The Night Has Pleasant Times
By: Keph
This place.
It's impossible to get away from my past here.
This place.
Whether the castle or Ishtar's side. This place is a memorial to my past. A memorial only I recognize.
That night, I couldn't find Ishtar. That fool of a princess had run off again. But I found her soon enough.
She was sitting in a field just outside the castle.
She didn't notice me coming. Her head was down like she was thinking about something...if that is possible for Ishtar...
"Princess!" I called and she looked up sharply.
"Duzie?" she said, but I didn't answer, couldn't answer.
For, at that moment, went she had turned, some trick of the light made it seem as though the moon crowned her. It cast a halo across her face, made her skin as delicate as fine porcelein, her hair like a silk streamer moving in the wind.
And...
Somehow, it made my heart ache, this sight.
It made me angry and I glared at that moon, even as Ishtar called my name again.
This place was bad enough, but now the moon became a part of that memorial, the memorial in my memory to him.
To Phelios.
2.
That's how I first saw him.
Phelios.
Sitting in the moonlight.
I saw him and I should have realized it then: a man named after a sun god could not be a good thing for a Vampire King.
Perhaps that's why I approached him.
Perhaps, being so bored I had nothing left to dare except this.
The sun.
He didn't even notice me. I could have killed him and what then? There would have been no St. Phelios. There would have been no war. There would have been no pain.
Would I have changed it, knowing that?
Ah...I cannot say.
The memory of him in the moonlight. Sometimes that is enough for me to make up for all that has come since.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him when I was close.
His eyes widened, but he didn't seem to think much of my stelthy approach. "Thinking." he said and went quiet and then turned back to the moon.
"About what are you thinking?" I ask him.
He didn't even break his stare this time, "Life." he said, "And love."
"Love?"
"And life." he laughed. "What is one without the other?"
I paused and when I didn't laugh at his joke, he turned to me. I don't think he realized it then, what I was. Later I was to find Phelios marvelously naive. Perhaps he was also simply marvelously blind and I give him too much credit. Either way, he didn't know what I was and I wasn't going to tell him. Not yet.
"Why are you here? We're far from town." he asked.
"Me?" I could have told him I had been watching him. I had seen him in his camp with his army. I had seen him laughing, the moonlight on his hair. Then, I saw him walk away from them and his face changed so it caught my interest. Who was this man, I thought, who could not simply appear happy, but truly rejoyce so one moment, then the next seem so lost? "I was just watching the moonlight." I conclude.
"The moonlight." he said. "It is quite beautiful. Sometimes I feel I can reach out and touch the moonlight here."
"Trust me," I said, "You can't."
He laughed. "Of course! Of course! But if you could!"
"There are few questions of "could" in my mind. You do or you don't."
"Really?" Phelious said and I could see him looking at me, his smile light on his lips, "Is it that simple for you?"
"Yes."
"If only it were for me." he said and sighed. Just like that, again, his face changed, he changed. How tired he sounded and...how sad. Strange enough that, stranger how I somehow felt bad for him. "Life." he repeated.
"And love." I said without meaning to.
"Yes! Exactly!" he said and laughed again.
Oh, really. This was too much.
I scowled and stood. I looked away from him. "What is it with life and love already? You sigh so much and say so little."
"I....I'm sorry." he said and I looked down at him. He was gazing up and his eyes were bright. I imagined them to be filled with daylight and that was why I couldn't bring myself to look at them.
I sighed and sat down. "No need to apologize."
He smiled, then his expression sombered. "I am to marry soon." he said.
"Isn't that a reason to be happy for you humans?"
"Happy? Yes. It is. I suppose. But only if you marry someone you love."
"And you are not to marry one such?"
"No." He was gazing at the moon again and I followed his eyes. Was he hoping for answers from that silent moon? Or merely solace?
I could tell him there was no solace to be found in moonlight, merely more moonlight. But...something stopped me from saying that.
"One day I will love her. I shall."
"Perhaps." I say and try to remember the last time I had thought such a thing. I couldn't remember. When was the last time I so earnestly gazed into the moon and so earnestly said something as though it wasn't merely words, but a promise?
Decades?
Centuries?
If I asked the moon, one of the few things older than I, would it know, I wonder?
Perhaps I had simply never done such a thing.
I laughed now and Phelios, surprised turned to me. I don't know why I was laughing. Something felt so rediculous sitting there by this human in the moonlight speaking about love and life as though I were still naive enough to believe in such things.
For a moment, Phelios merely stared at me, his eyes wide and so young and then, he smiled and slowly, he started to laugh. I laughed and he laughed harder and soon we were both throwing our heads back and hitting our knees, holding our sides from all that laughing.
Then, slowly, as though carried away on a breeze, the laughing stopped.
When, I wanted to ask that moon, was the last time I had laughed so?
And with a human?
"You are a strange fellow." Phelios said. "What is your name?"
"My name?" I said.
"My name is Phelios." he said. I said nothing and after a moment, his smile lessened just a bit.
"Duzell." I said.
"What?" he said, looking startled for the first time. He squinted in the moonlight as though trying to see my face better. "What did you say...?"
I smiled. And leaned forward 'til our faces were inches apart. "Duzell, young prince."
His eyes were too wide. "But...But you are a...." he began and I laughed.
I was thinking to say I am "Duzell the Vampire King". I was thinking I could have my sword out by the time he said "vampire". Instead I leaned forward that final distance and set my lips against his.
And above, the moon shone on as it always does.
And always did.
Even at the end of Phelios's days.
Sometimes I imagine that moon is more heartless than I.
3.
"Duzie?" Ishtar said again and I look up at her.
The moon had gone behind a cloud and Ishtar looked worried. "Are you alright?" she said.
At first I didn't answer. I even thought to tell her what was really on my mind, but in the end I didn't.
"Let's go back to the castle, Princess." I said, but my eyes are locked on the moon.
Author's Note: So? What do you think? It's my first Vampire Game fic! Yeah! This was written after reading a couple of V.G. fics. Hope you liked it and if you did....please review...please? Pretty please...sugar on top? :) Thanks! :)