Title: Requiem
Author: yubberducky/D'Artagnan
Timeline: Curse of Darkness
Spoilers: Not really.
Warnings: Character death, inappopriately placed gayness, mediocre writing.
Genre: Angst, I guess.
Disclaimer: The almighty Konami owns Castlevania.
Contest Topic #: Challenge #26, Entry #2
Comments: Rosaly's death. Rosaly/Hector, very, very slight Isaac/Hector. I don't know why I can't keep gayness out of scenes between them. I also know the fic isn't the exact same as the manga, so don't bother telling me.



 

Hector was awakened sometime past midnight by an incessant hammering at his door. He lifted his head groggily from the pillow and looked about in a stupor, only to find that Rosaly was sitting upright next to him, wide awake, clutching the blanket to her chest with white-knuckled fists. She did not address him, but kept her eyes locked on the door, tense body sending off almost palpable waves of fear.

“What do they want?” he grumbled, forcing himself to sit up as well.

“I don’t know,” Rosaly whispered in consternation. Her hand seized his arm, her grip like a steel vise around the appendage. “Leave it, Hector. They can come back in the morning.”

But he somehow doubted their nighttime visitor was in any mood to go away, if his or her insistent knocking was any indication. And so with a sigh, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and, groping blindly for his pants, managed to locate them and yank them on. Rosaly, meanwhile, had pulled on her nightdress, and was watching nervously as he made for the door, her arms crossed in a defensive fashion over her chest.

“Hector... please,” she said quietly.

Her appeal gave him momentary pause. There was fear in her voice, definite fear, but of what, he could not discern. He went to her and placed his arm around her, drawing her against him in a reassuring hug.

“What is it you fear, my love?” he asked.

“I... don’t know.” She closed her eyes, and he shivered with pleasure as her lashes feathered against the side of his neck. “I have a terrible feeling, though. You mustn’t answer the door, Hector.”

“Hush, now.” He brushed her sleep-tousled hair back off her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead, gently disengaging himself from her arms. “Everything will be all right, Rosaly. You’ll see. A feeling is just a feeling, after all; it isn’t fact. Someone could be in trouble, you know, and they might need our help.”

Rosaly seemed almost convinced, but her brow creased again in worry when the door rattled under the force of another series of knocks. She receded further into the corner as Hector went to answer it, and shrieked when the unclosing of it revealed a hooded priest flanked by two villagers bearing torches. Hector was taken aback by their presence, but he refused to let his confusion show on his face; for after all, he had a good idea why they had come, and thus planted himself firmly in the doorway, shielding his wife from their eyes.

“We’ve come for the witch,” the priest explained, cutting off the question that had been on the tip of Hector’s tongue. “Hand her over quietly and you will escape punishment.”

“I will not,” said Hector calmly.

“Then we will take her by force,” said the priest.

The two villagers who accompanied him stepped forward. Hector moved to stop them, but a fist plowed into his gut, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending him gasping to his hands and knees. Vaguely, he heard Rosaly crying his name, and then her demands that she be released; and he tried to rise to his feet so that he might aid her, only to be shoved back against the floor by a boot that ground into his spine.

“Rosaly!” he grunted, watching helplessly as she was dragged out of the corner by the other intruder.

“Bring him with us,” the priest ordered. Hector could only assume that he was the one to whom the priest referred. “Let him witness the punishment in store for one who shuns the word of God. Perhaps it will be punishment enough for his own sins.”

A hand clamped around the back of his neck and pulled him roughly to his feet. Having recovered from the earlier blow to his person, Hector managed to wrench himself free and, with a growl, land a punch on his captor’s jaw. The man stumbled back, pain and surprise registering on his face, and Hector moved in to follow up.

“Restrain him!” roared the priest.

The other villager shoved Rosaly into the priest, who wrapped his arm around her neck to hold her still. Hector found himself on the floor once more, a fist driving again and again into his face, until his nostrils and throat were so flooded with his own blood that he was choking on it.

If only I hadn’t renounced my powers... he thought vaguely as he was hauled to his feet and dragged from the small house he shared with Rosaly. But no; he must not think such things. If he had not renounced them, he would never have met Rosaly in the first place. And even if he had met her only to watch her die, he thought with a heavy heart, he was a better man because she had been a part of his wretched life.

When they reached the centre of the village, Hector found that a multitude of villagers were busy heaping wood upon a pyre. Fear gripped his heart, wrung it until he thought he just might die, and he saw, as his eyes met Rosaly’s, that she felt much the same.

And he thought, with no small twinge of guilt, that perhaps it would be best if she were to die of fear, because he could not save her from burning. Despite what he once was - despite his power, his affinity for magic - the fact was that he had abandoned that life, and he no longer possessed the strength to protect her.

The villagers grabbed her when they saw her, their manic cries rising to a roar, and they dragged her toward the pyre where she would ultimately burn. She glanced at him as she was forced onto the pile of wood, tears coursing down her cheeks - tears that would not provoke mercy from her accusers.

“Rosaly!” he screamed, tearing himself from the restraining hands on his shoulders. He could not save her, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. “Rosaly!”

He reached out, blindly, desperately, to take her hand, and for a moment their fingers brushed together. But then he was struck on the back of the head by a torch, and a kick to the ribs sent him sprawling on his stomach, pain racing through every nerve in his body. He again tried to rise, but another boot planted itself in his side, and then another, and another yet, leaving him to sob for breath, able to do naught but watch as Rosaly was secured to the stake with a long length of rope.

Another moment, and the flames began to lick up from the heap of wood at her feet. Her eyes met his, and for a fleeting moment, there was nothing but the sound of his own ragged, laboured breathing in his ears, and the coppery taste of blood in his own mouth, as they communicated for the final time.

I am afraid, her eyes seemed to say, but I don’t blame you. Goodbye, Hector; goodbye.

And then the crackle of the flames, the jeers of the villagers, the shrieks of his beloved as she roasted alive, all roared back into his ears in one painful rush. He cried out piteously and began to crawl away from the crowd. He could not watch. He refused to watch, even if it meant turning his back on Rosaly in her last moments.

He crawled and crawled, dirt crusting under his fingernails as he dug them into the earth to pull himself along. When he stopped, the dirt filled his mouth as he wept into the soil, too weak with pain and heartache to hold his head up any longer. He stopped at the edge of the forest, summoning the courage to look back but once. He saw the flames leap up to engulf the drooping form on the stake, obscuring her forever from his sight.

Only then did he allow himself to pass out.
 

It was almost dawn when he came to, but he got the distinct impression that he was no longer alone. He could hear someone breathing close to his ear - no, he could feel someone’s hot breath wash across his face. He blinked, squinting against the headache that pounded in his temples, and the world slowly came into focus.

“How good of you to join us,” purred a familiar voice in his ear.

Hector’s eyes shot open. Above him, upside-down, hovered Isaac’s face, his smirk the same as ever it had been, and yet somehow more cynical.

“You,” Hector spat.

“Yes, me,” Isaac crowed. “Come now, Hector, you didn’t really think I’d let you get away with betraying Lord Dracula, did you?”

Everything clicked into place, flooding him with such rage that he thought he would burst. He tried to sit up, but his body was unwilling to comply with the requests of his brain, and so he managed to do little more than wince. Isaac chuckled lowly at him.

“I’m getting rather bored now,” said Isaac, “so I’ll leave you to your recovery. But don’t keep me waiting long, Hector.” His hands cupped Hector’s cheeks, and his lips came to press hard against Hector’s forehead, warm and dry and stirring an ache in him that he hated himself for feeling. “You know how... impatient I can be.”

Another chuckle, and he was gone.

Hector lay there until dawn came, when he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled back to his house. His empty house, that was still so full of Rosaly even though she was no longer there.

He did not stay long. He scrubbed the blood and tears and dirt from his face. He opened the trunk at the end of his bed and pulled out the clothes he had worn in the service of Dracula and put them on. He sheathed the sword he had never intended to use again.

He left, and did not look back.