Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction ❯ Suche In Nichtigem ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Suche In Nichtigem

Neko NoSei

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Author's note: This is my first attempt at a Vampire Hunter D fic. I found I couldn't help but start it after watching "Bloodlust" and I'm hoping to make this one of the most in-character fics I'll ever write. Hope you like it and I hope I do D justice. Oh, right, and of course "Vampire Hunter D" is not owned by me, but I do take credit for the intelligence and creativity that went into this particular story. Thanks.

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"Master D, thank you for coming on such short notice."

The extraordinarily tall, cloaked figure made no motion to show surprise at the respectful title placed before his name. He was nothing but a shadowed silhouette in the corner of the room, alabaster face shrouded mostly by the shade that fell from his large hat. There wasn't much light in the room as it was, and as such only aided him in his auratic shroud.

Fausto Rivaldi leaned back further in his leather chair, settling down comfortably in it's cushioned hold. He was an older man, though well aged, often called a fine wine due to time making him "better and finer every year." His blonde hair was pulled back into a strict pony tail, it's length unknown from his position, hints of silver among the gold at his temples. His slate eyes moved to look at his own hands, resting with fingertips each to it's mirror like a steeple, then his eyes lifted back up to the dark and silent figure.

"I presume that you read my letter carefully, but you may have some questions. Please feel free to ask, I only want to ease any difficulty you might have."

"Why."

The voice was soft and monotone, yet resounded with a deep timbre that would make one fear the terrifying power of it if he spoke with force and demanding.

"Because, of course, it will help me in the end. I won't lie to you, you would probably see right through me, as would I if another said otherwise. And I suppose, that I also sympathize a bit with you. I won't claim to understand it all, nor what you may have gone through in your life, but I haven't exactly had the most accepted life until the latter years of it." He spoke as easily as if he were talking to one of his intimate friends. "And then, there is the will and testament specifically delivered to me from your father with an order to fulfill."

"My father."

"Yes, and I would think it a likely possibility that others have received other such wills from the Vampire King, some in regards to you, and others... who knows? But I digress, mine is in regard to you, or rather, something I am supposed to set you upon."

Fausto took a deep breath and parted the steeple to open a drawer and pull out a long, skinny velvet bag. He set it softly onto the broad top of the heavy desk, then flicked his fingers against it and sent it gliding over to the other side of the flat, polished top toward D. It slowed to a stop inches from the edge.

"In there is the part of the will I was ordered to give you. Do what you want with it, my end of the deal is pretty much fulfilled now. I could try to convince you to fulfill your end of it, but he didn't make any mention of that. And I won't try to tempt you with the girl he will mention, though she is apparently much talked about in her region, you don't seem like the type swayed by beauty or power of the female nature." He cleared his throat. "Again, I digress, forgive me. That is all, really, vampire hunter, you may leave anytime you feel at liberty to."

D vanished from sight in less than a minute. Fausto ran his tongue across his teeth and silently wished the hunter luck, then went on to the next legal business at hand.

"The Hell was all that about?" came the crude and sarcastic voice D hand grown very accustomed to over his long life. "'And I won't try to tempt you with the girl... you don't seem like the type swayed by beauty or power of the female nature.' As if you're swayed by the male? And what was with that accent?"

D mounted the horse waiting a few yards outside the castle's gates, his cloak making the soft, rustling sound like thunder in the far distance. His body settled into the familiar saddle and he pulled the reigns, veering the mechanical equine off and away from the castle.

"So are you going to do it?"

"Do what," replied D's monotone.

"You know what I'm talking about--the will. Don't play apathetic with me now, I know you too well. After all our years together, you'd think a man would have a little faith in me."

"I don't see why it concerns me."

"Like Hell is doesn't, he's your father, D, no matter how much you want to forget that."

"I don't forget that fact."

"Yeah, I'm sure it's difficult considering your life--but that doesn't mean you don't want to. Are you at least going to read the damned thing?"

Silence.

"Not again... Come on, at least read it."

D was silent a long time before he answered.

"Perhaps."

"Great. Perhaps. How dramatic can you get? I swear, if you weren't a vampire hunter you'd be the best paid actor in angst-driven theater..."

D tuned out the brazen and cynical voice, his eyes fixing onto the landscape in front of him, shades of gray and black. The breeze picked up and tore gently at his hat, his long hair and cloak tried to follow, begging the wind to take them away with it, to no avail.

Hours passed, stars slowly drifted, and still D's features never changed, not even for a moment. Until, randomly, his eyes flitted to the velvet satchel, whose braided tie and tassel was still hooked over his fingers, left to dangle and bounce against the horse's neck.

He didn't have to read it, he didn't have to read it now, let alone later. But to pass the time, it wasn't really so bad an idea, an interruption in the monotony.

He let the reigns fall onto his thighs and he opened the velvet bag, pulling out a rolled up set of papers. Spreading it out as flat as possible with his long-fingered hands, he began to read what could only have been his father's scrolling hand-writing.

My son,

I do not expect you to understand my terrible need for this, but I am an ancient man with a twisted sense of family. I knew your mother and I wouldn't work, I knew it from the beginning, but love has the ability to blind one to the stark truths that you would otherwise see. Or is it a self-blindness, because one doesn't want to see? Even I know not the answer. I do know, though, that in that harsh final reality, that all three of us are alone. I have not the means to be near either of you, in life or death, but perhaps there is a way to ensure that we are no longer alone in our life, this one or the next, to bring some kind of peace or happiness to our fate.

Humour your father, if you will, and follow the following instructions. Any questions you have ever had, any doubts, fears, or hatred you have felt, need and anger, a desire for closure perhaps. If you have any or all of it... This will solve it. I promise that your existence will not be the same, it is the least I can do for my son.

It was signed with the sincerest of wishes, but D felt unmoved.

"I knew you couldn't resist it. So what does it say? What does he want?"

D's fingers shifted the pages, eyes skittering over the writing, the instructions, the riddles.

"A goose chase."

"Wild or domesticated?"

D didn't reply to the asinine question and focused on the first of the instructions: Find Eden.

~To Be Continued~