Midian Evolution

Defying most traditions, Integra and Walter had chosen to walk down the isle together, as equals. As partners. The Hellsing staff approved, of course. We all knew that these two people ran the organization as a team, that even before Integra decided to marry and Walter and bear an heir, she attended Walter’s opinions and guidance carefully.

The royal witnesses, however, were another matter. They muttered a bit, talking amongst themselves as Walter and Integra slowly walked toward the priest arm in arm.

My master grew impatient with the room’s atmosphere in approximately six seconds. He slid his sunglasses off and sent his red-eyed, murderous stare to each witness, one by one, quelling all the talk almost instantly. We only required a single witness from the queen. Why are these baboons in attendance? Who invited the entirety of the Knights?

Integra decided the more people that knew, the better, I told him. She wanted no one to cast doubt that she’d married Walter.

They don’t think that is Walter, Master argued. I can hear their ignorant thoughts.

What can we do, Master?

Master smiled, and I barely suppressed a shiver of dread. We’ll just have to prove that’s Walter, he answered.

Master… To say I felt uneasy didn’t brush the surface. Sir Integra will kill us if we ruin her wedding! I looked around at all these ladies and gentlemen, these cream of the crop members of British society.

I wouldn’t dream of ruining my master’s wedding. Alucard leaned his head to smile at me. I want her wed. I want her wedded and bedded by Walter as soon as possible. Hellsing must have an heir.

The priest was speaking now, doing his ‘we are gathered here today to unite’ litany. I caught sight of another priest in the back of the room, or rather, an ex-priest. He’d reclaimed his cassock from my quarters. Master, Anderson decided to show up! That’s good, isn’t it?

He came because I demanded he attend. Alucard looked at me from the other side of the couple. Since I stood by Integra and he stood my Walter, we couldn’t speak with anything but our minds and our eyes. Right now, Master’s eyes were sinful. Why not use the Judas priest?

Oh, God. Master was going to use Anderson to liven things up in here.

I started to feel really, really bad in the pit of my stomach. Master was capable of anything, absolutely anything. I wanted this wedding to go off without a hitch, wanted these two people who meant so much to me to have the best day possible. They deserved something halfway normal; their lives were full of the abnormal, the obscene, and the perverse.

Master, I’m begging you, please don’t start something! Please! No woman should have her wedding day ruined! I pinned him with my eyes. I’ll do anything, Master, if you’ll let her have this day!

Don’t you trust me yet, Seras? he asked me. A ripple of deep displeasure passed to me from him.

Master… I pleaded with my eyes. I hated when I let him down, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him making a spectacle of Integra’s big day. I’d trust you to walk me into hell and get me back out again unscathed. I’d trust you to protect me, to take care of me, to do anything you said you’d do.

That pulse of disappointment softened before suspending, hanging in the air like a hawk waiting for the rabbit to make a move from underbrush. Then, why do you plead for Integra like this? he asked. This isn’t your wedding, Sotie.

I know. I felt tears streaming down my face. I hadn’t liked to admit it, but I was living a little romance through Integra and Walter, knowing I’d never have something like this for myself. I’d never be standing at an altar in a pretty dress with a man who openly loved me. I’d never be able to show the world…

Please, Master? I…

What, Seras? he asked, impatience now making his tone leaden and harsh.

The hawk was tired of catching drifts, waiting…

The priest started his final litany. My master wordlessly handed Walter Integra’s ring. Walter’s ring felt like a burning brand in my hand.

Tell me, Seras, and tell me now! Master practically shouted in my head. It hurt. It hurt so much it stunned me. He’d never, ever yelled at me, not with his mind or his voice.

I… I choked. In the next instant I was handing Integra my friend’s ring. I’ll never have this, Master. I want to at least see it. Let me see this wedding without our bloody darkness.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

I turned my head just in time to see Integra and Walter join their mouths.

They were beautiful.

Tall, strong Walter, handsome Walter, gently easing his wife’s lips apart. Tall, strong, stunning Integra, submitting to her husband’s lead. They were a fairy tale come to life. The queen’s faithful servant getting the pretty girl instead of the spoiled, arrogant prince. A secretly love-starved woman winning the perfect man instead of pining away in a lonely tower.

They ran down the isle together, their heads bent toward one another, smiles on their lips. A few of Integra’s daisies fell to the polished marble floor. I bent to pick one up. It still looked fresh.

I couldn’t look at my Master. He was angry with me for causing him to hesitate in whatever plan he’d schemed. I felt it acutely, and it made my heart wither inside my chest. It thumped harder and harder, trying to recover. But, I couldn’t recover from this pain. I’d let my master down, failed him.

He didn’t understand.

He didn’t understand and he’d never, ever love me. All his capacity to love had burned away on Elizabeta’s funeral pyre.

My heart thudded twice more, then stopped.

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I didn’t know how long I’d been in the empty chamber. All the guests were gone. The silence was that of a tomb.

I twirled the wilting daisy around and around between my fingers. So pretty, and so symbolic of Integra.

I’d cried a small pool of blood and I didn’t care I’d ruined my dress. Integra had been right about the insignificance of a dress she’d only wear once; this one I’d ruined would have to be burned, now.

“Blood tears are for a vampire’s lost humanity,” I heard a rough voice say. I looked up to see Anderson standing a few feet away from me. “That’s what your master once said, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” My voice was weak and miserable and I almost hated myself as much as Master surely did.

Anderson came a little closer. I looked at his scuffed, heavy boots, not really seeing them. He knelt on his haunches. “Look at me, little demon girl,” he ordered.

I made myself look into those hard green eyes. “If you want to kick me while I’m down, go for it,” I said.

Anderson rolled his eyes. “Young ones are full o’ drama.” He took the daisy from me and threw it.

“Hey!” Losing that flower felt like losing something else, something indefinably precious. I tracked where it fell, determined to retrieve it once I got rid of the hateful paladin.

“Stow it.” Anderson turned my face toward his again, though touching me made him shiver in revulsion. “What humanity did you just lose, that ye sit here weeping blood in an empty room?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” I jerked away and stared over his shoulder. If I even cared to explain it all to him, he’d fail to grasp why I mourned the lack of romance in my unlife. He was as different from me as he could get. I doubted he’d ever wanted to play the part of a classic, storybook hero.

“I wouldna understand losing humanity?” Anderson’s already hard eyes became frozen peridot. “Me, the first successful Regenerator?” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, hard. “Do ye know, vampire lass, that my humanity was gone before I even saw ten summers?”

Horror gripped me harder than his fingers upon my flesh. I’d never really considered what happened to him in the Regenerist Program, not even after gleaning bits of information about the dangers of the serums used to make him. Being the enemy, I hadn’t had to think about his unnatural conditioning, his upbringing, or his feelings.

“Aye,” he said, seeing the dismay in my eyes. “But I was proud o’ being made inta a machine for killin’ the likes o’ you, believe me. I was just as proud to do my duty as you are to do yours.” He let go of me and smiled hatefully. “You make me sick, lass, because we’re the same. Our only difference is what we worship as God.”

A sick, acid-like substance rose in the back of my throat. It tasted of rotted blood and lymph. “My master…” I halted. I just couldn’t say it. I couldn’t even think it.

“Yer master is yer god,” Anderson finished for me. “You failed him, somehow. I dinnae know how, but I see it.”

“I’ll always fail him,” I whispered. Despair settled in on me again. Real, putrid misery. I now felt as if I moldered inside. I was a dead thing anyway; I should be rotting.

“Aye, that you will,” Anderson agreed. “It’s in the nature of a creation to fall short of the creator. And, since you canna stop wanting to please your god, you must learn to live with bein’ a disappointment.”

A strange feeling of emptiness washed over me. I closed my eyes and released a single, bitter chuckle. “Is that all the hope I have? Learning to live with something like that?”

“No.”

Anderson’s answer made my eyes snap open. He stood, and I followed. He looked down on me. “Yeh can learn to forgive yourself for failure,” he said. “I wouldnae even say that, except for that I just realized it myself.” He looked away from me, frowning. “Holy Father, I cannae believe I’m providing guidance to an undead abomination.”

Sudden, hysterical humor squeezed my soul and stomped on it. I leaned on a chair and began to laugh.

“I fail to see the humor,” Anderson’s insulted voice said.

I gripped the sleeve of his cassock and hung on, laughing, ignoring how he tried to shake me off. It was ridiculous, Anderson trying to counsel me. But, bless him, he meant well. His basic nature wouldn’t allow him to not stick his officious nose into my agonizing situation.

“Let loose o’ me, ye little hell-cat!”

I grappled with him, and we did a strange, aggressive little dance as I showed him I was the stronger one. When he stilled, his face mostly averted from mine, I looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks, Angel Dust,” I said sincerely. “I might be an undead abomination, but I do appreciate what sort of man you are.”

“And wha’ sort o’ man is that?” he posed tightly, still not looking at me.

“A good man,” I answered, letting go of his sleeve. “A really, really good man.”

Anderson sighed through his nose. “Take me to the kitchens,” he ordered. “I’m hungry and I want to see Julianna.”

Feeling lighter than I had in a long time, I did just that.