#vellicth

The last time the newly elevated Vampire Lord let tears trickle down his cheeks, the last sweet catharsis he would ever have.

He had no time for such sentiment any longer, he had to shift his focus to far more important things. The thoughts that plagued his mind as he strode down the lonely, empty halls of his palace echoed as loudly as the sharp slaps of his wooden sandals.

His palace. Still a thought he had to reconcile, to come to terms with, mulling and churning over in his mind. Before the property had fallen into Vellioth's hands, it had belonged to his grandmother Donnela, and once again it now belonged to a Szarr... the palace's proper Master once again walked the halls.

But the halls were cold and empty. Of course, they had to be. After the regime change, Cazador quite literally terminated the staff. They had been loyal and faithful to Vellioth, after all, how could Cazador trust a single one of them?

He did not shed a tear for the deaths of his siblings, even as he locked them out on the balcony to await the sunrise. Merciful deaths, no less than they deserved, no better than they were owed. The disposal of their remains would be taken care of by the wind.

Finally reaching his destination, Cazador stepped through the doorway into his former Master's bedroom. A room he'd spent a considerable amount of time in himself, days and nights of pain and pleasure blurred over the decades. Draped in a white silken, Kozakuran robe, the fabric stained dark with spatterings of blood, Cazador gingerly made his way from the threshold to the four poster bed. The evidence of his crime and his elevation lay bare upon the red silken sheets.

It amazed Cazador how quickly and cleanly a vampire's body broke down. Flesh and blood turned to dust and ash, and all that remained was a blood-stained skeleton laying in the pile. The skull lay tilted back and removed from the spine, facing the ceiling, jaw hanging open as though still laughing the final laugh of the Martinet.

Not even a strand of long white hair survived.

Cazador stood and stared down at his former Master's skeleton for a long while. A delicate pale hand reached out to stroke long fingers along the radius of one of the arms, sliding over to brush along the digits of the hands. Hands that had once been so kind and cruel to him, comforting and torturous all at once.

The new Lord did not expect to feel so empty once the Martinet was gone, no longer there to teach and torment with pain and pleasure. The palace was silent without Vellioth's laughter, without his venomously sweet voice poisoning Cazador with shame and desire all at once.

Silent, empty, hollow... that was the feeling that gripped Cazador's chest as he slid into the bed beside Vellioth's skeletal remains. Even now, in his solitude with not a soul there, Cazador did his best not to let his emotion break. Not to show weakness of any kind, just in case those piercing red eyes were watching him from beyond.

Except the silence was beginning to overwhelm, becoming too much to bare. It started with a faint whimper passing through his lips, a sound of shame familiar to his pointed ears. The whimper turned into a shivering sigh, forcing the air out of lungs that breathed now only out of habit.

Hands reached out to clutch the skull and press the crown against his forehead, eyes closed as his body was wracked with uncontrollable, shuddering sobs. Bloody tears trailed down pale cheeks as Cazador let the catharsis of release wash over him, cleansing him of whatever sentiment that was left for his former Master.

In time the sobs turned from mourning cries to relieved laughter, bubbling up and out of the Vampire Lord's throat almost as involuntarily as the weeping had been. He rolled away from the curled position he'd been on his side, laying on his back as one hand still clutched onto Vellioth's sanguine painted skull. His long black hair laid wild about him, his laughter echoing through the chambers as Vellioth's once had.

Eventually, Cazador was able to compose himself, sitting himself upright from where he lay on the bed, not caring as the rest of Vellioth's dusty bones rattled and fell apart behind him. He held the skull in his hands, looking down at the empty eye sockets, the sharp fangs that had turned him into the man he was now. It was almost as though he could still feel the presence of the Martinet staring back at him from the voids within the sockets. There were, surprisingly, still a few bits of flesh stuck there... he'd have to boil them off...

He would keep the skull. Not out of sentiment, but as a reminder.

A reminder of Vellioth's lessons taught and learned. A reminder of why he would never trust another to be his own equal. He would not make the same mistakes with his own spawn that Vellioth had made with him.

Allow none to be your equal. Solitude is power. Act not in haste.