Moonlight Flower

Shinigami Yumi


presents


Moonlight Flower

Author's Note: I know this took forever, and I'm sorry it's also a bit shorter than the average length of the chapters in this fic. The truth is the first time I wrote it, it was twice as long and six times as bad, so I scrapped it and rewrote it. Hated 75% of it, rewrote it again. Hence the long wait. I've finally managed to write something that I don't detest within 24 hours of completion, but please tell me what you think. If you find any mistakes or typos, please let me know, and I'll edit them out as soon as I can. I hope it lives up to your expectations.

Chapter 8: The Cross ~Moonlight Lover~

“What have you made me do, Walter?” Mathias murmured the question with mixed remorse and resignation as he looked at himself in a mirror back in his castle.

He had left the Ball the day after Leon fled, already weary of the crowd and festivities, and was now back in his castle several days later, gazing at his reflection in a mirror he had enchanted to show even that which was unseen. In it, he could see not only his changed appearance with the somewhat dry deathly pale skin, bloodshot eyes and blood red lips, but also Walter’s soul materializing from the ring on his left index finger and the dimming light of his own soul. He was already losing what little was left of his humanity, doing things he’d never even imagined himself doing before. Sometimes, he would think of the past, and the memories would seem distant and hazy; sometimes, he would remember the events, but he didn’t think the feelings he’d associated with them were right anymore. Or were they? He was beginning to have trouble telling things apart in his mind. His judgement was failing him. He was losing his sanity. And he could not help but think that he’d lost Leon as well after the stunt he had pulled in Elune Lucienda’s castle.


Leon probably hated him now, truly. He sighed. The blond was probably going to watch his last sunrise as soon as the turning was complete and return to his cruel God. His honourable and compassionate Leon could never bear to kill for as self-indulgent a reason as personal survival. Even in the Crusades, he had fought only to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem from heathens and quest for the Holy Grail, a just cause he truly believed in. Even so, he often secretly questioned the church’s definition of “heathens.” When the battle was not commanded by the church, he simply fought to defend his comrades in the company. And in his battle against Walter, he had fought so valiantly only to save Sara. Such was the best friend he knew; Leon always needed a strong exogenous reason to fight and kill. He would never take a life purely for his own sake. His Leon was as kind-hearted and selfless as humans came; he would much rather die.


Mathias wrung his hands in despair as he turned away from the magical looking glass, turning instead to inspect the four suits of armour arrayed in a row before the rich tapestry of a large blue lion hanging on the wall. Absently, he noted that some parts of the first one needed polishing. The second one seemed fine, but the third one needed oiling for its joints no longer moved as smoothly as they did when he acquired it. The last one, to the far right and closest to the luxurious large canopy bed he slept in when he tired of resting in a coffin, was his favourite. It was almost an exact replica of the one Leon had worn during their time together in the Crusades, and as such, it had a special significance to him. The matching sword it came with needed sharpening. He sighed unhappily, his fingers ghosting over the cold links of chainmail. In his mad possessive fury, he had done something terribly foolish, and it would cost him. Leon was dear to him; that much was no lie. Yet, he had hurt Leon again, more gravely than the last time. What was he doing? No, it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. Walter had been warping his mind with his poisonous thoughts, and much to his dismay, he was beginning to believe him.

So you’re blaming me now, tactician? the redhead asked indifferently.

You pressured me into looking, he replied accusingly.

I merely told you the truth that you so needed to confirm.

How could I so easily believe such unlikely accusations against my dearest friend?

How could you so easily blame me for your own possessive jealousy and rage? Walter riposted.

Mathias threw his fist at the stone wall in frustration, barely noticing the swiftly healing injury it incurred upon his white hand. I should never have looked into his mind.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ghostly figure of his demon sniggering at him even as the mocking laughter resounded in his mind. That one who has spent his lifetime seeking out answers should be so despaired by the knowledge he has found as to wish it away. Such charming irony, the vampire’s soul proclaimed with mirthful grandiose scorn.

Say no more, demon, he commanded, flinging himself face down upon the viridian and black silk sheets and covers of the bed. I would have the silence of my mind for some time.

Or what? the voice challenged spitefully even as its owner acquiesced and its presence faded.

Mathias gave no answer, of course. Walter and he had barely been civil in physical life; they had been little more than business contacts in a hidden world of dying arts. One was the current head of a wealthy noble family of a long line of alchemists who outwardly pledged allegiance to the church and helped fund some of its holy wars even as they covertly handed down their forbidden secrets from one generation to the next and made the bulk of their wealth from unidentified clients who came for their services in the dead of night. The other was one of these clients. It was from the Cronqvists that Walter acquired the Ebony Stone shortly after they, like all alchemists of significant mastery, had sought to create the Philosopher’s Stone and, again like all their peers and predecessors, failed, ending up instead with the Ebony and Crimson Stones.


The Ebony Stone they sold for the highest price they could, useless as it was to humans in its limited functionality; Walter had been the highest bidder, and it was thus that Eternal Night began in his forest centuries ago. The Crimson Stone they kept and passed down in secret as a valuable security measure to guard against their more often than not dangerous clients, prized as it was for its power to wrench the souls of the unsuspecting from their bodies and imprison them within its sparkling crimson depths aside from its other more practical uses. Walter and Mathias had never associated for anything more than business transactions, and after he’d used Walter to obtain his current life and power, there was palpable bitterness and discord between them, naturally.


Yet, now bound inexorably to each other, they had had no choice but to learn to coexist, and such was their oft capricious relationship now, as malicious as it was honest, as indulgent as it was apathetic. In their mutual hatred, they found companionship; in their shared resentment of loss, they found understanding; and in their united duality, they shared something that could just barely be described as a parsimonious, contemptuous, affection, wherein they spurned each other about as often as they accepted each other or more. Just as Walter swung between spiteful amusement and cold antipathy, so did Mathias himself vary between angry rejection and scheming relish. Theirs was a complex bond and one they grudgingly depended on equally.


Mathias sighed as he buried his face in a soft pillow, inhaling the muddled scent of various bird feathers as his thoughts once again strayed towards Leon. Even if Leon did not immediately run for the sun to die, the blond would never come to him. He groaned softly in frustration. Perhaps there was some way for him to make Leon return to his side that he had yet to think of. Too tired in mind and spirit to wait for the sunrise, he telekinetically drew the thick opaque curtains shut and closed his eyes to rest, allowing his consciousness to leave his body earlier.

---===***===---

Leon came to sprawled on a bed of lilies. A slight breeze blew, caressing his bare skin with its ghostly touch as gently as he chafed the closest snowy petals with his fingertips. In the silence, he heard only the steady sound of his breathing and the rustling of the grass and flowers. Knowing he was dreaming, he sat up to look around, but all he could see was an endless expanse of lilies all around. The wind picked up, blowing white petals into the air. As they swirled around him, a flash of red caught him out of the corner of his eye, and he turned. It was a butterfly, bright crimson and gold, flying against the wind effortlessly, like something not quite a part of the dream’s reality. This thought compelled him to rise and follow it. As if seeking to hinder him, the wind blew more strongly as he moved towards the fluttering glow, and the petals sought to obfuscate his vision.


Suddenly, he felt the grassy ground beneath his feet give way to water and he was sinking. The water was cold. It felt so real, and a current was pulling him down. He tried to reach for the edge of ground he had been standing on earlier, but it was gone, and he couldn’t breathe. The butterfly was in front of him now, but it was a butterfly no longer. Instead, it was slowly coalescing into a ring, a very familiar ring. He reached for it, but just before his fingers could wrap around it, cold arms pulled him backwards and soft lips abruptly covered his own. The other breathed much needed air into his lungs an instant before everything changed in a whirl too quickly for him to register, and he found himself standing, bewildered, in a clearing in a forest.


Before him lay Mathias, writhing in the vice-like coils of an enormous red snake. His breaths were quick and shallow, and he let out a strangled cry that seemed at once anguished and wanton as the serpent hissed in his ear. Leon stared at the sight, wondering if he should simply leave or try to help Mathias, but soon realized he was already looking around for some manner of weapon. He found a long branch nearby that would suffice as a staff. It would have to do. He moved slowly towards it, but the snake immediately noticed and turned its attention upon him, rearing its head with a loud hiss and disentangling itself from its current prey.


Swiftly, he picked up the branch and faced it as it moved towards him, poised to strike. He needed a plan, and quickly. The snake darted forwards, and he leaped back out of reach. Escape seemed like the wisest idea, but it wouldn’t solve the problem at hand. Just then, as his foe slid forward to strike again, a luminescent figure charged into it from his right, and he recognized the incoming creature from the old tales of legend as a unicorn. Whatever the reason for its coming, it was the distraction he needed, and he dropped the branch as he rushed to Mathias’s side. His former friend said his name in what seemed almost a moan as he helped the other up wordlessly and led him away from the clearing as quickly as possible, only turning once for a final glance at the silver steed now mired in battle with the massive snake.


Leon ran, half-leading and half-dragging Mathias behind him, through the gloomy willow forest, never saying a word or looking back. He didn’t know how long he kept moving before they arrived at a lake fed by a small stream, and he waded into the cool water to refresh himself, pulling Mathias with him. Finally releasing his hold on the other man, he swam out towards the centre of the lagoon and back, fully immersing himself in the fresh water. When he returned, Mathias was still standing there, gazing at him with an unfathomable look in his eyes.

“Why do you save me, Leon?”

Leon didn’t answer, couldn’t. There hadn’t been a rational answer when he’d considered it the first time, and he still couldn’t find one.

Mathias didn’t wait for one either. “Why do you save me now, Leon?” he amended the question. “After you abandoned me all those years ago?”

This made Leon look up. “W-What…”

“Why now, Leon? Why?”

“What are you saying, Mathias?” he cried in horror, moving closer to grab his former friend’s arms. “When…When have I ever abandoned you in a moment of need?”

“And did you not leave me when I needed you most at my side, as I lay in bed sickening with grief? Did you not choose another over me, Leon?” the older man pressed without missing a beat, not even flinching at the tight grip on his arms.

Realization dawned, and Leon stared at the alchemist in shock. “Y-you had Sara abducted as a test?!”

“No, it is true I wanted her eliminated before she stole you from me permanently. Had you chosen as I’d hoped, none of this would have come to pass.”

Leon’s arms fell to his side as he sank to his knees in anguish. “How could you, Mathias? There was no way I could have not at least tried to save her. Had I not gone to her rescue, she would have perished for certain. You, I thought you would still be there when we returned! Mathias, why could you not have just told me, could you not have simply asked?”

“And never know if your heart was true or if all you bore me was pity?” Mathias reached down to tilt the blond’s face up. Water dripped down that angelic face onto his fingers, and it was warm. “No, I could never be satisfied with that uncertainty, not with you, when you were all I had left and perhaps all I had ever wanted.”

The former knight reached up to take that hand in his own. “Don’t say that,” he pleaded. “What has warped it all for you? You loved her, surely as the sun rose in the eastern horizon.”

“I did, I did. Most assuredly, I did. Yet, in those final days, I could no longer see, whether it was her I saw in you or if I saw you in her.” Leon heard, more than saw, Mathias circle him slowly. “And as the answers blurred, I came to care no longer. What did it matter, if I at least had you by my side?” Strong arms slid around his torso to pull him tightly against a body that should no longer be so warm. “But she was taking you from me.” The tactician was whispering in his ear now, insidious yet seductive. “She was taking you from me as I watched helplessly, and in my despair, I saw!” The arms around him tightened possessively with the emphasis, cleaved to his flesh like chains in a prison, and he gasped in pain. “This plan came to me like a dream.” The other’s voice was taking on that familiar edge now, crazed and desperate. “I would have you, or I would have my vengeance. It was perfect!” Nails grazed his skin as a hand slid up to his throat to tilt his head back as far as it could go. “And so flawlessly executed by you, my love…” The words had fallen into a whisper again. “Yet I am disappointed in you, Leon. What did you see in her that has captured your heart so? Was it not I who stood at your side against all hope? Was it not I who comforted you in those dusty, bloodstained days beneath the desert sun? What has she done to surpass me, Leon? Tell me, tell me, tell me…” A desperate, pleading, broken whisper that trailed off dismally.

And Leon knew not what to say. He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came.

Then, abruptly, Mathias chuckled.

“Mathias..?” he called tentatively.

The chuckle only grew into thunderous laughter, maniacal and disdainful. “You foolish humans, driving each other mad over that transient sentiment you call love.”

Cold red eyes turned upon him, and Leon felt bile rising in his throat with hatred and disgust. There was no way he could fail to recognize that arrogant, pitiless gaze. “Walter,” he snarled, even as his former friend’s jet black curls turned blood red.

The vampire only laughed mockingly again. “To think you still contemplate saving that piteous man from the depths to which he has fallen, oh shining white knight. Ah, but of course, your delusions of honour and nobility would drive you even to rescue my selfish needy Childe.”

“You are in no position to criticize Joachim.”

The fingers around his throat tightened just short of crushing his windpipe. “You, golden hunter, are in no position to be speaking.”

Between choking in gasps of air, Leon tried to speak, but barely managed an angry hiss.

“Oh, it seems you are quite adamant. Very well, in light of your having defeated me once, I will recognize your being a rank above the rest of your kind and give you the time of day.” Walter loosened his grip slightly. “Speak then, and do not waste it.”

“How dare you take his form to trick me?!”

“Trick you?” The redhead echoed incredulously. “Please! I could never have devised anything as…banal as his little love speech to you even as a human youth several millennia ago. That was most certainly your old friend, even if the boundaries between us are slowly blurring.”

That gave pause to the former baron’s fury. “Blurring?”

“Oh, of course, you would have not a clue. Shocking, since he knows this not either. Has it never occurred to you to wonder why it is that Death itself serves the Crimson Stone’s wielder?”

It had not, but Leon had never known anything about the secret arts anyway. He was a Crusader, not a sorcerer.

Walter did not wait. “That Stone is a key to the threads that bind all souls. Your precious strategist has as yet exploited but one of its many uses and that is capturing my soul to gain my powers. And yet, our vampiric nature, as you must know by now, is physical, tied to our blood. So how do you think the Stone could endow him with vampirism?”

“How?” Leon asked, curiosity temporarily getting the better of his other emotions.

The vampire heaved a longsuffering sigh. “You wear my patience thin with your inability to think, Sir Belmont. The stone is fusing me with his body, melding my soul into his flesh and blood to turn human to vampire. With time, there will no longer be he and I, only one combined being of us, the one he has named Dracula.” Walter smirked coldly. “Still, I suppose I should thank you. I was discontent, about to lose myself to some lowly scholar who has yet to even perfect his arts, but no. In his despair, his soul weakens, and now the fusion draws him into me. Soon, it is I who shall prevail over that second rate alchemist’s mind, body and soul.” He laughed, triumphant.

“You will not! I will never let you!” Leon cried angrily, reaching up to try to pry the redhead’s fingers from his neck.

Walter only laughed more, mocking his useless struggles. “You fool, what can you do now? You were too late years ago when you stepped into my castle, and you are too late now.” In a quick motion, he plunged the blond into the lake, holding him underwater by his grip on the former knight’s throat. “Go, hunter, go! Grasp at your futilities and despair!”

Leon instinctively inhaled, but only water filled his lungs, and he choked down more helplessly, psychotic laughter ringing in his ears somehow, even as everything began to fade…

---===***===---

Leon sat bolt upright, drawing air into his lungs in a long, desperate gasp.

He choked on the stale air.

It was dark. Where was he?

He panted, still breathless.

The dank smell of seawater, sweat and sickness pervaded his senses.

Cool fingers touched his arm, and he jumped, head bumping against the low wooden ceiling.

“Leon?”

That voice.

Of course. They were still at sea.

He took a deep breath despite the less than pleasant odour.

“Are you all right?” Joachim sat up beside him, velvety baritone sweet with concern, his fresh yet musky scent a refuge from the cabin’s stench.

“Yes,” he said steadily. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Cool arms wrapped around him soothingly and pulled him back down to the small bunk they somehow shared without falling off. And as he calmed, he remembered. He remembered how his heart had barely raced in his moment of terror, how forlorn Mathias had sounded, how Walter had laughed at them both. This had to end. Dracula must never be born.

“We must go,” he said.

“I know. I saw,” Joachim answered quietly.

“You are unhappy,” Leon observed, sensing the jumble of feelings across their mental bond.

“Of course I am,” the other whispered hoarsely, claw-like nails digging into skin. “After all that he has done, you still love him.”

“I…”

“Would you deny it?”

“No, but it is not the same feeling.”

“Stop deceiving yourself, Leon. I can sense the emotion in all your thoughts and memories of him. Even if you never lay with him, you have always loved him the same way you did Lady Trantoul and… And the same way you do me.” The last was said with mixed hope and relief.

Leon only pressed a kiss to Joachim’s temple tenderly in reassurance, finding no appropriate words to say in response. Perhaps that was veracious, but how he loved Mathias was not as important as the fact that he truly and still did. More importantly, however, Mathias had to be stopped, no matter the sacrifices on their part. “Joachim, we cannot allow Dracula to be created. The idea you spoke of before. How is it done?”

The vampire turned away. “Ask no further, Leon. It is a terrible thing.” He should never have even thought of it, much less suggested it aloud, and he almost regretted it.

“Just tell me. How is it done? Joachim, please.”

Joachim sighed resignedly, switching to telepathic speech because he could not bring himself to say the words aloud. He never could deny Leon anything, especially not when the former knight was using that tone. The easiest way, of course is to have a succubus or an incubus turn you. The other way, now that the first is a foregone option, is to use the method Walter used to change her.

“You speak of the guardian of the Ghostly Theatre?”

Yes. He…had sex with her, so much of it that her changing body adapted to the constant influx of sexual energy and grew dependent on it. The distaste that emanated from his lover was to be expected. “Leon, you must not. Change your mind ere it is too late,” he pleaded again, voice strained with his own mixed feelings. The way of the incubi would destroy his lover, he knew. He wanted Leon by his side, but the thought of the other’s despair was almost too much to bear.

“So be it,” Leon said finally, after only a moment’s hesitation.

“Leon…”

“A generation’s problems should end with it. I refuse to curse my descendants with this burden if there is any way I can spare them this terrible fate. Please understand. I must do this. It is… It is the only way left to me to be a father.”

Joachim sighed again, more drawn out than the last. What could he say to that? Whether or not the dream had been merely a dream, or even if Walter had lied in the specifics, Dracula would always be a problem, and Leon had too many reasons not to abide that willingly. He had learned over the years to recognize the determination he now sensed in his lover. There was little, if anything at all, that could change the blond’s mind now, least of all his half-hearted dissuasion.

Leon took his hand solemnly and pressed their foreheads together to whisper, his cooling breath ghosting over cold skin in a haunting reminder of their loss. “Joachim Armster, I know not how long this journey will be, but will you see to it that no blood but yours ever passes my lips, that we bring no harm or misfortune to any human along this dark path?”

The vampire closed blue-gray eyes against reality. “Forever,” he breathed. “As long as it takes. I would promise you anything. Yes.” And the elation that rose in his still heart as Leon kissed him deeply sickened him to his very soul.

Thank you for reading, and if you do, for taking the time to review! <3