Your Blood is Mine

Vladstin whistled to himself as he nestled on a large barren tree, watching the stars and connecting them into shapes. His Min Libitino and his former murderer slept on separate tents that the former had set up, and the latter offered his own space for him.

Which is funny because he doesn't even need sleep.

He thrives in the night. He relishes it, being awake in the hours when normal humans would slumber. He is part of the night itself, a spawn of it.

Therefore, he rarely dreams. There is only that one strange.....

Was that a dream? A vision? A memory?

He was drowning.

People spoke in strange words that he could somehow understand.

Struck in the heart, blood mixing in the water.

Eh. Whatever it was, he could hardly care for it.

He wonders what his Libitino's favorite season is? Oh, or constellation! What constellation was he born under?

"I name this one Sangstin. It is a dolphin." He muttered to himself all of a sudden as he traced the stars. "Or a porcupine. Or an owl. I don't know what it may be, but it is Sangstin now."

He suddenly sniffed, and sat up.

There was green mist lurking about their camping area.

He heard a cacophony of silent voices, making his spiky hair tingle. Not the scalp, mind you, but his hair. The soundless voices surround him at all sides, and he felt mildly annoyed by it.

"You are very good at pretending to be insane. But is there really any need to stay pretending even in the company of one's self?"

Faces appeared on the tree, dozens of familiar ones. The most prominent being his mother, Queen Vanesda, who died years ago.

It spoked. "Or is it the only way for you to keep sane?"

The bark morphed into King Lazar's face. "Or could it be that it is your true nature to be unstable, your mind constantly flitting back and forth into disjointed places?"

Vladstin narrowed his eyes, his happy-go-lucky and unhinged demeanor slowly disappearing. "I have awaited you. You have been watching us for a while, haven't you?"

"You have not answered our question."

"I do not feel inclined to answer. And besides....." 

He clawed at the tree bark, ripping the numerous faces off!

Some splinters appeared on his hand when he did that but they immediately healed right after. "Our? Do not refer to yourself as if you are multiple entities instead of one. I know what you are, and I know your tricks."

He looked up above. "Little fly."

Sure enough, on the last leaf at the highest branch of the dead tree, there rested a green dragonfly.

"Little wolf. Calm your temper, you had lost your apathetic calmness ever since you are cursed with eternal life." The dragonfly flew down and perched on his nose.

"I had not lost it, I simply regained some emotion." The vampire lord picked up the dragonfly by the fragile wings. "You seem not to have any. Is it a common trait to us who are not humans?"

"I do not know. It is only you that I have met, and someone once, but in passing only. But I believe it is not truly emotion that I have lost. You and I are a different kind."

Vladstin raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Then what did you lose."

"Take a guess."

Vladstin, the former him, the willful prince of Crescentia, never liked mind games and riddles. Not that he was dim-witted, but that he simply had not time to think about it. There is so much to do other than thinking, and if you can get the answer through forceful persuasion, why should you waste time to make the cogs of your mind turn?

Just look at Sangfroid, Always thinking and thinking and thinking. No wonder he always has headaches.

But Vladstin had transformed into many things since then. That former him who has no time to think was like the egg, and he is now a butterfly. He turned into an ugly caterpillar, the undead, vengeful ghost of his past... and the pupal stage has well passed, when he slowly regained his emotions first, then empathy, then his whole former character.

The only stage awaiting him is death and that is truly what he genuinely longs for.

Who is correct about death and the afterlife in all the Thirteen Kingdoms? Was there any correct way to look at it in the first place?

If death had eyes, it may be the purple ones that never bared to glance upon him, never gave him the honor to be beheld, and finally perish.

The dragonfly's voice ringed on his ear. "I told you to guess, yet your mind wandered off again. How fascinating, it is like a windwheel easily blown into different directions according to the everchanging breeze."

"I already guessed. It is identity, isn't it? The thing you have lost. That is why you liked to wear multiple faces of people in their dreams."

"Correct." The dragonfly escaped from his fingers and flew in circles. "But is it that I lost identity? Or gained every single one that exists in the world that there could be nothing to call my own?"

"And if we look at it in that perspective, is it also the same case as yours? You gained every emotion all at once that it had turned into apathy, all colors mixing into black."

Vladstin rubbed his chin. "We may never know..... unless scientists of Gargenstat or the philosophers of Alfend studies us closely."

"Science and philosophy would not help us, little wolf. We are beyond that. Perhaps there may not be any creature that can give us answers but ourselves."

"Then it is a hopeless affair to even talk about it." Vladstin sighed with no breath coming out of his mouth. "Why seek me then? Why envelop those two in your mist?" 

The dragonfly flew into spirals now. "I want to test them. But not in the scientific, rational way you are doing at the moment. That is far too slow for me, and counterproductive. Why bear the struggles of insanity when you can make them insane yourself?"

"You do know that I will not let you do that, don't you?"

"Because they are your prey to play with?"

"Because I do not like anyone affecting them but me. I do not want any interference from outsiders. I want to be the only influence in their lives, the sole catalyst in their change of phase." 

The dragonfly went still as if pondering over this. "Influence... That is what shapes and molds identities, influences. What identity would you like to turn them to?"

"That is the beauty of studying humans." Vladstin smiled with his fanged teeth. "I was fascinated by it once when I have read all the history books in my castle, how humans unlike any creature on Earth can change so drastically. Humans can turn into both beautiful and ugly things just from mere influences. But unlike experimenting with objects, it is not for us to gauge the result, only to deliver the circumstances."

"And I long for that surprise. The unknown result that I know would happen, but could not fathom nor theorize what. It is the journey towards the destination that matters, not the destination itself."

He smacked the dragonfly between his hand, instantly killing it.

"Isn't that much better than your quick and boring method?"

Another dragonfly perched on his shoulder. "Hmmm..... That does intrigue me. But not enough to make me give up my desire to play. I have not played with anyone for so long, it is my sustenance, you see. If yours is blood, mine is beautiful, nonsensical yet purposeful dreams."

"It is not blood that gives me sustenance, but the life within them." 

"Then mine might not be the dreams itself, but the truths and fallacies within them. How they could reveal so much about a person yet nothing at the same time."

"I do not want you to reveal anything to them. Not yet." Vladstin frowned. "I need them to still be in the dark of their own truths and find their way through pinpricks of light, not this beam you have presented. So fly away and find some other people to play with."

"Little wolf, you do know that you have no power over me, don't you?" The voice said in a mocking manner, the ringing and echoing becoming more troublesome. "You cannot stop me, just like cannot attempt to stop you if you have bitten someone and sucked their 'life' out of them. We simply operate two different planes."

Vladstin stared at the tents below them, the sparks of green flame from their bonfire that were not there before. He is mad at this pesky little fly, but not in the madness that he would have felt if he was truly human. It was a seething one, like steam rising into the air, not the fervent smoke that he would have once had. 

A passive, self-aware madness, if you will. He remained rational and thought of how to compromise the situation.

"Let us make a deal then."

The dragonfly chuckled, its wings fluttering."Ah, yes. I too love deals, maybe we inhuman lot are naturally inclined to them." 

Vladstin went down the tree. "Give me a test, and if I succeed, let me help with theirs."

"But you never sleep." The dragonfly said. "Therefore, you never dream. How will you enter my domain then?"

"I do lose consciousness from too much pain." He approached the eerie viridescent bonfire. "And I only regain it after all wounds are healed. So just keep me on fire, and I'll be kept in your domain."

"I see. And what do I get if you failed my test?" The dragonfly asked. 

"I will supply you all the dreams you've ever wanted. I never completely die, I never go completely mad, and I never completely get to know myself. There are far too much truths inside me, secrets that even I do not know. Isn't that an enticing offer?" Vladstin passed his hand over the flame, watching it burn and sizzle. "You will not have to look for food to play with forever."

The dragonfly went quiet, then flew above him.

"I am convinced. Step into the flame."

Vladstin did, and vanished from this world.