CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of war/conflict.
Oskar
It still feels surreal to be wandering around in the bright sunshine and not burning to death. The warmth of the sun on my face is a peculiar, yet magical feeling, and to see the world in so much brightness...as beautiful as nightfall is, it makes me realise how much I've missed during my years as a vampire. I still mourn losing my immortality and my power, but I suppose I've gained something new from all of this.
Dinah and I take a wander amongst the old ruins. Apparently, this was a rather-old witches' hideout that stood for many years before witchfinders destroyed it. Most of the witches here fled to Glimmerbrook.
Much like myself, Dinah also finds it strange to be wandering around in the day. She usually only comes out at night to work.
"You know, you may be from over one hundred years ago, but to me, you aren't like someone from the past. You remind me of someone who's come here from the future."
"How so?"
"Hmm, I'm not sure. I suppose it's the way you carry yourself, in a way I've never met anyone else carry themselves. The way you think about things. I feel like the future will be full of so many people like yourself- free-thinking, not caring what others think of them, not caring for what's popular or accepted. Sticking to your own rules and beliefs. At least, I hope the future is full of people like you."
"So far, the future seems to be full of factory smoke and unemployment." Dinah chuckles at that one, in a held-back way.
"You haven't mentioned your family in a while, Oskar."
"Indeed. I've been writing letters, but I haven't seen my daughter or granddaughter for some time. I ought to make some time to visit them, but work is making me exhausted. I just hope they're both okay. Now that the witchfinder population is dying down, at least I don't have to worry as much about Áine and Róisín."
I'd ignored all enraged clients' letters on why their work hadn't been completed yet. I'd sent everyone a letter to expect delays from now on. After all, I can't work straight for three weeks like I used to, and Eli is only human. He's incredibly dedicated to his work, but I do worry about him.Speaking of witchfinders, I would like to get back to sword practice again sometime soon. I won't be as much help to Violeta now, and I'll have to get used to new limitations, otherwise I'll end up on the end of a witchfinder's blade.
"You know, it's nice to actually be able to get to know someone. I'm so used to not being able to get close to anyone because of my work, but it's nice to just...talk to someone without any expectations of anything more than talking and friendship.
And for once, I've been thinking about what I want to do with my own life. I'm thinking I might join the hunt against the witchfinders, in my own little way. I'm not sure how yet, but I'll think of something. So, what are your plans with your humanity, then? You must have something in mind."
Dinah was much more feisty than one might think. She had very few rules in regards to her work, but anyone who endangered her life would surely end up regretting it later.
"The only thing I have planned is eventually going back to Windenburg. May as well see how it's changed after all of these years."
I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm sure industrialisation has ruined the place, but it wasn't like Henford was any different in that respect.
"It'd be nice to revisit. I'm from Willow Creek, but I've never been back there. It's rather dull."
It doesn't make me feel awkward to know how Dinah feels about me. If anything, it's flattering to know that, after everything, she doesn't have any negative judgment of me. That someone could actually want to be in the company of someone like myself.
We head up the stairs towards the ruins, and Dinah stops me at a point where the sun catches the hill.
"Can I ask you something? It's a little personal..."
"Of course," I reply. "Go ahead. You know you can ask me anything."
Her expression becomes solemn. What could possibly be on her mind in a moment like this?
"You are doing okay, aren't you?"
"Of course I am. I'm standing in the sun and I'm not burning. What could be better?"
"I...I don't really want to say exactly what I'm thinking. I'm just worried about you, is all."
I think I know what she's trying to ask.
When I was 'originally' human, I used to be obsessed with ruinous places. Windenburg's castle ruins were a point of huge fascination for me- there was little about the world that wasn't. The way that one day, something would stand tall and proud and arrogant and would only be known as broken walls and rubble hundreds of years later.
With the world slowly turning to metal and rust, perhaps in the next hundred years of so, all of this will be nothing but cobbled ground and factories. The blue sky smothered by grey smoke, and not a sliver of greenery in sight.
In thirty or forty years, when I inevitably die...will everyone forget me the same way? Would anyone remember Oskar Nivelheim, the last of a once-wildly-popular lineage of woodworkers? The soldier who helped prevent the full extinction of vampires, werewolves and witches alike? The man who assisted Katlego Anansi in the downfall of, and near-murder of, a draconian billionaire physician?
It's still something I'm not used to- the thought of being lost to time.
"You don't need to worry about me, Dinah," I reply, trying to cover up the solemn tone of my voice. "It'll take some time to properly get used to things."
"It'll all work out, Oskar," she says, though she herself doesn't sound terribly hopeful. "Focus on what you can enjoy now that you couldn't before. That's how I feel when I'm around you. I don't have to put my emotions to one side like I do with work. You're the only person who talks to me with the intent of wanting to get to know me and nothing more. You don't realise how much that means to me. It means as much to me as it did when we first met."
Dinah goes to lean her head on my shoulder, quickly withdrawing and giving me an apologetic look. I gently pull her back in, and the two of us watch the sun set over the Henford ruins.
* * *
When I get through the door, I enter gingerly in case Róisín is home, so I don't wake her- but even being careful, she's awake, and she still sees me, with a worried look on her face. I'd written a letter to my daughter to explain the situation to her, so that when I arrived, I at least wouldn't worry her- but it'll be harder to explain to little Róisín.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she says, in a quiet voice. Her voice wobbles as if she's about to cry. She coughs in her throat, and tries to speak normally. "Your dress is pretty."
"Róisín, if there's something on your mind, you don't have to keep quiet. You can tell me anything."
She lowers her gaze to the rug, kicking her feet into it, and the tears drip onto her skirt. I've noticed since returning to humanity, my emotions seem to be slowly regaining their original strength, and it leaves a coldness in my chest seeing her cry...
"If you're human again, then that means you won't be around forever," she says, between sobs. "I don't want you to go. I want you to be around forever."
Her words tear right through me, and my eyes ache, on the verge of tears myself- but I have to hold back, for her sake.
"Róisín, I'm only six years older than your mother and father, and they're still fairly young," I tell her. "I've got plenty of time to spend with you."
"I know, but even then, when I'm older, I'll have to lose you, and I don't want to."
She stops talking; her tears have taken over. I gesture to her to sit with me, and I hold her close. I dry her eyes on my sleeve as she bawls into my dress, soaking through the fabric.
"Don't cry," I whisper to her, remembering when I used to hold Ilse like this on her bad days. "The truth is, Róisín, no-one lives forever."
"Vampires do."
"Well...okay, vampires do. But most other things don't. But what matters is the time that we do get to spend with them, no matter how long or how little. Everyone stays with us in their own ways."
Her sobs begin to subside a little. "You must have lost a lot of people. That must be sad."
I don't respond for a moment. My mind blinks back to Ilse, to my old vampire friends, to my parents, to my brothers from the Bloodmoon war...
"I have. But I have good memories of those people, and they will never go away."
"Oskar...Is it true that there aren't so many witchfinders around anymore?"
To be thinking about such things at such a young age..When I was her age, all I cared about was chopping wood and warm pretzels.
"It's not as bad it was. Don't you worry."
I think the tears have made her exhausted. I pick her up and take her to her room. Her mother is still sleeping at the moment, so I try not to wake her.
"Oskar...I'm scared."
I put a hand on her back to try and soothe her. "You needn't be. You have a lot of people who care about you who will keep you safe. Your mother, father, grandfather, even your uncle."
"Okay," she says, not entirely convinced, and yawning away. "Has Uncle Eli made me any new toys?"
* * *
I follow up with Alistair the next morning, who wants to take me someplace in Lunvik that's obscured by trees, and done so in the hopes that no witchfinders or louts could defile it. The moment we shove our way through the fir trees, a chill spreads through my chest and seeps into what's left of my lungs.
I already recognise most of the names carved into this stone. Thankfully, this place has only been touched by nature- roses growing over the stones and statues, years of moss and rain eroding the stone, but not enough to remove the etching of the names.
FOR THOSE WHO FOUGHT TOOTH AND CLAW FOR THE OCCULT
WHETHER FUR OR FANG
THE BLOODMOON UNITES US
IN LIFE AND THEREAFTER.
All these years, I thought the Bloodmoon war had been gleefully forgotten...someone, at least, remembered. I count all of the names, and there are only two missing.
"To think that we are the only two survivors...It is all that has kept me going, Oskar, knowing that I am one of the lucky ones. That, and the hope that I would someday find my children again."
I wanted to ask about that, but now isn't the time. My chest fills with a heavy sense of dread, and one of guilt. I had hoped for many years that at least a handful of us would have gone on to lead full lives, maybe have children- but it wasn't so. Out of hundreds of men, there were only two people alive.
Many of these men looked up to me, and a handful of others, as a mentor. Alistair himself had become one to his fellow Lunvinchenaîné. All of these men looked up to me, and they all died. The swirling dread combined with the sickening guilt. One hundred and sixty five years' worth of emotions all resurfacing at once.
"I did this to them."
Alistair turns to me. "What are you talking about?"
"I did my best to lead these men, and now all that's left of them is what's inscribed on this stone."
"If it weren't for you, then none of us would be alive at all. If it weren't for all these men and their bravery and honour-"
"Honour doesn't mean a thing to the dead," I reply, in a harsher tone than I probably should have. "Only the living would care about such a thing. And look where it got all of these people."
Since regaining humanity, I reflect on myself and see a monster. I was ruthlessly sadistic, and cared about nothing other than slaughtering witchfinders.
"All I cared about was bloodshed. I should have cared more about all of you."
"You did, Oskar," Alistair replies, with strict reassurance. "You always listened to us. Especially to me. In a way, I began to see you as a father figure." Alistair chuckles to himself darkly. "If only I were as good a father as you are."
They were supposed to become old, the way Alistair and I will. They were supposed to go for walks, visit other countries, retire, live out the last of their days on a rotting wooden bench in the sun.
They weren't supposed to be lost to a hidden monument in the middle of nowhere. I doubt any of these people even received a burial.
For hundreds of years, I could not cry for them. I felt like a monster. My numbness and the vampiric inability to cry meant I had never truly mourned all of these people in an emotional sense. Now, human again, I can mourn them, in my own way.
Wherever they are now, I hope they are at least at some kind of peace.
* * *
"You know, when I was walking the forests, I could have sworn I saw a woman who looked just like you."
"A woman?"
"Yes. Exact same hair. Black dress."
"And what if it was me?"
"Well, it wasn't, was it? How could it be you? You're a man."
"Who knows?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That's a good question, Alistair."
"You know what...never mind."
Alistair tries to turn the conversation positive, but I don't have it in me to keep up the jokes. I'd asked him how the reconciliation went at the monastery. It didn't go well.
"It seems every time I try to solve a problem, I always do it in a way that makes it worse. First Katlego, and now I've severed the bond between your children."
"Again, Oskar, that's not true. This isn't on you. It's on me for being a pathetic father. My daughter deserves to hate me, but I just don't know what to do to fix the problem. I don't care if she doesn't care about me again. I just want the best for her."
"If the best for her is to be away from you, then so be it, but Reynold will need your guidance."
I sigh to myself. My catharsis was much-needed, but it's exhausted me. I feel a strange aching sensation all over my body.
"I apologise if I've been unreasonable of late, Alistair. I'm struggling to deal with all that's been happening. Thank you for taking me here. It's some much-needed closure." Alistair tells me that Peterans believe all dead souls join the Watcher. They lose their consciousness and join that of the deity Themselves. I suppose, in a way, it's a calming thought. No memory of the good times, of course, but no memory of the bad times. No stress, no shock, no pain- just an ethereal existence as a part of something larger. I don't care for religion, but it's a peaceful thought.
"Oskar, you need to stop being so hard on yourself. You're going through a lot at the moment, and you can't expect to be completely fine whilst you're trying to adjust to a completely-unfamiliar lifestyle after one hundred and thirty years of staying up for three weeks straight and- are you okay? You sound like you're in pain."
"Don't worry about me, Alistair. I'll be fine. Just a little under-the-weather. Probably from that outburst."
We've been here since yesterday evening, and the morning is already upon us. As Alistair gets up to return home, a horrific pain strikes my joints, and I can't bring myself to move.
"I said don't worry about me, Alistair," I reply, my voice strained with agony.
The aching pain. The joint pain. The exhaustion.
Alistair throws my arm around his and guides me back. Every single step feels as if my muscles are on fire.
"Alistair, you don't need to-"
"Shush," he interrupts. "What was it you used to say during the Bloodmoon? 'I'm not leaving anyone behind?'" he adds, poorly mimicking my accent.
I don't know why I feel this way. These past few weeks, I've been fine. I've regained my humanity with relative ease. I was eating properly, sleeping properly, living as any other human would. I don't know why I would feel like this now, aching, in pain, dazed.
All I can do is think back to my days before Violeta turned me, and how I felt the same way back then. I also felt the same way emotionally- as if this was a one-off, as if it would pass.
Not now. Not after I've found relative comfort in my humanity again. Not after resurrecting my family's dying business, not after starting a family.
Not now.