say. He seemed to give off a rather dull attitude that his servants were picking up, but never failed to stop writing literature and speaking in the elegant Aristocratic tongue. He did all his school work and studied hard about his ancestors.
But still he seemed so unhappy...
Since Dracula slept in the day, and few servants wandered the castle during daylight hours, the boy saw this as freedom to himself.
The prince wandered down the halls to a destination only he knew. Whenever a servant was seen walking, the boy would hide behind a pillar or a corner or something close-by.
He stopped in front of two well-bolted wooden doors and wondered how he was ever going to get pass this without being seen or heard. With much deliberation and being as quiet as possible, he managed to get one of the doors open and quickly hurried out the door.
The prince took a few strides until he was blinded and fell to his knees! It was so bright it stung his eyes!
"Gahh!" the little boy curled into a ball, shielding his eyes from the bright rays. This was the entranceway to the garden and the rest of the unfenced backyard. He had seen the outdoors in sunlight so many times, but had never been out in it.
After a while, he could take his hands away from his eyes and focus on a few things through squinting. Years of darkness and dim light were taking its toll. The little boy stood up, wiping some mud off of his poofy-sleeved shirt and walked clumsily through the garden.
He could enjoy things before he had only seen in books. He loved looking at colorful flowers and mountains and things only the outside world could hold from inside his castle walls. If he was ever caught out here, he would surely be in massive trouble.
After strolling through the garden and seeing things like clouds and birds for the first time, he wondered who was taking care of this garden. Like any adventurous child, he wandered far beyond the garden, through a field of yellow wheat until he came to a creek.
The little boy sat on a fallen tree that lay sprawled across the creek and watched as the water danced and the sound was soothing to his ears. All except the one. It was a shouting sound.
The curious child scrambled off the log and ran along the edge of the bank until he came upon the source. They were about three boys, around his age, and a girl as well. Two of the boys were shouting as the girl was crying, the other boy was laughing.
"Give me back my Casey!" The little girl with red hair in pig-tails shouted.
"You can't have your stupid Casey, she's all wet now!"
"Yeah," said another boy, "she wanted to go for a swim, she's to hot in that dress!"
The girl plunged into the creek to fish for her doll. The young Dracula stayed low to the ground, unseen near the bank.
Just to his luck, the doll had been taken down stream a bit and the girl running - as best she could in the water - after it. Her soggy dress slowing her down. "Mitchell, I'm gunna tell mama when I get home!"
The girl reached over to pick up her pitiful doll when she saw a pair of boots. She gasped when she noticed a little boy, dressed like a prince with kind of long, curly dark brown hair.
"Who're you?" she asked.
Before the regal boy could reply, three other boys appeared behind her.
"Who's that Kayla?", "He's funny looking" and "Gosh he's pale," were all their replies.
Young Dracula seemed a little intimidated by the other human children and backed away.
"What're you doing here?"
"This is my creek, I can come here whenever I please." He said, a strong funny accent was clear, one the boys didn't understand.
"Doesn't look like you get out much at all!" They all busted up laughing.
The pale boy glowered and took off the other way. He could bully his servants around, but not human children. The red-headed girl ran after him, soggy dress, wet doll and all.
"Wait!" she called.
The boy running in front of her wasn't stopping. "Wai---oof!" she lost her balance and tumbled forward. The young boy stopped and turned around. Feeling guilty, he walked over to her where she lay crying.
She scratched her little arm on a thorn bush pretty well.
"Umm...are you alright?"
She looked up at the boy. "And you're not even going to help me up!?"
"Oh! I'm sorry..." he held out a hand. She took his hand and helped herself up before concluding, "You're awfully pale. Are you sick?"
"No..." the boy eyed the blood from her scratch.
The little girl wiped the blood away with her dress. "What..?" she asked looking up.
"Uh, nothing."
The little child with red hair in pigtails, freckles and brown eyes smiled. "At least it was just Casey this time. They usually take my glasses and throw them in the stream. They think it's hilarious when I try to fish them out."
She smiled full-heartedly and extended her hand. "My name is Danielle."
"I'm Dra...D-d. D."
"Do you have a lisp?"
"No."
Danielle giggled to herself and introduced `D' to her doll. She then invited him to play and they played for hours. `D' had never played games like these before. Hiding as prey and finding it like a predator in a way the human child saw as fun. And chasing each other without any purpose must have been a human thing. Whatever it was, D was enjoying himself.
Towards the end of the day, the both ended up sitting on the log overlooking the stream. Those boys teasing Danielle had ran off long ago. D even learned one of them was her brother.
"Don't you have any brothers or sisters?" she asked. The boy with dark brown hair shook his head.
"Why are you so pale?"
D shrugged.
"Do you really own this creek?"
The boy looked at her confused. "Do you always probe one for so many questions?"
"Huh?"
The boy laughed, careful to keep his fangs from notice. Danielle giggled too. It was starting to get late and she was just about to bid `D' a goodnight and invite him to play again tomorrow, when a monstrous howl shook the trees and made the birds scatter everywhere.
"Oh my gosh D, that was a werewolf!" Danielle cried. She grabbed D by the hand was about to run with him, when he looked at his face which held no shock.
"Don't worry Danielle, you're my best friend, he won't hurt you."
She stopped in her place. "What do you mean?"
"Young master!!"
A werewolf ran towards them on all fours as fast as it could. Danielle, terrified beyond all her eight years clung to D.
"Young master, what were you doing out in daylight!?? I'm thankful you're still alive! You must return to the castle now! Before your father..."
"Alright." D replied calmly.
The werewolf thought it was odd how D, a Vampire child could withstand the sunlight without any affect. He was patrolling the castle when he saw one of the large bolted doors was unlocked. Figuring at first someone might be in the castle, he relented when knowing the doors could only be unlocked from the inside. Someone had gone out...
He had been searching for the boy - not at his studies - for hours. Now with a human child clinging to him, was the young boy perhaps taking matters far enough to go outside for his meals?
"I'll see you tomorrow Danielle, right?"
She stared at him the wide eyes. "You...you're...the Aristocrat's son?"
D nodded. "But...you're still my friend, right?"
The werewolf couldn't believe what he was hearing. Their future Lord was making friends with inferior mortal children!?
She nodded and slowly backed away from them, then took off.
The servant studied his young master. Perhaps it was just child innocence. He would have to loose his friend when he got older.
Part I
Long after Araydia had gone to sleep, D laid awake looking up at the ceiling. He did go to sleep. He was quite bent on the fact that he might actually get through a whole night of sleep when he woke up around the early hours of the morning. Now the hunter couldn't get back to sleep, thus looking up at the ceiling.
Surprisingly, the symbiot hadn't decided to bother him. D was left to his own thought. The hard wooden floor was really starting to get uncomfortable now...
The man quietly stood up, careful not to disturb those who could get through a whole night asleep, and wandered over to the window behind the bed. He looked out at the town. It was like all the others, only this village was smaller, due to the population so near to the forest, and a rumored Vampire.
A crucifix atop almost every building, the main light post lamps on either side of the streets were always left on. Though the town was in clear focus in front of him, his attention was elsewhere.
`Why do you hunt Vampires?
`It's not like `D' actually stands for Dracula...'
The hunter looked out at the tall redwood trees looming behind the town. So tall...so dark...what the forest held beyond those trees was their secret. How old were they? What had they seen?
The symbiot's amused yet muffled laugh could be heard. "Trees reminding you of yourself?" It smirked. "You are much like one, you know...never knowing where you're going to be planted. How tall you'll grow. How you'll live, and look..."
"And what parasite's you'll end up with."
"Hey!"
"Hush...you'll wake her up." D said in a monotone voice. His gaze sank slightly, his heart felt too heavy.
"These town's look like so much of the one's so many years ago, don't you remember? Town's like these all over the world..."
Yes, D could remember.
A time when humanity didn't have much hope. A time when other people controlled and ruled over you. A time when the whole world was engulfed in darkness, and only a small kindle of light was visible...
"Junior..." A man called, elbows propped on a finely carved wooden table with hands neatly folded. "Junior, are you paying attention?" The man called once more, his chin resting firmly on his folded hands. Long claw-like nails at the end of each finger.
He wore a white, poofy-sleeved shirt with frilled cuffs. A black vest laid firmly pressed against his chest with curled locks of long dark brown hair falling loosely across his shoulders. The room was lit by candle light and a chest board in front of him.
"It's your move."
A young boy of about eight snapped out of his daydreaming and at the chessboard in front of his. His father always beat him at this game, and he hated loosing! The boy threw a fit.
"I hate this game!" He said with a funny accent and threw the board on the floor, the pieces of finely carved ivory knights and horses falling everywhere.
"Young master..." called a servant standing beside them.
"Let him go." Came the voice of the man sitting at the table. He hadn't flinched a bit and his hands still remained neatly folded. Shadows flickering across the room made his face scarcely visible. "He's got to learn you don't always win in life."
"I shall pick these up, your Lordship."
The little boy, dressed as finely as his father, ran through the stone corridors. Pictures mounted on each side of familiar ancestors all lit by elegant candle-light.
"Young master!" Shouted a servant running up behind him.
He was a werewolf, completely covered in silver fur and garnished with fine clothes. He caught up to the little boy on all fours and then sat down, dog-like style.
"Young master, you seem displeased, would you like to try another game? I'll let you win, I'm not that good."
"Oh shut up. You HAVE to let me win. You have no idea what it's like being me." The boy shouted, trying to talk fast through fanged teeth. His European accent was exactly like his fathers.
"But, young Dracula..."
"Oh stop calling me that. Go find something else to do than bother me, I want to be left alone."
Young Dracula pushed open one of the tall gold trimmed doors. He wasn't very strong yet, but he managed to keep the door open long enough for him to squeeze through. He always came to this room when he felt mad or sad. It wasn't his room, it was, to him, a special room.
`This must be the grandest room in all the castle.' He mused to himself.
This was the room that held fine paintings of all the most important people in the Aristocrat family. Deep within the many paintings and hallways, was a painting of his mother. He loved to stare at it.
When young Dracula finally came across it, he sat down on the rugged floor and looked up at it.
She had straight, long black hair that looked like silk across the fabric of her gown. She was very pale and had a somewhat long, defined face. Her lips were bright red and her eyes an almost glowing ice-blue. Indeed it was a lovely portrait...
Little did she know her son spent hours wondering what it would be like to talk to her. He felt she was the only one who would understand him. He longed for her...and yet he couldn't even remember her.
"Junior...?" called the soft voice of his father, barely an echo.
The young boy just looked up at him. The dark, regal man who was his father sat down beside him. The man reached out a brushed a stray strand of brown out of the boys face with a claw-like nail.
"Tell me my son, what is bothering you?"
The boy was quiet for a moment. "What was she like...?"
The noble Dracula, Lord of all the creatures of Darkness and King of the Vampires, chuckled amusingly to himself. "Is it bothering you why a Vampire would love his prey and sire a son with her? Well, I'm not so black-hearted as you may think."
"You're not answering my question."
The man sighed. "She was very beautiful. Pleasant to be around and good mannered. I always believed no matter how human she was, she was fit to be an Aristocrat."
That was the only answered the boy really received from his father. He barely talked about her and everyone could tell he loved the dark-haired woman very much. In fact, he still did. The only thing her son really knew about her was that she was dead. He was once told she died during childbirth.
"She's the only one who understands me." The boy spoke up. "She knows what it's like...to crave other things than blood, have pity for the mortal and be the only one who can enjoy the sunlight."
"The sunlight...?"
The boy instantly realized his mistake as his father stood up.
"You are NOT a Human!" Dracula shouted as his voice echoed off all the cobblestone walls. "You're a Vampire to be raised by our traditions and next in line for the throne! Don't you DARE betray me now!"
And with a whirl of his cape, he spun around and walked away. All the boy could hear was the thudding of boots leaving him. He bent his head over his hands and cried. If only his mother was here...
For the next month, young Dracula did everything he was told without complaint and little say. He seemed to give off a rather dull attitude that his servants were picking up, but never failed to stop writing literature and speaking in the elegant Aristocratic tongue. He did all his school work and studied hard about his ancestors.
But still he seemed so unhappy...
Since Dracula slept in the day, and few servants wandered the castle during daylight hours, the boy saw this as freedom to himself.
The prince wandered down the halls to a destination only he knew. Whenever a servant was seen walking, the boy would hide behind a pillar or a corner or something close-by.
He stopped in front of two well-bolted wooden doors and wondered how he was ever going to get pass this without being seen or heard. With much deliberation and being as quiet as possible, he managed to get one of the doors open and quickly hurried out the door.
The prince took a few strides until he was blinded and fell to his knees! It was so bright it stung his eyes!
"Gahh!" the little boy curled into a ball, shielding his eyes from the bright rays. This was the entranceway to the garden and the rest of the unfenced backyard. He had seen the outdoors in sunlight so many times, but had never been out in it.
After a while, he could take his hands away from his eyes and focus on a few things through squinting. Years of darkness and dim light were taking its toll. The little boy stood up, wiping some mud off of his poofy-sleeved shirt and walked clumsily through the garden.
He could enjoy things before he had only seen in books. He loved looking at colorful flowers and mountains and things only the outside world could hold from inside his castle walls. If he was ever caught out here, he would surely be in massive trouble.
After strolling through the garden and seeing things like clouds and birds for the first time, he wondered who was taking care of this garden. Like any adventurous child, he wandered far beyond the garden, through a field of yellow wheat until he came to a creek.
The little boy sat on a fallen tree that lay sprawled across the creek and watched as the water danced and the sound was soothing to his ears. All except the one. It was a shouting sound.
The curious child scrambled off the log and ran along the edge of the bank until he came upon the source. They were about three boys, around his age, and a girl as well. Two of the boys were shouting as the girl was crying, the other boy was laughing.
"Give me back my Casey!" The little girl with red hair in pig-tails shouted.
"You can't have your stupid Casey, she's all wet now!"
"Yeah," said another boy, "she wanted to go for a swim, she's to hot in that dress!"
The girl plunged into the creek to fish for her doll. The young Dracula stayed low to the ground, unseen near the bank.
Just to his luck, the doll had been taken down stream a bit and the girl running - as best she could in the water - after it. Her soggy dress slowing her down. "Mitchell, I'm gunna tell mama when I get home!"
The girl reached over to pick up her pitiful doll when she saw a pair of boots. She gasped when she noticed a little boy, dressed like a prince with kind of long, curly dark brown hair.
"Who're you?" she asked.
Before the regal boy could reply, three other boys appeared behind her.
"Who's that Kayla?", "He's funny looking" and "Gosh he's pale," were all their replies.
Young Dracula seemed a little intimidated by the other human children and backed away.
"What're you doing here?"
"This is my creek, I can come here whenever I please." He said, a strong funny accent was clear, one the boys didn't understand.
"Doesn't look like you get out much at all!" They all busted up laughing.
The pale boy glowered and took off the other way. He could bully his servants around, but not human children. The red-headed girl ran after him, soggy dress, wet doll and all.
"Wait!" she called.
The boy running in front of her wasn't stopping. "Wai---oof!" she lost her balance and tumbled forward. The young boy stopped and turned around. Feeling guilty, he walked over to her where she lay crying.
She scratched her little arm on a thorn bush pretty well.
"Umm...are you alright?"
She looked up at the boy. "And you're not even going to help me up!?"
"Oh! I'm sorry..." he held out a hand. She took his hand and helped herself up before concluding, "You're awfully pale. Are you sick?"
"No..." the boy eyed the blood from her scratch.
The little girl wiped the blood away with her dress. "What..?" she asked looking up.
"Uh, nothing."
The little child with red hair in pigtails, freckles and brown eyes smiled. "At least it was just Casey this time. They usually take my glasses and throw them in the stream. They think it's hilarious when I try to fish them out."
She smiled full-heartedly and extended her hand. "My name is Danielle."
"I'm Dra...D-d. D."
"Do you have a lisp?"
"No."
Danielle giggled to herself and introduced `D' to her doll. She then invited him to play and they played for hours. `D' had never played games like these before. Hiding as prey and finding it like a predator in a way the human child saw as fun. And chasing each other without any purpose must have been a human thing. Whatever it was, D was enjoying himself.
Towards the end of the day, the both ended up sitting on the log overlooking the stream. Those boys teasing Danielle had ran off long ago. D even learned one of them was her brother.
"Don't you have any brothers or sisters?" she asked. The boy with dark brown hair shook his head.
"Why are you so pale?"
D shrugged.
"Do you really own this creek?"
The boy looked at her confused. "Do you always probe one for so many questions?"
"Huh?"
The boy laughed, careful to keep his fangs from notice. Danielle giggled too. It was starting to get late and she was just about to bid `D' a goodnight and invite him to play again tomorrow, when a monstrous howl shook the trees and made the birds scatter everywhere.
"Oh my gosh D, that was a werewolf!" Danielle cried. She grabbed D by the hand was about to run with him, when he looked at his face which held no shock.
"Don't worry Danielle, you're my best friend, he won't hurt you."
She stopped in her place. "What do you mean?"
"Young master!!"
A werewolf ran towards them on all fours as fast as it could. Danielle, terrified beyond all her eight years clung to D.
"Young master, what were you doing out in daylight!?? I'm thankful you're still alive! You must return to the castle now! Before your father..."
"Alright." D replied calmly.
The werewolf thought it was odd how D, a Vampire child could withstand the sunlight without any affect. He was patrolling the castle when he saw one of the large bolted doors was unlocked. Figuring at first someone might be in the castle, he relented when knowing the doors could only be unlocked from the inside. Someone had gone out...
He had been searching for the boy - not at his studies - for hours. Now with a human child clinging to him, was the young boy perhaps taking matters far enough to go outside for his meals?
"I'll see you tomorrow Danielle, right?"
She stared at him the wide eyes. "You...you're...the Aristocrat's son?"
D nodded. "But...you're still my friend, right?"
The werewolf couldn't believe what he was hearing. Their future Lord was making friends with inferior mortal children!?
She nodded and slowly backed away from them, then took off.
The servant studied his young master. Perhaps it was just child innocence. He would have to loose his friend when he got older.