Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Me!
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The village wasn't a prosperous one, the poor wore the drab rainbow colors of mud, from pale to deep brown. So much so that it was often difficult to tell apart the people from their property, wood was the staple of the buildings, everything was framed in wood with the rich affording stone for parts of their houses, the poor having to make due. The road was pitted dirt that made it a burden to drive a cart through and collected rain water to splash on the unsuspecting making any thread of clothes darken with the brown of poverty.
Several houses were farm houses, large with barns and fields currently with the last to be collected of the autumn harvest. But their main produce was the live stock, cows, chickens and pigs that created enough of a stink to be on the edge of town and spaced out enough to keep any animal from wandering into another farm too easily. Or merely grew the largest of plants and thus requiring the largest of space. Most homes handled their own miniature farms, keeping what they needed close to them, and crafted inside their own fabric or pottery to sell for extra coin to purchase the things they could not make.
The town pushed the loudest of the jobs to the farthest reaches out from the center, so the blacksmith was always one of the first things he saw when he would walk in. The man lived with his family in the house while beside it rested his work area. He wasn't working the anvil at the moment though, the fires were low waiting for his return. The hammer he swung was mounted along the wall, as well as the clamps he used to put a new piece of red hot metal into and out of both the fire and water.
Instead he stood next to a farmer, the plow horse he brought at his side and the two were busy observing the horses' hoof. At his distance a human would be lost on what was said. A 'human'.
"Yes, strong teeth, strong limbs, this is a fine beast, he's a right treat. I'm impressed you could even get such a specimen." The blacksmith commented amicably with the soft sound of metal scraping metal as though they were checking the horses' shoes served as a soundtrack.
"Say they're holding a roast in the town square, should we go and watch?" the farmer asked, with his hand over the horses' neck.
"Oh yeah I heard 'bout that! Sure!" With that the pair left the horse tied to the post and began to walk amicably down the road.
The lumberjack lived also on the edge of town, he had a strong horse that he was currently releasing from the harness he had used to drag in a large piece of lumber. The horses stood there, ears pricked forward before swinging back, tails occasionally flicking away a bothersome fly.
Beyond that was the market, which was mostly empty, but even so he could smell the sickeningly sweet scent of a fruit that had escaped a random seller. A few stragglers were closing up shop, packing away pottery, while a few women were chatting away with a fruit seller.
"Look at that skin, firm to the touch yet silky smooth," one woman crooned, a basket hanging from one hand and covered with a cloth. The bonnets that all the women wore hid their faces, their drab clothes hung off their bodies to give them little to no body definition.
"I can't believe that we managed to even get that in! What a rare catch!" the friend crooned as they left the booth and began walking further into town.
The absence of life around him would be because all the living would be at the center of the town. Towns close to cities or lords had access to 'modern' medicine, the church had decreed that blood letting was an acceptable medical treatment, using leaches to drink the 'poisoned blood' away. While towns more isolated and alone relied on herbal recipes. What would one day be renamed as 'pharmaceutical' remedies was at this point in time, decried as 'witchcraft' and those who pursued it would be damned as a witch and executed.
More over because the town was near a castle, there was a false assumption in the church that the lord of the castle was human. So they had planted a priest to keep people from being dependent on the Lord of the Castle and therefore exalting someone other than God. And his mother dressed as a noble lady while using herbs as a healer. Alucard actually found the priest's name in the records of the Church one day out of sheer boredom. Found he had been found to be a corrupt priest and moved along in an effort to keep him out of the trouble of the people he had exploited.
He hated these dreams, these nightly reminders of that moment and now even after centuries of being alive. They still haunted him. He pulled the hood lower over his face and sighed, standing still would amount to nothing, the nightmare never progressed until he reached the center of the town. Until he watched his mother go up in flames.
In the distance he saw the cross she was strapped to and the milling ants of peasants who swarmed below her like piranhas ready to tear into her for 'witch craft'. Lucid dreaming was a dream he could never seem to master no many how many centuries he tried. Once upon a time he couldn't escape the script of this dream. He was perpetually trapped repeating the same actions repeatedly for ages until he was numb with grief and pain.
Lucid dreaming only allowed him to escape enough that he could choose how he would see this dream, he could walk or run, approach from another angle all together. But he couldn't escape this nightmare, and that was what made it still a nightmare after all these ages. He couldn't stop it, change things, avoid it, it 'had' to play out and if he became apathetic to it then he might as well give up on what was left of his humanity.
He could hear the crowd cry for her to be burned, growing into a chant as torches and pitchforks were raised. Once upon a time he couldn't control his dreams, and was forced to feel all the emotions, the desperation as he tried to reach her. Failing time and time again as it beat him down not because he couldn't. He would have killed the villagers himself if it meant saving her had she not told him to stand down.
Why did the last time he ever got to see her 'always' have to be like this?
"Mother!"
"That voice... Adrian? Its you!"
"I'm coming mother!" Even though he didn't bother moving from the spot, he knew the script after all. Yet it was the twist of the knife that this was the 'only' time anyone ever called him by his real name. While a snide part of his mind always pointed out that he never introduced himself by his real 'name' and therefore he shouldn't blame others for not knowing.
"No, Adrian, don't come here!" She didn't scream or call out to him back then, she knew how strong his senses were.
"But mother."
"Its all right, if my life can save others, than I gladly surrender my life." It meant in the end that no one realized that he was standing there as they began lighting the kindling below her. Perhaps they assumed she was praying for the devil to come and save her. Though a devil 'did' come after the fire...
"Mother no, please no."
"Yes, Adrian, watch me die and remember always my last words. Do not hate humans, if you can not live with them, then at least do them no harm. For theirs is already a hard lot." She would take a breath, the sound of sniffling as she would begin to cry. "And tell your father, that I will love him for all of eternity... I love you both so much..."
The fire took on the tinder, and began causing the wood to split as it ignited. Smoke began to drift into the air as the noise that the crowd was making intensified. How many times had he seen his mother get roasted alive? The screams of pain, the cheers of the audience who considered the death of another human as 'entertaining'...
As he turned away from the sadness before him, he saw something that stood out in complete and utter contrast from the burning.
The Soma Plushy. The doll that Soma used as a decoy from his trip through the Castle, and had not reappeared when he collected yet another of the Killer Doll souls. Though it 'did' show back up mounted on the Quetzalcoatl head. The doll stood there watching the burning, its face expression the way one would expect a doll. The eyes were huge and glassy, there was felt just below to imply tears pooling.
Alucard turned to see if somehow Soma had gotten away from the sealing ring and was busy walking around the dream. But there was no white coated young adult with white hair, and when he looked back at the doll it had moved. Further away from the town, down a back road and towards the towering castle.
It was something that absolutely baffled his mind, the sight of his fathers' modern incarnation in his dream, in a toy format. With each blink the doll moved further and further away until Alucard, without realizing it, found himself following the doll. Better to see what Soma had been up to before it turned out some type of terrible event took place. He left Soma at his estate, and woe to his fathers' current incarnation if it wasn't still standing when he got 'back'.
His long legs easily got him to catch up between each held back blink, chasing his fathers' doll form until he was nearly upon it. Around him, the world retained its bland shades of brown, the dullest part of any Autumn season to be certain. With the Castle looming ahead as the only true 'black' in all the landscape. As though all the color and life was sucked out of the world around it and into the Castle. After all black was what happened when all colors were united and mixed. And as he walked, the world peeled away like thousands upon thousands of dried up brown leaves, replacing an area of his surroundings with the interior of the Castle gates.
The doll was nowhere to be seen as he passed the Castle doors while behind him he heard the wicker of a horse. But he shouldn't have been 'that' surprised to hear a horse, as the Castle had brought a Nightmare forth when it tried to call back its Lord. She didn't sound aggressive, but the sound of her movements implied she was on a type of guard duty.
Of course, his father had tamed her soul, but... Why carry him in his dreams to his home in this manner?
Were his servants here? Or was the Castle supposed to be silent of all life? He tried to will them to him, and began searching the Castle while waiting for them to approach him. It was as he ascended to the second floor that he noticed the Sword Familiar hanging by a thread extending to the ceiling. Its sharp edged form replaced with a pillow-esque version, and just the sight of it hanging there made Alucard ponder if 'all' his familiars were in this state.
Why couldn't Soma do anything like an 'adult' instead of a 'child'? He found himself wondering as he walked along. When the pragmatic part of his mind reminded the rest of him that Soma might not have a choice in the matter. He was trapped with a seal on his hand that kept him from accessing his powers. It was more than likely that the Nightmare brought him 'into' Soma's dream but couldn't bring him the whole way. Hence why he was inside the castle and each door he took brought him further into its interior than it ever should have.
Perhaps he just couldn't properly 'enter' Soma's dream and this was some brazen representation of what he 'would' be seeing if he did have access. At least the Castle was the same and not some version of a tree house or cardboard boxes stacked upon one another. Though seeing childish renditions of the monsters that once existed in the Castle was... strangely off putting. More so as he walked and saw a plush version of his child self in various parts of the Castle. From napping in plush chairs, to frozen mid action sometimes reading, sometimes throwing something.
What was Soma up to?
Toy maids served play set tea, Halloween prop versions of skeletons danced on their strings at the slightest gust. The great fountains were spewing cherry Kool-Aid instead of blood, and the spiked floors were replaced with rubber balls. The Castle appeared to have been dressed up for some 10 year olds' Halloween shop, everything stripped down to its most base simple form. Which only made him more irate as he saw the home he grew up in reduced to this drivel. A playhouse version of a creature of Chaos capable of breaking the armies of nations under its weight.
The vivid pinkish red rug that brought him to the Master Chambers rolled down the stairs, a rolling wet tongue of some great dog about to lick the visitor to death. And when Alucard reached the Master Chambers, he was going to give Soma a piece of his mind over this travesty, first. Then he was going to demand how the young Dark Lord had figured out how to get the ring off. Before ending with a demand that Soma 'never' even try to make the Castle more inviting. He didn't care if this made the Castle into some engaging pleasant place. Or whatever foolish mindset Soma may have acquired in Alucards' absence. The Castle was an evil abomination and should always reflect 'that'!
His ears pricked at the sound coming from the Master Chambers, unlike the LED lit candles and torches. Things that 'should' have been producing sound the whole time and yet only produced light. He heard the sound of someone walking on raw meat. That decidedly wet sound as the floor gave away just enough with the elasticity of flesh still moist with blood in its veins and coating. Followed by the wet suction as shoes stepped up from its surface at a steady pace. With just enough hint of a buzz to tell him he was listening to a television.
Because of 'course' Soma would have a television in the Master Chambers!
A young English girls' voice could be heard as he reached the door and began walking through the last chamber before the Master Chambers. He could see a large flat screen tv in the room, and the light it cast off.
"You don't know your own mind," an arrogant slightly distorted English voice answered from the statement he barely missed.
"Its merely become a complete stranger," the first voice answered.
"What you claim not to know, is merely what you've denied. You've recaptured your vagrant memories, what are you doing with them?"
Alucard finally reached the Master Chambers and discovered that Soma doll, sitting on the Throne of Dracula. On its lap appeared to be a game controller while the second woman continued speaking. He was too well schooled to roll his eyes though he did narrow his gaze as he approached the dais. "What are you doing father?"
"You once rejected my attempt to control our lives. Forcefully. But now you've allowed another to succeed in my role."
"And you chose the form of a toy version of a barely controlled version of yourself? And what of this castle?" he demanded, projecting his voice over the English girl on the screen.
"You'd prefer the hot stinking breath, and unyielding attention of a potent, unreasoning, unfeeling, hell-raiser? I don't think so."
That answer felt like a slap in the face. The implication that the only version of his father that he tolerated was the Dark Lord. "You are attempting to imply I lost my memories. However; you're the one dealing with a modern reincarnation who has no current memories of your past life! Now I demand to know why you've invaded my dream."
"I'd need a better reason to respond than what's currently on offer!"
The conversation continued between the pair behind him yet the voices became strangely muted as though to say what was playing didn't have weight to the moment. Bringing him back to the fact that his father's powers were currently being restrained. Perhaps this game 'was' the only way that Soma could communicate with him. If so then it would probably do best for him to pay attention to it, Soma would be endangering his life by using his powers. If it meant 'that' much to him, the least Alucard could do was watch.
"Your view conceals a tragedy. The truth you claim to seek eludes you because you won't look at what's around you! There is no method in this madness."
The first speaker was suddenly dragged into the open mouth of the Red Queen and Alucard realized he was watching a game based on Alice in Wonderland. Albeit a dark retelling. But it was what appeared next that caused him to pause. For it was no game image that he saw.
"You'll have to excuse the oils, but I don't trust dark ones like you enough to stay unprotected in the presence of one."
"Authority must be obeyed. Or it must be overthrown."
"What did you do to Arikado! Are you so stupid to think I'm unaware when something happens to him?! I'll never forgive any of you monsters for betraying him like this!" That was Soma, though Alucard didn't recall the moment, he recognized the two voices Cardinal D'Arsit and the second one was Soma. Which placed it as the day he brought Soma to the Vatican, the day that Soma cut off D'Arsits hand.
It was certainly a curious thing to show Alucard, and he turned his gaze back to the throne and upon the doll version of Soma. But the throne was empty of the doll and only had the controller remaining.
"I need to wake up." He sighed, regretting ever learning lucidity dreaming techniques.
