History

“History”
by Ryah

A little background on this: I’m pretty much convinced that Alucard is Dracula; Bram Stoker’s version in fact. Therefore I will be borrowing heavily from that work for this piece of writing. I hope everyone enjoys… I’ve been toying with this story idea for awhile. This may even be one of my long efforts, instead of my usual one-shots. BTW, forgive me for any OOC-ness.

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Seras was having a very strange dream. There was a castle… something straight out of a history book, from the bowels of the Dark Ages. It was a magnificent structure, but filthy with dirt and blood and hate of the centuries. The rusty, bitter-sweet smell of blood stained the air to the point of near-visibility. Seras’ senses, usually inflamed by that smell, were very dead, and she knew she was but an intangible observer. Far, far in the distance was the clash of metal, the hoarse screams from raw throats; cries of fear and voracity mingled in the blood-drenched air. Somewhere, someone chuckled. Somewhere, another cry rose high and piteous above all the others… it came from the castle. Seras saw a speck plummet from a turret in a flurry of white. She heard the odd ringing of the scream, she tasted the mist and the blood in the air she didn’t need to breathe, and she heard the sickening thud that she knew meant death. Death...

The thought of death was in her mind when she awoke to stare at the ceiling of her coffin. Her bones knew night had come, and she could rise. Aiming one hand to open the lid, she shivered as she felt the presence of her Master nearby. Her golden head whipped to one side of the coffin, where she half expected to see just his head, phased through the wood. In the murky blackness, there was nothing, not even the glow of his eyes. She freed herself from the wooden prison and stretched her body lazily. A beautiful moon sliver peeked through her window. She checked. 10:30 at night.

“Late to wake tonight, Police Girl.” Alucard’s dark voice rolled over her in a welcome wave. She savoured the vibration in it before she turned her head.

“Master, so there you are.” She rose, clad only in a nightgown. She would not change in front of him, but she noted the seriousness in his voice. “Is something wrong? You feel... deathly, almost.” Alucard stepped forward. His hat, coat and glasses were all gone from his wickedly tall figure. Seras liked him better this way; with the rest of it on, he looked like an ‘80s TV personality to her.

“Deathly, Police Girl? How so? Surely, I am always deathly.” He grinned, his fangs glistening in the lamplight. Behind his smile tonight was none of his usual cockiness, or his bravado. There was… solemnity.

“It feels like YOU are dying.” Seras was very puzzled by the melancholy that seemed to possess him. It made her shiver, and there was a pain in her chest that wasn’t hers, that she could not fathom. Almost another person’s pain. Alucard looked away from her, his grin fading. Surely his little fledgling was not getting better at discerning his thoughts and feelings? Had she become THAT independent already? He turned. Seras didn’t wish him to go, so she hurriedly changed the subject. “I had a strange dream, Master, and I think that’s what kept me from waking." Alucard paused and turned back again toward her.

“Well, tell me of it.” He helped himself to a chair, and, feeling peckish, one of Seras’ chilled blood packs. In an effort to amuse him, Seras sat down herself, and reached for one also. Alucard’s eyebrows lifted quizzically, but he did not speak. Seras launched into an explanation of her dream, giving all the details she remembered. Alucard’s hand stopped with the blood half-way to his open mouth. The reflection in Seras’ eyes rapidly changed from his own face, somber, to the vision that Seras had seen in her dream: the white, pure as driven snow, falling... falling... until it struck, and the purity became stained. He slammed his hand on the table. Seras was startled and abruptly stopped talking. Master’s fist had put a sizeable crack into a beautiful old English antique. Seras could not unstick her tongue as her eyes played over his face, and instead of the anger she expected, she saw pain, and utter despair.

Alucard clutched his brow, trying to erase the pain. The pain of seeing that act, a desperate move by a desperate woman, buried deep in history’s gore spattered pages. Alucard very slowly calmed himself and raised his eyes once more to his terrified fledgling. He wondered why she looked so utterly scared.

“What is it, Police Girl?” He barked, startling her further. “Are you afraid I am angry with you?” The force behind his words seemed to argue so, but Seras shook her head and began to stammer.

“N-no, Master! But- but-” he growled low in his throat, and in her mind she could hear the snarl: out with it. “I’ve never seen you look so... distressed, Master.” Seras swallowed hard. Alucard softened in body and face. He folded his gloved hands neatly and placed his elbows on the table.

“I imagine that it must be quite a shock for you, Police Girl. I understand. After all, I never seem to care about anything but killing, and my opponents, do I? I delight in it, I revel in it. It is my life, my hobby, my mistress, my job. It is my nature. Your nature. Ours.” Seras swallowed hard, again. She dropped her eyes to the half open blood pack in her hand. Not pausing to think about it, she tore it open and downed the crimson liquid without batting an eye. She had the strangest feeling of weight crushing down upon her. She wished she could obtain more strength to support herself underneath the heavy feeling. Alucard relinquished the bag he was holding. She drank that too, becoming warm inside, and slightly dizzy, as if intoxicated. Alucard wondered at her. She had fed without his order. She had fed without balking, as was her custom. Was it out of respect for him?

“Seras, I want to show you something. Something the world has not seen in hundreds of years. Something that I’ve kept locked away, the key buried in my own entrails.” He stood up. “Follow me.” She barely hesitated. Luckily she had a robe, and in her steps out the door, she took it up and threw it about her shoulders. Alucard’s long strides were not easy to keep up with, and at times she found herself jogging in his wake, her mind spinning with the strangeness and mystery that was her Master. They pattered down long hallways, through doors, into secret passageways, and made more sudden turns than Seras could keep track of. Five minutes of walking and she was hopelessly lost in the corridors of the Hellsing mansion, with only Alucard as her guide. He kept on steadily forward, and showed no sign of wishing to speak. Seras wondered if he was only walking because he did not think she could phase through walls, or if the suspense was all for effect. Eventually, deep in the cold and damp dungeons, they reached what Seras realized to be his quarters, and the principal place he occupied during his free time. The depravity of this lair, with its primal and bare furnishing, the existence of old-world torture instruments, and bloodstains, was not lost on Seras, and wicked chills crawled up and down her spine. In one room there lay his coffin, a black wooden box; its chilling words sent a dagger of fear into her heart.

“You guessed rightly, Police Girl. This is where I live.” Seras barely wished to look around her, as she half expected to see a ghost or corpse lurking around every corner, but she also knew her fears to be irrational, as she herself was a member of the dead. Alucard drew a chair from seemingly nowhere and made her sit. It was obsidian in colour, and she almost thought she could feel reptile skin on the arms. Alucard drew a similar chair for himself and sat facing the girl, his long legs askew, and almost begging for her eyes. She looked away, both afraid and curious of what he was going to show her. Alucard took her hand and drew it quite slowly to his chest. “Seras, do you think there is a gaping hole in my chest, where my heart used to beat? Or, do you think that my heart’s physical death meant its emotional death as well?” Seras sat dumbstruck for a moment, unable to speak. Her fingertips caressed the crisp white shirt, and for a moment, her own heart fluttered. He was not totally without emotion, was he? She shook her head.

“I never really wondered, Master. You are who you are... I guessed there was little tenderness in you, but heartless? Then why would you be so loyal to Sir Integra, and Walter? Why would you... save me?” She dropped her eyes, embarrassed by her own words. Alucard pressed her hand even harder to his chest, drawing her body close. She could feel the sweet breath on her neck and she got goosebumps.

“I was human once, Seras. Very, very long ago. Would you like to know why, and how, I became this way?” Seras’ eyes darted back to Alucard’s. She wondered if she should say yes, or no! She had often wondered about his past; why he radiated such a foreign beauty, an intoxicating mystery, a royal bearing. But she did not wish to pry. Flustered, she could only make insensible noises. Alucard laughed- a chuckle that held only amusement, and no other emotion.

“I will tell you. Perhaps it will do me some good to talk. I have lived and relived these memories for so long without breaking my silence. It is about time you heard how I became the father of all nosferatu.”