Hey, this has blood. Be warned.
The room was exactly how it always was. Clean, quiet, peaceful. A sanctuary from the chaos of the castle. Dracula paced from one edge to the next without rest, his eyes wild and movements frantic.
"How can you ask this of me?" he said to the portrait on the wall, the portrait that gazed at him with the same loving smile it had for the past three hundred years, "How can I do such a thing now? Do you realise what task you have given?"
"Do not hate the humans. If you cannot live among them, then at least do them no harm."
The words echoed in his head as they had from that first moment of numb shock, to the long period of bitter sorrow, to the present of rage and grief.
"If I had known then, yes, perhaps! But now, but now-!" Dracula tore his nails through his hair, heedless of how they caught. "A war cannot be ended so easily! Am I simply to open the gates to them? To send my subjects among them to die? You know their nature, Lisa!" She must know, she must. She must have been watching - and that brought pain, pain that his wife knew of all his sins - she must have seen the humans slaughter them!
"We kill them, yes, but are we simply to lay down and die? To welcome those who would see our blood cover the land? Look at what they did to you! Look at what they do when the castle reappears!" It was impossible. To offer up every one of his subjects as lambs to the slaughter was too much. He could not make martyrs of every bat and skeleton. Did they not have the right to defend themselves?
Dracula faced the portrait, fangs bared. "To hell with kindness! I owe nothing to those vile creatures! It is they who must seek peace if this is to end!"
"Then, was your love false?"
Dracula stopped, stunned. Lisa would not say that...would she? No, she would. It was deserved. That he could hear it in her voice, an echo across all the centuries, was proof enough.
His love was not false. He had sworn, and for all his son's grand words, he kept that love in his heart. It was all he had.
But to give up his hatred? To allow every would-be hunter to storm the castle with no resistance? To never raise his hand against a human again?
"My love was never false, Lisa. I swear it." Dracula resumed his pacing, back and forth and back and forth. "But you saw good in the worst of men, and it killed you. Am I to forget that?" He stopped, winced. "Yes, the worst of men...like one who sacrificed his very humanity for a grudge."
"Do not hate the humans."
"But it is they who kill and plunder with abandon! It is they who would do us harm! It is they who even turn against themselves! Surely you have seen this, Lisa!" He resumed pacing with even greater energy. He drowned under guilt's terrible wave, and the familiar fire of rage rose so easily to meet it. "They did it before I was born, they do it when I am dead, they will continue until Doomsday! They must be broken and driven back!" His voice turned pleading and he hated that it did. "You would ask me to embrace those who would kill us. We cannot coexist with that."
"At least do them no harm."
Dracula felt his dead heart would wrench its way out of his chest. It could not hurt so, it was dead. It had been dead for seven hundred years. Pain built up behind his eyes, his breath shortened, and he could not decide if he wished to rend his enemies' flesh from their bones or bury himself so deeply he could never again be found.
Neither option was available. He pounded his fist against the stone wall until it oozed blood from a heart that did not beat. "But we must fight!" he raved, again and again.
"What am I to do, Lisa? Tell me!" If she had asked for the moon, or the stars, or teeth from the great dragon that guarded the golden tree that grew beyond the world's horizon he would have gotten them all for her and gladly. If she had asked him to smile, or make her any kind of potion, or to turn into a wolf for her to ride, he would have obeyed without question. If she had asked for his heart, bright and bloody, to eat for dinner -
Dracula clawed with frantic abandon before he realised what he did, and when he did understand he could not stop. His hands moved on their own, obeying their own desperate compulsion, until his clothes hung in rags and his flesh in tatters.
A few drops of blood fell to the floor. He looked at the cool white bone surrounded by strips bright red flesh with a strange focus. It was his ribcage laid bare, as if opened for an anatomical demonstration. It hurt. It hurt in a great spear of agony that pinned him to that moment like paper on a spike.
It was good. He could think again.
He tore a strip of flesh clean and presented it to the portrait with bloody hands. If he could not give Lisa the peace she so desired, he could at least offer her his pain.
He knew well it was not enough. He could grind his bones to dust and it would not be enough. There was not enough blood in the world to pay for this failure.
Dracula knelt there, silent. He could neither go forward nor back. He had tied himself too tightly to the wheel to free himself from the endless cycle, and every attempt to destroy Leon's cursed family had failed. Were they truly fated to repeat this battle until Doomsday?
"Would it have been better to drink that poison while I was still a man?" He had thought of it often, back then. So much had faded, but he remembered that year of endless days, watching the sun rise and fall and wondering if that day was the day he would rise and brew his own end. And he had, but not to a rest. Merely to more toil. "You would have lived as a human, never coming to the castle...would you have been happier like that?"
"She would love you for all eternity."
Could that still be true? He wished for it to be true, but Dracula knew well the value of wishes. He had seen eternity, and it was filled with pain. God would allow no breaking of chains Dracula had forged to spite Him.
No...that was not quite true. There had been a prophecy. Dracula had seen too many false prophets to believe in such convenient words anymore, but now it seemed to be the last light in the darkness.
"In 1999, Dracula will be destroyed forever."
1999. 202 years away. Two more turns of the wheel. Just two more.
It was a foolish hope, but if he could simply wait out his remaining time...then he could face the promised final battle. And if it proved true...
This, this was something he could offer Lisa. This was what she had wanted, this would make her happy, this would clear away his sin. And he would not even have to sacrifice the castle's honor. The dance still needed a partner and he would faithfully play his part, but only to his end. No further.
The Belmonts would have their great villain. They would have their glorious battle. Light and dark would clash in one final struggle, and then he could rest. They could all rest.
Slowly, with great pain, Dracula rose to his feet, swaying as if he was drunk. "Lisa," he took one halting step forward, then another, "Lisa, watch us. We will fight the last battle and we will die, my beloved. You may have the peace you wish, I promise you, for I will build it out of the corpses of every one of my creatures." He could promise even the smallest ghost a fine death in furious struggle against the Belmont. They would not die cowering in fear but on their feet, as proud creatures of the night.
He reached out to the portrait, his bloody hand wavering in the air. "Does this not prove my love? I will grant your dying wish. We will die, Lisa, and we will die gloriously! Then, then..." His strength failed him and he sank again to his knees, staring at the ruin he had made of himself.
The portrait smiled lovingly at him.