KILL THE NIGHT

IND. LEON BELMONT FROM CASTLEVANIA : LAMENT OF INNOCENCE . 

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                     WRITTEN BY SIN (27yo.) | GAME CANON ONLY | SEMI-ACTIVE 

PLEASE read rules page before interacting. IMs are always open to plot or to chat. AU and crossover friendly.

NETFLIXVANIA FANS / RPERS DNI. I utterly despise the show, what it has done to Castlevania’s story and characters, and the truly ignorant fanbase it has created that now permeates the entirety of the franchise’s online presence. Please go elsewhere..

@lus-a-chalmain​ asked: “i can empathise with anybody.” || HANNIBAL

“For better or for worse. No?” As though the concept is familiar to him in a way most intimate--and for true, it is. Centuries of bearing such a wisdom weigh heavy now on the king’s old heart as a mirthless smile plays across his lips. “It is easy for us to believe blindly that evil is evil and that good is good, and to feel nothing for what we think of as the former. It is worse by far to go looking for what is human in them too. Feel as they, think as they. Worse yet when such minds were, through and through, human once. You know them too intimately to do else but empathise...”

The story is so old and tired by now, Leon himself tired of speaking it--but bitterly remembers always that it is his story, his life, and his future to tell, and be told. Who else ever will? That burden should too be his sooner than it should ever be his children’s. He sighs to the thought, nostalgic and grieving as his fingers passing over the flat silver face of a sword held across his lap--or flat at least but for the words picked out down the length of it. “My men once upon a time would scoff at me when they found me at prayer before battle--not for our victory, but for God to rest the souls of those that would fall at my hands, or theirs. And they would wonder at the words on my sword and why a man feared as the finest in all of France would ever stoop to so much sentiment.”

          The question catches him off-guard, makes him pause in his footsteps – a pause too subtle and brief to be noticed as he continues his stride soon after. He slips that easy smile on his lips, though his eyes remained hidden beneath the veil of his bangs, strands of silver whispering over his lashes as he steps and hops over overgrown roots.

“As far as I know, yeah. You’re lookin’ at the one and only.” He answers eventually, turning around to face the blonde, waits for him to catch up. Once he does, he brings up a hand to ruffle through those curly waves of gold, only to smooth them back in place. “And got me all to yourself for this little road trip of ours. Lucky you, huh? Or lucky me…”

Dante grins, slipping an arm around the Knight’s shoulders as he leads him along the path. Content with walking side-by-side now. “And, if I do say so myself, I don’t mind the company this time around.”

“...” And he feels a wrongness for having questioned it at all--a silent curse for his own loose tongue biting at the back of his thoughts as his dawn-blue eyes shade over with regret, then pity, then remorse as he hefts himself up over the stony face of the hill’s ragged slope.

“Forgive me my rudeness, won’t you? For asking something so out of turn. Only I...suppose I recognise one who knows that same struggle. And am selfishly comforted by it when I do. I ask that you forgive me for that too.” Though all seems already forgiven. A broad hand sets his curls askew in passing through them, raising a humbled blush on the Belmont’s young face as he slows his pace at the other man’s side.

       It is found within this memory. Colored royals of ocean-dipped blues made up the endless night skin, brought down to that reflective, rippling surface of the lake. Mathias himself seems himself something that has risen out of the black - with cascading, endless locks of ebony, with the greater portion of his body itself cast aside in that colorless way that is only known to the deepest of nights. And Leon, himself - the La Luna of this beautiful scene: star-bright, luminous skin. Sunflower-yellowed hair which falls itself to curls of immeasurable length. No, the picture is not accurate. But the broad and spacious scope of dreams is never quite so. Only the sweetly-made manner all memories are framed into, when they are precious. The countless moments in dusk’s arms when not within one another’s, when propriety and demure manner had once been the greatest thing standing between them. And Mathias… knelt here, emerging from this inky-black lagoon to tenderly set his head against his love’s knee. Gazing at nothing that is not the beauty of his light, a free hand touching the water’s surface to scatter the stars from his form.

         Until he feels at last close enough to hold him here. For a moment fleeting, for a singular breath in this dreaming state to gaze upon his usurper, at once surrendering, at once a darkness enslaved to the sun of suns.

         “That I could call to mind this memory at long last is a work in progress for the past sum of years…” a solemn confession. Hapless though it is, the mournful expression of the elder’s no less curls a smile. Embittered, for the things he has allowed to happen to Leon. To Adrian… to Elisabetha, though lips upturn in rejoicing to see Leon yet-            “I wanted so much better for you…  I fought for so, so long - I am sorry it has taken me so many deaths to realize that I am only a man. And I am sorry you have suffered for nothing more than a mere man’s failings…” the rock formations Leon sits upon, in this dream of dreams, sinks to a deeper shade than anything earth-bound may know, “I am sorry, Leon…”

             ||| @nightslain

              “Five hundred years...” The words are faint, hardly spoken as much as thought, and heard no less in the great, vast night of this one, peculiar dream--everything almost just as he remembers it from a far distant time, the night sky as clear, the water as silver with moonlight, the air as warm and sweet as summer in France always were. The curls falling thick and bright down his shoulders are different, and Mathias emerging from the water rippling at his knees, different too. But familiar, as he always is, in the world of what few dreams Leon has ever let him grant. It is different tonight.  This is not quite the Brittany of 500 years ago, and it is the first time they have spoken in almost as long. Weightless with sleep and nostalgia both, Leon’s soft voice sings on.

               “Five hundred years since last we ever saw the shores of Brittany, or her sands and her sunlight, or the rivers and lakes that I swore once were a part of me as much as my own blood. And I remember this place even now. A moments walk from House Cronqvist, wasn’t it? I remember the path through the trees, the very smell of flowers in late spring, the moonlight that would always brighten my way. I was soon to turn twenty, the last time I was here...”

                And now he is centuries older, though his young, timeless face betrays so little of it. Mathias looks as young as he did that summer night in Carnac too as his dark head lays upon the paladin’s knees, as his lips smile even in sorrow. Leon smiles too, though the look is bittersweet as both hands comb over the midnight of Mathias’ hair. “It is too late to be sorry. It is all said and done, flowers and trees long grown over the blood we both have spilt, lives worn away and lost to a war that was never meant for them. Sons, daughters and all...and I have only just begun to be happy that everything is...silent now.”

                 There is not anger to his voice as there once might have been, nor grief to his eyes. Simple, quiet acceptance is all that flowers in their place, infinitely weary, but quaintly peaceful as Leon runs the elder’s hair between his fingers. “To be sorry now is to be sorry far too late. But you know that. And I know it is all that you have to give now you are but a quiet, sleeping part of me, and all that you are and all that you were is long, long gone. Yet here, you are more like the you I remember than you have ever been in five long centuries.” And that by itself is a strange, sweet sort of gift after all these years. His own sun-bright crown bends, never minding the curls that vanish into the impossible blue of the lake lapping up against his knees.

    It does not surprise Ahuva when Leon begins to pour his heart to him, it was entirely expected. When he appears before a human, no matter how subtle he may be, this is what his presence demands. Though, inviting words are still a requirement, so inviting words Ahuva gave. To listen and carry the weight of human struggles quietly and indifferently was his task. This was the nature of his power. Often enough, though, they expressed immediate regret, frustration, or simple embarrassment at having told Ahuva so much when they barely knew him. Leon was no different, but Ahuva wasn’t bothered by this, he thought it was sweet despite not entirely understanding it.

Leon himself seems to be a center for others. Honest support, no false show of kindness for the sake of approval. The opportunity to speak of such things is likely something he rarely indulges in, or so Ahuva assumes, thus the observation he made earlier to serve as his invitation for this talk. Something was bothering Ahuva, though… There was a heaviness in the air, a sense of dread that he cannot yet place. But - as he is meant to - Ahuva doesn’t ponder this for long, his mind must be focused for his task, not distracted by his own deeper thoughts.

    “I am Ahuva, my Lord. It is an honor.” He greets Leon with a slight bow, then straightens himself before he speaks again, “You needn’t be flustered by sharing your thoughts with me, I am not troubled by it.” Now that a proper greeting has been shared, Ahuva steadily moves closer to Leon, though he maintains a respectful distance when he stops. He looks up at Leon, his gaze softer now. “This man you worry for… Do you know what ails him?” It seemed best to reach for the root of the problem rather than ease his way to it, but he still watches Leon carefully, ready to change his approach if needed.

    “ —- I ask only if you have the time and the desire to speak of such matters, of course.”

                “Ahuva...” The name does not sit familiar on his tongue either, unknown to Leon’s memory of the gentry or to the common-folk; though Leon speaks it gently, thoughtful and wondering at the newness of it as a small, faint smile colours his mouth. His horse’s reins are gathered in one broad hand as his boots shuffle the dust underfoot as he turns to tug the creature gently forward.

                 “Then be it my pleasure to make your acquaintance.” There is a nod, a tilt of the Lord’s sun-bright head to beckon his companion to follow as he walks the stallion forward. His laughter is a small and distant sound, bittersweet on the edge of his voice as he strolls languidly on. “Well, if you insist, then I am glad of it. I have not spoken my thoughts in quite some time--I must suppose that has made my tongue a little looser than it should be...”

                And it is more a relief to speak such thoughts than he cares to admit. Though the blue of his eyes dulls with grief at the question his companion poses to him next--innocent in its wonder, the answer a painful one to think all the same. Leon sighs, unsteady and shallow as his gaze falls from the other’s eyes to the path winding out ahead. “I know too well, in fact, for it pains me as deeply it does my dear friend, but...”

                A pause, the Knight’s fair brow knit indeed with a quiet pain of his own before his voice follows through. “His wife passed away some weeks ago, while we were gone to the East. Her death was not heard of until our return. My friend has not been well, in mind or in body, ever since. Too ill even to lift his head from his pillow, or set foot from his chamber. Nor even his sickbed now. I have poured more time and wealth into finding him anything that might ease his hurt than I care to admit. For all the healers and their remedies that were sent his way, none have lessened his agonies any.”