1. A Spring Decoration. Still Image | Written

[hismasterpiece]

[The journal clicks on at the far end of twilight, and the blurring image gradually resolves into a sharply-focused view of a dead fawn strewn with white and purple crocuses. White tea candles halo the little head, which is thrown back. Its tiny thin legs look as though they are leaping across the red-tinged snow.

Anyone who is paranoid about vampires in general -- or who is looking REALLY closely -- might see two tiny, clean puncture holes in the fawn's neck.

The following text soon appears beneath the image:]


I have made a spring picture. Everything melts and runs, and the ground is thirsty for secrets. And empty of them.

[So writes a vampire who is homesick for tombs and crypts and graveyards. This place is so barren of them. It won't do. Won't do at all. Still, she is pleased to have made this beautiful art out of a much-needed meal. Angelus would be pleased, too.]

Comments

[hismasterpiece]

Dracula? [This interests her GREATLY.]

You know Dracula? Are you...of a kind with him?

[relictusdeus]

Know him~?

[He bursts into a bitter, mirthless chuckle.]

For twelve years, I have done everything that old bat asked for short of his damned laundry.

[hismasterpiece]

But he is one of the oldest and greatest of our kind. Surely this is an honor?

[Dru has no small attraction for other powerful vampires. She is a natural-born follower of such creatures.]

warning for a reference to self-harm

[relictusdeus]

[Well, he certainly can't argue with the fact that Dracula was indeed 'the greatest of his kind'; the incarnation of the vampire lord Isaac was familiar with was the likes of a god.]

Heh. [The laugh is vicious, and he gives a brusque, negligent wave of his hand.] An honour, indeed.

[In his weaker, more conflicted moments spent with a knife in hand, tremblingly poised to carve abstract, ugly patterns into his own skin, he has caught himself trying to rationalize Lord Dracula's carelessness and his final abusive act, almost pardoning it. There had always been someone else to blame for Dracula's behaviour, in the past. Like Hector.]

thank you darling <3

[hismasterpiece]

Do you seek to challenge him?

[She's interested; Dracula's great and all, but if this one is even more powerful and wants to create trouble and strife? Drusilla loves the drama; she's the type of woman who would be among those who circle to watch a fight, jeering and egging on the competitors, or who would attend an act of arson to watch the burning. A malicious spectator. A lover of macabre entertainment.]

No problemo~. :3

[relictusdeus]

Dracula... is dead and gone.

[Of course, even if reduced to ashes, the vampire was never quite destroyed for there was always need for his presence to balance the forces of goodness. There were also no shortage of admirers and worshipers of chaos and darkness to ensure his resurrection time and time again.

She might have enjoyed the drama in his life, for it was hardly lacking in that regard. Fury and frustration and jealousy, unrequited love and lust, sadistic fantasies, homoerotic tension...]

[hismasterpiece]

Who has overcome him? Was it the slayer?

[There is an urgency to that writing. It appears in quick, slashing strokes.]

[relictusdeus]

[The only slayer he knows of - or knew of, rather - is the 'Belmont'.]

'twas a man whom once fought alongside me. [A mirthless smile spreads across his lips.] Hector.

[The name hangs heavily in the air, holding so much fury and anguish. And bitter longing, despite everything.]

[hismasterpiece]

Hector? I do not know him; I have never heard of this "Hector."

[This bothers her a little; shouldn't she have heard of someone that powerful?]

[relictusdeus]

Hmph.

He is a Devil Forgemaster. Two of a kind, him and I.

[hismasterpiece]

Would you like to be made powerful? Would you relish a power I can offer, a power that could be greater than your master's?

[Do you want to be turned, in other words.]

[relictusdeus]

[By now, he has no doubts as to what she is, with her having referred to Dracula as 'the oldest and greatest' of her kind. He considers the offer for all of a second before a cruel smile spreads across his lips, the fierceness in his unblinking eyes barely seeming human.]

Hah! A power that would enslave me, that would reduce me to some pitiful worm feeding desperately on others and bursting into flames when touched by sunlight?! ...I have all that I need to crush my enemies.

[Words he had once snarled at the meddling Belmont he now throws Drusilla's way.]

Do not equate a Devil Forgemaster's power with that of an ordinary sorcerer.

[hismasterpiece]

[What follows is not more writing, but the sound of a hiss and a growl. She is magnificent. She and her peers, powerful and feared throughout the world. There is nothing ordinary about their infamous family.

She WILL see it back together once more. She will have a family again.]

[relictusdeus]

[So long, Dru. He speaks to himself, frowning.]

... Damned creature.

[He then snaps the book shut, certain to muse on this interaction for a while.]