"We are but transient visitors poised on the edge of darkness. Claim your happiness whenever you find it. As the humans say, 'Seize the day.' You never know when an opportunity will be presented just once." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God
Dracula sat on Death's throne of bone and waved his hand. Fairy appeared, floating in the air.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled, to see that she was in Death's crypt again. She looked about wildly, but except for Dracula and Death, she was the only one here.
"Uhm...pardon me? Sir?"
"Yes?" Dracula grinned evilly at her.
"I could just leave, if that would be okay with you..." she stammered.
"It isn't. You saw the beginning of this. It pleases me for you to witness the end."
"Oh," Fairy responded in a low voice. "Okay...I guess."
Dracula waited, to let her sweat a little.
"Oh!" she exclaimed again. Her gossamer wings blurred as she dashed toward Death. "Here! I found this is D's things!" She dropped something white into the air above Death.
"My tooth!" Death reached up and deftly trapped it in his bony grasp.
"Would you please, if it's okay with you, perhaps, not be too mad at D any longer, uhm...Lord Death?" Fairy asked hesitantly. "I know you were furious at him before and it just seems as though you might still be upset at him..."
Death turned his head and looked at her with eerie glowing sockets. He sighed.
"If you promise me one thing," he agreed.
"Wh, what is it?"
"You have to tease him for me. If I know you are teasing him...I'll stop being angry at him."
Fairy smiled and bowed.
A second wave of Dracula's hand brought Alucard and Bat back. Predictably, Alucard's arms were wrapped around Bat. Not so predictably, Bat wore a lovely, purple silk dress.
"Good evening," Dracula greeted archly. "I trust it has been a good day?"
Alucard grinned.
"It was...satisfactory."
Dracula laughed. "But it is time to restore things to the way they should be."
"I know. Bat knows," Alucard told him. He looked down into Bat's face again. "Thank you, Father, for making her so beautiful as a dhampir," Alucard said.
Dracula raised his eyebrows at that. "I didn't. That is how she would appear if she'd been born a dhampir. Just as you appear handsome in your bat form, she appeared beautiful in her dhampir one."
"Of course, you aren't as handsome as a bat as I am!" Dracula declared arrogantly. He shifted to his vampire bat form and flew over toward Alucard.
Bat jumped out from under Alucard's arm and waved her hands about wildly.
"Shoo! Shoo! Stay away from Master Bat!" she cried out. One of her flailing arms struck Dracula, sending him on an uncontrolled tumble through the air.
He smacked into the wall, slid down and transformed back. Alucard dashed over to his side.
His father was crumpled up against the wall, twitching. Alucard worried that Dracula might have been hurt. His own worry gave him pause. He was concerned...for Dracula?! Another worry woven into that was that his father would be furious at Bat for what happened. Alucard should have realized Bat would react this way, seeing another bat flying toward her Master Bat. He should have stopped her. He hoped that she wouldn't have to pay the ultimate price for striking Dracula.
"Father! Father, I'm so sorry! I should have known! I should have kept a tighter hold on Bat!" Alucard cried aloud.
"Remember that in Castlevania you will still have to defeat me," Dracula observed accepting Alucard's hand to stand up again. "Though it's pleasing you are concerned!"
"Actually, it's funny that she is so jealous!" Dracula laughed. "This has been such fun! But, it is time things went back to normal."
"Meaning?" Bat turned toward Alucard.
"Meaning it's time for you to become a bat again," Dracula said from behind her.
"I want that...I miss being able to fly!" Bat smiled up at Alucard. "Before he changes me back, there's just one thing..."
"What is it?" Alucard asked her gently, taking her into his arms. Her arms automatically wrapped around him.
"Would you...can I see you, Master Bat, with these eyes?" she asked shyly.
Alucard smiled down on her. Even though for one day she had shared the form of a dhampir with him, he knew she loved his bat form the best. He shimmered into it in her arms.
"Ohhhhhh!"
"You are so cute, Master Bat!" Bat enthused, stroking his wings, petting his head, all the while half-hugging him in her arms. "I never realized how small you are!"
"You aren't going to hit me again, if I come near, are you?" Dracula asked as he approached. He reached out a hand and stroked Alucard's bat head himself.
"N,No, sir. I'm sorry!"
"Eh, I understand the reason for it. It is good that you are so protective of Alucard. Especially against me. Do you know what he is saying to you?"
"Saying? No, he isn't saying anything," Bat replied in confusion.
"Pity you can't hear it. He's saying that he loves you and he's using your real name," Dracula told her.
"He is?! You are?!" Bat smothered Alucard in her delighted hug. "Oh, Master Bat, you are so darling!"
"Hey! Take it easy, Bat! You don't want to squish him!" Dracula protested, laughing. "Are you ready to hear it for yourself?" Dracula asked.
Alucard resumed his dhampir form at that. He was torn! He knew Bat, despite her initial misgivings, had enjoyed the granting of her 'secret wish', but he also knew she was eager to be his bat familiar again. He had enjoyed her brief time as a dhampir too, very much, but part of him wouldn't really believe Bat was restored to him until he saw it for himself.
"Oh." Bat's shoulders slumped in the elegant dress she wore. She straightened them again. "I guess...it is for the best."
"What are you sad about?" Dracula asked.
"I miss being myself. I know that Master Bat is fond of me that way." Bat turned toward Alucard. "I do know that you care for me, as a bat. But, I know you love this..." Bat indicated herself now.
"I love you, Bat, not the form you wear," Alucard told her simply.
Death gagged in the corner. "Are you people trying to kill me?!"
Ignoring Death's histrionics, Bat looked up into Alucard's eyes. "Really?"
"Really," Alucard promised. "But, you don't mind if I share a kiss with you, one last time?"
Bat shyly shook her head. Alucard settled her comfortably in his arms, leaned down and softly kissed her. He had to teach her a lot of things in the past twenty-four hours, how to walk, how to dress, how to...express her love. Teaching her how to clean herself by sharing a bath with her made him appreciate his dhampir stamina more than ever before. Kissing was one thing she just knew all on her own.
He loved her. Even if she were just a soul in a globe, he'd still love her. The dhampir Dracula had made of her was beautiful, and Alucard would readily admit he loved that expression of her soul, but he too missed the attentive, affectionate Bat. He missed her soft black wings. He missed her glowing red eyes. He missed how she hovered as near as she could without getting in his way. He missed...Bat. Intensely. It was how she was supposed to be. It was who she was. It was time.
Alucard eased back from their final kiss.
"Bat, come here," Dracula commanded. Bat smiled and stepped out of Alucard's embrace, reaching back with one hand to touch Alucard for as long as possible as she obeyed. She shivered as she stood, alone, before the Lord of All Vampires.
"Back into life, back to the way you are supposed to be!" Dracula lifted his hands and blew across his flattened palms. A fine black dust swept over and around Bat, shrinking her, turning her arms back into wings and darkening the white human skin into the soft black fur of a vampire bat. The purple silk dress pooled on the floor.
Bat, a vampire bat once more, dashed over and thoroughly tangled herself in Alucard's hair. He laughed while complaining that he hadn't even a moment to see her properly before she did that.
Dracula stood off to one side watching Bat's playful, affectionate antics.
"She has no dignity at all," Fairy observed, floating next to Dracula.
"That's okay. Alucard has enough dignity for the both of them," Dracula replied. "He needs her impulsiveness."
"Lord Dracula...the dust you used to transform her was actually the dust of Bat's body, wasn't it?" Fairy asked.
Dracula nodded.
"I see. So you didn't actually..."
Suddenly she wasn't in the chamber any longer. She was in a place that somehow made Death's Crypt seem downright cozy. Dracula, much more scary than she'd ever seen him, reached out and seized her in his hands. He turned her over and pulled on her wings until she cried out.
"Remember this, over-observant little Fairy," Dracula advised her in a cold, menacing voice. "I promise you the perfection of this pain if you should breathe a single word or give the merest hint of what you know. You will never fly again, if you reveal my secret. Do we have an understanding?"
Unable to speak, Fairy simply nodded.
"Good," Dracula said. He let go of her wings, stroked one finger between them to soothe the pain, but seal their pact, and released her. Death's Crypt materialized around them once again. Still trying to untangle the playfully resistant Bat from his hair, Alucard hadn't even noticed Dracula and Fairy had been gone. Fairy shivered.
"You've nothing to worry about from me if you keep my secret," Dracula told her serenely.
Fairy was distressed. There was no one she could talk to about this! She'd have to keep not only Dracula's secret, but also the burden that she even had the secret, from everyone! Cursing herself for her observant nature, Fairy spied the pretty, neglected dress Bat had been wearing crumpled on the floor. To distract herself, she flew over, gathered it up, and offered it to Death.
"I've got no use for that!" he snapped at her, upset at the joy enlivening his Crypt. Reluctantly she approached Dracula with it. She probably should have gone to him first, as it had been borrowed from whatever amorous retreat he had sent Alucard and Bat to, but Fairy wanted to keep as much distance as possible between herself and Alucard's father. Another session of one-on-one with the Lord of All Vampires would probably kill her!
"Keep it, for now," he told her. Fairy sighed as she used a slight magic to shrink the dress and put it in her tiny pack.
She looked up from settling the pack against her hip to see Bat's eyes glowing a soft red at her from just a foot away.
"Bat!" Fairy reached out and impulsively hugged Bat around her neck, tumbling both of them from the air. A quick catch by Alucard saved them from crashing to the floor. He smiled benevolently down into his cupped hands at the happy reunion of his familiars.
"I'm so glad, so very, very glad you are all right!" Fairy told her friend. She dashed happy tears from her eyes.
"OUT!" Death shouted. "I've had ENOUGH! All of you, out of my Crypt!"
Dracula raised one hand.
"Father..." Alucard started. He wanted to let Dracula know how much he appreciated what his father had done for him, returning Bat to him unharmed.
"Someday, when Castlevania is no more, perhaps we can talk of it," Dracula said as he waved his hand. Only Death remained in the Crypt with him.
"Now that they are finally gone, do you want to tell me what the hell that was all about?! Have you completely lost your mind?!" Death demanded. "I wondered when you let Alucard sire Bat, but I thought you had some kind of plan about that. Now, I have no idea at all! Have you gone soft on me?!"
"I've always been soft where my children are concerned," Dracula commented.
"Harumph," Death replied in disgust. Dracula resumed his place on Death's throne.
"But you are right," he admitted. "There is a purpose to everything I've done. Not to worry! Though I will admit there was a bit, the tiniest, merest bit of simply wanting to do something (ugh!) nice for Alucard, I have selfish reasons for giving him Galatea."
"'Galatea'? Oh, you mean Bat?"
"Yes," Dracula smiled. "Her name came to me when you taunted Alucard about being Pygmalion. Galatea is a fitting name for her now, given what I have done to her."
"I see. So, Bat didn't... You didn't..." Death began. Dracula smirked and held one finger over his lips while he shook his head.
"It's important that I be on Alucard's good side now," he admitted, growing abruptly serious again. "Events are transpiring...leading to a conclusion that is most inimical to me. Only Alucard has the power to stop it. So you see...though I appeared to be kind and generous with Galatea...Bat, I had a selfish, ulterior motive all along. For if Alucard fails, or, worse yet, decides to permit this thing to happen, you will have to do something that in a million eons you would never dream." Dracula looked up and smiled a sad, tight smile into the glowing eye sockets of his oldest friend.
"You will have to claim my soul."
"I...see." Death pondered this startling, universe-shaking information. Still...
"You have become soft though," he teased in a sepulchral voice. "You practically had little pink hearts floating all around my Crypt!" he complained. "As it is, you DID have a fairy flitting in here! I'm going to have to fumigate I'm sure..."
Dracula smiled. He'd been candid when he said he was fond of his children. All of them. Though some made him out to be only a cold-blooded monster, Death was one of the few beings who was aware that Dracula honestly did care for his children. Death also knew that D and Alucard both, though they made choices that were inscrutable to Dracula, had not only their father's affection, but his respect as well.
"I've always been so harsh to him..." Dracula mused. "I wonder if what I've done for Galatea is enough?"
"He cares for you," Death told Dracula simply.
"Did you know he's been reading my book?" Dracula asked out of the blue.
"Book? Which one? You've written so many..."
Dracula smiled at the left-handed compliment. "One of the first ones...The Book of Blood. The one I wrote in D's dimension."
"That old thing?!"
Dracula smiled. He knew that despite Death's disdainful attitude, Death particularly liked that book. It contained the sacred writings for the vampires in D's dimension. Death especially liked the chapters about how to consolidate power, summon mutants, raise castles...such vampiric activity, and what D did to suppress it, kept him happily busy.
"'Just once...'" Dracula muttered aloud.
"What?" Death asked.
"The Book of Blood," Dracula held out his hand imperiously.
"What are you going to do?"
"Add a new line. Give me the book, now!"
Death sighed and the book appeared in his skeletal hands. Dracula decisively opened it to the last written page, turned it to invoke a blank page, pulled a quill out of his cloak and swiftly scribbled in his elegant hand on the new page.
"There!"
Death turned the book around to read what Dracula had written.
"'Just once is never enough.'?"
"You do realize this book codifies the myth in D's reality?!" Death was shocked.
"Ah...who even reads it now anyway?" Dracula scoffed.
"Alucard does." Death grinned slyly.
"Well, I hope he figures out what I've done to his 'Bat' before he reads it in some musty old tome!" Dracula laughed. "If he doesn't, he's no son of mine!"
~end~
Author's notes -
Pygmalion and Galatea is one of my favorite romantic Greek Myths. And yes...the conclusion that can be made from the fact that Dracula has named Bat 'Galatea' is one hundred percent correct! ^_~
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
stargarde@stargarde.com
