Seras clings to her sheets as the ghoul continues its meal. 'No. Stop… It, it isn't right.' Shady figures surround the feasting abomination, their auras dark with excitement. 'You can't.' Her pleas are too small in her ears. 'But they can.' Csont's voice is sad and Seras finds herself drawn to it. 'Please, can't you make them stop?' His green eyes are dark, poignant emotions she cannot fathom. With her attention drawn elsewhere, the dream figures dissipate around her. 'Why Csont? How… did this happen to you?' He turns away and she can feel the tension in their strange bond. 'It was not my place to show you that.' His tone is chiding, the facade of confidence, that every vampire she has ever known wears, slips from him. 'It has been too long.' She cannot help herself, something deeply maternal responds to his distress. She steps forward and rests a hand, tentatively, on his back. 'Please. Tell me what this is all about.' She doesn't witness the tiny smile on his lips.
He turns, catching her wrist before she can pull it away. 'If I tell you, if I reveal what I have hidden, will you listen?' His voice is sour, as if he does not believe her sympathy. Her heart tells her that it is his defence. 'Yes.' Csont's eyes hold something unreadable. 'You want to know? You want to know how I gained my unlife, how I came under the service of my Master?' She feels a quiver of uncertainty but nods.
His sleeping fledgling grips his shirt-front tightly and her Master frowns. The movement has pulled him from his dozing state and into an unwelcome reality. For the second time in the same night, their bond is numb.
'I am not vampire Seras.' She frowns, absorbing the information. 'Then what…' 'I am the dark child of a pontianak.' Seras feels herself flush with shame. So many things she doesn't understand. If only her Master would… 'Do not fret little one. No single creature knows all there is to know.' His eyes grow far away. 'She is a pontianak. A woman who died during childbirth, giving her life for that of a stillborn and rising again to walk the earth. I saw her as all victims do, a beautiful woman. That was until she attacked me.' His eyes grow hard and Seras feels a deep-seated hatred emanate from him. 'She did not even need me to survive. I became one of the first of a mass that now form her 'organisation.' Seras frowns, 'But what do you mean she didn't need you to survive?' 'A pontianak does not drink blood in the conventional fashion of your kind. They posses a human body and drain it slowly, over years, from the inside.' A sour smile lurks in his face, 'What better way than to keep the victim alive, always producing new blood.' His eyes focus and, as they catch hers, his grip on her wrist tightens, pulling her closer to him. 'She will posses her victim for many years, claiming a new body when she pleases or when the host becomes frail. She will live forever.' Seras fights the urge to comfort him. 'But why don't you leave her?' Her mind races a mile a minute. Why does he still serve a Master he hates? His eyes are heavy with worldly knowledge. 'Our kind are similar to yours in that we serve our sire. But we cannot gain our freedom unless our sire grants it willingly or is destroyed.' A million things click into to place for Seras. 'You are bound to your Master forever?'
His fledgling whines a high-pitched, soft sound of distress and Alucard holds her tightly. There is no longer any doubt in his mind. That thing has invaded her completely.
'The irony of it, my dear Seras, is that we are so very different. Freedom for me would mean…' He trails off and his mouth sets in a hard line. It is as if he is going to lie to her, like he daren't believe his own words, 'Once released, I, and my comrades, will revert back to our… human forms.' Seras blinks in disbelief. 'But…' She struggles to control the tremor in her voice. He is so close to the one thing she desires with all of her soul. 'How long?' She is lucky that he is able to understand her. 'About three hundred years now.' Seras feels her heart break then, the full force of her own immortality hits her. To live for so long, bound to serve, with such hope so heartbreakingly close. 'How,' Her voice is a whisper and he leans nearer to hear her words. 'How can you endure it?' A small smile flits across his lips as he leans closer to the trembling girl. 'I survive it with the knowledge that one such as yourself exists…' his words trail off as he captures her mouth in a sweet, longing kiss.
Alucard probes her mind gently, a furtive attempt to enter, to become privy to whatever manipulation the creature is subjecting her to. His curiosity demands he know, his pride demands he cheat the creature and discover its cause. Suddenly, his fledgling emits the tiniest whimper, her body growing rigid and he feels her heart race. With a growl, he tears through the creature's cloaking.
Csont breaks the embrace gently, the stunned girl still assimilating his actions. His eyes narrow into the darkness that surrounds them. 'Even in your dreams we cannot be safe.' He releases her, taking a step back from her form with a sweep of his coat. His eyes search hers desperately. 'You hold the key Seras, you are the only one that can help us, that can help all of us.' A loud growl fills their surrounds and she tears her eyes from the fading figure to acknowledge it. 'Master?'
Her eyes open and she gazes groggily up at her Master. His face is a mask of pure fury. Power courses through their bond with the promise of agony to an unseen foe and Seras trembles as his scent rages in her senses. She struggles to reclaim a clear mind. "Master." Unbidden, tears spring to her eyes and she reaches forward, diving for his form. "I'm sorry Master."
Her arms wrap tightly around him and her small frame trembles with hindered sobs. Alucard is stiff in her embrace, unsettled to find that his anger is dissipating in the face of her distress. Rising a hand to stifle the bleeding at her throat, he strokes her hair in an odd, almost… tender gesture as he dips into her muddled mind. He gains only the slightest inclination of her encounter and it leaves him hot with fury.
For a moment, his aura was settled. Seras sits back suddenly as his anger returns. His eyes narrow as he phases to a standing position, dropping her unceremoniously from his lap onto the floor of her room. There is something unfettered in his expression, but he keeps a tight lid on the ferocity of his temper. He watches her with disquietened eyes as she picks herself up from the floor.
"Such a resourceful fledgling." His tone is cruel, his smile crueller. His feet lead him in a circle around her as he stalks her form. "Your Master does not train you…" Shadows gather about his body and they reach out to flicker dangerously at her. "…so you find another who can." His smirk screams of an unsound mind and his eyes are pure madness. "My what a loyal fledgling I have SIRED!" The word sounds like an explosion inside the room and inside her mind, his wrath crushing her tired psyche. "Master?" Her voice is tiny as she struggles against the pressure. "What a fool you are Police Girl." He steps forward as she drops to her knees, the excruciating pain threatening to overcome her tired body. "Tell me…" He leans down close to her as she curls into herself, fighting an agony that leaves her believing she is bleeding inside her own skull. "…are you intimate with every sob story that comes your way?" His mocking words carry a sour note of his own invidious pride. "If I told you mine would you…" "STOP IT!" Her voice rings out strongly as she lunges for him. "You will NOT do this to me!" Blood tears stain her face as she throws all of her weight at him. He grins and, lifting his hands, welcomes the struggling attacker into his embrace. "No…" Her voice is weak and he feels her remaining energy seep from her, like the blood that escapes her infuriating wound. He smiles as she falls limp in his arms. "Yes. You are ready." Bending close, he inhales her scent, acutely aware of the shiver of anticipation that crawls down his spine. "You will be stronger.' His tongue flicks out to taste the intoxicating blood that stains her neck. "You will be mine."
Laving her wound, he carries her attentively to her coffin. He drops the sleeping vampiress on the mattress and grins leeringly at her unmarred skin. Csont's mark is gone. "You fought well Seras."
Somehow, Seras knows that she has been asleep a long time, somehow, she knows that she is still asleep and somehow, she knows that she is being fed. 'Master?' Her mind enquires timidly, painfully aware of his most recent mood towards her. 'Yes Police Girl.' His voice is slightly amused, as if he has been listening to her thoughts. It seems an eternity since she last had that feeling. 'That is because I have erased his claim on you.' Her mind swirls as she tries to understand his words. 'He cloaked you Police Girl. For a short while it was… difficult to sense your thoughts.' Her dream self grins. 'And my where-abouts Master?' He growls a low, good-natured growl. 'Yes Police Girl.' She thinks a moment. 'I am asleep.' 'You are.' 'Why?' The elder nosferatu gives an undignified sniff. 'Because your body is weak. It must recover.' Confusion floods her. 'But I…' His stern tone cuts her off. 'Drinking your blood for a couple of nights does not give you the strength to practice vampiric powers Police Girl.' A blush works its way across her sleeping face. 'You didn't train me…' 'You weren't strong enough.' His simple statement stings as her mind replays his words. 'What do you mean… his claim?' Her mental voice is timid, but the asking is brave. She can feel her body now, she knows she is waking up. 'I removed his mark.' Her skin tingles strangely where she was once wounded. She feels her Master's silk-clad fingertips brush along the newly knitted skin and she shivers. "I should have seen how he was using it before." The murmur in his voice tells her that he believes her too deeply asleep to hear spoken words. She opens her eyes, surprised to find that he is leaning low over her coffin bed. "Master!" Her squeal gains no regard and he growls softly at her. "Stay still Police Girl and finish your blood." His other hand holds a pack to her mouth. She shies away from the pack and his face takes on an amused frown as the liquid spills from the side of her mouth. Her Master's grin is playful, a relaxed, teasing expression that she has not seen for a long while in his face.
His scent fills the room, clouding her mind. "Such a messy eater." Leaning forward, her Master laps the wasted blood from her face, his long tongue brushing wetly against her mouth. A quiver passes through her and memories of Csont's kiss spring unbidden to mind. Her Master withdraws immediately, his face a controlled mask of anger. Seras averts her eyes, a dark blush spreads crimson across her cheeks, fuelled by the blood he has just fed her. There is something calculating in his stare. "You are not to leave this room Police Girl." He states it flatly as he stands and straightens his jacket, leaving her small form curled up against her coffin. She starts. "But Master!" His eyes flare at her defiance. "You will not leave this room." His voice is crushing again.
As he fades, she knows she has no choice.
Poor Seras, her Master just can't seem to pick a mood and stick with it.I hope that this chapter at least explained a few things. If I was too vague, let me know. Pity the audience of a ditzy author>
Sanvean – I'm not familiar with OAV Tsuioku Hen Rurôni Kenshin, but I suppose the explanation in this chapter probably changed the similarity to it.
Disclaimer: Hellsing is, sadly, not mine. : (