Work Text:
White sands sunk beneath Kars’ boots as the Ionian waves lapped against the water-logged casket pulled to shore. He studied the barnacles’ growth along the side, their hard shells sturdy with age. Corpses of faded and passed cirripedes littered the crusted, once-copper metalwork; This coffin had lain beneath the depths for quite some time.
A body moved quickly to the man’s left and his eyes snapped to attention with raptorial instinct: A sailor, somehow still alive, tugged onto the coast. A decoration, like the wreckage of snapped wood, torn nets, and torpid crewmates that laid along with him. A steady thrumming, though barely there, beat into Kars’ eardrums. The nameless, leather-faced sailor’s arm barely twitched in a desperate, animal attempt at finding aid.
It was a weak source of food, but food nonetheless.
The Pillar Man’s gaze fell back onto the disheveled box, intrigued. If he focused, shutting out the scarcely-beating life of the distant sailor, Kars could swear he felt a flicker of sentience from inside. But whoever inhabited it would not–could not–be alive. His senses hummed, tingling, as his fingers crept along the warped and rotted wood, nails scraping the rust and catching on the lock. A tease–A test.
No noise came from inside; not a stir, not a gasp. Kars waited, patiently, like a beast in the grasses, eyeing its future success. Silence here was not the lack of being–It was the last-ditch calculation for survival. Then, he felt it, like a stench in the air through the cracks. Panic.
For a superior being like him, a lock is nothing. Feeble metal bends at the whim of his wrist. With a single pull, the already-decrepit hinges groaned and the only mercy Kars gave was the thickness of his cape that shielded the inner compartment of the casket from the sun. Paralyzed, golden-green irises encircled by white shuddered in their rotten sockets as they peered up into Kars’ shrouded face, bounding up-down, left-right, to take in the sudden color and vigor of the world. The pale skin of the prey beneath him was weak with disuse–empty veins scrawled across the papery expanse; lips and eyes sunken with hunger.
It would have been a tender, satisfying meal, if not for the nocturnal pest’s emaciation…and a curious flesh-wound, blackened and sealed, ringed around its neck.
“Your name. Speak it.” It spat—demanded—but its throat betrayed its ploy for power. It warbled and gasped, as if still remembering the atmosphere beneath the sea. Suffocated. Drowned.
Kars dismissed the ire brimming off of the creature in the casket. It was a momentary hiccup; a minor insolence that could be easily remedied if necessary. There were more important matters on his mind. He jabbed a finger forward against the scar and the pale one lunged back, a snap of bone and wood, equally brittle, resounding in the air. Kars anticipated the spine was as weak as the beast’s other features. The shudder of pain–or was it discomfort?–confirmed his suspicion.
He would get nowhere like this. The writhing consciousness was barely a meal, much less a puppet. For the time being, he caved into the conversation he’d been urged into.
“Kars. Do you remember what you are called?”
Sometimes, if left alone for too long, these pests could forget their histories. Their names. Even their senses. The one below, pallid and wet with a salt that Kars could not distinguish between sweat or seawater, searched for the answer. Physically. Its mouth formed, moved, pursed and pushed as if the name itself was stuck like a clogged plug in the back of its throat. Its features grew frantic, then irascible. Like a war fought and won on displeasing terms. Kars’ attention flashed to the scar, patient only out of curiosity.
“J-...di…Dio.” Finally, a name. It is not too far gone, this one. It could still be useful.
Dio fixed his trembling hand against the edge of the casket, weak and unsteady. His muscle flexed for a moment, as if prepared to get up, but he froze, eyes distant—stunned in thought. He took in the surroundings: sand stretched toward a legion of arbutus trees, mountains resting beyond. A blue sky, clear of clouds. The sun, shielded from him by the arm and cape of the man lingering from above. The thick grey cloak of mist and smoke that was London felt like a dream. He settled his palm against the wood, but did not move again. Where would he go, like this?
The scar around his neck still felt fresh. The buzz in his head; the barely-audible hum of some phantom he’d once known.
“Dio, then. I see no master remaining for you, so I take this role.” At this, Dio’s gaze snapped to Kars, in offense.
“My master is me alone–!”
Alone? Kars nodded and removed the cloak from where it hung on his shoulders. The sun, bright and undisturbed in its throne of the sky, shone down. In an instant, the searing pain erupted across the vampire’s skin, boiling it raw. He looked for immediate cover but found himself stranded in a sea of hot white, surrounded by wreckage and carrion. His eyes lingered on the tracks of the casket, dragged far from the sea. He was trapped; the being above had orchestrated this torment, only waiting for the moment to make it known. It was humiliating, infuriating. Exhausting.
Dio’s face twisted from anger to pain to grief as he refused to cry out, swallowing the bitter taste of mercy. He stifled his screams with heavy pants, his fist clenched desperately against the disintegrating wood. He could feel the tips of his fingers desiccating. For a moment, he wondered how much longer it would take before he became nothing but a granule on the coastline.
The cloak, sickeningly unguentary, went up again and Dio’s shoulders quaked at the fresh sensation of his skin regenerating, replacing its burns. His shuddering breath beat in waves; in-and-out, in-and-out.
“You are nothing, alone. You barely pass as provisions. Charring you in the sunlight would be sport, had you enough energy to fight for cover.”
None of this was a taunt. Kars spoke it so the other would understand: Dio has no other option. Not now, at least.
The vampire had never been one to settle for a corner he’d been backed into.
The struggling, outlying sailor with his unsteady heartbeat curled up in a welcoming pose for death. He would be a start, along with any animals or natives of the small, Grecian island. Once the vampire had enough vitality, Kars would spend time seeing what he was capable of. They would discover Dio’s use then; his fate of becoming a vessel for power or a grand repast was left unwritten, with Kars wielding the pen.