In the Old House, after Esther has gone to bed, Rhyaad and Meili linger in the living room. Meili is disturbed, and finally makes a lengthy confession to Rhyaad that makes Rhyaad drop his hostilities against the man and feel a deep sympathy for his suffering, even if he does not express this explicitly.
I didn’t think I’d know how it feels to do things and get nothing done. Meili admits.
“Frustration is one of the things we have to learn to deal with. Especially with just about everything in this case.” Rhyaad agrees.
“This might come as a surprise to you, Rhyaad. But, I’m not losing my mind again.”
“Good. I was worried for a moment there.”
“I’m a human, and you have no idea how much weight falls on my shoulders these days. You really don’t, and I really don’t appreciate you trying to lecture me.”
Of course, Rhyaads first impulse was to lecture. But he was well aware the man was on edge enough. He merely nodded. He though about how weak humans truly are best keep silent on that one too.
“. . . I told you that I needed to explain some things.” Meili sighs and forces himself to relax the guard he had been keeping carefully up since he returned. “The story I told you was only half a lie, but completely false . . . you probably realized at least the latter.”
“Oh?” Rhyaad sits back. “Not really. This whole affair is so twisted and bizarre I don’t know what to believe.”
“Yes. . . Let me think back,” Meili pauses and reaches up to scratch the back of his head. “I’ve told a number of different versions of the story for a number of different reasons. If I can remember which one I told you, I can explain the truth easier. . . maybe.”
“Perhaps you should do that then.” And Rhyaad begins looking for Nikki’s bottle of blood.
“Ah- I remember. You’re lucky, I told you one not far from the truth.”
“How about no lies?” He suggested, having found the bottle and proceeding to drink the blood directly from it.
“Where shall I begin? Let me see. . . I am the child of a Roma and a Norseman. Her name was Chell, his Voldyr. Both lived by the old ways, both ever faithful to their trade, both were hunted and did indeed meet on the run . . . They bore two children, two sons, two blessed with the mark of the Solomonari. My brother and I, Alexandru and Meili.”
Rhyaad nods listening to the story, but wondering.
“Axyl, he preferred. We were inseparable in childhood, training, and our later years . . . We went as we pleased and did what we wanted, traveling along with the troupe. Our family. Until it was shattered.” Meili sighs, and then closes his eyes to fight back pain that writhed up inside him and twisted his stomach up. “Axyl was stolen by the Knights, the Church took him away from us . . . My family was slaughtered, stolen away, taken as slaves. It was nothing from the beyond, but the Church itself. Mages under the banner of the Cross, barons, dukes, anyone who would buy us up. I did not lie about the blood on my hands, Rhyaad. But it was not my hand alone that was steeped in blood that night.”
“That’s terrible. Your home destroyed. Your brother lost.” Rhyaad adds in a low voice, “some similarities to my story.”
“He came to me, as would be expected, at the very moment my heart gave in. A jester of crimson roses, offering promises of freedom, revenge, and power . . . ”
“He?” He gulped at that.
“The Crawling Chaos, the Crimson Horror from Egypt, He Who Wears One-Thousand Masks . . . Nyarlathotep.” The blond shakes his head and looks off toward a window, “I took it. I had to take it, life or death . . . and I might very well have taken the wrong choice. All of them died, and I reveled in the blood and death. . . then ran, fled into the night. . . and met the only man I’ve ever let myself love. Rennard Benoit, an 19th century Robin Hood. . . or Lupin, whichever you prefer.”
“Your making . . . . I mean your story. It has similarities to the making of a vampire. To my making. Violence. Blood and death. Finding a man who showed me how to go on with life. I presume this is what Rennard did for you?”
“He taught me how to stop being a bumbling cutpurse and learn to be a proper g*******d thief.” The blond smirks, if only faintly. “How to get what I wanted, when I wanted, and have it handed to me by eager victims. Guile, charm, timing, stealth, skill, dexterity . . . He showed me how to take my rough little skills and make them art.”
“Can’t say I approve of thievery and deceit. But it’s far better than what I did, so I am not one who has a right to judge. But this man, Rennard. You loved him. He gave you a place in the world, yes?”
: “. . . He gave me more than a place. And I gave plenty to him in return.”
Rhyaad nods. Racing forward in his mind, he realizes this Rennard must have died. Else Meili would not have left him.
“. . . I lost controlor, maybe I never had it to begin with. I needed a place, needed warmth, needed love. . . I needed to be wanted and safe. Guess what happened next?”
“Losing control is not good. If I model your story after that of the fledgling vampire . . . . It means you killed someone?” Rhyaad guesses
“Not quite . . . someone died for me, but long before then he had met a fate much worse than death.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I was using my powers the whole time without realizing it. Slowly but surely, I chipped away at his will until he was nothing but a puppet on my strings. And so he was dead inside long before he threw his life away for me . . . simple as that.”
Rhyaad lets out a great sigh. “So you mean you did the things you were trying to do at the White Swallow, but you didn’t even realize what you were doing?”
“No, I was not nearly so cruel . . . I was a child, scared and alone. Lacking the ability to control my powers then, I merely projected that onto the most . . . convenient target. All without even realizing it. And so he became a mindless, loving guardian . . . and everything I was became lost to a deep darkness and an endless madness. My heart sank into the abyss, and Nyarlathotep had his prize.”
Meili scoffs and reaches up quickly to wipe his eyes. “The perfect tool. An unfeeling monster with an insatiable thirst for control, a lust for power, and the ability to spread chaos and madness anywhere his feet fell . . . What better a weapon for the Crawling Chaos himself?”
“Unfeeling? Really?” Rhyaad ventures to ask in that low voice. “Did you have no pity, no remorse, no love, even for your Rennard?”
“Nothing,” Meili nods. “All of it vanished. Somewhere in the darkness, I watched the creature I had become . . . every life I corrupted, every man I corroded . . . Everything I ruined. A prisoner in my own mind, stripped from control . . . left to watch in shackles as something new and horrible took the reins. It was all me, make no mistake . . . But, in the same way, it wasn’t. Like I had been split in half and buried under all the rubble . . . It’s complicated.”
“That must be terrible. Even a vampire in the lowest state enjoys the murder and bloodlust.”
“. . . I won’t lie. When Axyl, Cyrus, and Gregory set me free I wanted so badly to die . . . it was too much pain to bear.”
Rhyaad nods. He knew what it was like to want to die. “I can understand the pain. Not all that happened, certainly. But this pain I know.”
“Gregory was kind to me . . . He kept me close, watched me . . . knew the signs. Stopped me when I finally snapped and tried. Held me when I cried, showed me how to live again. Took me under his care, and showed me how to trust myself . . . ”
“Gregory?” Rhyaad could not help sounding quite surprised. “I had no idea . . . that you two were so close. . . I . . . I had left.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re that close . . . Kindred spirits, maybe? Broken birds, yearning to fly.”
“I would say. Your poetic language. What he did for you. Yes, you are close.”
“I can’t say we are, but I do enjoy spending time with him . . . I just . . . can’t be close to anyone. Not yet.”
“Is it because the memories are too painful?”
“Partly.” Meili nods.
“And the other part?” Rhyaad inquires, his blue eyes somehow looking sharp yet soft at the same time.
“Because,” The blond starts, but immediately holds up a hand to beg for a pause. The other flew up to his face and covered his eyes; there was warmth and wetness. He couldn’t bear to be seen, or to see through those eyes. . . . Because, I can’t do that to someone else again. I can’t watch the heart and soul of another person die so completely . . . In my mind, and in my heart there is a graveyard that extends farther than I would wish on my most hated enemy. The graves of every single soul I ever crossed paths with, every heart I ever broke, every mind I ever destroyed, every life I shattered . . . Bodies are all piled up, faces blurred in the mists of time and madness, blood-stained and desecrated ground everywhere . . . ”
“I was afraid you might say that. Afraid you would ‘do that to someone else again’. But you are a different person now, Meili. You have overcome the monster. And the memory of . . . the horrors you did, they can serve to keep you from ever doing such a thing again.”
“I don’t know that, yet . . . I don’t really know how strong or firm the grip I have is. I don’t know if it will fall out again or not someday, Rhyaad. I cant . . . All I can do is remember, move forward, and never put someone else in that kind of danger again.”
“When I was . . . a long time ago. . . ” Rhyaad struggles with a way to begin. Then stopped trying. “I killed so many, Meili. Especially that one night. It was a Tavern. I was so crazed. The beast was in me, and I just let it go. I killed them. I killed them all. Every man and woman and child in that place. Their faces haunt me forever. And last week, I bit my lover Oliver in the neck and drank his blood, then patched up his wound and made love to him. I’ve done that to him often, actually. You can learn strength and self-control you never thought you had. You can learn to love again.”
“Rule number one: Sex. Meilli says, Casual, never complicated. Brief little moments and then nothing more, or else I might break and take another life.”
“Do you really think you would . . . beak?”
“Rule two: Distance. Keep cool, coy, and playful. And keep everyone else as far away as possible, so you never have to chance to be a risk.”
“I was also a monster once, mellon. But I learned to be who I am today. I can love: I am loved. Oliver is far more then I deserve. It may seem to you now as if you could never love anyone again. As if you would do what you did before. But you are stronger now.”
“. . . I don’t know, Rhyaad. Until I do, those are the rules.”
“I’ve counseled many, over the years. I have seen people capable of remarkable things. I believe that one day, you too could overcome this part of your past. We are always weaker than we wish to be, but we can always be stronger than we think we can. We are what we were made: we choose who we become. Keep your rules, for now. But allow yourself to believe that one day you could bend them. That one day you can love, truly love again. I’m sorry Meili, I never understood before what you’ve been through. Hells, it’s worse then I have.”
The blond wipes his eyes a final time, and quickly dons the shades to hide them from the older male. “Enough of this depressing talk! This is about rescuing the dameselle in distress, saving the world from ancient evil. This is the stuff Bards will sing of for ages to come!” He turns and feigns a wild grin, the same as ever, the same expression that was half a lie, half a façade. “We’re heroes. And it’s the leading man’s job to keep a sly grin and move on until the curtains close, it won’t do to have a mopey and tragic star. I’d rather shine!”
“I am sure you will, like a star. Tel Rilmar e ilmen, lle naauva, mellon en amin.” Rhyaad says and then “The Shiny one in the night sky, you shall be, friend of mine,” he translates.
“You’re too kind,” The blond grins, and a dry chuckle escapes him. . . . Alright, we’ve got a monster to hunt down, a priestess to find, a lady in waiting to rescue, and many, many people just waiting for us to take down along the way.” The blond holds out his hand then, reaching for Rhyaad. “No time like the present, right? Even for a broken bird to spread his wings and fly.”
“I have been a cruel monster and a kind gentle lover, and an arrogant Elf, and everything in between. I tend to preach because of what I’ve been through. Yes, we have monsters to fight, damsels to rescue, worlds to save. Seems like the monsters wanting to destroy the world these days need to line up and take a number.” He takes Meili’s hand. “And perhaps friendships to make? But we will prevail if we are strong in our hearts. Perhaps you missed the 60’s?”
“I missed a lot, but maybe I’ll go there next for the fun of it.”
“It was groovy, man. I mean, like, really wow.” Rhyaad grins. “Now lets go get busy.”
“Better late than never.” He nods, and gave a grin that none could fake. “Let’s get to it, then!”
Rhyaad sings a bit of a tune.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.”
Cue Music End of Episode