Disclaimer: I do not own HunterxHunter, nor do I profit commercially from these writings.
Lucian's Story Part 15
MOTHER
It was days before Lucian's consciousness finally returned to the land of the living. The first thing that he recognised was the absence of agony. The last time he had woken up, he had woken up to a world of pain and anguish. Now it was just…peace. No pain to tear his body apart, no burden of making life decision on his laps. It was just him. Him and the little room where he was in.
Oh, and the source of warmth curling by his side.
A tilt of his head to the side allowed him a view of a mass of white hair plastered against his ribs. Further observation allowed him to feel small hands fisted around his shirt and knees touching his side. Inhuman hearing also allowed him to hear the girl's almost imperceptible soft breathing. With minor difficulties—ones that he attributed to the thrice-damned muscle atrophies—Lucian managed to move his hand around so he could stroke the downy white hair gently. Bia didn't even stir or twitch; she just continued curling against his side like a kitten.
Lucian looked around to ascertain whose room exactly he was in. To his surprise, it was actually his room. His hidden room in the basement of the Prancing Pony Inn. He had always come over to the little town so often that everyone just decided to set up an underground bedroom for him. He remembered having the surprise of the year when Fino had pulled a lever and revealed a hidden room in some obscure corner of her Inn. It had made him wonder if the inn used to be the base of a ninja clan or something.
"How are you feeling?"
Under normal circumstances, it would have embarrassed him to have been caught so off guard like that. But this was his Sire, and Lucian was always caught off guard by his Sire. Lucian didn't even bother to look around to spot his Sire. He simply took a deep breath and felt his body with his mind.
"Normal…" He eventually stated. "Weaker, but…normal."
"Do you feel her at the edge of your consciousness?"
Lucian closed his eyes and concentrated, and yes indeed he felt another consciousness hovering at the edge of his consciousness. A white light hovering unsurely, flickering hesitantly like a lost firefly.
"Yes." He breathed out.
"It will get stronger over time, and it will always be present. You will learn to live with it."
"Hmm…" Lucian hummed distractedly. Mentally, he was poking at the little white light and he soon realised that the white light was preoccupied, not lost.
Silence stretched inside the room, with Bia's breathing as the only sound heard. Lucian had so many thoughts and questions running amok in his mind, he didn't know where to start. The Count knew that Lucian had questions, so he decided to wait.
"Will you give me an explanation?" was what Lucian settled with in the end.
There was silence for a while, before there were rustles of clothes and Lucian could feel something materialising within the space of the room. He could feel the pull and tear of the space, prickling his skin like an itch. It soon ended, and he could see his Sire standing at one side of the room, leaning against the wall. Lucian then sat up with some minor efforts; because he still felt weak and also to not jostle the still sleeping Bia too much, and his Sire never bothered to assist him with it. He just stood there, calm and firm.
The Count looked at Lucian in the eyes, staring into the depth of those familiar grey eyes. The grey eyes that Lucian got from him, one that was the same as his and yet different.
"Every strigoi (vampire) only has one parent; a sire or a dam." The Count started slowly. "But you are an exception. You have both."
Lucian nodded. He had that figured out from his Sire's enigmatic words from the last time.
"But how? And why?"
The Count looked away and his steely grey eyes took on a distant look as he stared into the memories of the past so long ago.
"Do you remember your first death? How you die as a mortal?" The Count asked at length.
Lucian opened his mouth to give his Sire a smartass remark about how he remembered, but he paused because Lucian realised that…he actually didn't remember.
"No..." He whispered, aghast that he had never realised it. It made his heart heavier when he caught The Count's look of pity and regret directed at him.
"You were crushed. Nothing intact was left of you. There was only your blood."
Lucian was no stranger to all manners of painful and grotesque things. He had seen his fair share of all things bloody and messy. But to be told that your body had once been crushed into minced meat was…highly unsettling.
"Your…mother. She did not want to give up on you."
"And you gave up on me." Lucian said with slight accusing tone.
The Count looked at Lucian in the eye and Lucian felt ashamed to see the sliver of hurt in those steely grey eyes.
"I promised you, pui. I promised not to turn you into a strigoi, and I intended to keep my promise."
Lucian broke eye contact in guilt at the Count's admonishing tone.
"But your mother was not bound with such promise. You never made her promise." The Count continued, voice neutral.
Lucian frowned at The Count's words.
"But why not?"
"Because she is not a strigoi."
All shame and guilt forgotten, Lucian looked up and stared at his Sire with confusion and lack of understanding.
"Then what…?"
"She is my tovarăș." The Count said, and Lucian almost missed that slight small upturn of his Sire's pale lips. The Count, on his part, watched with amusement as Lucian sputtered.
"Your—! But I—since when?!"
"She has been my tovarăș since long before you were even born as a mortal into this world, pui." He said with a lilt of amusement in his voice.
"But that kind of thing... I would have...I wouldn't have..."
"You didn't forget." The Count said with slight shake of his head and again with that sad light in his steely grey eyes. "You were made to forget her."
Lucian blinked. And suddenly everything clicked into places. The empty gap in his memories, the hollow feeling that had been haunting him for years, like he had forgotten something really important. The discomfort and anxiety he had been trying to pretend to never exist for centuries.
He wanted to know her.
"Who is she?" Lucian asked in earnest, leaning forward in his eagerness.
"It is for you to remember, pui." The Count said with a shake of his head.
"Why can't you just tell me? Don't tell me because the Court doesn't allow you. You're THE Count! You can do whatever you want!" Lucian snapped impatiently. Why couldn't he be given a straight answer for once?
"There are consequences to everything, Lucian." The Count said patiently, with his stoic mask still firmly plastered on his face. "The law of casualties, of balance. Especially when one broke the taboo. Summoned the forbidden one."
There was so much emphasis and disdain on the word 'taboo' and 'forbidden one' that Lucian immediately knew what his Sire was referring to. Lucian paled. There was only one thing that his Sire feared and despised.
"The Council of the Dead…"
The Count made a discreet sigh that would have gone unnoticed by most people, but Lucian had lived with him for centuries. He could see those very subtle gestures. This small gesture, however, softened Lucian's temper and he deflated. Suddenly his Sire looked so much older and wearier.
"Had your body been intact, the affair would have been so much simpler." The Count said softly. "There was the option of necromancy, but neither I nor your mother wishes you to live as a ghoul or zombie. There is no freedom in that existence."
"And there is freedom in this existence?" Lucian said bitterly.
Lucian's words immediately aroused a reaction out of the Count. The Count's eyes turned crimson and he bared his fangs at Lucian.
"Ungrateful child." The Count snarled lowly. "Have you not been doing what your heart desire all this time? Have you not been the master of your own self? You know well that a person revived by necromancy will be slave of the necromancer who revives him."
Properly cowed, Lucian deflated and sulked like a child. He lowered his head in a gesture of submission, and The Count simmered down from his anger. As if nothing had happened, The Count resumed his former position of reclining against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.
"We did not wish that upon you. So your mother summoned the Council of the Dead so your body and life will be restored wholly. The requirement for it was her blood, my blood, and a piece of you."
"….The price?" Lucian didn't want to know, but he also wanted to know. The Council of the Dead imposed heavy price on the requests and wishes that they granted.
"You paid the price of becoming one of my kin; the undead and the unholy. Your mother paid the price of being 'forgotten' by you. I paid the price of being resented by you." The Count gave him a wry smile. "I like to think that I get the better end of the deal."
"Forgotten…Is that why I can't remember her at all?"
"Her existence is removed from your existence. You will never remember her even when you meet and know her. You will never recognise her, and she can never tell you that she is your dam." The Count said with voice that clearly expressed how much he loathed that curse. "But she is willing to pay that price. As long as she can get her puiule back."
"Where were you?" He asked with accusatory tone, and rightfully so.
"I did not approve of her summoning the Council of the Dead even when it was the only way to get you back. I had just lost you then, I did not wish to risk losing her to the Council of the Dead. But she defied me."
The Count stopped in his speech, as if he had just remembered something.
"There are things…" He said at length with wistful voice. "Parts of you that remind me so much of your mother. Some of your mannerisms. The things that she had taught you and you had picked up from her. They remain in you. You remember all those. You just…don't remember her…" The Count gave him a sad smile. "Whenever I see all these little things, I couldn't help but to hope. That perhaps, one day, perhaps you will remember."
She remembered. She remembered everything. This doll she was holding in her hands, it was messy and lopsided and dirty and very old and very worn out. It was the child's first present for her after she had adopted him. It was the most beautiful thing in her possessions.
"I heard in the town that it's Mother's Day. But I've never had mother before, so I don't know what to give you. Then I saw a girl giving a doll to her mother. So I thought…"
He had blushed so cutely back then. His fingers were covered in little bandages that the servants had given him. They had offered to help him, but he had refused their help. He had wanted to do it on his own, and he only allowed them to guide him.
Another was the flower that she had pressed into bookmarker to preserve it. It was the first flower of spring that he had picked for her.
Another was the pretty purple shell that he had found when he was playing by the beach.
Another was the beautiful dress that he had bought for her when he was travelling to 'see the world', fulfilling his and his deceased brother's dream.
Another was the rare book that he managed to procure through hard-core negotiation with a travelling merchant from distant lands.
The list of such items could go on and on and on. All these gifts from her adopted human child were what cluttered the inside of her gypsy caravan. These were her treasures.
But on the child's 25th year of life, the stream of gifts ended. And many of these items bore tear stains.
As Lucian contemplated and tried to digest the information he had just been given, The Count shifted his attention to his son's newly 'born' tovarăș. His lady had observed the girl through Radu; the familiar she had crafted for Lucian, and she had approved of her. Lucian did not really talk much to him about this human family that he treasured so much, but The Count had his resources.
The girl right now looked frail. She was curling in foetal position against Lucian's side, and there was a mild frown marring her face. But The Count could feel the power thrumming inside her; the vast pool of Nen residing within her. And The Count knew that the girl was taking a dive into Lucian's past, just as Lucian had also taken a dive into the girl's past.
But the girl's past was a shallow lake compared to the years that Lucian had lived through and left behind. It would take her longer time to wake up.
"You have seen her past, I presume." The Count suddenly asked Lucian, eyes still glued to Bia.
Lucian looked up to stare at his Sire momentarily, before he turned to gaze at Bia's sleeping form.
"Yeah…" Lucian whispered as he put a hand on Bia's white hair and stroke it gently.
The Count observed as Lucian caressed the child fondly. He dearly wanted to ask Lucian what the girl was to him, but he understood that Lucian had had enough anxiety for today. That would be question for another time. They would have plenty of time ahead of them, in any case.
"Treat her well, Lucian." The Count said softly.
"Of course I will." Lucian scoffed, sounding slightly affronted that his Sire would have to suggest such thing out loud.
"Well, you have not exactly treated the person who had taken you in and raised you very well, have you?"
Lucian had the grace to look down in shame.
"But I will not begrudge you that, pui. I understand your misgivings. I have kept too many secrets from you. Important secrets."
"Why didn't you tell me? Then I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have resented you..."
"We thought it was best to keep you in the dark about that matter. She did not want you to be burdened. It would have hurt her more to see you knowing that she exists and trying so hard to remember her, and yet always failing to do so. It would torture you, and it would make her hopeful even though she knows that such hope is foolish."
"Nobody else in the clan said anything about it…" Lucian said, almost like a whine.
"Because we told them not to tell you. They understand the burden. Some of them were victims of the Council of the Dead, too. They wish to spare you the pain of not being able to remember while knowing."
The statement gave Lucian another piece to contemplate. He never gave much thoughts of the fellow vampire in the clan. They looked out for him all the time, they all looked so much stronger and wiser than him. He never once considered that maybe, just maybe, some of them had been through the same pain as his.
"Isn't there any 'happy ending' in our story?" Lucian whispered, as if afraid that he would jinx himself.
The Count made another discreet sigh as he closed his eyes wearily. With subtle movements, he put a hand on his chest where his heart was.
"We are still searching for it, pui."
She did know that her beloved also had his own room of treasures. The room that housed the little gifts that Lucian got for him. But her beloved's most treasured possession was the silver coin pendant that he had found on the site of Lucian's death. The silver coin that he had given little human Lucian when they had first met.
He had found the pendant, covered in blood and almost bent out of shape by the rocks, when he was trying to dig out Lucian out of the rocks. When he found that pendant, covered in so much blood, minced flesh, and splintered bones, The Count had known that he had found his son. There was only blood, bits of flesh, splinters of bones, and that pendant.
It was the first time in many many centuries that she had seen The Count cry.
And from that day onward, The Count had always worn the pendant underneath his clothing, over his undead heart.
Author's Note: Lucian had a talk with his Sire, and The Count opened some of the cards to the table. He had his share of sentimentality and pain as well, despite the coldness. What do you think? Would you have done what Madame Sforza had done if you were in her position? Review please!