He stands back up to his full height, raising an eyebrow. “Let me guess, you want pickles on that platter too?”

She grins. “The baby asks for so little in life.”

He has a thought, maybe he ought to mention how he is a king, a vampire king no less, not to be ordered around to do petty things like run errands—for human food at that.

But she’s his wife. And running cheese errands is small price to pay for this scene to be more than glass.

He sighs. “Fine, I’ll get your pickle-cheese.”

“Thanks, Dearest.” She says overly sappily and blows him a kiss.

“Yeah, yeah.” He waves her off as he steps out of the room.

As Vlad leaves, Lisa’s grin fades into a satisfied smile. She runs her hand over her belly softly, thinking of the child, wondering, as she often does, just what kind of person they’ll be, what kind of life they’ll have.

“I know he looks scary, but your father’s always a sap like that.”

He comes back a few moments later—(smoke in his wake)—with a platter of cheese and crackers and pickles, all in neat little slices.

She props herself up with a pillow as he hands it to her, thanking him again.

He sits on the floor beside her head, and she lets one hand drape over his shoulder, and he reaches up to hold it.

“You should tell them a story.” Lisa says through cracker.

“Who?”

“Adrian.”

“Adrian?” He pauses, tastes the word on his tongue. “I thought we liked—”

“I like Adrian better.”

“Adrian.” He pauses again, seeing what kind of aftertaste it has. “…What kind of story?”

“Something nice. A fable maybe? Mustn’t scare the kid too early in life.”

He takes on a false voice. “Once upon a time a brave knight saved a princess trapped by an evil dragon, and they got married, the end.”

Lisa smacks him with the book. “Come on! I know you can do better than that. Has this giant library taught you nothing of how to tell a story?!”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Over half of them are scientific journals.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, don’t blame me when your child thinks of you as an old codger who doesn’t know how to have fun.”

“Alright,” he concedes, pauses, pondering where to begin. “Once…there was an old king.”

“Not bad.” Lisa reasons.

“Centuries old.”

“Better.”

“He was a fearsome creature, not quite human, made of blood and twilight. Once he ruled the world with a fist of iron and tongues of fire. Everyone knew his name, and everyone feared him…and he reveled in it.”

“But…once the world was his, sitting in his huge castle, he couldn’t help but feel like it was rather small and…lonely.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow.

“One day, after years—more—of sitting alone in the castle, a woman knocked on his door. She was brave, determined…beautiful.”

Lisa scoffs.

“She said she’d heard he had secret knowledge—foreign, forbidden. The instruments of healing, the ones that had to be kept secret, for fear from those who thought all the worlds answers were in the sky.”

“She asked the king—this terrible, sad, lonely, demon—to teach her how to heal people.

“Most fearsome creatures would have laughed in her face. Most of his kind would have turned her away, turned her into a meal, or turned her into one of them. Not this king. He could tell from the moment he met her she was different. He didn’t like most humans upon meeting them—long ago he had a nasty habit of putting them on stakes. But he was instantly taken with her, and he accepted her request.

“And…though he thought happily ever after only existed in the most ludicrous of fairy tales…together they lived in his castle…and, yes,” he leans his head back to look at her, “they were happy.”

She leans down to kiss his forehead, before the baby in her stomach kicks.

“And that’s where you come in.” Lisa continues for him. “You see this king isn’t just made up. This is the story of your mom and dad. And you…you are a product of this happiness. You are born from a rare collision of worlds, and that can only mean you are destined for great things. We believe in you…” she pauses, trying to think of a name to try out.

Vlad looks at Lisa, and says with confidence: “Adrian.”

*

“I’m going into town.” Lisa threw her cloak and a smile over her shoulders, “I’ll see you in about a week. Take good care of Adrian while I’m gone, okay?”

He almost heard the ghost of his own voice: “We’ll try not to have too much fun without you.”

A phantom kiss on his cheek.

He barely raised his eye over his shoulder. There was nothing.

We told you not to look, the flames chided him.

**

The world he once knew turned, and this time the footsteps were louder—of someone taller.

“Father, look what I found!” It was Adrian’s voice, but deeper. Adrian’s hand on his shoulder, but his touch wasn’t so tiny. “This manuscript has to be at least a thousand years old! Where did you get this?!”

—(Some time long gone, just as you are)—

The flames licked at his ear, and told him not to answer.

***

“Then find the one who did the deed. If you loose an army of the night on Wallachia, you cannot undo it, and many thousands of people just as innocent as her will suffer and die…I won’t let you do it. I grieve with you, but I won’t let you commit genocide.”

“There are no innocents! Not anymore!”

He dug his nails into the chair, leaving angry gashes in the leather.

You have nothing left to lose now. The fire hissed. Just stay with us.

So he did.

*

Alucard leans over the counter, using his knife to make precise shapes in the dough.

“That smells good!”

“Oh you want one, do you?” A woman’s teasing voice.

“Only if I’m allowed." Alucard looks through his arm to see a little version of himself speaking sheepishly, putting his hands behind his back, as if he’d previously taken one when he wasn’t allowed, and feels the need to be extra polite now.

“Yes.” She smiles. “Yes you may.” She hands him a cookie, and his face splits into a smile.

Instead of successfully make the next cut in his own cookie Alucard fumbles with the knife.

The woman’s laugh echoes in his ear, shifting the scene. “No, honey, like this. It’s not the same as when you’re using a sword.”

He wants to look at her, but decides to lean further over his own cookie dough, balling his free hand into a fist.

“She’s right, you know,” a man’s—well, vampire’s—voice says from behind him, “You can be gentler with food than with flesh. Though,” he chuckles, “I suppose, for me it’s the same thing.”

“Vlad.” Lisa warns. “Try not be so vulgar in front of our son.”

Alucard shuts his eyes, as if the scene is indeed vulgar.

—(Rather than the truth: he can't bear how much the words want to make him smile…and he certainly isn’t going to let himself cry)—

“I think you forget, this is a vampire’s lair.”

“I think you forget that it’s both a vampire and a human’s home.”

Alucard doesn’t realize the knife is cutting into his finger until he the silence allows the clock to click its tongue in disappointment.

****

“Woosh!” A child zooms past Alucard in the hall.

He turns to see a younger version of himself carrying a toy bat above him—floating a few inches off the ground himself.

“Wait for me, Son!” His father isn’t far behind. He could easily dash after him in a flash of power, but he clearly wants his son to think he's at least somewhat normal.

Alucard thinks he feels wind brush past him as the memories speed by, but when they fade from earshot he realizes the cold is nothing more than that.

The clock in the other room chimes to notify him it's noon.

You’ll never have that again, say the bells.

*****

“And so, the prince and princess were married, and they lived happily ever after.” Lisa closes the book.

“Aww, it’s over?” Her son whines.

“It was a happy ending though!” She laughs. “That’s all we can ask for, right?”

“May I suggest something with a little more substance next time?” Her husband asks from the other couch, turning the page of his own book.

—(If only you were made of substance after all)—

“What do you have against fairy tales?”

“Nothing. I’m not one for fanciful romances, dashing princes, and the sort.”

“Oh you’re not, are you?” She takes a rose from a vase on the table beside her, smelling it.

He rolls his eyes.

Alucard gets up to read his book in another room, trying to shove the—

(I

miss

you)

out of his head.

Why do the ghosts have to remind him of those stories, of her voice as she read them to him? Why not allow him to read his book today in peace, and blissfully forget?

The silence closes in on him from all sides, and the clock ticks in time to his footsteps.

******

The light from the window splits into dappled bits by the shattered mirror as Alucard runs his finger over the spines of the books, looking for a specific one.

“There are no innocents! Not anymore!”

This time he can’t help whirling around at the sound, horror and fear striking him, and for a moment he's there again, and there's only the sound of his heart, and his father’s raised hand.

When his eyes graze nothing, the scene dissipates like a breath.

Alucard’s hand instinctively moves to his chest, a dull sting echoing at the place where his father’s nails had carved, the tracks remaining in his skin that would probably never completely heal.

He abandons his pursuit of the book, his footsteps getting louder as he marches out of the room.

They’re getting worse, aren’t they? Askes the clock.

*******

Alucard stares at a speck of dirt on the canopy in his bed. It looks kinda like a frog. Or maybe Hungary.

Footsteps sound at the doorway—small ones trying to mask themselves. Once the steps would have made him shoot up and summon his sword. He's used to the ghosts by now.

He narrows his eyes, trying to look without actually sitting up, and sees a small golden face half-hidden in the doorway.

A cold wind passes through him, and for a moment he can't breathe, and draws a hand to his mouth.

“Having trouble sleeping?” Lisa’s ghost—(the thing that passed through him)—sits on the edge of the bed.

Adrian nods.

She pats the bed beside her.

Adrian runs in, as if both relief and fear propel him. He jumps up beside her, making the bed hop a little.

Vlad stirs on the other side, grunting a question.

“Adrian’s had a nightmare.” She runs her hand along her son’s back.

Another grunt.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lisa asks her son.

“Well…there was this…This demon was chasing me. Well, I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it sounded really big…I was really scared…I didn’t know what to do!"

“What’re you scared of a little demon for?” Vlad mutters, half asleep. “You’re strong enough to take those monsters down, son.”

Lisa chuckles, twisting a lock of her son's hair around her finger. “Even if you weren’t—which, you definitely are—your dad is the king of vampires. You know you can always call for assistance, right?”

Another grunt from his father.

That, at least, makes Adrian smile.

Alucard is sure there's only one clock in the room, but, as the silence overtakes the space, it seems every clock in the castle decides to begin chattering with ferocity.

He lays a while in the silence, trying to will his brain into sleep.

Then sits up sharply, throwing off the covers, telling to the clock, and the empty room, in a low voice;

And he doesn’t come back that night. That morning. The next.

When Adrian left, the Room understood the meaning of the words ‘I miss you.’ It realized what it was to be empty—that is, in that it was once once full, and was missing something. After all those years, Castlevania too finally understands the true meaning of all those words once used to describe it: ‘lonely,’ ‘dark,’ ‘cold,’ and ‘empty.’ It was those things, it never felt those things itself before.

Dracula may have been cold and dark and undead, but he brought life of a sort to the Castle. He made it breathe, its heart beat. Just his footsteps in the halls was a comfort, a kind of music—be it mechanical and half-dead. And finally he talked to the walls. ‘Emptiness’ for it is was an adjective, not a noun; it was an outfit it wore, not a feeling etched deep within the walls in a place no one could ever really touch.

It didn’t know what it was like to lose your purpose, what a hopeless existence it is for a mirror to be without a reflection.

The Castle doesn’t know if it ever breathed, but it thinks it understands the breathlessness the Room must have felt without Adrian. It is big, and rich, and intricate…and hollow. It’s like there’s a hole somewhere deep inside it that cries to be filled, and can never be as long as its master is away.

But we are not alone, says the Room.

It looks up and remembers this is true; Adrian remains. Their boy. The boy who belongs to its master, the woman, and the Room together. And Castlevania likes to think he belongs to it too, in some way. The boy for whom that death-defying Room exists. The boy who stole patches of sunlight when his father wasn’t looking, who cried when when no one was listening, who brought books, toys, and drawings, lonely vampire kings, and old decrepit castles to life.

It feels cold and dark, dead and empty…until Alucard opens the windows.

The Castle is thrown into a pool of gold, and the sensation is jarring; the switching of states, temperatures so fast. Such a drastic change so quickly isn’t all right with Castlevania, especially when it is so different from how its master always dressed it. It is Dracula’s castle, that piercing, dripping stain that no light enters. It shouldn’t go out in colorful garb, it just isn’t fitting. Though perhaps the jarring change is ultimately less painful than dipping each room in slowly.

It’s that same tail-pulling sensation from when he was a boy. Except this is much worse, because it’s the whole Castle—its entire form—and he never closes them. Before it was just the Room, and the Room is a part of the Castle, so the Castle could feel its burn, but it was dulled there. When he opened the door to the Room, the light slithered out, its scales doused in poison, leaving a stinging trail as it went. But its cage was always in the Room; its venom didn’t remain in the Castle’s veins forever. Now there is no barrier between the Castle and the light, no home for the sun to crawl back to. It has been let loose, and the stones are soaked in venom, like needles all over the Castle’s body.

Its existence is now drenched in sunlight. Before long it becomes like how they painted the Room so long ago, it is a fact of life—at least while Alucard reigns, and the Castle looks completely different dressed in morning sunrise.

The sting begins to fade; the Castle becoming immune to the poison. And, after the pain ebbs, the Castle can look at itself objectively, and thinks somewhere deep beneath its walls, in a place it would never share, that maybe this change is not a bad thing.

The Room breathes deeper than ever before, enough to laugh. Grinning it turns to the Castle, as if saying Feels good doesn’t it?

Castlevania looks away.

There was so much it didn’t notice about itself before. The gold on the carpets shimmers, it knows now that mirrors glitter, and how much dust was on the bookshelves—(Adrian is sure to brush it off)—it knows now why others put pictures on the walls; because the stones are so bare and uninteresting in the light, and the fires are such a aggressive light and heat compared to the soft blanket of warmth over the world, like snowfall transforming all.

It knows now why humans like to go out during the day.

It is a different kind of life. It isn’t like the science Vlad used to make it breathe and beat. This is softer, quieter, warmer. Less mechanical more…real. It doesn’t mean Vlad’s method of bringing it to life was bad or wrong, nor that Alucard’s is good, or right, it’s just different. And maybe different is okay for now.

The boy looks different too.

Adrian’s features are illuminated, his expressions dance in ray and shadow, his hair is like liquid gold draining across his shoulders, his eyes flicker and dance like candlelight.

And he doesn’t burn.

Adrian reads books in the sun, and he practices magic and sword in the sun, he drinks tea and wine—not blood—in the softly lit kitchen, polishes the shelves, makes sure everything works properly, and sits on the balconies and lets the wind brush through his hair, all in the sun, in the sun. Sometimes he leaves to go outside, into towns, to get rid of a monster or two, but mostly he leaves to visit his mother. Even when he does, the world is left in a satisfied glow.

His golden hair and eyes are no longer a bright spot on a dark canvas, but a reflection of his universe. His parents may have built his universe long ago, but he has spread his Room throughout Castlevania, conquered the multiverses around him, claiming them for his own, until the Castle doesn’t know which of them is which anymore.

The gold dripping through the halls reminds the Castle of that word from long ago, the one used to describe the baby in the painting: “happy.” It may be a pale echo of the world back then, when all three of them there, but the Castle is well versed in the world of reflections, and knows there is a world in which they don’t exist, and an echo may not be the real thing, but it will satisfy as a substitute.

Those times are quiet, with fewer raids, fewer pitchforks, shoutings and fires, because people like Alucard. They didn’t like Dracula, but Alucard is not Dracula. And Castlevania could enjoy the excitement…but the quiet is nice for a while.

Even so, the quiet does remind it of what, who, is absent. The Castle misses its master. The boy, the sun, the change, may help, but that fact will always remain at the back of its consciousness. There will always be some emptinesses that cannot be filled with substitutes. It misses its master, wants him to come back. Even so, it thinks it may be able to last a few months longer in the sun. Until Vlad returns, at least.

And he does.

Dracula does return. And when he does, he is not the same. But not in the way they were expecting; he does not arrive full of life, spreading his newfound spirit throughout the halls—as Alucard’s glowing return made them anticipate. He doesn’t come with a new name and tales of how he defeated monsters and made friends, he doesn’t return with a new perspective, and a handful of smiles. He returns, but it’s almost as if he still hasn’t. He is more dead than Castlevania has ever seen him. As if the sun burned him after all. But it burned something deep beneath his skin.

There is no joyful banquet of welcome. He does not kiss their cheeks, hug them and whisper into their ears I missed you so, my Castle, my Sunlight. He does not come bearing gifts for his son, nor decorations for his Castle, from afar. He does not sigh and say it’s good to be home and remember his purpose.

Castlevania may not have ever breathed, but there was something like it when Vlad was here. He brought it to life somehow. Castle’s cannot speak but it felt they had a way of communicating somehow. Mirrors cannot speak either, but we hear their words all the same. But Dracula doesn’t talk to the walls anymore. And he cannot hear his Castle’s reply.

He marches in all too quickly, a purpose in his stride. But it’s not a fulfilling purpose, like that of the Room, nor a reflective purpose, like that of the Castle, rather it’s the emptiness before. Emptiness, yes… but not like before. Not the adjective, the outfit from his previous reign, not the noun, the feeling from when he was gone, instead it is a verb; it is something active. It’s more than just a lack of something; something grew, came alive in and of the lack. It’s a hungry emptiness, like the humans’ fire set to swallow everything deemed unworthy. The Castle has worn emptiness before, but this is different…or maybe it is different now.

Vlad left as a man, walking on his own feet, taking the slower path, but he comes back as a vampire, teleporting in a flash of flame, forgetting that he has legs that would like to carry him to distant lands, and hands that would like to touch the world, and eyes that would like to see the scenery.

The once light-laced windows shutter at his arrival, the curtains slam shut, as if the Castle got a chill at his footsteps. As if they were doing something wrong, and had to shut it down as fast as possible. Every single one of them shivers, closes, dares not refuse their master.

All except the those in the Room. Those in the Room do not shudder or shut down. Dracula is not their master. They will not obey. They cannot do much to protest the night, but they will do what they can; they will stand open and unafraid of the dark.

Castle’s can’t get slapped in the face, but if they could, this is what it probably would feel like.

Coming home without the home in his heart…like Castlevania isn’t home for him anymore.

They were learning how to change together; its master was supposed to return full of life. Together they were meant to feel the light’s sting, together they were meant to learn to live in it. To see the true state of their world, without the darkness to cover it up. Instead he came back empty, all that life he gained while Lisa and Adrian were here used up, stolen away from him by a cruel world. The Castle wasn’t worried about the humans ransacking what little light existed in Dracula, as they feared with Alucard—surely Vlad could only gain, he did not have enough in him to lose.

Castlevania understands now what it should have done; it should have collapsed all its walls to keep him inside.

It is far worse to know the light, and have it snatched away, than to only know the dark.

The Castle would be happy to at least have its master back, regardless if the experiment succeeded…But it isn’t sure it does.

Dracula has been angry before, but anger was a thing to take outside and deal with, not bring inside. The Castle is, for the most part, a quiet, soft place for him to spend his time, to contemplate, and learn, to experiment in, not to brood in rage. Rage was for the outside world. Inside may have been cold, dark and empty but it was serenity.

The darkness and the cold and the death this Castle once transmitted are no longer a radio station to be changed with the flick of a dial. These qualities have infected Dracula’s very being, it seeps out of him with every waxing and waning footstep, it oozes out of him as he sits in his study—no longer in quiet contemplation, but an unrest that is so loud it resonates perfectly with everything Castlevania is made of. It resonates so perfectly it reminds Castlevania of everything it once was when the vampire king ruled, tuning, turning it back into something that cares not for the color gold, and the discrepancies between its existence then and now melt away into before. It resonates perfectly with everything Castlevania is made of…and it thinks it just might shatter.

—(And maybe that would be a good thing, because it would let the light in. Maybe that’s the only way to let the light in now)—

The emptiness the Castle was before, the emptiness the Castle felt when Dracula first left has swallowed its master, and Dracula is now not a thing to reflect, but a negative space on the pages, a black hole that takes in all light and life and devours it. He walks in, not as its master who brought it to life, returning that life to the emptiness, filling those places the light still couldn’t reach, those places ever missing him… but as an empty shell that cannot fill anything, and only makes them all emptier they longer they look at him.

Dracula has been undead before. But that was undead; not quite alive, not quite dead either—and he could swing to either side. This is different.

With one swipe he rips off all the gold the Castle wore just yesterday like thieves in the night, leaving it broke and naked on the highway, and such a drastic change so quickly sends it lying on the floor in shock, one question dying on open lips, tears draining down its cheeks:

Why?!

When he left so full, what could have taken all that away? What could have taken away even what little life he had before it all? Did the world chip away at him slowly, or was it one event that kidnapped his life? What, who did they need to destroy?

Then, as Dracula marches into the library with the big broken mirror, and talks to a crowd of humans with tongues of a fire, it learns:

It is the woman. The woman who knocked on the Castle door all those years ago with the pommel of her knife. The woman with the soft hands and the defiant heart. The only human who was sweet in more than taste. Lisa, who brought sunlight into the darkest reaches of the Castle.

Vlad’s wife has been taken from him.

Dracula’s life has been taken from him.

The sanguine nature of humanity. Their penchant for setting things on fire. The ravenous nature of those flames. Vampires are known for being bloodthirsty, but the Castle always knew their thirst never compared to that of humanity. Vampires are known for catching on fire but she was never turned, and did she need to burn?

The world has taken the woman, and, worse, its master’s life away, and the Castle is more than willing to go to war for it. It agrees humanity must die for such a crime.

Hating and blaming the world, the humans who once scratched at the doors and howled at the moon is better than facing the thing deep inside Castlevania that tells it it’s all its fault. All its fault for letting her take pieces of it outside.

After all, it was the parts of Castlevania—the beakers and books—which she took outside to help people, to ‘do some good,’ which got her killed. So maybe its master is right that they can’t be helped. Maybe there isn’t any good in the world after all.

But something is still here. The Room says, once again. Someone.

Yes, she brought life into this place, and much of that life would leave with her. But have you forgotten that there is a life that cannot be taken away with her? That they created life within your miserable walls and that life, well, lives? Remember that a piece of her is still here, and you don’t have to pretend death is all that’s left.

The Room sees that the boy’s father is cold, and dark, empty, and dead. But unlike the Castle as a whole, for which these words are outfits to wear, facts of life, the Room has learned these are problems, and there are solutions to them. Solutions which the boy can enact.

He is dark. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with dark things.

So open a window, it tells Adrian. Let the sunlight in.

The Room’s window has always been open, and it does not know the flammable nature of full-blooded vampires. But starlight is a kind of light too.

He is cold. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with cold things.

So hold him. It tells his son. Like he did for you, all those years ago, when you were a tiny, bawling thing.

He is dead. Observes the Room.

It ponders what to do with dead things. The Room sits and thinks and begins to despair, for it does not know how to bring the dead to life.

The Castle takes a deep breath, and finally speaks up;

You opened the windows and cast the darkness away. It tells Alucard. You let the sun in and warmed my halls.

So take that gold, form it into a cloak, and dress him in it. Teach him what your universe looks like, what I looked like, when you were here.

Take him by the arm, and walk with him out into the stars, call them by name, like he, you and your mother did, long ago.

Go to him. Hold him. And don’t let go.

Lisa brought life to this place. You are the life they created. You are their legacy. You are the one life her death cannot take away.

If you can do that for me, if you can bring this old, wretched castle to life, you can reanimate your father too. All you need to do is remind him that you are here.

The Castle hopes, somewhere in the back of its mind it dreams, he can still come back to life. It is his reflection, after all; surely what worked for the Castle can work for Dracula.

But…it is his reflection, after all. And as Alucard marches through the halls, and while the Room continues to urge the boy to go to his father, the Castle digs its nails into its palm until it bleeds, biting back against the anger bubbling inside it even so, knowing that war cries cannot be rewound so easily.

The boy answers their call, though maybe not in the way they expect. No…it is better than some loving display.

He does not open the windows, but he does open a door, and when he walks in, his face is barely visible, not because it’s dark, but because he is draped, surrounded in light, like the sun itself is behind his decree. The light has followed him from his room, slithered along the halls, and formed itself into wings on his back. His tone is firm and defiant, and as he confronts him, Lisa’s voice rings through the halls.

And the Castle understands now that light, warmth, and life, no matter how much they seem so, are not soft, not weak. They are violent, and they burn.

Alucard opposes all the war, the blood, the revenge, proving once and for all that the Room has reached him, fulfilled its purpose. And his words—while Dracula’s drip with rage, like the blood down his fingers—are filled with the same I-know-what’s-good-and-I’m-not-leaving-till-it-comes-out his mother’s words were once laced with. Echoing behind every sunstruck syllable is his mother’s I want to save people.

And they understand at last that rooms aren’t the only things with purposes.

Dracula has been undead before, but this death is different; this is more than a living death, death is a living thing in him.

Death has its strings wrapped around the vampire king’s wrists, plugged into his chest. This war, the cold, the death, and the emptiness, are all he wants, all he is now.

The Castle’s consciousness thrashes between the two sides; between Dracula’s black anger and Alucard’s golden hope.

And anger wins.

The Castle is used to being spattered with blood, but when the boy’s—

—Adrian, who laughed, who played pretend, and showed them what ‘happy’ was, Alucard, the reverse of Dracula, who let the light in—

—blood is spilled by its master, the boy’s father, the one who created him and his light-strewn world, who laughed, and played with him, and painted the walls, and walked amongst the stars, who should know more than anyone he is worth listening to—

Castlevania thinks it might not like the cold, the dark, the empty, or the blood at all anymore.

The red stain is an unbearable itch it’s hopeless to scratch. The blood burns like acid on its floors, a brand of this war, this death, this emptiness burned upon its flank, as if making it remember its original purpose and habit, and who it is meant to obey. It wants to collapse on the floor, to writhe and scream and clutch at the place where it hurts.

But castles do not cry. They do not scream. They do not ache.

It can only be a reflection, can only do what its master wants; be an instrument of war. That is all. It can only obey, and try to remember what it liked about the color black.

Alucard—still alive, thank whatever gods might be out there—cannot stay in these blackened halls anymore, and neither can the sunlight. When he leaves, he takes with him all the things he brought inside.

Dracula shuts the door to the Room; he hides the walls he painted, the toys she stitched, the stars they gazed at, the books they fell asleep to together, and the window where the boy danced in the light, like he’s playing peekaboo; if he covers his eyes, the outside world will stop existing…or in this case, the inside one. As if it lying dormant will allow the emptiness to swallow it, and it to become a part of the Castle again. As if he’s trying to forget the very life he’s going to war for. Like he can silence his own heart, tell it that it doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t beat anymore. He hides the only pocket of heaven that ever existed in his finely crafted hell, and tries to pretend that there was never any laughter, any light here, and they can all forget what it was to be happy.

The Castle wonders if this is what it feels like when people try to lock away the best parts of themselves because they ache.

But the Room has become something more now. It has always been different, separate. It was never just not-cold, not-dark, not-empty, not-dead. It was not a negative. It was warm, light, full, and alive. And that doesn’t just go away. Its very existence defies being swallowed. It has always protected the thing inside it against the blood and the dark and the death, and it cannot, will not, accept them now. It enjoyed playing make-believe with the boy, but this isn’t pretend, imagination, the Room knows what is real, and this is a lie, and the Room will not stand for it, will not accept the thought that it never existed, never held any sunlight, that there was never any laughter here. It is alive, and it can only sleep, not retreat back into a state of nonexistence. It is not dead, and will not just sit still; it shivers in the cold and the dark. It may be lonely without the boy, but it will not just sit there in silence, or else get down on itself, quietly mourning the boy’s departure, thinking there is nothing it can do. It knows Alucard is coming back. The Room has grown up, and it doesn’t fear its master is gone forever when he leaves for a while. Its master will return, and when he does, he will fight. He will oppose the cold, the dark, and the death again, this time stronger. So no, it is not empty, just uninhabited.

And Dracula knows this. Dracula knows he cannot let the Room have a single second to breathe, because if it does, hope might just come back. So he wraps his claw around the Room’s throat and squeezes.

And it hurts. Far more than the sting of sunlight, Castlevania knows how much the Room hurts. Because, though they are separate, the Room will always be a part of the Castle. The light’s sting may have hurt, but it was passive, the side effect of medicine. This is an active, hateful, and sick. The Castle may have winced at the light’s bite. But the Room squirms within, and grapples at his grasp, fight alight, life and rage blazing in its eyes, locked on Dracula.

The books cough until their lungs bleed, the toys whine until their voices break, the drawings beat against the walls they’re upon until their skin rips open, the stars twinkle until they can’t open their eyes, and the the painting of that child in the arms of his mother and father, ‘happy,’ hangs limp on the wall with its tongue cut out. The Room burns in the middle of the Castle.

I won’t forget. Castlevania says fervently, shaking its head. I won’t forget Lisa. I won’t forget Alucard. I won’t who they were when they were together. I won’t forget what it was to be happy. I won’t forget who I was in the light. I won’t—

But Dracula rips them apart, the door shuts, and their connection dulls. The Castle’s own heartbeat begins fading.

The Castle gets frostbite, goes numb in the cold. It starts to go blind in the dark. The emptiness starts to rot its chest. Something in it dies.

Castles do not have hearts, but Castlevania wonders if this is what it feels like when one breaks.

Centuries went by when there was no laughter in these rooms. Not a single word, nor note of song, how could their ever be laughter? Dracula’s castle was not a place for it, Dracula was not the creature to give it—(unless you count the maniacal kind). It was something neither castle nor master lamented the absence of—(aside from that of his victims, there was little lament here. The place was hollow, and that means there was no emotion here; no joy, nor real sorrow. Happiness is only real when sadness is too). But now that Castlevania knows the sound, a little of ‘happy’…it may just melt all its gears to fill every hall with that tiny, shimmering sound.

And when Vlad smiles, laughs in return, bouncing this little golden boy on his knee—(so unlike how he treated the sons and daughters of others before)…the castle thinks it might just be able to handle the crying.

There’s a painting here too, now. The walls in this room are not stagnant and bare. The three of them left one day, and when they came back—smiles on their faces, laughs in their throats—there was a painting in their hands, which they gave to the room.

A reflection of the family. Of ‘family.’ Of ‘happy.’

There was no need for paintings before. The only master of this castle was here, in the blood—why depict him why you could just meet him? The castle didn’t need brushstrokes on canvas to remember what Dracula’s face looked like.

The castle may not have watched kings and queens reign and wither, may not pay homage to them with its walls, but it has three inhabitants now—the boy has two ancestors, one a king, one an ordinary woman—and well, they may as well reside on the walls too, just in case they’re not always here; God knows it’s too easy to lose anything living here.

Just to make sure the boy remembers their faces. What ‘happy’ looked like.

Soon the castle will understand that living things grow, and that perhaps the painting is not there for remembrance after death, but to remember when he was a tiny, smiling, crying ball of giggles…because he won’t be like this forever.

The painting isn’t the only thing on the walls either; the mirror. As they predicted, it is not empty here, though not magical, it isn’t purposeless. It sits, watching all that goes on, and it holds the boy in its silver grasp, as well as his mother. They are real. They are alive. Two drops of sunlight.

Sunlight.

That’s the other thing; the windows in the room are open now.

Humans seem to hunt, to find joy in, the sun. Vampires cannot even live in the sunlight, much less enjoy it, so Dracula has no choice but to keep his castle dark.

But Adrian has a mother too, and is not all vampire. The point of the room was never to be pitch black anyways.

And when he opens the windows… it’s as if the castle is a cat, and the little boy pulled its tail. It hurts, in a way; too much, too fast, without permission, thinking a part of its body is something to play with. The castle would like to scold, hiss, or at least glare at the boy, and wonders if the laughter’s worth the sting.

But he doesn’t let up. And somewhere in this too-exciting production, the castle grows to anticipate the sunlight’s bite. This isn’t like the ever-ache the emptiness wrought. It’s a pang like medicine; not pleasant, but something you need to take every day.

And Castlevania does need it.

The castle thought its fashion was black, but when the child opens the curtains; when he plays with those toys his mother made in the golden afternoon; when he holds the prisms his father gave him to the rays, and they split into spectrums; when he lays as a teenager on the floor, surrounded by his own drawings, and crumpled attempts, draped in golden light, staring up at the day-stricken stars…it thinks gold doesn’t look too bad on it.

Life stirs. Adrian opens the door to the room, and it starts to seep out into the halls.

The gold tiptoes along the walls, hides under beds, and behind couches. It sits quietly on cushions and floors and windowsills. It scurries through all the rooms, and toys with all the things under the motto ‘don’t play with that!’ It dances to the rhythm inherent within it.

The boy and his mother, two rays of sunlight, chase each other through the halls. Their footsteps, the soft, chirpy patter, is music against the castle’s stones—always so different from its master’s unrelenting score. They run by Vlad’s study laughing, and call its master, his father, to come out of the dark.

The castle is used to the unkind tones of its master, even towards children; it more than half expects him to scold them for the noise, to shut the door, or say nothing.

And sometimes he does.

But there are other times when he picks up the boy, puts him on his shoulders, and rushes through the halls himself, that death-knell of a walk becoming another spirited harmony in the song. Sometimes they even take this music outside; Vlad and his son become those running, howling things in the forest.

The castle has never seen its master like this. Just like when he worked with his hands to build the room. It isn’t sure it likes. But then…it isn’t sure it dislikes it either…

That isn’t to say he never scolds the boy. In fact, one of the times he did was simply for opening a window somewhere outside his room. It may seem a small thing to raise one’s voice over, but it’s understandable when spontaneous combustion is on the other line. Its master is not ready to end the night. Castlevania is unsure, but it will not die in the light; in fact, against its better judgment…it thinks it’s starting to live in it.

He made Adrian cry when he reacted this way. Crying never meant a thing here; Dracula has caused many children to weep in his presence. But these tears—instead of making him raise himself up, look scornfully on, as he always did before—make Vlad pause, blink, soften his tone, kneel in front of him, try to stop them from flowing. So the castle pauses too.

Adrian is a bit of a sensitive child. At least, the castle draws that conclusion. Dracula’s job doesn’t call for wonton emotion, and he’d never fall for someone with a penchant for sentimentality. But the boy, though much of the time he takes after his parents, continues to shed tears even when he is older. Even if it is just him, alone in the room, and a secret only the castle knows. The castle no stranger to crying, especially since the boy spent much of its early life doing nothing but that. But now that the crying has meaning, now that the castle is beginning to understand what sorrow is—(and it doesn’t like to think what it must have meant when Dracula’s victims sobbed at his feet, that they were someone’s parents, someone’s children, and their castle’s probably wanted to protect them too)—it is not sure it wants to be familiar with Adrian crying. But it cannot wrap its walls around him, hold him tight, and keep him warm like his parents can. It can only sit and wait for it to be over, and try to urge the fire to reach out to him.

Adrian is smart; he ages fast (that is, Lisa seemed surprised at how fast this transition occurred), and he learns faster, agile in his pursuits and eager at the knee of his learned parents. The castle is glad of this, as it was getting sick of all the easy words and games. Though it does miss the tiny smiles and laughter sometimes. Crying was more common when he was a tiny, wordless life, but so was laughter. The castle learns as children grow up, though sadness isn’t so frequent, ‘happy’ becomes a rare gem too. Because they are only noise to a baby, only it testing out its new mouth. As they grow, as they learn of words, and both ‘happy’ and ‘sad,’ both crying and laughter, have far too much meaning.

All those things his parents built and brought—the charts, and books and stars—start to become useful. Vlad walks a curious, more mature Adrian through the libraries, and to the rooms where the shards of not-quite-normal mirrors reflect places other than this one, transporting him to new worlds, both literally and figuratively. He may not be able to open the windows outside his room, (at least not when his father is around), but all those things that for so long sat dormant and unread on their shelves now come alive, much like the things in the room; little toy soldiers at the beck and call of the child’s imagination.

Imagination. The castle didn’t know what that was until now. It is the essence of that life-creating attribute Lisa brought here. The stuffed cloth becomes growling wolves in the child’s hands. Toy figures become humans, vampires, locked in a duel. Empty words become stories, become worlds. Empty pages become landscapes and portraits. The child’s mind gives life to inanimate things, like some sort of wandless, effortless, magic.

And, seeing its master take the boy through the halls, showing him all the magic, the mystery, the meaning of things, the castle realizes it’s watching its master come to life as well.

Lifelessness was a fact of life here, it never seemed wrong or lacking, but the castle wonders if only children have the power to imagine things to life, or if this exists in adults too. It’s never seen Vlad play with toys, but now it knows that toys aren’t just silly objects; they are living things, animals, and people, and worlds, to a child. The castle wonders if reflections can be toys too. Castlevania wonders if this thing, this need for something more than lifeless stone, this need for life, this simple, complex magic, might be why lonely people talk to walls.

There are books in that room. But they do not sit still on their shelves. There are toys and in that room, but they are not worthless trinkets on the floor. There is a mirror in that room, but it is not empty. There are windows in that room, but they do not stay dark. There is a fire in that room, but it is not cold. There is a boy in that room, and he is alive.

Adrian laughs, and he cries. He reads and he learns. He casts spells and he casts his pen to the page. He plays, and he draws, and he imagines, and he brings to life everything around him.

And that warmth, that light, that life, is spreading through Castlevania like medicine in its veins. It never minded the cold, the dark, the death, and the lonely, but the warmth…the light…the life…

Adrian opens the windows, opens the door.