The BATTLE of the CENTURY! [S!7] - Round 1: The New Frontier

Despite his aspirations towards being more selective Vlad had been no less impulsive in selecting his second recipient of the gift.

It wasn’t that he was drunk. Even the most potent of human alcohols paled in comparison to the divine nectar that was blood, and this was far from the most potent of human alcohols. There was something to be said for the lively atmosphere though. Though he was reluctant to fully admit it to himself, the parties of his home world had become dull over time.

Typically they fell into one of two categories; either refined elegant balls where everyone was preening to show off their newly turned whelps, or desperate to gain favour with him or the members of his inner circle, or primal orgies of sex and blood where almost nothing was taboo. Surprisingly it was possible to tire of either or both of these options over a long enough timescale.

Here there was a sort of companionable atmosphere, a group of strangers to acquaintances celebrating a communal triumph. Even the knowledge that there was still much to do in establishing a true settlement upon this island didn’t undermine the atmosphere.

And so Vlad had sat by the campfire and cast aside the problems of how to effectively plant the seeds for vampiric supremacy as a problem for tomorrow, not to mention, barely to even think of, the problem of the battle itself. He’d downed drinks, raised a glass when toasts had been called even though he didn’t recognize any of the names, sung along with songs he didn’t really know the words to, and relished the novelty of it all.

At some point the tone had calmed somewhat and one of the pioneers had taken to reciting a folk story about ‘bird-men’. They claimed that these beings lived amongst these floating islands and would grab trespassers and throw them from the islands they had no right to stand upon down to their deaths in the ether below, and from communal reaction it seemed as though these bird-men were a well-trod staple of this world. Vlad found himself feeling kind of insulted as the humans around him gasped in horror at the lurid descriptions of feathered wings and sharp talons and, heavens preserve us, their terrible beaks. It was as he listened to the third description in a row of someone being shunted off an island oh no falling to their doom that he got to his feet.

“Zhat certainly vas a most terrifyink tale if ever I have heard one, but please permit me to tell you zhe tale of zhe vampire.” Vlad launched into one of his stories from the early days, where he preyed upon a newly married couple stranded in the middle of nowhere, but told from what he assumed their perspective on the matter had been. Given that it was him telling the story it definitely skewed a little more towards the glorification of the vampiric, but he made a point on lingering on the things that humans often found horrific and received the requisite gasps and screams as he told his story.

When he took his seat again the next person to stand up and tell a story started telling the tale of the bird-vampire and that was enough of that for him. He took his leave of the campfire, and trudged off through the rows of tents unsure where he was heading. He was saved from having to come to a decision on that front as, after a moment, he noticed he was being followed. He turned to see a handsome looking woman with short black hair and the outfit of a laborer trailing behind him. She wasn’t the type that Vlad usually went for, less overwhelmingly feminine than his usual choice, but there was something compelling about her.

“Is there somezhink you require from me?” Vlad asked tensely. He glanced at the campsite around him. It was quiet; everyone was either in their tents, sleeping, presumably, or gathered by the campfires drinking and singing and otherwise enjoying their first night upon this new land. If he had to Vlad judged that he could probably kill her quickly and quietly enough that nobody would notice.

Maybe he’d drawn too much attention to himself with the ‘tale of the vampire’. He dimly remembered that he was supposed to be in a battle to the death. Was this one of his competitors? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be certain. It was possible that she’d been piloting the enormous floating rotting boat that he’d seen.

Vlad remembered that he’d been given some form of documentation, but he supposed that was lost somewhere on board the Sanctuary. He’d been so enamoured with the opportunity to spread his gift into a new world he’d not considered it worthwhile reading. Now he wished he’d thought to keep hold of it at least.

“No interest in bird-men stories?” The woman asked, a smile playing upon her lips. Vlad was silent. “I was watching you rolling your eyes as they told their tales like it was the most dreadfully insipid thing you’d ever heard in your life.”

“It is not a crime to find such zhinks uninterestink I hope?”

“Oh no of course not.” The woman drew her hand to her neck, oh what a beautiful neck, in surprise. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you’d done anything wrong, I just… there was something compelling about you. If I’m disturbing you I will of course give you your privacy.”

Vlad smiled, his fangs on clear display for just a second. “My apologies. I simply vorried I had offended somehow. Given zhat zhat is not zhe case,” A shake of the head and a wave of the hand as if to say ‘its nothing’ from the mystery woman, “it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is-” a moment of hesitation, it was probably best not to use his real name here, he groped for a name and the only one that came to mind was “Victor.”

The woman closed the gap between them, standing close, just a little too close for the sake of propriety. “Victor… what an evocative name. Suits you quite well.” A smile. “I’m Docaelus.”

“It is a very striking name.” Victor said. He was pretty sure he’d heard it recently as well. One of the toasts from around the campfire?

“I find perhaps it doesn’t suit me as much as it used to.” Docaelus said, almost wistfully.

“Is there something you would prefer?”

Docaelus raised an eyebrow. “I’m still searching for a replacement, perhaps you have a suggestion?”

Vlad gazed into the woman’s mismatched eyes, one a soft brown, one a vibrant green. Many options ran through his head but none of them felt right and eventually he said “I’d need more time in your company to really find something zhat really speaks to your essence.”

“Do you have a tent of your own Victor, or would you like to come over to mine?”

“Is zhat a question or an invitation?”

They barely kept their hands off each other as they made their way to Docaelus’ tent, one of the larger tents and just for her herself. Once inside all pretenses of propriety were gone; they were all over each other. Docaelus’ breath was hot on Vlad’s neck. Her skin was warm, her hands were rough, worn through uncountable hours of hard labour, but gentle and nimble and passionately unbuttoning his waistcoat. For each of them the most pressing, most urgent thing in the world right there and then was to be naked and to be as close to this other person as possible.

Vlad was barely even thinking about drinking from her. This whole thing felt backwards, he should have been the one stalking Docaelus to her home, propositioning her, luring her in and yet he was the one who felt entranced.

But he did bite and he did drink, half naked atop a sleeping bag and a pile of discarded clothing, Vlad sunk his fangs into Docaelus’ neck and feasted upon her blood.

Blood was life itself, taken by the vampire to sustain its undead body, and the blood of Docaelus was life itself, but not in the same way. In that blood Vlad remembered the first time she’d reached out and from her touch bloomed a creature, from nothing but her will there was life. And she would do it again, again and again. Populating this slice of the world with strange and beautiful beings and one who she would grow fond of as time passed and she withdrew from the world she had created.

Vlad was screaming, he thought. This blood, the blood of this wonderful remarkable woman, didn’t quench his thirst so much as set his body aflame. He felt more alive than he had done in years, powerful, strong enough to reshape the world in his own image with just a thought, just a gesture and the world would acquiesce to his demands.

Another gulp of this poisoned nectar and she felt age, she felt the dwindling of her power, the failure of her crops, a death that had become unavoidable; if only she had never split herself off into so many tiny fragments, but now was late far too late to arrest. It was looming, it was approaching fast and all she could do was save those creatures she had come to love, direct them to a new frontier and hope that they were successful.

Vlad pulled away. His entire body was aflame, not literally aflame, it was a different tent where a vampire would die in that way, but flowing with so much energy, so much life, it felt as though he was tearing herself apart and rebuilding his body from the ground up.

He looked down at the woman below him, the dying embodiment of life, of the world these people had come from made flesh and walking amongst them. “Vhat are you doink to me?” Docaelus hushed him into silence and then in one easy motion brought her lips to Vlad’s neck, and bit, and drank.