Title: In Scarlet
Fandom: Castlevania (TV)
Rating: G
Length: 1079 Words
Content notes: Takes place some time after SE 2. Mentions of genocide and corpses.
Author notes: None.
Summary: During a trip to the castle's library, Alucard gazes far too long and hard into the instrument of his father's vengeance, and within those splinters of glass, sees things both tender and terrible.

It stems from far too much curiosity, and even as strong as Alucard's self-control is, the reflective shards call to him. Although the throne lies abandoned and rusting in the castle's grand ballroom, it's as if his father's presence lingers. Sometimes Alucard still glimpses his skulking around the corridors or lingering in the doorway, gazing back at him with eyes soulless and empty. Things are never the same after a tragic loss such as theirs, and forgiveness is even more difficult to embrace, but he found a greater love to triumph over his grief: that of his mother.

Lowering the book,  he takes another cautious glances across the room to be sure that the mirror still lies in pieces on the ground, and behold, so it does for the hundredth time this evening. He half-expects the relic to reassemble itself and his father to lumber forth from its surface, threatening the infant peace they worked so hard to achieve. He blinks away the ghosts forming therein and returns to the tome at hand, studying once more.

'Do you see now, son? The principle is simple to understand once you strip away the formulae and incantations.'

Eyes widening with the sudden intrusion of memory, Alucard quickly flips the pages until he happens upon something unfamiliar to him and resumes his quiet study. He starts to pace around the table and workbench as he reads, circling the stools and crossing the room until something crunches beneath his boot.

'Adrian, you found me! What a clever boy!'

Gasping loudly this time, he drops the book and backs away from the pile of broken glass in front of the mirror stand.

"When did I...?" he questions himself, bracing himself on the workbench behind him. His golden eyes narrow and he staggers forward a bit, afraid to let go of the bench's edge lest he fall forward somehow. "No, please. Not again."

She's there in the mirror this time, her lovely image clearer than daylight, and she runs through the halls being chased by a small child with hair as golden as his eyes. There's laughter and shouting, and just as the boy rounds the corner of the library, a shadow suddenly overtakes him.

'What have I told you about chasing after women, young man?' jokes his father as he scoops the boy up into his arms and holds him against his chest. 'They're liable to charm you so that you lose yourself entirely!'

His mother circles the opposite corner of the corridor and has her hands on her hips, mock annoyance leaping across her face. 'The way you were charmed, you mean? If I recall, Vlad Tepes, you were the one who tried to romance me at first.'

'Sadly, to no avail...' Vlad whispers to his son, earning himself a giggle. 'Your mother has quite the force of will.'

The family moves into the library after, and as Lisa goes to kiss her husband, the flames leap forth from the fireplace and consume them until naught remains but an inky image across the shards of glass. Alucard kneels and touches one of them, quickly retracting his hand as if burned. Dread scrapes at the bottom of his stomach as the embers rekindle anew.

"Please," he begs, "don't show me anymore."

Memories not his own dance in flickers of orange across the shards now, and he sees his mother tethered to a wooden post before a crowd of angry onlookers. Her beautiful hair shorn and her face is marred with bruises. They're all chanting, 'witch, witch,' and Alucard claws at the floor with fear and rage swirling within. The kindling beneath his mother is lit and he scrambles forward on his knees, tears flowing freely now.

'Forgive them!' she screams into the ashen air. 'And do them no harm for theirs is already a hard enough lot!'

Clutching at the shard containing the sole image of his mother as she burns, Alucard is unaware of the blood bubbling to the surface of his skin and running down his wrist to drip onto the shards below. His fangs grind as he tries to contain his emotion, but his rear hits the floor and he curls into his knees, sobbing.

"Adrian."

"Stop it!" he howls. "No more! Torment me no longer!"

A voice, dark and clearer than ever, calls out to him once more, "Cease your bawling and look at me, son."

Alucard looks up from his hands and over at the pieces with horror reflected in his eyes, for his father is staring back at him from the mirror now. His stomach drops but still he clings to the shard that held his mother's dying image, even as he crawls across the floor to where the mirror lies now. He narrows his eyes and reminds himself, "You're not real."

"Are you so certain?" asks his father, seated amidst a sea of corpses and gore. "Look around me, take a good look. Behold the the lives taken in the name of your mother, for the sake of our love and family."

"You were insane," Alucard breathes heavily. "You still are."

Vlad chuckles and smirks. "Am I the one seeing visions in shattered, disenchanted mirrors?"

Silence pervades the entire library and Alucard cannot tear his eyes from his father's image, commanded by his powerful presence to stay put.

"My vengeance has yet to be completed," Vlad continues on, gesturing to the torn corpses pooling with their own blood at his ankles. "You could be the next instrument of her retribution, if you liked, and I would forgive all the wrong you have done me. Come, son, take up the bloody mantle you were meant to inherit and --"

"Never," Alucard spits, finding his resolve once more. He gathers the mirror shards one by one and saves the one glimmering with his father's reflection for last. "That is not the legacy my mother left for me to inherit."

Before Vlad has another chance to express his extreme disappointment or anger, Alucard drops the shards into a trunk and covers them with a thick, ratty blanket. He slams the lid down and locks it, looping the key on a chain around his neck. Absently licking the blood from his fingers, he crosses the room to retrieve his fallen book and continue with his studies.

"Stay in my memories," he says softly and glances over at the trunk, "where you belong."