1. Refuge

He looked outside the wide arching window, where heavy rain fell upon the world on a cold afternoon. This was the fourth day in a row when the even thrumming persisted against the silent walls of the castle. But then, at least my tomb is dry inside, he through wryly. The presence looked to the door of the chamber he was in, which now opened with a dust trodden creaking sound to allow its master passage.

He paced through one of many endless hallways of the ancient structure with his elegant gait, one hand reaching behind his neck. Long fingers halfheartedly glided through fair unbound hair of a light amber sheen. He descended the wide balustrade lost in thoughts of all and nothing, his bright golden eyes dimmed in meandering streams of forgotten times.

As ever his gaze strayed to the wide painting adorning the wall to his right, depicting two figures. Blue eyes filled with purpose and shrouded by kindness stared back into his. Lately it seemed to him they were alive. He looked to the other figure immortalized on canvas. His eyes narrowed. Menacing but contained, it was yet one of the rare, if not sole existing representation of his father void of his renowned merciless and sullen might. He appeared...

Almost human, he lowered his eyes in a frown.

"Adrian, Adrian stop your fleeing this instant!" her voice still rang through the corridors of his mind, accompanied by her surrounding light and a slight scent of lavender and rosemary.

Caring arms wound around him. "I know you are loath to attend when the sun is so bright outside, but your lessons are not to be trifled with," the fair-haired woman told the vision of her bright son, whose small face was puckered in exasperated annoyance.

The images evaporated into nothing before him, leaving the youthful being in the solitary company of his half-human heart, and its soundless beating.

His mother had always trusted them more than was perhaps wise. Now, after having barely survived an attempt to his own life at their hands, he was beginning to understand the determination of his father, if only an iota. He would never, and could never accept the unfathomably cruel ways in which the great Dracula Vlad Ţepeş had chosen to confront his pain. Attempting to wipe humanity off the face of the earth as his last death cry had been a frightening goal even to his generals - and an achievable one at that, which made it all the more necessary to be thwarted.

Necessary. It was necessary, the being thought again.

How interesting that you feel the need to keep telling yourself that, an antagonizing thought hit him with the force of a physical blow. A new thought, spanning from a different corner of his mind, and one come alive only after the harrowing event of a past not far removed. He looked to the silence about the wide hall, where sparsely lit torches shadowed broken furniture and the echoes of a great and lavish legacy. And then memory returned him to the recent past. When he thought he had found a compress to the aching void left behind by the departure of the scholar and the hunter. When he had thought to find that flicker of humanity, ever alive and driving a part of himself. But he had mistaken betrayal for sincere interest and companionship, and with it came proof that humanity was burdened with it.

Their corpses may have rotted away by now, he was not sure. He had not gone outside ever since. Not for work, not for gathering or tending gardens or even delving into the rich knowledge of the Belmont vault he guarded, stood below the castle of the father he had felled. Not for feeding like the vampire kin of his father would. But lately, he found the endless struggle for power within leaned more towards his vampiric side rather than the soft, carefully crafted steadfastness inherited from his human mother.

The downpour continued outside. The soundless sound of his steps his only company, the tall fair figure changed his direction in the great and empty abode towards the space which made the library. Loneliness had ever been his mate, but now with the disillusion of recent events, where he had been forced to end two beings he had truly and authentically cared for, well, it seemed seclusion would be his forever tenant. And he had cared for them, and would have imparted with the humans all that he knew in time. They had come knocking at his door in search of a master, after all. And he had done his part, though perhaps failing to account for the impatience defining human race as a whole. And failing to recognize its ruthless desperation owed to the brief flames which were human lives. Yes, he had stalled. And yes, he had grown accustomed to their presence. Mistakes to learn from. He had also ended them both as forced by circumstance. The wound was still there, yet raw. And even as he had speared their bodies through and hung them before his gates, he considered retrieving them after for proper burial.

But then he had not.

Let them stand guard to my secrets, as was their wont. Let the others see. Fear was what they knew best, and what drove them. And it will drive them away from here. Was not living death endured better in solitude?

He walked in lieu of using his lightning fast shifts in space, his form weakened from his intentional renouncing of sustenance. Even blood would make do, though he denounced the taste of it to the heavens.

Having descended the stairs and into the great entry hall, just as the tall figure was about to take a left towards the library he heard a desperate and insistent rapping at the great doors to the castle. His movements turned stealthy in the blink of an eye, and the following second found him at the other end of the hall. The strikes had ceased and instead he heard the doors creak open. He had rescinded locking them at all since setting the bodies of the young warriors Taka and Sumi outside. And truth be told... did he even need or want protection? His thought was severed by the immediate assail on his senses. The incensed and fearful scent of warm, human blood.

Who on earth would dare go past the horrors at the gate, to enter here?

She ran. She ran as fast as her feet took her, through wood and fen, stumbling over gnarled limbs and underbrush protruding from the forest bed. Branches and tree boughs scraped against her cheeks. Leaves caught in her pitch black hair as she stumbled in her flight, wary of the sounds of hooves drawing nigh, gaining on her. It had been unwise to linger, most unwise indeed. But now here she was, and the young woman was losing ground the closer she heard the desperate whinnying of horses.

"Get back here you damned slut!" one was calling with ire in his bloodshot eyes, a heavy bearded man in robes of black and gold.

The woman was on her last remaining strength and she faltered, close to falling to her knees. And her eyes were beginning to deceive, as before her she thought there materialized the walls and gates of an abode. No... that was no mirage nor a fancy of the mind. The gate did exist! The great doors were indeed physical, and closer with each beat of time. She lunged forward with renewed hope, the primal will to survive taking precedence and fueling her desperate flee with a burst of strength. Soon the trees were sparser and she reached a clearing of sorts, bolting straight towards the highly reaching heavy wooden doors.

Were those...-

Her heart dropped to her feet as the escapee gaped, wide eyed, towards the two figures impaled about the entrance to the great castle. She turned to look behind her, where the riders pursuing her so fervently had skidded to a halt at the edge of the clearing. Their eyes were set on the same hanging rotten bodies, on the wide archways and tall towers of the ominously silent building. Their faces then focused on her, and hatred shone bright and dark through their eyes. They hurled insults and threats as far as the wind took them, but seemed to dare go no further.

The young woman wavered, and straightening her back she pulled her tattered cloak about her shoulders. She walked closer on hesitating steps, the faint scent of decay assailing her senses. She looked back to the riders. They were still watching her, determinedly waiting to see what she would do. If she went back into the forest, she was theirs. She narrowed her eyes at them before looking back to the tall doors.

The only way, Ravenna. Squaring her shoulders and steeling the shivering of her wearied and buckling feet, she went straight towards the castle doors in a flurry, striking at them until her fists hurt. When no answer came she looked back to her pursuers again, only to see them slowly approaching from the other side of the clearing.

Desperation taking hold, she groaned and with one last shred of an attempt she halfheartedly took the heavy handle in her hands, and pressed downward.

A/N:

Hi there,

This is my first fan fiction attempt for this fandom, AKA a little plot bunny left in my head after watching Castlevania Season 3. So listen, I wanted to see something different for Alucard (I mean... how miserable can one get?). One caveat: this fic follows the Netflix animated series, not game lore. It will also be very, very AU.