Audacity (Part Two)

The evening sky had dyed the wall behind the closed curtains a fiery orange. Blankets surrounded me on every side, a comfort I had never known. Never before had I slept so well that I woke up before sunset on my own.

I brushed through my blood colored locks with my fingers. When I finished, I pulled it all up with worn elastic.

At the foot of the bed sat a wooden, ornate trunk and on top of that was a change of clothes. The aesthetics and quality were much different than the ones I had spent most of my years wearing. They adorned my arms in the finest threads but I imagine some consideration went into choosing something that would set me apart from the other servants.

Everything in this castle was needlessly lavish. Even down to each servant’s clothing was curated the moment you walked through the doors.

I paced the room silently, not really versed in what was expected of me here. I had been taught my role as a protector all my life and even how to appear as a gentleman. However, putting it into action in these small moments was where I lacked.

Does one just enter the room of a sleeping vampire? How often was I expected to be at her side? What were the appropriate times of arriving and leaving?

I cast aside my doubts and approached her room. I knocked but once before opening the door, hopeful to be sent away for my intrusion. Perhaps I’d even get to see that scornful look again.

Rosaline was not in her room and her bed had already been made. A well kept maid was tending to her room and paid no mind to me. It was as if they had been instructed to appear as the background of the castle, or rather, not to appear at all. 

I glanced across the room and spotted myself in an ornate, golden mirror. My reflection was faint, even when I approached it. I could make out the basic features of my figure but the detail was hazy. I adjusted the monocle on my right eye, just to be sure.

We never kept mirrors, so my only experience with my reflection was through water. It was almost disturbing knowing that this wasn’t just a trick of the water. 

Physically, I was tall and thin. My skin was not as pale as my Vampire’s counterpart. Two black horns curled around my ears, almost blending into my crimson hair in this hazy image.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature was the pair of gorgeous leathery wings growing from my upper waist. They were my pride and joy, so I had spent a lot of time taking care of them.

With them, I would be able to glide from high places without plummeting to my death. They were much too small for actual flight, save a few feet off the ground before I tired out.

I reached out to touch the matching Incubus on the other side of the mirror. The haze did not clear with proximity and I wondered how such a thing even worked.

The moment my fingers touched the cool surface, the scent of roses wafted through the room. Behind my reflection came the glow of Rosaline’s fair skin, perfectly clear next to my misty visage.

“An evil soul will show no reflection. Is there evil in your heart, Mattathias?”

She brushed her hand down my shoulder, sharp fingertips gliding effortlessly down the garment she had me dressed in. I could feel her touch, cold as ice, linger against my arm. 

“And yet you, a Vampire, can be seen clear as day.”

“I try to be kind-”

“Then you’re naive.” I cut her off. “If you are not evil, then you are naive. You don’t get outside the castle very much, do you princess?”

“I don’t, no.”

“You and yours stay in this castle of gluttony, living off of the backs of others. I came from an honest home in the slums where the next meal isn’t guaranteed and I’m the evil one? “

She clasped her hands together below her waist and lowered her gaze to the floor. “Whether or not you think that the mirror lies, your reflection is fading. Perhaps it’s time to do some self-reflection.”

“What does it matter if I reflect or not? What changes? Do I go back home to find my mother living without worry?” I spoke with my annoyance of the topic laid bare. 

Rosaline looked pensive. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She paused before walking out of the room silently. I once again faced my reflection as the door closed behind her. Surely there was no truth in her implications of my morality.

"Stupid wretch." The words seethed through my teeth. I punched the stone wall behind the mirror hard enough to make the invisible maid jump. Blood trailed down my hand and into the sleeve of my freshly laundered wardrobe.

☆ ☆ ☆

I woke up drowning in the bedding once again. Another change of clothing at my bedside, not unlike the clothes I had been given to wear the day before.

If I was going to stay here for the rest of my life, the least they could do was give me a wardrobe in which to dress myself.

At the dining table sat only the three of us. Aubin was sat across from his sister who had sat one seat down from me. With the three of us at the end of a long banquet table, the room looked lonely and empty despite the number of maids walking through, taking care of our food and needs.

We dined on meat and drank wine together. Such opulence while the maids worked tirelessly and quietly. Only the clinking of glasses and silverware rang through the room. The siblings ate in silence.

Not one of us needed this much food, but we did need to eat. The blood of mortals was only good for the life it gave us, but our bodies still needed nutrients to function properly.

No immortal would die from lack of food, but it would make us weak.

Rosaline stood after she finished with her meal. Her brother had been slowly pushing his from side to side for some time now.

Without a single word, the Vampire Princess left the room. Knowing I was supposed to escort her around the castle, I left my plate. It was such a waste of food but my duty had been deemed more important.
"You could have stayed.” Her dress brushed the shining tiles beneath her as she faced me.

“Alone with your brother? Fat chance.” I waved it all away before pressing her for the real reason, “Are you running from me?”

She considered my question carefully before raising her eyes to meet mine directly. Her silver irises pierced through mine like bullets. It felt like she could read my mind from diving so deep. “Perhaps.” The vampire said it as if she wasn’t entirely sure herself.

“Because I’m evil?”

“I don’t think you’re evil, Mattathias.”

“Then what was all of that nonsense you were spouting earlier?!” It was difficult to keep my rage in check as she feigned ignorance.

“I can only know what I’ve read.” She placed a finger to her chin and her gaze fell to the floor once more. 

“Then maybe you should get out of this castle for once. Stop acting like you’re too good to mingle with the commoners and get some dirt on your clothes for once.”

Rosaline held her breath, her eyes searching the ground from beneath her eyelashes. “I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I can’t!” She raised her voice for the first time with me.

“You have no idea what it’s like for me in this castle!

If I could leave, I would! I want to go out there and meet people! I want to smell the rain in the forest, to dip my feet in the sea!

Do you have any idea how lonely it is here? Even the maids are scared to talk to me. My brother is away from home so often and my father never comes out of his wing.

I had hoped that you and I could get along, that you could help cure my loneliness, but so far you’ve only managed to make it worse!” 

After the flood gates had opened and drowned me with their stagnant water, she picked up her dress from the floor and continued to walk towards her room.

I sighed and wandered towards her, eventually matching her pace.

"Do all Vampires just sit around their castles moping like this?” I scoffed in her direction, "Here I was thinking that Vampires lived a life with no regards to others, only to find out it’s completely true.”

"You probably never even had the capacity to love that human.”

“How can you say that?”

There it was, that hateful glare that completely consumed me. I loved it. I was so taken with it. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen and yet I wanted to take it further. I wanted to ruin her. I wanted her to scream out in pain and terror and hatred.

“Look around you. You’re surrounded by the best of the best and have more beings serving you than most people meet in a lifetime. Yet, here you are, complaining that you’re lonely. You tell yourself that you can’t meet people and here you are surrounded by them. You relish in feeling lonely.”

“You judge me for living in splendor and yet here you are, partaking of it all, too. You complain, sure, but you won’t go without if it’s in front of you, will you?” Her biting words stung and in my pain I took her hand and forced her against the wall. She winced, in pain, and it was so difficult not to smile in that instant rush of dopamine.

“Maybe I should.”

Rosaline looked as though she was going to scold me, however, she suddenly stopped when confusion swept across her face.

"What?" 

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” I released before I took things too far.

Her expression softened. Ignoring the pain I must have caused her, she stared straight into my eyes. “I am concerned. I want to understand.”

“Do actually even care?”

She took my hand in hers, clasping it tightly with both of hers. “I want to know who you are, Mattathias.”

“I want to know how you think, what made you this way. I want to know why you are who you are.”
I ripped my hand from her grasp. “Why bother? I’m disposable here.”

“You’re not disposable and you’re not going anywhere.” Her pale hands didn’t gather mine again, though. 

Rosy lips moved, making delicate work of the story Rosaline was going to dive into, “Did you know I only recently started to learn about who my brother is? Who he really is?”

Her arms folded together, closing herself off from me in what appeared to be a vulnerable conversation, “We spent so much time together, but it was always him protecting me.”

“If anyone is disposable in this castle, it is me.” She straightened herself up, pulling at the fabric around her arms and neck to smooth them back out.

As if what had unfolded just now was so easy for her to just brush off as if nothing had just happened., Rosaline continued her conversation with each new step she took towards her previous destination.

“Aubin is the heir to the throne, should something ever happen to my father. But what does that really mean when we’re immortal? Regardless, with Aubin around, I’m not needed.

I’ve gotten into my fair share of trouble, but even living seems to bring on the rage of my father. I feel like I’m waiting for the moment he decides to dispose of me for good.

My brother has spent all this time protecting me, but once I got the chance to try and know him, I realized he was much more than just that.”

“Was it your brother who insisted on having me here?” I had been placed in this castle to protect her, but I was beginning to wonder exactly from what.

“It was. He can’t always be here to protect me from my father’s hand.”

“Your father, what does he do to you?”

She let out a pathetic laugh and began walking again. “I’m sure you know of my late mother. He blames her death on Aubin and I. Ever since, it’s like he’s punishing us for just living. It was just neglect at first. We didn’t see him for months on end.

One day, my brother left the castle for some time and my father, who thought the two of us were closer than we were, beat me for not knowing where Aubin had gone. “

“He forced us to kill humans and drink their blood, even to the point of excess. If we so much as spoke to a human, it would result in us having to kill them.”

“Hence why the maids won’t talk to us.”

Rosaline stopped for a moment as a maid passed the two of us, almost as if on cue. “I killed so many of them… He told me that it was because of us and because of them that my mother had wrongly been killed.

“It didn’t take long for me to realize that humans were the ones that feared us, not the other way around. I can’t say I blame them, either.

“As soon as I could, I stopped drinking blood entirely. If it takes me to my grave, I’d gladly bury myself.”

"Don't say things like that." I didn’t know if I wanted her to suffer at the hands of another, but I certainly didn’t want her dead. I scratched my ear, just below my horn, while trying to pick apart exactly what I was feeling here.

"This is the hand I have been dealt." She replied, “I would leave or I would die by my own hand, but I will not die at his.”

I wanted her to suffer, but not if it wasn’t brought on by me. Is that how I viewed our dynamic? Why did it have to be her specifically?

“What if I protected you? Could you leave this castle?”

“I can’t promise your safety if we do.”

“There is an event that my people celebrate. A harvest festival of sorts. We sneak out of the castle grounds and celebrate in the forest.

We call it the Nocturnus Night. We pay homage to the demons that hone our powers and bless us with easy hunts.

Though we host it, all creatures of the night are invited to join. Vampires, half-breeds, Werewolves, Wolf men and several other people of the night attend by the hundreds each year beside us. It is but a few days away, if you would consider it.”

“You’re serious about going?” She asked, pulling me into her room just before she let those words slip from her tongue.

“I was going to sneak out, with or without you. Might as well go out and experience the real world, princess.”