Simplicity has forgotten whims that exhaust patience as the same that lull the sleeping giant, the high court of the vampire queen and priestess filled with common themes and regal dreams, bustles with the attention of The Council of Solace.
Armored guard stand in dark corners, with a barricade of weaponry, each with a belt of knives in sheath and hidden knives in possible places. A quiet solitary confinement with windows to walls and walls to windows behind the thrones of the room, open to a world insanely macerate, bounds of hills and forest boundary with rocks and stone comprising the castle in which they occupy. From one of the small hallways, a young pale man comes running forward and whispers into the ear of the person standing just inside the doorway, terribly unmatched and underdressed compared to the many guard with cross-bolts, razors and knives.
Noticing but disregarding, the queen turns in her paces to take her first seat in nearly as many turns of the hourglass as paces already made during the day. From that very hallway entrance, the noble apprentice speaks with a large voice twice the size of his chest.
Squire: “Enters the second scout Hansel returning, your majesty.”
A moment after the herald announces him he enters, tired and short of breath, in dirtied white clothes.
Hansel: “I give dark salutations, my queen.”
Dressed for the heat of day, or night, in fallow garb vestments with yellow leather at each fold and holding belt, around his waist and the tops of his dark leather boots without added heel. He takes both knees in the random spot in the room, where she has drifted to him. His clothes soiled in the random places of incursion with exception taken for the knees and the few spots of clean cover remaining. His stature deficient in qualities or resources that indicate brutal efficacy, he seems a leaner and limber new fang fellow, a runner or dasher to slit in the night.
Vampire Queen: “What news doth bring thee of the front?”
Hansel: “The peoples of Atlantis and Caledonia are in quarrel over the new territory we have given them.”
Vampire Queen: “You may rise.”
He stands and she stares at him, a calming demeanor without harbinger smile, the appealing demure given from the lack of threatening demise of the blood prioress warrior. He humbly pauses and holds his hands around his hat adornment lest adorned, and walks to the table and pours a drink from a polished silver pitcher, into a short steel cup. He stands and drinks addressing the open window pushing his hair back with one hand free from tossing his cap to the table with silent delivery, with noticeable relief from his first swallow of the thick red wine. At the table watching, holding his own drink in his left hand a man who stares in wait of the queen’s word, without question of him, commoners of acquaintance with gallant personage.
The man sitting at the table wears armor like the queen, sturdy and fashionable, as it lays on him heavier than that worn of the emissary, but lightly and thin compared to the sentry, not of like the nobles or sentinels but a knight of some colloquial fashion. He is none other than the first lieutenant of the Obsidian clan, brought of inquisition and rank for battle, a most ruttish lecher of giving blood and keeping the faith in onset obsidian conspiracies, still in heart and hand, patience typical of the ancient sages in deep separation from his ages lost humanity.
Lieutenant: “Another message envoy, this troubled war, everyone is doing their best to destroy it!”
Vampire Queen: “O how often wrong, never unsure.”
The queen moves her first charismatic saunter, the soles of her feet on the ground not, without reflection an emerging tragic fashion trust intimidation, wrought with the eyes of consuming invite, a gliding statue with real isolation, intrinsic crippled anthems the daydream of the undying monarch. At every instance met, a plying servant kneels and raises a tray consisting of a red wine and a black phial. With every crystal goblet decanted, she adds drops of black poison dissolution that overwhelms the red.
Vampire Queen: “Tell them they can have as much gold befitted of any proffered chest, and that they will have no states if they do not have an order to their chaos.”
Hansel: “Thine will be done, your highness.”
Vampire Queen: “, And tell them to send not their kings, I will send for them when time behooves.”
The herald stands and parts in an early manner as she turns and glides to a window to view the fires in the raining fields of the lowly lands beneath her bastion of immortal vampires.
Vampire Queen: “Leave none alive.”
Lieutenant: “Let no one survive.”
The queen raises her drink in salutation and drinks along the lieutenant as she looks out anew and dreams of the eventual infest of her coven of slayers and their army of death dealing assassins.
§
In the princess' private chambers, sits the fair daughter of the queen, grooming her hair facing evident a mirror in which she has reflection none, accompanied only of by the paltry inflection of light abridged by the vampirical condition. Her mother and queen is in near opposite, a dull pale skin of shadows beneath a tightly thick woven black shining hair, of both worlds before her turning centuries prior, waiting in the shadows and dark depth of the hall’s way, watching her daughter with dote. The queen of their vampire coven holds at contempt a time bomb with a sophisticated countenance insipidly watching the princess’ golden hair, red nails and lips and complexion of a lifeless guest at awakening, not whitish like her mother but a radiant volcanic ash, a sign of more power and plague virility.
The queen sees the silence and closes her eyes to pray briefly before opening them again, then approaching the lovely daughter chanting humanity and calm with the solace embrace of cold emotion. Each moment of contemplation, cannot encompass the memory of that which it thrives, her longing thoughts the dreams of many mortals of time deciduous, finding darkness and awakening evil in a hazed dream state to befit vicarious escape from the mundane and lamentation with fond imagery.
Vampire Queen: “The body is a river of blood that comes from tributaries of vengeance and conflict.”
Princess: “But we will not have this here tonight?” turning away from her mirror, startled and still amid brushing her perfect hair.
Vampire Queen: “I’m sure many of you are restless and concerned about the recent change in borders of the kingdoms, but this is never your worry.”
The princess places her brush and stands, the queen does not move shortly after the princess turns and slides cote, a chess piece across the board to the closet, these actions seem to berate the queen’s better senses.
Vampire Queen: “Feast and before you suspect, your king will be back with a bounty of humans and we will discuss all matters regarding your claims and questions.”
She approaches, drifting and towing her dress behind her, to the queen in a solemn and silent clamor.
Princess: “Until then drink and relax.”
§
Later that day or how may seem the endless scavenge for a break in the hateful storm brewing about the skies, the darkest of clouds forthcoming, tumbling over themselves forceful expansive, prescient dwellers in the main chambers of the upper lair flout the oncoming eminent tempest.
The queen rests on an iron throne next to another different vacant perch, the princess at her table to the side of the room the same as the queen, with her adoring spouse next to her and some servants in tedious tending to necessity. At the opposite table, her brother the dark prince consanguineous, the heir to their empire and ruler of the lemniscates, with several women and some of his wanton military elites, as they every, enjoy the affections of paramours.
So potent the commanding presence, the queen stands free as she abdicates the divine wind, her dress flowing across the floor. Within the court, the princess refuses to surround herself with arrant knaves, her exception her lover and a few of the younger maidens most auspicious, whom command and control the attention of the squires of the granite hall, even some of those that sit across the room.
The stones and dust bite hostile in an antique castle such as this, ashes of empires and pillars of eternity, in arrangement to the empire of the Obsidian, misconstruction of abnegation to blindness as the prince and his entourage devours flesh and bone. The bridegroom at times, stares a weakest lost in hatred, with incontrovertible fearlessness unwise. Lest little markings clue the find, Lieutenant enters the room with high amnesty and obscurity, calmly stepping to her brother’s side of the court.
Lieutenant: “I am here you may sleep unarmed!”
Prince: “Alone I would have fallen into myself!”
From the others a laughter, and from the burgeoning bordello one of the prince’s subject kin, young and with a youthful affectionate companion of his own, worth bored of such trifling, raises his cup in heralding gesture, for they to drink together.
Young Vampire: “You can fall into madness my lord.”
Smiles abound they drink alongside one another, patience to oblivion as the red soaking blood pours from corners of mouths in haste. From the table of the princess chatting with her maidens speaks the bridegroom with incontrovertible fearlessness unwise. Tall unbroken with never torn clothes, he raises his cup, but with a fading image in his mind, stands to witness fulfill silent.
Bridegroom: “Does the military culture value the art of killing in a way others simply cannot understand?”
Young Vampire: “By way of ceremony, suffering.”
Lieutenant: “Slaves upon request or criminals may fight for money or freedom.”
Prince: “As it is with all education.”
Vampire King: “Weapons make for interesting fights but final judgment is of the decision of the king.”
Throwing a jacket with his arm from over his shoulder and handing a chain with human quarry to a servant in the room, he enters unlaundered whence with quick hardened pace unchanging, each step carrying him swiftly to the center of the lifeless room, unconcernedly without notice to which whom he spoke.
The king returns with a quarry of several humans bound by collar and chain, mostly children, handing the lead to a crimson vampire clean and maleficent with hair washed back over its head, knives on a belt, its cape spun round to the front and held with a strap around the neck. A makeshift cage, one that flesh cannot break, sits capitulating obscurity and purpose, an inviting holding cell for prey and victim, becomes such a hold for the tikes thrown carelessly one by one through the gates. At first sight, the king sweeps to the queen, takes her into his arms with cherishing embrace and reconnects as true betrothal.
Vampire Queen: “Consequence is upon my door, my king.”
Vampire King: “I am reborn, again and again.”
Driven to increase therein power by creation the purest choice, destined to rule and go the way of the flesh. Nature is their only master they will bow and lout to none, not without proper introduction at what would beseem thence. The air is dry like a rock, the captured children tamper with the lock without any hope remaining, with only one child careless, only sitting in the back of the cage with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms crossed over them. Sitting with a severely stern look draped across his young face the old hatred of young bones, discontent and vengefully stricken.
King: “It must be done, it is the way.”
Queen: “I shall do thy bidding.”
The king kisses her hand and marches proudly out of sight and scene. Jostling the chains of the children on their cage, gaining a laugh as he does before exiting, the queen the only one to curtsy and bow at close condition before the king’s departure.
The princess young and pure born with such great power, her eyes are nearly white but they would faintly glow the blue of her father's face when she speaks, sits with her betrothed, drinking and telling jokes in the delight of good graces and merriment to rest their woes. Her significant other is very pale and tinted blue by the veins that course under his skin, maintaining the cursed blue blood that keeps for only moments the life of the red blood consumed, even of the better diseased of bloods, a sunken stare that pierces solidarity. So turns the exulting vampire queen that the brawn of the light surrounds her, as she stands silent as if the moon were to hang and bleed above her head.
Vampire Queen: “I must discern the mettle of my forthcoming family.”
The queen drifts to the table of the son for soon the better, at swift pace swoon of the bridegroom staring and moving independent of another.
Vampire Queen: “How fares the campaign of the blood of your masters?”
Lieutenant: “Death has served to the best of our ability.”
The prince watches without wonder, knowing the battle below them, brought by his comrade and hidden under his armor.
Queen: “, And how is that?”
Lieutenant: “We fear not our mortality.”
She smiles and drifts to the cage, as they celebrate his response, staring and scaring the human brood. She drifts to a waiting platter and takes a glass goblet of blood wine, and moves closer to the table of the princess, leaving the cage of whelps with no fear for the setting sun, but for what remains thusly.
Vampire Queen: “, And you who have stolen my daughter's heart.”
Prince: “, And I’m sure everything else.”
Queen: “Do you serve me?”
The bridegroom is concerned more with the flights and fancies of the people at his table, more than the luring stare of the ominous queen.
Bridegroom: “We serve to the best of our ability.”
Vampire Queen: “Then sever your ties and exile your tender bones.” She speaks in an angered and curt fashion, slightly looking over her shoulder.
Bridegroom: “I will burn my eyes out, before I get out.”
He takes the hand of his endearing bride to be, and smiles, hand in hand they beam his agenda and the suffering children are bored of pain and now contemplate the coming rage.
Vampire Queen: “An excellent idea, lieutenant, you may complete our agreement.”
Dark and daftly the lieutenant looks and nods to his subordinates, each another dark warrior with carrion firestorm armor and rivets of angered steel and dragon scale with serpent's tooth to bridge the gaps within the silent armor that does not rattle or tatter in the wind or their movements.
Lieutenant: “We give our blood to our masters…”
However, the lieutenant’s men hold the bridegroom steady as they reply, “We vow to slay all enemies…” The groom leaps from her hands and his chair, rushing to an exit, they take the bridegroom, as the princess screams in horror.
Princess: “Who are you to wave your finger?”
Lieutenant: “Say goodbye.”
Princess: “Liar…Let go…Mother stop this…What’s the difference!”
Vampire Queen: “You are a gift to the lieutenant's overlord, The King of Obsidian.”
The queen begins drifting again the disconcertion of a future corrupt.
Princess: “Mother you promised you shan’t!”
She kicks and screams as they hold her back and make her watch the bridegroom hauled from his footing, composure and bloodline, a restless demon taunting sardonic and not going without refute.
Queen: “What she ever saw.”
The princess watches as they drive a sword into his stomach and daggers into his back, stabbing to purge dissimulation with horrid screams for each pain that echo the castle through, crying for each damning wound weak and powerless.
Bridegroom: “Save thy self!”
The princess decides to grab her life from the shackles of indemnity, to crave freedom in her own life with adoration for another not. With torture and despair in her betrayed sight, she bounds her languishing bond by bailiff and flees through a stained window of many colors, breaking through the section for her broken heart. Falling away from the window, the assault a reminder of her failing plundered heart and inept necessity to kill the queen for bartering her, the rustic soldiers of the fanged stronghold stare at her running from the castle like a white sparrow across the fields.
Vampire Queen: “For it is the dreams that we sew, she will rue the cursed day alone.”
The prince wine on his face, waves his cup as he speaks, shaking it and twisting it in the air, carelessly spilling the blood of wine, slamming the only half-empty cup onto the table, with an impatient stare.
Prince: “Soothsayer come hither; enlighten us with your talents, with more sooth than say!”