fear the old blood

[shootyourshot]

[Rumors travel around in Garreg Mach fast. Most of the time, they're baseless and don't really catch Ashe's attention; he's admittedly more interested in making sure he's performing well. He has a roof over his head, and he wants to keep it that way, so he keeps his nose out of trouble.

But there is one that hangs on his mind. That there's something deep in the bowls of the church, a monster, a beast. That particularly bothers him, hangs over his mind, makes him think about how beasts have been improperly revered or maimed in the past. He's seen it in all manners by now. If the church does actually have a creature they're harboring, he can't help but wonder why.

It wouldn't be the first church to keep secrets, after all.

Ashe eventually decides that having all the facts won't hurt. If he's wrong, then he'll be happy to be. If he's not, well...

That's why he has his sword strapped to his back and his gun at his hip. He has more items he's harbored since the days before Lonato officially adopted him, most of them locked away in a trunk just in case. It's night, and most everyone is back in their dorm rooms. There's security, but Ashe knows their patterns enough to keep out of sight. He's spent his life as a thief, then as a hunter, now a student; he can manage.

It takes a bit of research, but he does find a secret path that starts in Rhea's office and extends to a rather old fashioned elevator. He opts to not use it in case it causes noise, instead climbing down the chain as he makes his way.

He doesn't expect what he finds, a grand room under the monastery, deep inside, full of stone caskets.

And something else.]

Comments

[distaster]

[It's been long enough now that Dimitri doesn't know what year it is, anymore.

It was 751, the last he remembers seeing the color of the sky. The four of them had finally driven the Empire to its knees with their rebellion — Pan, Kyphon, himself, and his elder brother, Loog — and much of it owed directly to his own smashing victory over the Imperial troops outside Fhirdiad. He wonders, sometimes, what they say about it now. They took him during the armistice that followed his great slaughter, that cease fire when empire, rebellion, and church all sat down at the negotiating table and mapped out how the future would look for years to come.

Rhea told him, when she locked him down here, that the histories would be rewritten. That it would be Loog who was remembered as the general at the Tailtean Plains, Loog the architect of the rebellion's victory. Loog the new king of a liberated territory called Faergus, with Kyphon as his most trusted advisor and general. She told him that no one would remember his name. That this would be the punishment for his transgressions.

He wonders sometimes what they say about that battle. He wonders how they wrote it, whether they made his brother out to be a golden, shining hero for men forever after to craft songs and stories about. He wonders if they wiped out the fact that the Empire had them routed, the fields turned to mud that ran red with the spilt blood. Perhaps he's the only one who remembers the Imperial general catching him by the hair and driving him to his knees, waving for an axe to be brought, a young prince's head to take as a trophy.

He remembers. He remembers the copper taste of the blood he'd drank off the grass, and the oath he'd sworn upon it. How he'd begged to the very depths of his soul for the strength to kill them all.

What a frenzy it had been. From complete defeat to utter victory, until there were no more men with throats left to scream. He remembers the look in Kyphon's eyes when he'd seen the victory Dimitri had wrought, the triumph he had laid at his brother's feet.

That was a long time ago, now.

He wonders what year it is, sometimes. He wonders what happened to the girl, Ishilde — the emperor's daughter, the beautiful one. No one ever gives him any answers, and as the decades go by, he gradually comes to expect that his only visitors will be ones with some new experiment in mind.

But it's strange to hear the mechanisms of the elevator beginning to grind in the walls now. He can't think of any reason why someone might come, yet their arrival seems imminent, nevertheless.

In the middle of the room, back near the far wall, one large stone casket rests with its lid slightly cracked, housing a horror too exhausted and starved of blood to even bother looking up to greet his new arrival. He has no energy to spare for it, so there's nothing to do but wait and see what comes of it in its time.]

[shootyourshot]

[This place is old. Older than the manor passed down from generation to generation of Lonato's home, older than Yharnam. Older than the monastery, even. Yet, it has been preserved well. What is its purpose, he wonders?

Ashe looks at each casket, wondering what secrets they hold. He should probably investigate; there are several of them here.

Yet, it's the one with the lid just slightly ajar that catches his attention the most. Going lightly on his feet, Ashe approaches, keeping his guard up and ready to defend himself if he has to.

Bracing a hand against the lid, he pushes it open just a bit more, old hunter strength still in his veins.

There's... a man. No, probably not a man anymore, but he doesn't look that beastly, not in comparison to those he's fought before. A handsome man with golden hair. How odd.]

Hello.

[Hopefully, he's sane enough for conversation.

[distaster]

[Blood. There's living, beating blood in the veins of his visitor, not the tainted sour stuff that the good lady Rhea carries in her veins, but something real and hot and nourishing. He can scent it on the back of his palate, feeling his curious trespasser draw nearer and nearer by smell alone. He can hear the beating of his heart. He doesn't need eyes to track prey; it's part of what makes the patch over his right one so ridiculous. He'd been starved for a few years when they'd plucked it out; the socket only lies empty because he's never had the strength to regrow it.

But again, he doesn't need his eyes, anyway.

The lid over him makes a grinding, earthy noise as stone rubs against stone, and the darkness that surrounds him goes from pitch to lighter as it opens up more to the greater room. A face peers in at him — his visitor — and for a second he almost thinks it's Ishilde. The eyes are the same, wide and beautiful.]

Well, well.

[He rasps over the words, his throat dry as sand.]

A warm little thief looking for a place to die.

[shootyourshot]

[Thief. That almost makes him laugh, but the urge dies quickly enough, leaving him with a faint, tired smile as he looks down at the man.]

Sorry. It's a little hard to be intimidated by a starved vampire.

[Yet, he makes no move to grab his sword or his gun. This is no hunt, after all. This is exploration, and he doesn't see any reason to kill a weakened being like this. If anything, it's pitiable.

So he crouches at the coffin, looking inside curiously.]

Surely Rhea knows you're here. Why is that?

[He hadn't been naive enough to fully put his faith into the church, but... there had been a part of him that hoped that they were sincere about their methods. Their path.

Ashe should've known it's not the simple. Wouldn't be the first.]

[distaster]

Mm. You know what I am.

[Curious. Very curious indeed. He manages to pull back the corners of his lips a little, baring his fangs in seeming confirmation. Even after centuries, they're wickedly sharp — his whole mouth, really, is a set of deadly weapons, not just the two elongated ones.

He opens his eye fully now, at last revealing a pale blue iris. Yet another sign of his starvation — he's so hungry, all the red has drained from them. And now, with a better look at his trespasser, he can't help but furrow his brow in uncertain confusion. The sword he recognizes. The rest is a little more foreign.]

Did she send you here, little thief? How fortunate for me, and sorry for you. It seems my good behavior has been rewarded, and I've been delivered a meal.

[shootyourshot]

Stone casket, deep in a basement. That and on top of rumors, it's not too hard to figure out.

[The eye does confirm his suspicion. This is a starved vampire left in the lowest pits of the church. The fangs are still wicked, and if Ashe is careless at all then this vampire would still be dangerous. But he doesn't intend to be.]

No, I came of my own volition. She has no idea I'm here.

[Would it just be merciful to put the vampire out of his misery? He thinks on that for a moment. He's watched all manner of people succumb to their own obsession or madness, turning into something else besides human. Vampires, from his brief experience, just consider themselves on top of the food chain, but he's never... had a conversation with one.

Besides, he still can't help but feel some sympathy. It's just how he is. Even after all this time, he has an empathetic heart.]

I'm afraid I'm no one's meal, so you'll be hungry a bit longer.

[distaster]

...Rumors?

[How strange, that that of all things is what gets his attention. What makes him try to find the strength to push an elbow underneath him and lever himself up, only to collapse back down again before he'd even got an inch up off the stone beneath his back.]

What rumors? My name is forgotten. She took...everything...

[He seems to crumple a little, defeated again, a husk of a vampire weary with years and despair.]

No. I am blotted out. Erased. She would not...she would not allow even rumors of me.

[shootyourshot]

[She took everything. Ashe wraps his head around the words, about Rhea, whatever it could mean. How long has Rhea kept him down here? How much of the church staff know? Who is kept in the dark?]

I don't think she's aware of the people of Abyss when they whisper to each other in a crappy bar.

[He watches the vampire struggle to sit up and it's... a bit sad. Ashe has the urge to reach out and help him, but he also distinctly does not want to be bitten.]

What is your name? I'll remember it.

[distaster]

[Abyss. What could it mean? Some other change that came about over the years and years, that he couldn't possibly have knowledge of or context for. A town, perhaps. A place where people go. Amusing, somehow, that the only thing he now knows of this "Abyss" is that its tavern is terrible.

How nice to know that some things never change.]

I was the younger brother. The general at the Tailtean Plains. I, I gave us the victory.

[The smell of fresh, hot life is so close; it's all but driving him mad, stirring up his dormant hunger and making it gnaw at his insides.]

Who do they say won that battle? Who does history remember? If you know not my name...then she must have made good on her threats, after all.

[shootyourshot]

Tailtean Plains?

[General. There's hasn't been a war there for ages. Ashe isn't well educated, but he's relieved that Lonato had taught him how to read, particularly of a man's exploits. However, this man says younger brother... Ashe frowns thoughtfully.]

It's been recorded that Loog brought victory for Faerghus centuries ago. You're claiming that you're... his brother?

[Vampire brother.]

[distaster]

Centuries.

[So that's how long it's been. It hardly seems real. It certainly didn't pass quickly, and yet it seems to have passed all the same.]

My name is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. We dreamed of a future where we would be free, free from the oversight of a far-distant emperor who knew nothing of our people or our land. We led a rebellion and sought that freedom. Kyphon and Loog and I.

[He smiles, very faintly. There's no humor in it, but it isn't particularly nasty either.]

So. His legacy survives. Faerghus endures, even these centuries later.

[shootyourshot]

[Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Blaiddyd. Nowhere in the books or what he's been taught has ever mentioned a brother, but it's not impossible. People love to rewrite history as they see fit, ignore the flaws and praise the victors. He knew it would be too good to be true, the tales of Loog and Kyphon. The ideas are still... nice, though.

There's a pause, then he hesitantly offers his hand to Dimitri.]

Ashe.

[He could give his last name too, but it's not so grand. So he doesn't.]

Why are you kept here?

[distaster]

Why do you think? I am a dangerous monster, am I not?

[The juxtaposition of that statement, with the way his arm shakes as he tries to reach for Ashe's offered hand, is humor in and of itself.]

It was one of the Emperor's demands in the negotiations of our independence. Vengeance for the slaughter at the Plains. Loog would never have agreed to execute a general for his conduct in the field, much less his own brother, and so a bargain was struck. Either I would be cured, or I would be killed. It was the only way I could be trusted.

[His fingers, trembling, close around Ashe's. The skin is papery and thin.]

We all assumed the church was there as a neutral arbiter. We never suspected she might have her own agenda.

[shootyourshot]

[It's taken awhile, but he's been able to finally determine a way to make this work. Snatching Dimitri away in the middle of the night, right under Rhea's nose and away into the Hunter's Dream. It should work, even if he's not entirely sure he comprehends how the lantern had sprouted out of the floor like a flower. There's something inside that twitches, don't think too hard about it, and all he knows is that he has an answer.

So he ventures down into the chamber to gather his vampire, stepping lightly.]

Dimitri.

How strong are you feeling right now?

[distaster]

[How eerily pleasant his life has become, in these days and weeks since his Ashe first wandered into his crypt. Centuries upon centuries he'd spent languishing in the darkness, with no sense or scope or scale of the passage of time, and what did it matter? He would never be released from his vault, never taste the cool sweetness of fresh air again. Why should time matter, when every day was doomed to always be the same?

But now, there are goings and comings. Now there is his Ashe, and the persistent company of his newly-arrived guest the Doll, and he has had more intellectual stimulation in a handful of weeks than he's had in all the years that ever preceded it. He speaks, now, with a throat he wets rather than letting it go dry as a desert. He has tasted blood, and felt it returning some of his strength to him.

He is still weak, so much weaker than he could be, but he has yet conserved enough of his strength to sit up and greet his little hunter upon his arrival in the crypt, his smile faint but his fangs gleaming.]

With you close at hand, little hunter, I am always invigorated.

[Bold words for a vampire half-crumbled to dust, but still.]

Though of course, I could be stronger with the boon of a taste of you...

[shootyourshot]

You'll have more than that soon enough.

[The Doll rises from where she has knelt, smiling patiently to the hunter as Ashe approaches boldly. The dream will be temporary until he can get Dimitri away from Garreg Mach; soon, he'll roam the land, free as he should be instead of punished with the crime of saving his brethren.

Ashe kneels before Dimitri, tugging his glove free before offering it out.]

A small nibble. Then I want you to walk with me.

[distaster]

So demanding, this guest to my humble home.

[He says, dryly, even as he curls his fingers beneath Ashe's and lifts his hand to his lips to kiss each of the knuckles in its turn.]

And what if I wish to savor you? I am ever delighted by the company of your lady, but having you close at hand is a privilege I intend to relish.

[shootyourshot]

[Savor, he says. Ashe holds his breath, completely enchanted by each kiss onto his knuckles. It tickles every bit of the romantic in Ashe, and he can't hide his face from blushing furiously.]

I'm just-- I have-- [Ashe clears his throat, getting his thoughts in order.] There's a way to the dream for you. I-I guess you could say I came down here to rescue you, finally.

[distaster]

[To rescue you, finally; how simply his little hunter expresses such a vast and momentous notion. The truth is, Dimitri has never put much faith in the idea of his escape, not from lack of belief in Ashe's capacity to achieve it but rather simply because he'd learned a long time ago what heartbreak hoping can bring. Such optimism exhausted in him centuries ago, and now he knows better than to dare entertain such thoughts. It had been enough just to have Ashe's visits to look forward to, and see how low even that had reduced him, in the interim periods between occasions when he was gone from Dimitri's sight.

And yet, here he is, offering a way to the dream. A rescue. A path out of his crypt, one safe from Rhea's prying eyes. Hope makes itself a noose around his neck, now, and chokes him, and it's all he can do to keep his fingers beneath Ashe's from trembling.]

A path to your dream.

[He echoes it softly, disbelieving only because he hardly dares to.]

You would risk so much, just to set me free of these four walls?

[shootyourshot]

[With Ashe's other hand, he clasps it over Dimitri's, squeezing gently. He smiles, determined, knowing exactly what he'd come down here to do. Daring, Ashe leans in, pecking Dimitri on the cheek.]

You deserve to live as you choose. The dream is safe for you, and eventually you can see the rest of Fodlan again.

That's what I want. Whenever you're ready.

[distaster]

[It's dangerous, of course, to get in close like that, even for the very good reason of giving Dimitri's cheek a kiss. His arm's reach, however, is broad and long, and so it comes as no surprise that he scoops Ashe into his arms once he makes himself an easy target, and holds him close as he brings their foreheads to touch.]

Then let me drink of you. I do not merely ask this; I beg it of you.

[He speaks softly, from behind barely-parted lips that keep his fangs hidden.]

Let me be strong when I leave this accursed place. Let it not be a corpse that stumbles free of its tomb this day, but a man. I beg of you, Ashe, my Ashe — let me be whole again.

[shootyourshot]

[Blood is everything. There's a bit of that knowledge that clings to him from his previous days in Yharnam, how it even became something of a currency to those people. Transfusions, vials, needles. For a vampire, though, it is more than that; it is life, and Ashe is given the option to freely give it.

So he pulls down his hoodie, opening the front of his jacket just enough so he can bare his neck willingly, letting himself become relaxed in Dimitri's arms. There's that part of him as a hunter that knows better than to expose himself to a predator, screaming to him that this is what Dimitri planned from the beginning -- but he thinks above those instincts, instead quietly welcoming the other man's fangs.]

Then come have a drink.

[distaster]

Stay close to me, hunter mine. This may make you swoon.

[He's teasing, probably; there's a richness in his voice that suggests it. But even moreso than that, he sounds — giddy, almost, beneath layers and layers of his ancient bearing. Like even now he still doesn't quite dare to believe, and won't let himself surrender to the reality of it too soon.

But Ashe invites him, tugging the fabric of his hood away, and Dimitri is suddenly so determined to make this good for him, to live up to the faith it must have taken a Yharnam hunter to offer himself up so freely.]

But perhaps you would enjoy that.

[He rumbles his amusement, nosing and kissing his way along Ashe's jaw and down the column of his neck, until at last he settles over the pulse and gives it a slow lick, marking out the place of what's to come where he can feel it, where he can expect it.

Then, he kisses, slow and unhurried touches that cascade one into another, until at last the skin is pink from his attentions and the blood warmed beneath it, and he slides his fangs in and in and in with smooth precise confidence, so even and so steady that the holes are all but perfect, without the slightest ragged edge to cause more pain than necessary.]

[shootyourshot]

[The kisses along his throat make him shiver, and that alone is enough. He holds his breath for a moment, suddenly distinctly aware of his pulse under Dimitri's mouth. Ashe swallows, closing his eyes for a moment as he waits.

It's a pinch of pain, hardly anything in comparison to what he's felt. He's been mauled, sliced into, beaten; some people could claim they get used to pain, but Ashe never has. Yet, this is still almost so gentle, a clean slide of fangs piercing flesh and blood blossoming to the surface.]

Oh...

[Ashe lets out a small sigh, and he does swoon a little -- but as Dimitri suggested, he doesn't dislike it. It feels so oddly intimate, in a way that he can't describe. People have donated their blood to him before with vials, but like this...

The hunter hesitantly reaches up, combing his fingers through blonde hair.]

[distaster]

[One drop, just one drop of his hunter's blood, had been enough to set his nerves singing. But this? To be able to drink, freely, and sate or glut himself to his own heart's desire? It's almost too much.

His arms tighten slowly around Ashe, a pleased noise rumbling in the back of his throat as he feels Ashe reach for him in return. There is no preventing his work from hurting altogether, but he takes great pains to make it as brief as possible, worrying the wounds with focused care to coax the blood to flow before drawing his fangs out again and settling in comfortably to drink.

Each sweep of his tongue draws more strength into him. Behind his eyepatch, he can feel his missing eye reforming. His powers are reawakening. He feels alive.

And with his senses alight once again, returned to their proper function, he realizes that if Ashe should choose to leave him in his crypt after all, then he really will go mad. He'd survived on blunted senses and dulled function for centuries; if he had to suffer this confinement with all his powers intact, despair would take him in a matter of days.

But he won't think about that now. He nuzzles instead, kissing Ashe's neck as much as he drinks from it, murmuring and soothing encouragement to him in hushed tones.]

Ashe.

[There's no pretty hunter this time. He's too raw, and too grateful.]

Speak to me. Are you well?