Dreams and Shadows
Disclaimer: All characters and places etc are the property of Yoshiki Tanaka, KKS and others. No money being made here.
Another one of my Vampire: The Masquerade cross-overs.
A very late birthday present for the ever wonderful and encouraging RB.
Past…
When he was young he had dreamed the simple dreams of youth. Hoping to grow up to be a soldier like the uncle who had raised him. Expecting to serve King and country and perhaps even die in the attempt. Childhood dreams of heroic last battles, for whatever could come after such distinguishing valour?
Of course, Daryoon knew what came after, now… He knew all about the terrors of battle, the bloody slaughter that it disintegrated into, the grief and exhaustion that followed. Yet through it all, even when some visceral part of him knew that it was nothing to sing great tales about, he still managed to maintain his belief that it all was for some greater good. Somehow managed to persuade himself and often others by example, that it all had some meaning, some purpose that as common soldiers it was not within their limited capacity to understand.
He had believed, so ardently, passionately, with a fervour that would have put a Lucitanian cleric to shame. He had believed in some higher, undefined purpose, that was, until he met Narsus.
Brilliant, shameless Narsus. Who believed in nothing and hoped for nothing, as well. Daryoon had been perplexed at first, to see this promising young noble who professed to believe in nothing at all. He’d wondered what sort of fool Narsus might be to believe as such. That was before he’d seen the strategist work his magic, his eloquent sophistry reaching out like a myriad of tangling vines. Yet for all the supposed lies it had all seemed so very sincere. Daryoon had listened as battle-hardened Commanders nodded their agreement, as nobles attempted to appear understanding, as Misra’s own Priestesses seemed so very convinced. For all of that, it couldn’t be lies. At least to Daryoon’s mind it seemed that way…
“That makes you a hypocrite.” He’d said outright, alone after another long meeting.
“What does?” Narsus hadn’t looked up from his maps.
“This! Everything!” Daryoon spread his hands wide to encompass… everything.
“Everything?” Finally the strategist looked up.
“Everything you’ve said here is a contradiction to everything you’ve said before. What you pretend that you believe in.”
“I don’t pretend anything, Commander.”
“You do and it’s worse than the lies you craft with your lips. You choose to live out your lies and that’s a thousand times worse.”
“That what?”
“What?”
“A thousand times worse than what? Lies themselves?” Narsus was watching him with amusement.
“This! This pretence, that you do one thing and say the other!”
The strategist held up a hand to forestall further argument. “If you are referring to what I said today, at this meeting… They’re only words, Daryoon. And you and I both know how little that means to anyone.”
Words. Only words that mean nothing.
It had taken Daryoon weeks to face up to speaking to Narsus again after that. Words that meant nothing. The very thought haunted him. Perhaps that didn’t make Narsus a hypocrite after all, just a liar and Daryoon didn’t like that thought either.
“Why does it disturb you so much?” that soft voice, just from behind the tree he’d been leaning against.
“Why does what disturb me?” He’d quipped back, refusing to
turn or to get up from the bench in his secluded corner of the
“This.” There was something inappropriately playful in Narsus’ tone.
“If you’re referring to the fact that you’re not a hypocrite but a liar instead-“ And Daryoon broke off the beginnings of a tirade at the feel of a slim finger pressed against his lips.
“I’m not lying.”
A glare met Narsus’ statement and the strategist smiled.
“Then if you’re not lying, what about everything you said before?” He bit back a snarl as he spoke, before the strategist could slip away.
“Everything that I said before…” A contemplative look. “Perhaps they hear what they want to hear or at least what they can understand.”
Daryoon found himself ready to make another angry reply, until he thought about it and instead swallowed his words abruptly.
“You see.”
And the warrior scowled because he most certainly did see.
Following that brief conversation Daryoon told himself that he’d do better to avoid Narsus all together. Though what he in fact did was to avoid talking about any similar topics with Narsus instead.
“What are you brooding about there?” Narsus drawled, coming to stand next to Daryoon on a deserted balcony one morning.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“And you.”
“Are you upset with me for hypocrisy or lies this time?”
“Neither. Or maybe I’m just a little annoyed that you’re right.”
“About?”
“Everything.”
And Narsus laughed, earning him a grudging smile from his companion.
“You really don’t believe in anything at all, do you?”
“I suppose I believe in the strength of the human spirit but that’s about all.”
“Everything you say can be interpreted in several different ways, you know.”
“It’s the easiest way to argue a point.”
“Subterfuge and supposition and implication.”
“Yes. Do you object?”
“Not really.” Daryoon could admit now that it did all make sense.
Present…
Sutton Coldfield,
“You can tell when they craft lies for your sake – their lips move.”
“Hmm… There’s more than one of you now?” Daryoon enquired half-heartedly, without looking up from the newspaper.
“Darling, you’re not listening…” That affected, lazy drawl that never ceased to capture Daryoon’s attention.
“They? Who’s they then?” He looked up from the paper, which held nothing new to read about after all.
“But then, who listens to Setites after all?” Narsus shrugged.
“Someone evidently.”
“And anyway, I’m not going to pass up a chance that only comes round every half century.”
“Err… Good?” Daryoon ventured.
“Exactly!”
Now that he took the time to notice, Daryoon’s gaze was arrested by the sight of Narsus standing before the full-length mirror in an evidently new tuxedo.
“Going somewhere?”
“The symposium.”
“What symposium?”
“The Kiasyd symposium that I was telling you about!”
“Oh. Err… Good.”
Narsus’ sighed, exaggeratedly. “There’s a reason I’m not taking you with me.”
“So you can flirt with Weirdlings?”
“Could you not call them that? It’s somewhat offensive.”
“I’ll bet some of them think that you’re one of the Perverts anyway.” Daryoon smirked. Trying to rile Narsus was one of the few things that had carried over from mortal life.
“I am not and never will be an antitribu, thank you very much.” And the strategist turned back to the mirror with his nose in the air.
Daryoon chucked and went back to his newpaper.
Hours later, once Narsus had gone on his way to the Kiasyd gathering Daryoon was left alone in the silent house. It was a relatively grand affair, the house that was, not that the gathering wouldn’t be. A large house in a rather conservative part of the town, dating back to the days when one could still ring for the servants in most homes. Currently, despite the sizable space the only occupants were the two vampires. Along with various pieces of furniture or objet d’art that sat under dust-sheets, accumulating dust.
Staring out of the large bay-windows Daryoon contented himself watching the shadows ripple in the lamplight. They stretched out in different patterns, always shifting restlessly, menacingly, as if to ensnare any hapless passer-by. Yet the motion of the darkness, with its coiling tendrils and spreading vine-link grown didn’t worry Daryoon, he was Lasombra after all and shadows were his domain. Strangely enough it made him think back to earlier days, times when he’d found it easier to argue with Narsus rather than simply accept that the strategist had his own methods and reasons for doing things. So much had changed over the intervening years, though it probably wasn’t surprising. Things changed, people changed or perhaps they didn’t change at all. Narsus certainly hadn’t. He still had his own slightly disconcerting way of getting whatever it was, done.
And what of Daryoon himself, had he changed that considerably? He’d changed enough to know that arguing with Narsus was futile, to know that war wasn’t heroic… Of had he? Daryoon wasn’t sure; after all he was fighting for a sect that promoted a crusade against the Antediluvians, sprouted the rhetoric of fanatics fighting some bizarre religious war. Of course he wasn’t too sure that he believed the official statement, not when the likes of the Tzimisce still looked to the Voivode for leadership, not that anyone outside the clan knew the significance of that title. Still, had he not changed? It wasn’t as if he thought about the glory of battle any more or fought for some greater cause… Then he was laughing again, laughing in the darkness, wrapped in shadows, because nothing had changed at all.
TBC…
It was an often debated fact among vampires or of complete insignificance, depending on who you talked to, whether or not they dreamed. During the daylight hours of rest which were more like glimpses of Final Death than mortal sleep somehow, inexplicably some dreamed. Others did not. Daryoon was one of the latter.
“Dreams are supposed to be the way in which your subconscious processes things carried over from the day, or in our case, from the night.” Narsus had said with an absent air, expounding upon some of the theories he’d heard at the symposium.
“Mmm…” Daryoon was still staring out of the windows. He hadn’t moved since Narsus had returned.
“But if that’s the case and it’s essential why don’t we have more mad Cainites running round?”
“Maybe there are, you just haven’t noticed.”
Silence greeted Daryoon’s statement.
“Or maybe we were all already mad to begin with so it doesn’t make any difference.”
“All so insane that we wouldn’t know sanity even if we were offered it back?”
“Like mortality.”
“Perhaps…”
Turning round on the window-seat Daryoon reached out to wrap his arms around Narsus’ waist, pulling the other close. He felt long fingers begin to thread through his hair.
“Would you go back? If you were given the chance.” The warrior couldn’t help but ask, though his arms instinctively tightened around Narsus.
“Go back… We can’t go back, Daryoon. It’s a fools dream to even entertain such a thought.”
“I’ve heard rumours…”
“That’s all they are – rumours. There is no path that will lead us back to lands under the sun.”
“But some believe…”
“But I believe in nothing, remember.” The strategist’s tone was teasing again.
And Daryoon smiled in the darkness.
Many nights later…
“You are lost and can never go home.”
The haunting lyrics echoed though the house, resounding in the stairwell as Daryoon made his way up to the ground floor from the basement. Of course, there had originally been no basement, just a cupboard under the stairs. But after a little work there was now a passageway that led down through the foundations, a little way into the bedrock beneath. It wasn’t quite up to their usual standards but anything less than medieval castle didn’t usually come with its own crypt. Daryon had pointed out that there was a church a little way off that looked old enough to have its own vaults but Narsus had objected to the fact that the church was still in use.
“I refuse to sleep on consecrated ground.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Uh huh?”
“Just because, alright. Stay there if you like, Daryoon
it’s just that I’d rather not.” And he’d looked quite sincere, if not a tad
pleading so Daryoon had let the topic drop. Though he’d secretly begun
to suspect that Narsus had spent far too much time
with the Tzimisce and was beginning to pick up some
of their phobias. Normally,
crucifixes and other religious paraphernalia did nothing to them. Holy water did not burn them, though Narsus certainly acted like it did but then he’d been in
“At least it’s not the Iglesia de San Nicolás de las Servitas then.” He’d said.
“What?”
“In
“Oh, quite pleasant. You know, His Eminence has the most wonderful collection of religious tapestries.”
Not Monçada then. Which left general Tzimisce paranoia. Daryoon had sighed deeply.
Entering the living room he found Narsus sprawled on one, still dustsheet covered, chair. A hi-fi had been uncovered on a shelf but other than its LCD display the only illumination came from the streetlights outside. Daryoon paused in the doorway struck by the melancholy nature of the scene before him. When he thought no one was watching Narsus always looked so very sad. Like some artistic photograph or watercolour titled something pretentious like ‘the suffering of existance’ or some such thing. Yet the warrior didn’t say anything or even move to change the situation. He’d learnt over the years that there were certain times when Narsus needed the silence, the time to brood on decisions centuries past, to reflect on regret for many things he couldn’t change, before he could remind himself that the present was all that mattered, if it mattered at all.
It was the sort of thing that plagued many vampires when they first began to notice the changes in the world around them. The first time that they realised that everything else was moving forward into a future that they had no right to shape. Daryoon had seen many of the younger ones fall by the wayside in the face of such inevitability. For the first few decades they tended to revel in the vampiric prowess, ignoring the mortal world changing around them, then came trying to integrate with the changing environment, then the calm that sometimes meant death or torpor, followed by something, some small insignificant thing that would suddenly be so jarring, so irrefutable that it would push many to Final Death as they realised that they truly were no longer part of the mortal world. That they no longer had any right to be. It was a moment of unholy revelation; that they would never again see the sun, never again love without it being tainted by some darker emotion, never again glory in the unsullied nature of the human spirit. It drove many to madness.
“I only ever saw one sunrise that was perfectly beautiful.” Narsus said suddenly, into the darkness.
“Only one?”
“Not that all others aren’t perfect too. It’s just that I only ever saw one.”
“Do you…” And Daryoon stopped himself from asking the clichéd question.
“Do I miss the light?”
Daryoon swallowed, not moving from his place by the door.
“No. I don’t think I do.” Narsus answered his own question. “It was beautiful in its own way. Perfect, as it was meant to be. At times I think it offended me simply for being everything that I was not.”
“Everything?”
“Do come and sit down, Daryoon. It’s easier to talk to you if you’re not loitering in doorways. And anyway… Love. I think I was offended by that as well.”
“Only because you didn’t believe in it.”
“Yes, perhaps…”
“And do you believe in it now?”
“Perhaps…”
There was silence and a faint click from the hi-fi as something powered down.
“I love you.” Daryoon said, quietly and calmly. Not really expecting a reply.
“I know.” And Narsus closed his eyes, as if in pain.
More silence followed in which the shadows rippled and coiled closer under the warrior’s command. Narsus didn’t move as tendrils of purest black looped round him, trapping him in their claustrophobic embrace. The coils tightened and he sighed softly, waiting.
Finally he broke the silence “Just because you love me,
doesn’t mean that you own
Daryoon’s malevolent chuckle carried through the darkness and the ensnaring shadows seemed to vibrate with the sound.
“Doesn’t it? Are you not mine, now and for all eternity?” There was definite humour in that rich voice now.
Narsus didn’t reply and this time let out a gasp as the shadows tightened their grip. Then surprisingly the darkness released him, only to leave cold hands gripping his wrists and an equally cold mouth pressing insistently against his as Daryoon suited actions to words.
“Yes.” Narsus whispered as his lover drew back “Yours, now and for all eternity.”
“I’m glad you’ve remembered.” That amused tone rippling across his throat, followed by the lightest scrape of teeth against long dead flesh. And he was trembling, just as he had done when mortal. Always weak, ever yielding to Daryoon’s touch. Surrendering to the cool hands that eased over his chilled skin, deftly removing modern garments just as easily as they had discarded Pulsian silks.
At some point Narsus found himself lowered onto the floor, bare floorboards against his back and the feeble light picking out Daryoon’s pale form above him. Of course the map of sinew and muscle was no longer any true indication of strength but he trailed a long-nailed hand over his lover’s flat stomach in an appreciative gesture anyway. Narsus heard another low chuckle as Daryoon eased between parted thighs and answered with his own sigh as that comforting weigh settled against him. A shift of hips and Narsus’ whispered plea had Daryoon sheathing useless flesh in the corpse-cold body beneath him, more to satisfy Narsus’ perversion than because it provided any sort of stimulation. Bending his head to the arch of Narsus’ pale throat, Daryoon took a moment to thrust fractionally deeper before sinking teeth into the taunt flesh beneath his lips. And the raking of nails down his back was almost unnoticeable under the overwhelming rush of blood that filled his mouth.
Hours later…
Lying in the makeshift basement waiting for the dawn to break and bring with it a sleep that was akin to death, Daryoon pondered mortal dreams again. His circumstance might have changed to be enough unlike his mortal life as to hold some similarity but what did he actually dream of now? Power, ambition… These were the mainstays of his existence, or both clan Lasombra and the Pulsian nobility. It was almost disconcerting to think that while certain things had changed, all that mattered remained the same. That the same games of politics and intrigue made little distinction in the existence of Cainite and kine.
At the subtle changes in the air Daryoon pulled the shadows closer, weaving them into an impenetrable shield against the day. Out of the corner of his eye, before vision was swallowed up by darkness Daryoon noted the expected scattering of soil that Narsus often surrounded his resting place with. He thought to ask about the significance of it but instead found a better question.
“What… is it that you believe in then? What do you dream of?”
And Daryoon felt Narsus smile against his shoulder.
“Death.” Came the whispered reply.
Then the shadows swallowed them and the day reigned above.
I think this piece can stop there… not that there won’t necessarily be more parts to this series.
The CD that Narsus is listening to would presumably be the Two Towers OST, since he’s listening to “Gollum’s Song” when Daryoon enters the room.
He quotes Virginia Woolf’s “
The Iglesia de San Nicolás de las Servitas is the haven of the Lasombra Cardinal Ambrosio Luis Monçada; or at least is though out the Clan Novels.
And as for the significance of the soil… it could be put down to Tzimisce paranoia…