SEARCH FOR A SOUL
Version Two: The Young Vampire
"We have no immortal souls; we have no future life; we are just like the green sea-weed, which, once cut down, can never revive again! Men, on the other hand, have a soul which lives for ever, lives after the body has become dust; it rises through the clear air, up to the shining stars!"
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
It was back in the day when the coven of blood drinkers dwelt in the depths of the temperate rain forest, far from the dwellings of men, hidden from the eyes of humanity. There, they stayed, avoiding the sun and the light and the lives of men.
The glacial blue of the river waters was misted with a blanket of grey fog that rose upwards and melted into the interminable charcoal sky. Moss oozed from every exposed tree branch and cascaded through the canopy, casting a green glow on every ray of light and tainting the day light green. The lacy fronds of ferns fought for their own share of the precious light, covering the forest floor with even more layers of emerald leaves.
This was the home of the Olympic Coven. There they dwelt in peaceful harmony with the forest and the creatures within. They drank from the blood of creatures of the forest. If the humans crept too near, then as silently as a shadow, the coven retreated to the safety of the snow-capped mountains. On the slopes of Mount Olympus, none would find them and they could continue their lives unhindered and undiscovered.
"Humans are dangerous. They are not to be trusted. They must not know of our existence," warned the patriarch of their coven. He warned them against intermingling with humans or getting too close to the world outside the safety of the murky, moss-encrusted forest and the glacial mountains.
Despite the fervent warnings of their patriarch, there was one vampire more curious than most. He loved to study the lives of humans. He hid in the shadows so he could see them work and play, hunt and sleep. He watched them as they carved their ceremonial masks and paddled their canoes along the rapids of the many rivers. They fascinated him. In figure and form, they were so like his own kind. They forged kin bonds and dwelt in their own forms of covens. They were tied with mate bonds and bore young which they raised in their ways and taught them their tongue.
Yet, the humans were not like his kind in other ways. The vampires had no souls. They could not create music. They could not create art. There would be no afterlife for their kind, thus they lived long lives in the forms they inhabited- forms both strong and beautiful but without that precious spark of the immortal within.
He gathered to himself keepsakes from the human settlements he came across, endlessly fascinated by all he found. He loved their music and their art, the small trinkets they carried with them and the large dwellings they built for themselves along the coasts and edges of the rivers. These he kept in his own cave, deep in the roots of the tallest mountain, hidden from the rest of his family. Their patriarch, his father, would never approve. His brothers and their mates would mock him and warn their children away from imitating his ways. It was his secret, his hidden hoard of illegitimate treasures that he could admire only when he was alone.
When he was the bravest, the most audacious, the most desperate, he even tried to masquerade amongst them. He crept as close as he dared, ever closer each time, donning the garb of their people, pretending to be a traveling warrior or a lost traveler from lands far away. If it was not for his gift, he would never have dared to come so close. However, he was distinct from all his kin in that he was able to hear the thoughts of all around him- vampires, humans, and animals alike. Without effort, he could understand their many tongues and the words they did not speak aloud. All these were written before him as clear as day and thus he thought he was in no danger from the humans he approached.
This vampire was the youngest son of the patriarch and he was the favorite of his father, both for his gift, and because he was the most beautiful of all. His father delighted in speaking with him and hearing what he learned and thought about. He was as clever as he was lovely and there were no limits to the pride his father felt for him. Yet, for all the honor and care bestowed on him by his family, he remained discontent.
More than anything, he longed to know more, to experience more, to delve ever deeper into the human psyche and the mystical spark of the divine they carried in their frail bodies. His quest for knowledge drove him near distraction and he took ever greater risks in his desire to learn.
One day, when the vampire hunted deer along the Hoh River, he came too close to where humans explored a pathway through the forest. Transfixed by the sound of their laughter, he followed them, watching and listening. While he dared not leave the shadows of the mighty trees around him, the humans did not fear the bright, burning light of the sun. They boldly traipsed through the rays of light, wading through the thick mud of the forest floor, and speaking in boisterous tones to each other. The men wore rain hats and dog hair blankets and they carried bows and arrows with them. The women carried baskets and they stopped alongside clumps of ferns to dig up the tubers from beneath the soft, muddied earth. They plucked the leaves and berries of edible plants and they began to sing a song together. Some carried cradleboards on their backs from which the small faces of their infants could be seen. Smaller children ran around the trees, laughing and chasing each other, all the while their mothers chided them to gather their own leaves into their tiny baskets.
All this, the vampire watched as he huddled himself ever deeper into the hollowed heart of a long-dead spruce. He wished he knew their songs. He envied them their freedom. He trailed after them until the sun finally sank beneath the moss-laden canopy and blanketed the forest in the blessed reprieve of darkness once again.
Now, he could move freely and without fear. He was, after all, a creature of the night and it was in the sunless hours in which he ruled and reigned.
The party of humans camped on the banks of the river that night, near where the glacial blue waters merged with the salted grey ripples of the incoming ocean. There, they tied their canoes and set up their campfires. The fragrance of roasting fish and seal oil soon filled the forest, along with the songs of the humans.
In the midst of the merriment, his eyes were drawn to one particular family circle. There, a grey-haired elder sat next to a young woman, hardly more than a girl. She eagerly roasted salmon over the flames and spoke to him in low tones. She bore the marks of a daughter of chiefs and by the shape of her forehead and the many adornments on her body, she showed she was a woman of status among their people.
Yet it was her mind, her thoughts, her river of consciousness that drew his attention to her. Her mind was so warm, her thoughts so lovely, her way of thinking so different from any mind he had ever come across that he stood as a man entranced. He could not tear himself away from that woman and he was convinced that of all the souls he had ever come across, hers must shine the most brilliantly.
When dawn broke over the eastern horizon, the humans broke camp and loaded their baskets and belongings onto their canoes. Then, as one, they broke into another song as they paddled their canoes from the mouth of the river and into the depths of the ocean.
The vampire ran along the coastline, though the task was made more difficult by the many cliff faces and craggy protrusions of jagged rocks. Despite the deep charcoal of the sunless sky, he dared not leave the shadows of the trees, not even when the wind began to howl and the rain began to fall in torrents.
He watched in growing dismay as the sea answered the call of the angered wind and began to toss and turn like a restless sleeper. The canoes struggled to make headway and soon the party gave up their journey and turned their canoes to the nearest beach. One by one, the carefully crafted ocean canoes made their way onto the rocky shores and the humans did their best to set up tents amongst the driftwood logs.
Yet, there was one canoe still missing and the vampire could not rest until he knew its fate. He crept ever closer down the incline of the land and towards the angry sea. He did not fear the ocean's currents nor the wind's frigid claws, but he knew his kind could manage better than the delicate humans. In the dense, grey mist of the storm, he could not tell where the sky ended and the waves began and so he eagerly sifted through the minds of the humans on the beach, seeking and searching for the one he wished to find.
The one mind which wasn't there.
He cast his own mind further afield, seeking her beyond the many voices and there he found her, still fighting against the waves and currents. In their attempt to make for the shore, their canoe was caught by the skeletal roots of the corpse of an old spruce tree. Pushed under by the force of the waves, they had not seen the old tree until it caught their canoe between its roots and now the six humans on the canoe pushed and pulled with all their strength to break free.
Yet, the waves only grew stronger and the massive tree rolled and bobbed in the currents, ambivalent to the fate of the canoe trapped in its limbs. With a chorus of cries and groans, the canoe capsized under the strength the next wave, sending all the inhabitants into the cold grey of the waters.
While the other five humans managed to grab hold of branches and swim the remaining distance to shore, there was one human who failed to emerge from the waves. The others had yet to notice… and when they did, they were too far to swim against the currents to come to her aid. The young vampire did not hesitate. He dove into the water, frantically searching beneath the frothing waves for that familiar head of dark hair.
He found her, trapped in the branches of the dead tree, a cloud of inky scarlet staining the water around her face. Quickly, he untangled her feet, gathered her in his arms, and carried her to the surface. She did not wake and the blood poured freely down her temples. He gasped, the scent of human blood so unfamiliar to his nostrils. He carried her all the way to the shore, hidden away from her fellows by a large boulder. He tore a strip of bark cloth from her skirt and used it to wipe the blood from her forehead.
Then, overcome with emotion, he pressed a kiss to her lips, lingering in the taste of life still exuding in quick, shallow breaths. She was so beautiful, so still, so fragile. Would her mind ever fill with the thoughts and images only she could summon? Did her soul remain or was it already missing, taking its final journey to the Land of the Dead. He could not bear it. He prayed again that she would wake.
In his distress, he did not pay attention to the passing of time or the shifting of the weather. The wind stilled, though the rain still fell with a steady rhythm. Voices interrupted the silence shrouding them both. The vampire quickly hid behind the boulder when he heard them.
"What's this?" came the voice of a man. He knelt down beside the woman and carefully assessed the wound on her head. At the sound of his voice, the woman stirred and sat up. She placed her hand against her temple and groaned. It did not take long before this other man gathered the woman into his own arms and carried her back to her people.
She never once looked back into the shadows. She never once perceived the young vampire, lurking there, watching her, waiting for her to notice him.
The memory of the woman haunted his conscious and unconscious thoughts from then on. The vampire determined to find the woman again. He sought her out in each of the human settlements along the rivers and coastlines until he finally found the longhouse she dwelt in with her family. Then, he took up watch of her from then on, his eyes following her through the woods, soaking into the silences of the shadows around her, listening to her every thought. He could not tear himself from her side, though she never once knew he was there.
He fell into so deep a pining that even his father wondered what had come over him. When his father discovered his cache of human treasures and the way he stalked a human settlement, his fury shook the very roots of the mountain.
"They are humans. They are dangerous! They have no love for our kind. They would consider you a threat, a monster. If they were to capture you, they would not hesitate to tear you apart, limb from limb, and then devour the pieces. Then, they would not cease until they came after the rest of us. They would drag us out of our caves and caverns and boast about their bravery in killing creatures. No, for the good of our coven, you must stop this madness! Come home. Forget about the human world and its many follies. Make the most of the life you have rather than the life that does not belong to you."
The young vampire could not bear the prospect of perpetual separation from his human love. He grew so dissatisfied that he determined he must meet her. Yet, even he was not fool enough to believe she would accept him as he was. How could a creature of flesh and blood and soul and spirit bind herself to one without? It could not be!
Thus, he sought out the most gifted of the blood drinkers, the one endowed with the most mystic of knowledge, and he pled for his aid.
"Lord Aro, I beg you. Please grant me a soul and turn me into a human so that I may dwell among them and seek the heart of the woman I love," he cried.
Aro was both shrewd and cunning. He agreed. "I will help you. I will turn you into a human, but in exchange, you will grant me your gift. You will no longer be able to read the minds of those around you. If you wish to make your change into human form permanent, then your human love must agree to marry you. Thus, her soul will become your own and your marriage will grant you your own spark of immortality. If you fail to win her heart, if she refuses and weds another, on the morning she weds, I will transform you into a pile of ash to be cast upon the dry leaves of the forest floor."
The young vampire agreed, so desperate was he to achieve his aim. Lord Aro granted him a special tonic which, when drunk, would strip him of all his vampire ways and transform him into the form and likeness of a human.
As instructed, the young vampire waited until he reached the forests surrounding the human settlement. Then, he hid himself in the undergrowth, pulled the stopper, and began to drink. The potion burned him from the inside out and when the fires receded, he was weaker than he ever could have imagined. His limbs shook and he could hardly stand. Yet, his heart now beat and his flesh grew soft and warm. Strangest of all, in his mind was silence. He no longer heard the cries of Raven or the struggles of Beaver or the joys of Man. The only voice that reverberated in his mind was his own. He felt strangely bereft.
Yet all the changes within him were forgotten the moment he heard that voice. It was the woman herself who found him there, on the edge of the forest, barely conscious and as weak as a newborn doe. She knelt beside him and spoke to him in words he could no longer understand. The hand she placed against his forehead was warm and he felt the tips of her long hair brush against him as she leaned over his prostrate form.
He wished he could speak to her, declare his love for her, tell her all the overflow of emotions he had born for so many months, yet, he could not. Instead, he allowed her to press a basket of water to his lips and then organize for men from the village to carry him home.
They placed him on a bed in the corner of the longhouse. He lay on a bearskin blanket and they covered him with a doghair blanket. The smoke from the fire in the center of the room sifted out through the hole in the room. Along each wall, other beds lay. A pile of tools stood in one corner of the massive log house and the dwelling was never empty. Always, an elder or small child or captured servant was within, tending to his needs or weaving baskets or preparing food. He could hear their words, hear their songs, watch them at their tasks at a closer vantage point than he had ever experienced before.
But without his gift, he found himself at a disadvantage. From the shadows, he had watched and listened to humans, but he had never dwelt amongst them. He did not know how to act or behave. He did not know how to live like them and he could not rely on his gift to show him how to behave anymore. He was vulnerable, with all the clumsy inelegance of a child.
The woman came, again and again, to bring him food and drink and inquire into his well-being. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen and he would have been more than content to remain as he was, gazing upon her and sharing the light of her presence. Yet, she could not stay at his side forever, even if he knew how to beg her to remain.
Despite the silence of his mind and the frailty of his body, there was another change. Deep within, he felt the glow of a soul and he rejoiced. His own spark of immortality was his, for now, and he was no longer forged of the night but the day. Within his veins, blood pulsed, pushed by the steady thrum of the heart within his breast. When he was strong enough to sit outside, he delighted in the feel of the sun against his human skin, the warmth of the foreign light bleeding into his new body, and he felt that he could burst with happiness.
He could bleed. He could breathe. He could die.
He could finally live.
The day he discovered music was the day he came alive. Slowly by slowly, he learned their songs. Each family line and occupation had their own songs. Each chief and warrior had their own songs. Songs were valuable belongings and those which must be inherited or given as a gift.
A gift he never ceased to treasure.
Whether sung along the rhythm of canoe paddles or alongside the firelight in the longhouse, those songs sank into his bones and made him feel more alive than he had ever felt before.
The woman took special care of him. It was her sweet, patient soul that taught him to speak and to walk. She taught him to dress himself and eat. Her laughter at his clumsy mistakes warmed him from the inside out and he thought he could melt in the light of her smile.
Yet, she was not his.
She cared for him. She treasured his companionship and sought him always, but she did not love him. Her heart belonged to another. The man, the son of chiefs, who first came across her injured body on the shore, it was this man that claimed her heart as his own. Her eyes glowed with affection when he drew near and she overflowed with delight when she spoke of him or thought of him.
The young vampire's beating, human heart broke with the realization that he could never achieve the aim he sought, that all he gained was temporary and fleeting. Yet, the more full moons he spent alongside the woman, the more his human heart belonged to her and only her. More than anything, he wished for her to be happy. He wished for her to love and be loved. He wished for her to live.
Yet, could he love her enough to let her live without him? When the son of chiefs met with the woman's father to arrange for their marriage, the young vampire knew his life would soon be over. He had given up everything for her – his family, his home, his former life, all that had once been him. The moment she wed, he would lose his chance for immortality, his opportunity to gain his own soul, and even his life as a vampire would cease.
It was the night before the wedding, when the canoes of visitors from all directions of the compass gathered for the celebration, when the young vampire found he was not alone. His brothers met him in the heart of the forest, their faces drawn and sad.
"We have brought Lord Aro all the gifts we could gather and begged him to change you back. He has been merciful to you. He has given you a way," his eldest brother said. Then, he withdrew a sharp and jagged dagger, its blade shimmering in the light of the moonlit night. "If you take this dagger and pierce the heart of the bride, then drink what remains of her blood, you will transform back to what you were. It is the only way."
With pleading glances and desperate words, his brothers placed the dagger into his hands and spoke of their desire to have him reunited with them again.
Long into the night, he stared at the dagger before him, his fingers delicately tracing the edges of its blade and its hilt.
Could he do it? If she died now, her soul would live on forever. If he failed, his own life would be forfeit and he would vanish from existence forever. Yet, how could he allow the woman he loved to die at his own hand?
The day the woman wed the son of the chief, the young vampire wept and laughed. His joy warred with his sorrow. The woman was carried from her own home to join in the home of her new husband. Each was granted a new name and new songs were sung alongside the old. It was a day of feasting and celebration and at the end, the young vampire realized all was as it should be. He knew he had gained a soul because it broke within him and he had never felt such loss before. He had no desire for the long life of his people, if it was to carry this grief in his breast.
That night, the young vampire left the dagger in the stump of an old, dead tree and he left the human settlement with turning back. He made his way into the forest and he wandered through the familiar moss-lined hallows and the shadowy tresses of foliage. It was familiar, it was his home, it was where he belonged.
Yet, as he waited for his end to come, for his delicate human limbs to melt into ash and mix into the dusty earth of the forest floor, he was surprised to find his end never came. It was near dawn when the change came upon him. Rather than the burning fire of the transformation into a human form, this was as gentle as a spring breeze and as if he was wrapped in a warm bear skin blanket. Rather than disintegrating into ash, his form melted into the vibrant life of the trees and plants of the forest around him.
He existed. He still lived. Yet, he was invisible to the eyes of man and beast. He could observe and participate in the lives of those around him. He could poke and prod and direct them, but they would never know he had been there.
Thus, the young vampire, now a spirit of the forest, spent the remainder of his days as a guardian to the woman he loved. Invisibly, patiently, devotedly, he kept watch over her and her family, and keeping them from harm. When she reached the crown of white hair and finally crossed the river into the Land of the Dead, it was up to the young vampire to keep her memory alive. He continued to watched over her descendants long after her name was forgotten and her songs had been given to another.
Yet, after three hundred years had passed, the young vampire felt a final change come over him. With a burst of brilliant light, his invisible form caught aflame, as if fed by the light of the sun itself. Then, as if learning to breathe, learning to speak, learning to sing for the very first time, the young vampire opened his eyes and knew that all had changed again.
For he knew that he was no longer a vampire but he had achieved the prize he had sought for so long. He had gained his own soul, not one to be shared with any other. It would be his.
Forever.
~The End~
Author's Note: Alright, here's the same story, but written from a different POV and in a different context. This one is more playing with tone and setting and contrasting it with the past one to see what happens. I think this one will be the last of the formal HCA story explorations. The next few story ideas I am playing with are some mermaid myths from around the world.
Also, I am writing from a pre-contact era of history on the Olympic Penninsula... but I could not find indigenous names for landmarks so I went with current day terms.
