Link to article: Lycoris Radiata.
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[[div style="font-family: Times New Roman"]] [[div style= "font-size: 12px"]] [[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] > “Lift thy frigid gaze to the sun, to boundless heaven, to our virginal and righteous father. To Him, the Almighty God. For in His glorious and resplendent light, thou shalt behold no veritable shadow—only the stark truth of that which thou hast forfeited. The so-called humanity that was once submissively thine. The warmth, once so ludicrously bestowed upon thee, shall ne’er be thine again, for thou hast profligately debauched it all away. O my sweet and beloved God, let the shadow of Thy grace cover this wretched thing—this demonic abomination thing—thou tatterdemalion of a thing, nay, this grotesque and blasphemous excess of a thing. Thou art neither mortal nor of our sacrosanct realm; thou art but a fleeting profane concept. For though thou remain so deplorable: thou art still…” [[=]] **Dracula Dracula Dracula** ------ +++ Chapter I. [[/=]] It was near the ninth of May when Dracula departed from Munich, bound for his cherished homeland of gelid Transylvania. He did not travel under his christened name. Rather, he borrowed the name of Jonathan Harker—one of the most decorous dispositions, whose soul, one might hope, had met a lingering and pernicious end in his crypt at West Norwood Cemetery. This was the fate mannerly gentlemen and ladies ought to embrace. To perish as hushedly and swiftly as an unspoken prayer of benediction. The borrowed name suited him well, even though it sagged—ill-fitting, gossamer-thin—like the flayed hide of Marsyas, stretched over his immaculate flesh. But what of it? He knew falsehoods as priests know their litanies. He donned such deceit like a funeral shroud, as inescapable and clinging as the umbral pall of the moribund sun upon the frost-bound earth. He sat secluded in his first-class compartment, paid for by the agreeable men he had gently plundered after he supped upon them. Twenty marks it was for the full journey. Yet, for a fleeting moment, a thought stirred—that such isolation, such solitude, might be a sin—or, perhaps, a curse from the Furies. He dismissed the thought with a languid shake of his head. Loneliness was for mortals. He had outgrown such mortal frailties. For he was bound evermore to the frigid, barren moors. He cast his gaze upon the undulating hills of Salzburg, sculpted by the golden hand of Veles. And where the moribund sun sank lower, sinking into the horizon. Its feeble light faltered against the encroaching pull of Breksta, dimming as he slowly turned his head. His dull vermilion eyes flicked toward the passing mortals who stumbled through the train’s hall. A ghostly sigh escaped him, rattling his teeth as it passed. His fangs ached for a repast—an adequate feeding. Once plunged, just once, into the flesh—into those drops of sweet, honeyed blood. Yet, the hunger did not bare its fangs to him. No, it lingered—a maddening itch, rather than a charming wound. Oh, Sitri, what is a crueler mistress than an itch, festering beneath the skin of Homo sapiens, burrowing into their very soul—never to be ameliorated or satisfied? Just a drop, a mere drop, of that sweet nectar from humanity—this cracked soul of his begged. He licked his cracked lips as he rose. It was time for yet another waltz with a mortal, and a mortal is always known to have two left feet. Dracula crept to the polished ebony door. His hand brushed against its unyielding surface as it swung open, the faintest creak and groan of the hinges lost against the forlorn hum of the train wobbling against its track. He stepped into the dimly lit corridor. The air was thick with a noxious stench—sour, inexpensive Fortified wine, moldy bread, worn leather, and the rank, mildewed breath of the near-dead. As they conversed in their cabin, blissfully ignorant in their frivolity, presuming themselves alive. He was not of a gregarious disposition, and so he stalked down the corridor. His steps were muffled by the threadbare red carpet. In places, it had worn through, exposing the aged birch wood—cheap lumber from the Soviet Union, brittle with time. Upon entering the dining room, he was struck by an even more lamentable miasma. The fetid odor of boiled meat, yesterday's stale Brötchen, musty black coffee, and the acrid sting of bitter black tea. It was the kind hoarded by misers and drunk with a grimace. The air was thick with coal smoke and the rancid tang of old oil, carried in through a dilapidated window, cracked open for the cruel mockery of fresh air. The soft psithurism rattled again the grime-streaked glass. Candle waxes, the sickly hue of tarnished brass, had long dripped and congealed down the walls. It had been left unclean these past years. Long forgotten beneath the incessant buzz of new stained-glass lamps that hummed mournfully in the near-silent air. Beyond such a quaint dining room and its cordial glow, the train sank deeper into the abyss, darker than the very void of Chaos. Colder than the Titanic's once-warm water. Its breath smeared the already gaunt, pallid coloring to frostbitten hues of ghostly blue. The brass fixtures forfeited their lustrous sheen. The carpets had fully succumbed to the fate of hideous birch wood, and each wall was lined with bare, splintered oak benches. The air was thick with dust and the grotesque symphony of real human spirits—famished, swollen, and stretched thin with the bitter residue of deprivation. They huddled together, gorged with hunger; their threadbare coats of patchy brown and black clung to their wasted forms. Their spirit ran cold as tracks cracked and groaned, iron hot. Their hands grasped futilely or clung to dilapidated rucksacks that harbored the weight of their fractured existence. Their bloodshot, lifeless eyes—watery brown, grayish blue, and sickly green—wandered aimlessly, noting those who were too wary and those who were not wary enough. A man swiped a somnolent drunk of his last coins. The mortals made not a sound, for he should have known better in this dog-eat-dog world. His dull vermilion eyes scanned the third-class compartment, drifting like Le Bateau ivre from one wretched mortal to the next. The passengers dared to meet his stare—briefly—before recoiling in unadulterated fear. Their warm blood ran ice-cold beneath his glacial gaze. There was the somnolent drunk, but he abhorred the odor of a Bacchanalian. They reeked of stale revelry and regret. The sticky, fruity, saccharine viscosity of their blood, so tinged with useless excess and so devoid of any refinement. There was a young mother, a widow draped in a soft, ashen hue of mourning shroud, and her hollowed gray eyes weighted with too many children and too little fortune. Mothers tend to have more to relinquish, and as sweet as fear—laced with the exquisite tang of great desperation—tastes when debauching their blood, he was not that unsophisticated to take a mother from her children. Let alone put more orphans on the street by robbing them of their last tether to this wretched world. Children, a sin of another ilk, were shrill little creatures. Their blood was a diminutive prize—thin and paltry, unworthy of the inevitable racket they would raise. Then there was a geriatric crone. She mumbled a soft Ave Maria as she clutched her painted onyx rosary as if it might deliver her to imminent heaven. How effortless it would be if he were to drink her drier than the River Euphrates. Yet he despised the sepulchral flavor of the crone’s blood—a relic of dust and bygone days. A pity. It appeared there was no worthy feast to be had tonight. With an imperceptible sigh, he withdrew, slipping like a phantasm back from that rank compartment. He drifted past the dining room and glided through his section of the first-class carriage, eternally untouched by the mortal miseries he left the impoverished to endure. If no worthy feast could be found among the impoverished, then he would simply claim one from the first class. His vermilion eyes flickered toward the compartment beside his own, and with the poise of an aristocrat at leisure, he rapped his knuckle against the polished ebony-oaken door. It swung open to reveal a gentleman—though //gentleman// was too generous of a word. The man was piggish in all but snout and tail. His ruddy, jowled face contorted into a brutish, animalistic sneer. A mere caricature of noble civility. The Victorians, for all their hypocrisies, had cultivated finer manners than these vulgar Edwardians. Dracula smiled, his lips parting before the swine of a man could utter a single word. Suddenly, the train plunged into a tunnel, and for one brief, suffocating instant, all was devoured by a gullet of darkness. As if all the world had been swallowed whole by the whale of the abyss, a void of endless gloaming. When at last the argent light of Devana’s third-quarter moon reclaimed the night. He slid open the sticky window and politely discarded what remained of the gentleman—his stripped and bloodless corpse tumbling as gracefully as a paunchy swine could into the void. With a refined lack of urgency, carefully bred into him through noble lineage, he turned his attention to the gentleman’s belongings and kindly went through them. One must not be wasteful, after all, and such corruption he must not abide. He gathered all that was of great use, returning it to his own quarters, where it nicely joined the growing assemblage of acquired possessions. As a final courtesy, he drained the remainder of the gentleman's bottle of Bordeaux—an affable Château Latour—pleasantly aged. Ah, this was the empathy of the upper class—so distinct, so civilized. How very different they were from the wretchedly impoverished. ------ > “Sanguis vocat, tenebrae surgunt. Dracula rex, Dracula aeternus, Dracula mors. In nocte ambulat, in carne bibit. Maledictus, in saecula regnabit. Impius. Aperiatur porta atra, et veniat Dominus Sanguinis. Lux deficit, sol moritur, et umbra dominat.” [[=]] **Aperiatur nox, Dracula venire.** ------ +++ Chapter II. [[/=]] ------ The train groans to a whining halt at the old station, its weary breath exhaling a dense plume of steam into the waiting arms of Hemera herself. As soon as the wheels stilled, he stepped onto the creaking boards of beech wood, his leather boots meeting the timeworn planks with a weight unnatural to the living. His eyes drifted across the platform, searching for a porter. A sigh, deep and weary, escaped his cracked lips upon finding none. Useless mortals. These new generations of mortals possessed neither manner nor desire to toil. No longer do they labor as a gentleman should. With an almost imperceptible movement, he turned, heading toward the building where he knew a porter would be found. “Hello, sir? Would you like some flowers? Freshly picked, just one bani.” A young girl called out, her voice a soft plea. He allowed another sigh to escape his cracked lips before his gaze shifted toward her. The child was no more than a wisp of a thing. A mere shadow of the delicate young lady society might deem fitting. Though, in the end, her poverty rendered such godly judgment of little consequence. Her frail, dark copper hands trembled as they clutched a sprig of Lycoris radiata, which she extended toward him with an almost unspoken entreaty. Her hair was a tangled mess of ink-black and honey-brown, and her eyes—warm russet brown and soft, not yet dull—betrayed no sign of weariness that clung to her like a second skin, as persistent as the windmill tilts of a foolish knight. The threadbare garments she wore clung to her small frame. The girl must be no more than six, although her height would pass her off as four. Dracula glanced down at the flowers she had in her small cloth—a modest collection of Pulmonaria, Viola tricolor, Primula vulgaris, Myosotis sylvatica, Convallaria majalis, Anemone nemorosa, and Bellis perennis. What a clever child, to carry eight different flowers. A prudent gesture, for it gives the buyer the luxury of choice. Ah, how these mortals cling to their choice. As if they may grant the fleeting semblance of meaning, however fragile it may be—like a spiderweb of Uttu. “Sir?” The girl’s voice, still small yet unwavering, cut through the heavy hush of the station. He did not answer at once. Instead, he plucked a fragile sprig of Pulmonaria between gloved fingers, turning it absently. “Do you know the names of these flowers, child?” His voice was little more than a murmur, edged with something just shy of understandable. “Or do you simply take what Persephone grants?” The girl shifted her weight, fingers tightening around her modest bouquet. “Um…no, sir.” “No? How queer.” His voice was a shadow of amusement. He turned the foolish Pulmonaria between his fingers, watching the petals tremble against the pressure. “Lungwort,” he murmured as if the name itself carried any weight. “For the breath of the mortal that falters. A flower of illness, of such frailty… yet also of vitality and resilience. How humorous, a contradiction, much like mortals themselves.” The girl tilted her head, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Huh? I just thought they were pretty,” she admitted. Dracula let out the faintest chuckle, low and dry as the desert sand. “Ah, beauty. The last refuge of the ignorant.” He leaned forward slightly, just so the child could catch the hollow pallor of his cheekbones. “And tell me, child, do you think me beautiful?” The girl cast her eyes down to the floor; her small fingers tightened around her cloth bundle. A moment’s hesitation—just enough for the hush of the station and its ghost to settle, for the distant murmur of unseen voices to fade into the silence beneath the weight of his presence. Then, slowly, like a snail, she looked back at him—not at his clothes or the fine leather of his gloves, but at him. She looked at //him//. “You look...” She trailed off, searching for words that did not quite exist. He arched a brow. “Yes?” “//Tired//,” she finally said. A pause. The world around them did not shift, nor did the train shudder upon its tracks, but something—something imperceptible—stirred within his chest, if only for a beat. The weight of centuries pressed her wrinkled hands against him, yet the child had not called him //frightening//. Not //strange//. Not even //cold//. But //tired//. To the living, time is an enemy—an ever-ticking clock. Death is a watchmaker, after all. Yet, to one who outlives time himself, it is a dull echo, a mere breath lost in the wind. How strange it was, then, for a mortal child to see him as tired. Tired are wrinkles and eye bags. Does she see the weight of his years that had become an illness to be borne rather than a gift or a curse? Ludicrous, mortals are blind to the suffering of others, much less a child. His fingers twitched at his side, a motion so slight it might have been imagined. How peculiar, he thought, for a monster to be seen as merely tired. For the first time in decades—perhaps centuries—he found himself momentarily still. Yet, while he is still, mortals, in their ever-constant scurry, rarely knew just stillness. Even now, the girl fidgeted, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting for a response. How strange, he thought, that such fleeting creatures feared stagnation more than death herself. “One bani, you said?” Dracula murmured, his voice a whisper in the stillness, as he extended a ten lei note toward the girl. “Oh, this is—” the girl stammered, but he raised a gloved finger to his lips, silencing her with a gesture cold and final as the grave of Pythia. Without another word, he turned, his footsteps reverberating like distant thunder against the creaking floorboards. He disappeared into the shadowed threshold of the building that housed the porter, leaving a chill in the air that clung to the girl’s skin long after he had gone. Dracula stepped into the dimly lit building, closing the door behind him with a deliberate slowness, allowing the heavy wood to groan upon its hinges before settling into place with a muted thud. Normally he would ask for permission, but the public service building and the building on the land he owns technically need no invite. The air inside was thick with the scent of old paper, stale tobacco, and the faint, linking mush of unwashed bodies. Such a show of the stagnant air of indolence. His vermilion gaze swept across the room, taking in the porters who loitered about in a haze of apathy, their shoulders slumped, their hands idle, their very existence a portrait of wasted breath and time. It seemed as though Koalemos and Algea made their move through the building. A sigh, slow and weary, parted his lips—an exhale so soft it barely disturbed the dust motes that languidly drifted through the stagnant air. How the world had withered in its discipline. These men, these mortals, had long abandoned the virtues of toil. He was right; they were slothful. No longer did they move with precision, nor did they hold themselves with the dignity of laborers who understood their place in the grand machine of existence. Instead, they slouched and dawdled, their spines bent not from any real effort but from ennui. Without another moment’s hesitation, Dracula advanced toward the counter. His steps measured as the sound of his boots against the aged floorboards unnervingly precise—each step a ghostly echo in the half-empty room. As he approached, the porter behind barely lifted his head, sluggishly shifting his gaze upward with the disinterest of a man who had long resigned himself to the monotony of service. How dreadful, Dracula mused, the modern world bred such creatures of indolence. “What do you need?” The porter muttered, his voice sluggish and indifferent, as he scratched idly at his belly—such a grotesque display of apathy that reeked of sweat and sloth. Dracula’s eyes twitched, a movement so slight it could have been imagined, but within him, something coiled, something ancient and disdainful. How far man had fallen. How little remained of the world he once knew, where men stood with pride, where service was not a thing given begrudgingly, but with discipline and duty. This must be the British's fault. A slow breath parted his lips, though it was not truly needed. **Patience**. The word slithered through his mind like a serpent curling around its prey. He had seen empires crumble, kings rise, and rot within their tomb. He would not be outdone by a mere dullard. Still, how very //tempting// it would be to correct such insolence. He glanced down at the man, his expression unreadable, his presence looming like a shadow cast by something far older than the building’s rotting timbers. “Fetch me a carriage to Castle Dracula,” he murmured, his voice smooth as oil, sinking into the air like an incantation. The porter froze mid-motion, his fingers stiffening against the grime-streaked countertop. For a moment, there was nothing but the hollow ticking of a distant clock and the muffled hum of voices beyond the door. Slowly—almost reluctantly—the man looked up. His bloodshot eyes widened in recognition, fear tightening around his throat like an unseen hand. A tremor ran through his sluggish frame, his breath catching in his chest as though the name itself had summoned something from the grave. Dracula smiled. Not the polite curve of a gentleman’s lips, nor the fleeting smirk of a passing amusement—no, this was something older, sharper, a thing with fangs just barely bared, gleaming beneath the dim, flickering lamplight. His gaze settled on the porter, heavy as the weight of a coffin lid, pressing down. The man’s eyes glazed over, his fear vanishing, his mind folding beneath the command woven into Dracula’s gaze like silk and steel. Without another word, he rose—stiff, mechanical, moving as though guided by invisible strings—and set to his task. Dracula watched him go, the cold amusement lingering on his lips. How easily they obeyed. How effortlessly they fell. He followed the man but paused in the doorway, his hand still resting on the aged wood of the door, as the girl’s cry split through the stagnant outdoor air—a sharp, desperate wail, thin as glass, fragile as the bones of a bird beneath a cruel hand. “No, no! GIVE IT BACK!” Her voice, small yet trembling with defiance, barely disturbed the thick indifference of the world around her. The weight of true humanity—apathetic, unseeing—pressed heavy upon her suffering as she was robbed. A gruff, slurred voice followed, a wretched, Bacchanalian growl, steeped in the cheap liquor and bile. The man is thick with the rancid stink of cheap brandy and rotting teeth. “A cursed thing like you—Romani filth—doesn’t deserve real money. Goin Get me a nice beer with this.” The words dripped from the drunkard’s tongue like venom, sharp with malice, yet slow, sluggish, as if pulled from the decayed recesses of a mind too steeped in poison to function properly. The man lurched away toward the forest, swaying on unsteady legs. His breath was an offense against the air itself. His filthy fingers—coarse, unclean, lined with the grime of the unrepentant—clutched the stolen ten-lei note, crumpled now, as though its worth diminished by the hands that held it. He laughed, which is a wet, rattling sound. So pleased with his own cruelty. Dracula turned his head toward the girls. A shadow passed over his face, something ancient, something that did not belong to this world. The air around him seemed to tighten, as if the very days had drawn in a slow, expectant breath. Ah. How very unfortunate for the drunk as his hand itched. The girl stood trembling, her small hands balled into fists. Her russet-brown eyes glistened with tears that refused to fall. Even now, even in her suffering, she was too proud to weep. How she reminds Dracula of himself. He stepped forward, soundless as the settling of dust, as the hush before a grave is filled. The drunkard did not see him yet. But he would. For now, he lifted the girl effortlessly, cradling her slight frame as though she were a mere feather. The air around him seemed to hum with unnatural stillness, the world itself retreating into silence as he carried her through the station and into the waiting shadows of the forest’s edge. He paused for a moment, his gaze lingering on the small, trembling form in his arms. The girl was shaking, but her fear was met with a strange calmness, her head resting against his cold chest, trusting in a way that only the most innocent could. Without a word, he set her down by the forest’s edge, the trees casting long, angular shadows. He turned sharply, his eyes narrowing as he felt the drunkard’s presence still lingering, ignorant of the fate he had earned. Dracula’s gaze pierced the man, and with a sudden, effortless motion, he gripped the drunkard by the throat, lifting him from the ground as though he was no more than a ragdoll. The drunkard struggled as he gasped for air, but Dracula’s strength was beyond human comprehension. He twisted, a moment of quiet finality passing through him like the snap of a dry twig. The man’s eyes drained of their light, his breath faltering, his body going limp in Dracula’s grasp. Dracula tossed him carelessly to the ground, his body crumpling like a paper doll discarded in the dirt. He takes off his gloves and switches to another pair he keeps in his coat before turning back to the girl after taking the blood-stained ten-lei note from the floor. As he walked toward her, his footsteps soundless, he noticed that her eyes had followed him, wide and unblinking. He extended it toward her, his fingers cool and pale against her hand. The girl looked at him, then at the note, then slowly pressed herself against him, her small arms encircling his cold, unyielding form. Her warmth felt like a fleeting thing in his embrace. She cried softly, but her tears felt heavy, as though she had known too much sorrow in her short life. How peculiar, for a child to hug a murderer like him. Dracula’s cold hand brushed her cheek, his blood-slick fingers wiping away the tears with an unsettling tenderness. His heart stirred—a fleeting pulse of life in the ocean of eternity. He closed his eyes for a moment, the faintest echo of a long-forgotten feeling stirring within him, but it was gone before he could grasp it. He must have been affected by the drunkenness from that man. He pulled away slightly, his cold eyes studying the girl. “Do not cry,” he murmured, his voice soft but carrying an eerie weight, like the thunder before a storm. “A daughter of a count does not cry.” His words were a command, but there was something almost gentle about them, as though he were offering her a protection, a place beside him where tears would never fall again. The girl stared at him, her eyes wide with confusion, but there was something in his voice, something ancient and authoritative, that she did not question. In that moment, she had no one but him. And so, she nodded, even if she did not fully understand the weight of his words. ------ [[=]] +++ Chapter III. [[/=]] The girl, so small and fragile—just a few years ago—had adapted quickly to her newfound life as the daughter of a Count. She walked with a grace that seemed out of place for someone so young, her small steps were measured and deliberate. Although she had known little of luxury and wealth, she wore it now as naturally as a crown—one forged not of jewels, but of her unwitting acceptance. The dark, oppressive beauty of the castle—its towering spires and shadowed halls—became her home with a rapidity that made it seem as though she had always been its rightful occupant. Yet, despite the finery, the gold, the quiet murmurings of servants at her beck and call. She remained a mischievous little imp, irreverent of the dignity expected of a Count’s daughter. Oh, she is Loki reborn. Her smile—sweet, but filled with impish glee—was a dagger she wielded without knowing its edge. Not that she even knows where her feets is half of the time. Oh, how she tested his patience. She had once painted his chamber in a color so atrocious, so abhorrent, a shade of candy-pink monstrosity, that Dracula had very nearly torn his own hair from his head in despair. And the kittens! She had a habit—an insufferable, endearing habit—of dragging home every wretched little creature that crossed her path, each one another mouth to feed, another tiny heartbeat beating beneath the castle’s cold, indifferent stone. Who do she think she is? Mother Earth? She dressed like a jester in fabric crimes so garish that even the most shameless of fools would weep at the sight of her. Clashing colors, absurd ribbons, patterns that had no place in civilized society. She looks like she worked in a circus. Circus. Dracula felt a chill go down his back. Yet—she laughed. She laughed, and she smiled, and she was happy. So he let it be. And then—the sickness came. At first, it was a whisper. A pallor creeping into her once-rosy cheeks, a weariness in her step. Then, it became a shadow that settled over her, clinging to her like a mournful specter. She coughed. A delicate thing at first, barely more than a breath. Then—red. A bloom of crimson on her sleeve, staining the lace of her nightgown, spilling from her lips like some cruel mockery of the wine she had once giggled at him for drinking. Oh, God. Oh, God. Dracula scoured the earth. He searched, he pleaded, he threatened, he killed. He tore through libraries, ransacked apothecaries, visited physicians, sorcerers, men of faith and men of science. He sought remedies from alchemists whose fingers shook in fear as they whispered their failures. He pried open the coffins of the dead, looking for secrets buried with them, anything—anything—that might save his child, his only joy, his little light. And yet—nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Why? Why must He—this so-called merciful God—steal from him the only thing that had ever softened the edges of his eternity? Why must she—this innocent, this child so undeserving of cruelty—be the one to suffer, while he, the true monster, the true sinner, remained untouched? Why must she be made to endure agony, while he remained untouched by time, unable to weep, unable to fall, forced to watch as she withered away beneath his hands? She was so small in his arms now. Too small. And still, she smiled. Even as she grew weaker, even as her voice faded to little more than a whisper, she smiled. And oh, it killed him. ------ [[=]] > Is there a sinner? Is there a cry? > Lift thy hand, up, up, to mourn. > O Dracula, hast thou ever known > The weight of death that thou hast sown? > Have thy tears ever fallen deep, > For the life thou canst never keep? > O, Dracula, thy soul is lost, > Fated to wander, no matter the cost. > Thy death lies hidden in thy chest, > A secret carried, never at rest. > Lift thy hand, O weary king, > For the death thou cannot fling. [[/=]] [[=]] **Papa Draculo-a** [[/=]] ------ [[=]] +++ Chapter IV. [[/=]] Dracula lifts his frigid gaze to the sun, to boundless, uncaring heaven. As a single, mournful tear slipped from his eyes—an involuntary, burning thing. Oh, it burns his skin. It clung to his cheek like the last vestige of a humanity he could no longer remember. And then, like a whisper against the wind, a fragile hand reaches for him. It trembled with the weight of a thousand unspoken regrets. It was as though time itself bent upon its cruel hinge, and there she was again, as she had been when they first met. The smallest of gestures, but one filled with such aching tenderness—an offering, a mercy, to wipe away the tear. Oh, his sweet little daughter. Dracula looked down, and the tear fell from his face, a silent prayer, hitting hers with a softness that betrayed a sorrow too vast to hold. His heart—so long stilled, so long dead—//beat//. Once. Weak, yes, but it beat. The guttural sound is lost beneath the weight of centuries, yet it echoes through the pit of his chest like a final gasp of a drowning soul. “I do not regret you, Papa,” she says, her voice a frail, ghostly whisper. “Neither do I, child. You are perfect. My perfect little //girl//,” he replies, his voice low, a tremor hidden beneath the dark resonance of his words. He touches her face gently—too gently, as though afraid she might break at the slightest pressure. However, at this point she will. The girl’s body grew still, her chest too thin, too frail for life to cling to any longer. A tiny, hollow smile stretches across her face, a pale, wistful thing that fails to fill the void where warmth should have been. She dies in his arms, and as she slips beyond his reach, to a place he will never follow. Oh, his little girl is so cruel. Before she fully goes, she places into his cold hand—with the last of her strength—a sprig of lycotis radiate. The petals so delicate that they tremble, as though the very life of the flower is slipping away with her. The same flower she had once tried to sell him so long ago, in that far-off, forgotten time. It is lifeless now, but it carries with it the only genuine offering of her soul. Oh, his sweet little //daughter//. [[/div]] [[/div]]