The Fallen Vampire

In Aja's bedroom, she and Taira were sitting crosslegged on her bed and staring at each other without saying a word.

Well, Aja was staring.

Taira's focus was on his sketchbook in his lap- where he was drawing a scene of his home explicitly from memory.

"Are we actually going to converse today?" she finally asked.

Taira briefly looked up from his sketchbook and a bit of a surprised light showed in his eyes.

Aja finally realized that Taira hadn't actually recognized he hadn't said anything.

He had done something similar to this yesterday too.

He simply sat on her ceiling and stared at her for hours before he suddenly left at one point; likely because he sensed his wives were looking for him.

Were she still capable of laughter, she would have found this all to be terribly amusing.

"How does someone with five wives have such difficulty maintaining or initiating conversation?"

For the first time, Aja saw traces of a smile show up on Taira's face.

"My loves... they are better with this sort of thing than I. They all have loud, outgoing personalities that make conversation so fun and easy... I would likely still have difficulty talking to anyone if they were not so adamant in befriending me beforehand."

His smile suddenly faded, and he looked back at Aja with a somewhat blank look.

"But you are just like me to an extent. That is why I thought that I would have no need to talk and we could simply pass the time together silently."

"But if we are to foster friendship, would it not be better to converse somewhat? Learn each other's basic interests?"

"I... suppose that would not be unfruitful." Taira admitted.

Finally, he put his drawings away and sat with a look of mild interest in his eyes as he placed his chin in his hand.

"What are your hobbies?" she asked.

"Reading... drawing... cultivating...sleeping."

"What a terribly interesting life you lead."

Taira's eyes narrowed and Aja held up her dark blue hands in surrender.

"That was my attempt at humor."

"...I see... Your disposition makes it difficult to understand."

Aja showed the closest thing that she could to a wry smile as she placed her hand over her chest.

"Forgive me.. It has been a very long time since I have tried to converse normally and establish friendships. I still have not gotten very good at acting as I once did."

"...This is to be expected. You have lost much more than what most would consider bearable. It is no surprise that you have difficulty returning to how you were once before."

"You know of my history?" Aja responded with a raised brow.

"I do indeed. My love is one for storytelling and she mentioned you two were quite close before."

Aja thought back to the days where the Ascalon castle still stood tall.

It was true that she and Enyo used to spend a fair amount of time together, but that was more because the somewhat ditzy poltergeist had a way of inserting herself wherever she felt like whenever she felt like it.

Since Aja was the kind of person who barely ever slept, Enyo would sneak into her room and sleep in her bed while she was supposed to be working or the prince was spending time with his fiancé.

Their relationship was an odd one, but it was not unpleasant.

Aja even recalled that she wanted to be sad when she thought that Enyo passed away, but with her lack of emotions she found it impossible.

"Speaking of the past... I also wanted to apologize to you."

"Hm?"

"The way that you were treated when your inability was discovered... it was unfair. You were deserving of much more than you were given."

Aja could still remember it.

Back then, Taira hardly ever came out of his room and even when he did, he specifically was not allowed to go into rooms or halls that his parents were already in.

He had to live quietly, in secret, and with his head down.

For him to go from being the favored son to the one they didn't even like to talk about was more than a little difficult to bear.

Aja often wanted to say something, but because she had no wish to anger the second queen, and so she continued to ignore him like most everyone else.

When she saw him again after 550 years with new tails and all, the first thing that she wanted to do was apologize to him.

And once she did, she was surprised to find Taira still sitting down motionlessly opposite her, as if her apology had no effect on him.

Eventually, she realized that was because he did not have any lingering memory of the past at all.

"My apologies... I seem to have said something useless."

Taira shook his head and a small forced smile made it's way onto his face.

"No... thank you for the kind intentions."

Though she could not force a reassuring smile onto her face like he had done, she did nod respectfully with a bit more warmth in her eyes than before.

Like that, the two spent several more hours getting to know each other, until an event would take place that would take the fallen continent by storm.

-

"Do you like sweet or savory foods?"

"Both, I suppose. Too much of either makes me feel sick."

"I am the same."

"Do you prefer to read fables or nonfiction literary works?"

"...I like romance novels."

"...Are you joking?"

"No. I have five wives to keep happy. They help me think of new ideas and keep our relationship fresh and new."

"You have accomplished a great feat today. In over 900 years, I believe this is the closest that I have come to laughing. Be proud."

Taira's eyes narrowed once again as he folded his arms across his muscular chest.

"You know, I'm starting to doubt that you were all that likable even when you had your emotions."

"This coming from the prince of brooding silences and nude portraits?"

"...I should have picked a better first friend."

It seemed like Aja was going to offer a retort when the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up and a chill ran down her spine.

Looking towards the window, she suppressed another shudder when she saw an ominous black storm approaching from the horizon.

"T-That's..."

"It took her long enough."

With a level of excitement that she hadn't seen from him in two days, Taira ran towards her window and pushed it open before leaping outside with remarkable agility.

He landed on the bridge right outside the front gates of the castle, and Vermeil, Enyo, Aveena, and Keran came flying out of it a few moments after he did.

They did not appear to arrive alone, as quite a few fallen servants streamed out behind them, no doubt lured by the overwhelmingly mighty presence they could feel emanating from the sky.

When the black clouds finally stopped overhead, a colossal figure broke through the obscuring winds.

Briefly, everyone thought they were dreaming, and some fell into an immediate panic.

The creature that had arrived was a snake-like monster over thirty five meters long with bright green scales.

It had a short but lethal looking pair of arms and legs that bore monstrously impressive black claws.

Even with it's mouth closed, it's enormous but pristine white fangs could not be fully hidden, and a mere look was enough to downright terrify any who gazed at them.

Enormous dark horns curled out from it's head like pillars of jagged rock, and it's burning red eyes burned with... delight?

Aja: "I-It's... it's-"

Vermeil: "SHENRON!"

Aveena / Keran / Enyo : "No!"

Vermeil: "I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"

Smiling wide enough for his two fangs to be revealed on full display, Taira held out his arms as he stared up at the majestic creature in the sky.

"You said you had a surprise for me and I am certainly not disappointed. But you know we must culminate our reunion the proper way, right?"

The dragon let out some kind of hissing noise before it shimmered with a golden light, and disappeared entirely.

Falling from the sky in its place was the most beautiful woman Taira had ever seen, and one he already happened to be married to.

"Did you miss me?" Lucia said with a wide smile.

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