Work Text:
Somewhere around Toussaint, from year 1070 to year 1120.
Discomfort
Consciousness slowly came back to him, and with it, memories he would rather have liked to forget.
The hunger, the girl going to the well, the dizziness, and then – nothing.
He couldn't feel his body like he used to before that “accident”. He was incapable of moving, surrounding by something extremely dense. He couldn't smell, hear or speak. He realized with stupefaction that his corporeal form was not whole. He felt incomplete.
It was hard to admit but it seemed his attempt for another midnight drink had ended up in a monstrous failure.
The peasants had apparently managed to put him into a rather harmless position when he knocked himself out. That unpleasant sensation... he began to understand. They had cut his head off and then buried him, rather deeply, into the ground.
Anger
Those miserable vermin, those ignorant rats! It will take years for him to be able to get out of his misery! If he had a fully recovered body he would have destroyed the whole village including his surrounding, for pure and blind vengeance. He would have drunk every single drop of their precious life.
He felt his body tremble in rage, his blood hot and agitated. But he couldn't do anything yet.
And it was oh so infuriating, so frustrating. Not being able to move when he felt so much anger.
With it came a much darker and violent feeling, an agonizing cry of thirst.
Bitterness
How could he be so stupid, so careless to let himself being caught and dismembered by those helpless peasants!
But they may not have been so helpless.
He had thought them fearful of his nature, just a band of weak cowards that could never harm such a powerful creature like himself. He had been wrong.
Of course they only succeeded to tear him apart because he had been unconscious. But they didn't hesitate. They showed a fortitude he didn't knew they could possess. And judging by the many wooden stakes covering the complete surface of his torso, they must have been very angry, animated by a strong desire of revenge. Revenge against the monster that kept them awake, the monstrosity that tried to kill an innocent lass, and many others after her. Fortunately they thought it sufficient to kill him and didn't sever his body too much. They could have cut him into pieces or burn him, which would have been even more annoying.
Emiel Regis thought about that fateful night over and over again as days, weeks and years passed. The mental agitation kept him from truly resting. His regeneration was slow, far slower that what he could have imagined.
Bewilderment
His friends had given him a bet. Pushed him into flying to that village to catch the young woman with a red wooden bird in her hair. The one they knew lived there, in the little cottage at the edge of the dwellings.
He remembered their words of encouragement, daring him to fly for more hemoglobin. They had already made quite a mess in the garrison in the north, killing a dozen of mercenaries.
Vardian had looked at him with that devil grin of his, gripping him by the shoulders and shaking him lightly, laughing. “Come on Emiel! One more or one less doesn't mean anything to you now! You are already drunk!”
And he had done it – he had flown to that village and waited in the dark, unseen, invisible at the top of that giant oak next to the mill. He remembered the hunger, the painful blood lust that clouded all reason, the soreness in his throat, his aching fangs, his tensed muscles and his giant claws clutched in the bark under him. Until finally he heard the door open and the fragile figure of the woman slowly came to the well, unaware of the danger. He acted before even thinking.
What a show it must have been – a higher vampire, drunk from the last attack, flying in an utter disgraceful way above the tree house, crashing with full speed into the stone well before managing to even grasp a hair of the lass. And the shock that had knocked him down – him, Emiel Regis. And he had though himself invincible.
What a joke. What a foolish and terribly stupid youngster he is.
Self-disgust
He had satisfied his friends greedy request. They probably laughed at his failure.
What drove him into action? The desire and need to amuse his companions, to prove what he was capable of? Was it for his pride, for his own enjoyment?
No, it was none of that.
His addiction for blood.
This alone had made him take this silly decision. It was for his distasteful lust for more. More blood, more, more, MORE!
How have it all started? How had he fallen so low?
Oh yes. First it had been for social acknowledgment. To become popular, to please his entourage and to overcome his shyness with females around him. The pleasure provoked by the drink reduced his uneasiness, he felt happier, stronger, bolder. He became famous among vampire youth, his self-confidence was much appreciated.
Later, all of this didn't matter anymore. He couldn't stop despite the warnings given by his closest friends, by his family, by his inner self. He became angry at them. They couldn't understand, their words bore no meaning to him. All he wanted was to taste that sweet crimson ambrosia again and again.
But what have he earned from it? To spend many decades in a hole recovering for his mistakes.
He also lost her, the only one he had loved like no other.
He thought of the many years he spent in the company of those who sent him to his fall. Were they really his friends? Have he really been appreciated for his personality, for his intelligence and charisma, or was it just a farce? Was he just an amusement for their boredom?
Anxiety
The vampire was still in his bestial form, too weak yet to move or to change back to his human one. A long time passed, and with it all the memories of the last centuries, the many acquaintances he had made, how it had changed him and how everything around him had changed.
He got lost.
When will this nightmare be over? He so wanted to move, to stop thinking, to run, to fly away, far away from here. He became impatient, so impatient he thought he would become crazy.
He forced himself to relax. His regeneration won't become any faster this way.
His mind drifted again to that night. All the feelings he had since he woke up came back to him in a chaotic mess. The discomfort, the anger, the bitterness, the bewilderment, the self-disgust and the anxiety.
Introspection
Emiel Regis couldn't sleep. His corporeal senses began to slowly come back to him. With his head finally attached to his body once again, a searing headache made him grit his fangs, so intense he thought it would knock him unconscious again.
The hearth above him was heavily pressed on his front, giving him the impression to sink more and more into the dirt. He didn't needed to breath, but he felt like suffocating, like his whole being was swallowed down.
Who was he really? Had he truly been himself during those many years hunting humans? What have he proven to his own kind? No. What have he proven to himself?
He couldn't open his eyes, but there was nothing to look at anyway, just darkness.
He really wanted to gaze at the night sky again, smell the life around him, hear the many creatures dwelling in this world.
This world... imperfect, unwelcoming, not made for creatures like him. Hiding or hunting, he was tired of it. Could he fit into it if he tried? Could he shield his true nature from human eyes, walk among them, try to understand their way and find a place for himself?
He didn't liked the sound of it, after all those years of killing and mocking. What could the wolf learn from the sheep?
Finally, when he was mentally exhausted of his rambling, he let himself fall into a deep sleep.
When he came back to himself, he felt different. His rest have immensely helped his regeneration. His mind was empty. But his body felt full of energy, vigorous once again.
Something was calling out from him. Above him. A powerful call. It was time to get out of here.
A burst of power erupted from his healed body, and with a strong push under him, he broke free from the many meters of earth covering him.
He fell on his knees, not capable yet to keep himself on his legs. His large wings extended in the fresh nightly air, eyes closed, he took a deep breath.
Bliss
Chills of uncontrollable euphoria crept throw his whole being. Sounds, smells, vibrations through the air, feelings, everything was so overwhelming. At last, he was free.
He stayed there, entranced, until he opened his eyes.
Stars. So many of them shining above him. And the moon – full and bright, welcoming him.
He could do nothing but feel the world around him for several hours. And then the thoughts came down on him again, painful and heavy.
What now? Where to go?
Acceptance
Never again.
He will never commit the same error, never let himself fall so low. It will take a long time, a long adaptation. It will challenge his resistance, his tenacity, his stubbornness. But he had to succeed, he had to stop drinking blood, to fight and win against his addiction. His weakness caused all of this, and nothing else. No blame against the humans, no blame against his heartless so-called friends, no blame on his own nature. He did that to himself.
Never again.
He rose from the ground. A graveyard surrounded him, an old and decaying one, far away from that cursed village. Changing back into his human shape, he took decisive steps toward the rising sun. He knew someone who could help him into his withdrawal process, someone he once called a fool, a traitor to his own race.
A humanist among vampires.
A new day began, a long journey ahead, the insensitive monster becoming what Geralt of Rivia would later call an "epitome of humanity".