They say a vampire is born the moment blood is taken. But i was born the moment I gave mine.
This story is not of monsters. Its's of memory, mercy and the ruinous miracle of love.
- ALEXANDER .
The forest breathed around him, a tapestry of gnarled branches draped with thick, emerald ivy. The air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Moonlight, fractured by the dense canopy, painted shifting patterns on the mossy ground as a lone figure struggled to move through the undergrowth, as it dragged itself painting the tree barks red.
His name Alexander, a man- no, a poet- bleeding beneath the ivy, his breath caught between silence and stars.
"Time—just a quiet echo of dying, a slow unraveling dressed in memory. I lived.
Not without fire, not without love—
but even love carved its mark.
And the blade?
It didn't come from enemies.
It came from hands I once held close.
I knew warmth.
But it cost me.
It cost hours I'll never get back,
days bled dry under a sky that never wept.
Now my breath is thin,
my body a flicker beneath the stars,
but still...
still I find myself wanting more.
More than this quiet fade,
more than the ache of what was,
more than the slow mercy of forgetting. Even now,
I would live again—
just to feel forgotten all over again." He whispered as he looked up to stars, crafting one last artistry before his death.
Rhiannon watched from the top of the crumbling cathedral that had nestled her as her abode, her long coat billowing behind her like a dark wingspan, quietly overhearing the last piece of art a dyeing man had to offer.
She had not fed in months, and yet something about the man she was quietly watching quieted her hunger. The heaven's opened up to lament a poet's death, the rain fell hard, washing blood from his brow.
The stars lost their glow for the skies could no longer enjoy Alexander's defiant art.
Rhiannon stepped forward, falling from the very top of the cathedral, gracefully landing next to Alexander.
He didn't flinch. He opened his eyes- crimson, despite the dusk- and smiled at her as if she were heaven.
"you're beautiful," he whispered. "Are you.....death?"
She shook her head.
"Worse," she said. "But softer."
And then she watched him as the life was about to fade from him.
With a lunge she bared her fangs onto him.
Not to kill.
Not to feast.
But to save him from being forgotten.
"Now for all time, you shall be forgotten but always my cherished memory," she whispered into his hears after biting him, "follow me."
Even before Alexander could get a word out of his mouth, the moment was cut short when the perpetrators of his earlier injury showed up as they were in pursuit of him.
" My death is still inevitable," he sighed as he pushed Rhiannon aside to stand up and face his enemy.
Rhiannon snickered as Alexander pulled her aside to stand behind him.
"sorry to push you aside, but I'd rather you left now," Alexander tried to gather his strength as he looked back at Rhiannon and let out a slight smile.
A smile showing his intent and readiness to die by his enemies sword.
Rhiannon looked at him amused and intrigued, even though she had long renounced both worlds. This was a nostalgic moment for her one, that almost let out floods of memories. It was an intriguing feeling that quenched her hunger.
The captain leading the army of villagers with pitchforks and swords dismounted from the horse and walked towards Alexander drawing his sword ready to strike at his heart.
"Finally, I get to see you again, Elara." Alexander sadly whispered as he gladly welcome the sword to end his life with a smile.
The sword swooshed across the falling rain, thunder roared across the sky, the lightning cracked the heavens ready to welcome it's duke, time stood still for all to remember, but fate had created a new line in time. And in that moment a sudden gush of blood erupted in a hot arc, painting Alexander's face in a grotesque crimson mask.
A light, soft voice echoed through his ears, "none shall kill nor touch a single hair on you, for you're mine now." Before he could respond, Rhiannon held him by his waist and whisked him away.
Rhiannon took him away from the forest to her crumbling cathedral, where she laid him on an altar and slowly approached him.
As she gracefully approached him, the candles were already burning intently, as she bite into her own arm and poured her blood into a Chalise. In the same Chalise she, whispered an ancient song that her mother sang to her.
At this point Alexander was already feeling the despair of not being able to die," You were my last liturgy," he thinks, staring at the crimson moon he'll never leave behind . "And I, your faithful poet, Elara.
"I desire death, why didn't you allow its jaws to take hold of me?" Alexander asked as he was out of breath and already despaired as what he longed desired had just been denied again in front of him.
"I would rather burn with you than fade alone without you," she'd whisper, her pulse fluttering like a caged bird beneath her throat.
She held the Chalise in her hand and directed it towards Alexander signaling him to drink from it.
Alexander looked at the Chalise and looked away, looking down through the large window beside the altar.
Rhiannon's temper flared as she took it as a look of disgust towards her. In a moment of rage she force fed Alexander the blood in the Chalise.
And with that Alexander drank from the very same blood that had bitten him. Even though he didn't have an inkling of what was to transpire. A blood oath had already been formed with the Crimson Saint.
Her blood drank beneath the crimson moon, a vow to defy fate. A ritual branding his soul and ties them beyond death. A ritual unlike no other, where his maker drank his blood not of thirst, but drawn to the essence of their eternity—a cascade of memories, yearnings, and the raw, unspoken ache of love that time could never erode.
Somewhere beyond the Northern Wastes, in the ruins of Fallen Ancient houses...
A robed figure placed a bloodstained claw atop the cracked marble, held still by a skeleton from a dead vampire.
"he has been reborn."
A second voice hissed through the shadows. "And so has the Duchess of.... ."
The figure nodded and roared. "Then it begins. The Great Hunt has began...."
"Let him die before the war begins again...." a menacing voice echoed through the walls to the outstretched walls outside.
From a far outside the locked doors, countless roars and war cries bellowed and filled the dark eerie night of Orion ...