Authors Note: Sorry for the long hiatus! I still own nothing

"-ster, you ne-"

It was dark, and cold. Someone was calling, but it was too faint to hear. Soma moaned, gradually became aware of the rough stone against his back, the pain between his eyes and down the bridge of his nose. The air smelled stale and felt thick in his mouth, he coughed.

"-an you hear m-"

(What… what happened this time? Who…) He opened his eyes, shut them quickly. His vision was nauseatingly blurred and the dust stung his eyes. He tried to remember exactly how he had ended up unconscious on a floor for, God, the second time today? That was a mess of confusion and emotion. (Hands and faces, the walls and floors opening; It's like remembering a nightmare.) A nightmare that on some fell level he'd enjoyed. His jaw clenched. Forcing his will- no, not his will. Forcing Dracula's power into the room had doused his spirits as much as facing the monster on the train. He could feel the strain in his very fibers. (I haven't collected enough souls to be pulling these stunts, it just takes too much out of me. I've got to be more careful or I won't find the other passengers. I can't take stupid chances while other people need me.) Feeling slightly stronger he pushed himself up onto his side, reached for a wall, a support. His fingers met only air. Soma groaned, rolled to put his knees beneath him, hissed at the stiffness in his legs. (I… hate everything, I hate absolutely everything! Today is a bad day. Today was a day I should have slept in. Yoko could have met me at my apartment. It's not like she doesn't know the address. I haven't told her, but she knows. I know she knows.)

"-u even listening to me? Are you deaf? Oh don't t-"

(What is that?) Soma looked around, reached for his sword instinctively and hissed with irritation when it wasn't there. (…wait a minute… I'm alone aren't I? I'm alone in this castle except for the other passengers and Death. That isn't Death unless he found a tube of helium and...) It hurt his head too much to continue that trail of thought. (No that can't be death.)

"MASTER!"

Something hit him in the face. Soma fell backward, landing on his palms and lower back with a grunt of surprise.

"Master! Listen, listen!" A small blur flashed in front of him, hovering inches from his nose. "Are you all right? Why aren't you answering me? Where is everyone-"

Soma did the only thing that made sense under the circumstances; He swatted it like a bug.

He felt badly about it a moment later when he heard the tiny thing yelp and hit the floor. It didn't seem like any real threat, he hadn't really meant to…That feeling faded quickly into shock as the unseen irritance gave a squawk of indignation and swore a blue streak to make a sailor stop dead. Soma scooted a little further into the room feeling around desperately for that sword he'd lost. He'd be needing it by the sound of things.

A bright white light distracted him as it slid across his eyes and he squinted, finally locating the teleport rooms door by that pale beam its seam was casting. Everything was coming into focused now as the lights separated from the shadows. He took in the walls, the dust floating in the beam, and the broken bricks on the ground all around him. (It looks almost as if the room started falling in. I guess it could have been worse…) And there was his sword! Bent. He looked at it incredulously. (How the hell did that happen? Well this is just fantasti-)

His thoughts were interrupted as into that small beam of light stormed the angriest, most foul mouthed, and smallest woman Soma had ever seen. She looked far too much like a miniature succubus, albeit one dressed in flower petals and.. crystals? Her minuscule face was pinched with rage, her tiny fists were balled, two thin wings all but vibrated with indignation behind her back.

"Tink's twin turning tricks for tadpoles! Why? Why would you do that? You could have broken my wing! Do you have any idea how long they take to mend? Do you? What is the matter with you, you, you, you brute!" A quick breath; "I was only helping, only answering you that's all! When did that become an offense? Are you blind as well as deaf? Didn't you see me there? I was right there! I… I…" She took another breath; "I called and called, and you wouldn't wake, and then I shook you, useless! You weigh a million pounds! And when you do sit up you just stare off at the wall like a zombie at a book! Like Cerberus after a Greater Skull! Like Lord Death when he's pretending to be 'deep'!"

There were no words, Soma was floored. (Tiny fairy succubus ripping on her fellow monsters. Huh.) He stood slowly, watched as she grew even smaller in perspective. She was far too small to have a personality this big. (Wait, Tinkerbell doing what now?)

"You are the worst!" She shrieked. "If Hector could see how you were treating me he'd, well he'd… he'd say things! Even Issac would be…" She stopped, either too angry to speak or trying to find the words, Soma couldn't tell. "I… I…oh…just forget it." She folded her arms, posture clearly an indignant slump. "Well my Lord what can I do for you? Clearly you're looking to vent some aggression. I'd recommend a trip to the potters field. Those poor saps never care what you do to them."

Well what could he say to that? "I'm not your lord." There! That was a good start; Soma mentally patted himself on the back. "I'm just trying to find some people in the castle, then I'll be out of your hair." He moved around the slutty fairy, making an effort not to step on her or hit her with his coat. The door gave without trouble and moonlight poured in from outside, revealing the night gardens, the sprawling walls of the keep, and the realization that the air smelled better in that dusty destroyed little room then it did out here.

"Hyde's Hangnails! What happened to you?" The fairy launched herself into air, fluttered up so that she was eye level and he could see the shock on her face. "Your clothes, your face, your hair! It's so fluffy! And they forgot your beard! You look so young! Either the supplicants botched the revival right down to the reading of the verses or, or…" She shrugged, "Suffered a stroke of creative genius. It's a surprisingly good look on you actually. I like it."

(Nope, nope, nope, nope…) Soma started walking. He was not going to have whatever conversation that was about to be with a monster. (I have no idea how long I was out, those people are still…) The gears in his head stopped. They had to. The fairy was sitting on his shoulder. "Um, what?"

"What what?" She tilted her head.

"Why are you…" (Riding me,) his brain supplied. It sounded too wrong. "Sitting there?"

"Master…" She stalled a moment, hesitantly. "You can move much faster than I can and perhaps, for now, you could use some company?" She threw her hands up to wave away protests that Soma was too stunned to make. "It's just that you've just gotten back! Sometimes you don't settle well…. At first… what if you get hurt?"

"You plan to protect me?" It was the best Soma could do, this tiny monster kept shocking him.

"No of course not! I heal; I'm not a fight…" She stopped again, looked at him with growing concern. "You really don't remember me at all, do you?"

"…I told you I'm not who you think I am." He didn't like this. This shift. A line was blurring that he'd never imagined he'd need to worry about. The fact that the monsters in the castle served Dracula was just that, fact. The thought that it might be based in something besides the power to rule was too disturbing to consider. "You should get off." She wasn't attacking him, she was talking, and she was a monster of the castle but not his enemy. Death he could shrug off, but this was… this was wrong. He had never spoken to any of the castles monsters on his prior runs and they had never tried to speak to him. They were not people. They could not become people.

If they could be reasoned with and he had killed them anyway what did that make him? (No, stop it. They attacked me. All of them.) True to a point. He had quickly gained skills and souls that let him avoid the worst of the danger if inclined. He could have made it through without killing nearly as many as he had. But it had felt good, it had felt right, and he had wanted their souls, their power, with a hunger he couldn't satisfy. (I can't think like this, I don't have time!)

"Master?" She was tugging on a strand of his hair. "Are you ok?"

"I'm…" He wasn't fine, he wasn't anywhere near fine. First a train crash with a monster, then the reaper, then the castle, another monster, a talking fairy, a weird self doubt he really didn't need, at least two serious cracks to his head, and to top it all off his phone was probably dead by now. "My phone!" He felt his pockets franticly before a familiar rectangle brushing his fingertips calmed him. "I was going to listen to a voicemail before. God, how do I keep forgetting things like this?"

"I have no idea." The fairy replied.

Soma looked at her, annoyance easily driving out sympathy. "It was rhetorical."

"Oh…" she answered. "What's a phone?"

"It's..." He stopped himself, she didn't need to know. Instead he pulled out his phone, watched with dismay as a few thin pieces of the screen chipped of and fell. It was still, still, intact. Somehow. But not for much longer if this kept up, and it would. Soma had no doubt about that. One fairy seemed a humble start but he knew exactly how crowded this castle could get. Before anything else could attack him he went into his messages and pressed play.

He hadn't expected to hear water. He certainly hadn't expected to hear the terrified voice of a child crying for their mother, their father, for anybody to help them. Crying that she couldn't see and was cold and scared of the dark, whimpering that her feet hurt, her legs hurt, that she hurt. Soma swallowed back his shock, he'd never have expected this. She couldn't know his number but he knew the owner of that frightened little voice; it was the child from the train.