the neverending knight chapter 1

The Neverending Knight

Chapter 1

He sat there, waiting patiently for the rain to stop. Always the rain was his nemesis, if he were to stand within it, he would be paralyzed by its hold over him.

He was an immortal, a vampire. He'd lived for centuries just wandering the world, righting wrongs with his crimson blade, intruding where he did not belong and slaying those he deemed evil. Equal parts villain and hero, he was little more than a specter here, in the rainstorm.

But it had not always been so. Once, he had loved the rain as dearly as if it were a lover, he lived for running through it without an umbrella, felt sheltered by it.

Now however? It was like a prison to him, it would force him into a frozen state and he'd not be able to move until it subsided.

And so he sat at the base of the tree, his long devil's horns, appendages that had grown thanks in part to his long life, gently accepting droplets of rainwater. They were jet black in appearance and jutted forward from his temples, just below his hairline.

Once, his hair, a proud ebony, had gone silver due to his long transformation into a creature of the night, and though his face would remain eternally beautiful, it had once been the face of a rugged barbarian. A bit babyfaced as well, but his eyes had always glowed with a feral hunger since before he became a vampire.

With the change to his flesh came the change to his very genetic coding, and his body took on a more “Noble” appearance, his face had changed drastically, he was almost unrecognizable now. His nose was thin and narrow, his eyes were gentle and serene, his lips full, but not as they had been, a bir more drawn than before, but not to any extreme. His chin, once thick and full, had become thin and graceful, and even his brow, once jutting out like a sheld, had sunken in a bit to allow more of his hair to fall forward.

He wore a wide brimmed hate to hide all save the horns, which were a foot long and could not be hidden or cut off. They would simply grow back within the week thus the effort was futile, indeed, he vampire had adorned them with gems and jewels, all of which were enchanted.

He wore a slightly off-green trenchcoat that was riddled with spelltags designed to keep his power from overwhelming him, to take the coat off meant he would be consumed by his own vampiric side and become monstrously hungry. To avoid this problem he had designed the coat with healing spells and great sealing enchantments to keep the hunger from wiping his senses away.

His name was lost to history, now he had none. He was a thing now, not a man. No identity, for ego was a decidedly human need. He was no longer human.

He sat in the rain, thinking only of the next meal, thinking only of the next person he might save. But he gave no thought to how, or why he saved them, he thought only of food, and of things to distract himself during his long eternity.

Ten thousand he was today, his birthday had come and gone faster than he had bothered to keep track, and now he was trapped in a rainstorm, waiting for it to pass.

He leaned against the tree he used as shelter, wrapping himself comfortably in his rainproof cloak and he settled in for the long wait.

The vande forest, a place belonging to the old fairy king, did not harm him, indeed it knew better than to even try. Even so, one could never be too careful, even now, amid the towering celestial trees, trees the size of the skyscrapers of old earth, the realm he once called home, he could see them leering down fearfully, watching him.

His kind weren't welcome here, but the fairy king had long ago struck a bargain with him, out of gratitude for his aid.

Once, his humanity and thus his “ego” had granted him the desire to save the fairy king's daughter, and the fairy king, understanding him to be young at the time, had acknowledged this desire and repaid it with an eternal welcome in his dominion.

But the king knew a fundamental truth that he did not, could not have known. That when one is a vampire, ego will eventually cease to be, and function will dictate one's actions. Humans, as far as he knew, were creation's greatest actors, for they made for themselves a “self” and acted it out, the very idea of identity was intrinsic to them. But becoming a vampire would eventually reveal a haunting truth. Selfhood is a lie, a fabrication of the mind. When a vampire grows to be a certain age they are “cured” of the madness of self and simply cease to allow the middleman of ego into their thoughts. They become what they always were, beings whose actions come without the pretense of self.

But a hero requires a sense of self, to be aught else is dangerous. All that allowed the vampire to identify himself as a hero was habit now.

He wondered...how many had he wrongfully slain out of this habit? How many lives had he taken in his immortal journey? Who deserved to live? Who deserved to die? To be a vampire was to ignore this pretense of “heroism” entirely. Paradoxically, the “self” of the vampire as he was now was one that continued gripping tightly to the idea of heroism, even though it held next to no value now.

The young man who had saved the fairy king had died due to slow decay of the self, and in its place, an altruistic monster that followed its former ego's commandment without giving any particular question as to “why” it just did.

The fairy king had known this deterioration would take place, had known the vampire would eventually lose his humanity and become like the dogs or the wolves of the world. A creature that didn't base its actions on its sense of identity, but its needs, thus their relationship was doomed from the onset.

Though they were on good terms, there was a keen understanding between the two. The vampire was welcome, but only up to a point. He could pass through, sleep and even hunt. But he could not live in vande. That was forbidden to his kind.

The rain subsided hours later, and the vampire rose, shaking the rainwater free from his cloak, it struck the soft, green grass with a gentle splatter as he took off, his black leather boots making not a sound as they all but floated over the thick grass and loamy soil of the forest floor.

“I'm leaving.” he said, largely out of habit.

He made way for his mother's castle, on the other side of this great forest. His “Mother” who had adopted him when he first came to this world, she was very much a gentle, kind hearted being, and had served as his mentor for many, many years.

But once upon a time, the two had been rivals, nay, enemies. He was a trespasser in her castle, and she was a vampire hungry for the blood of said trespasser.

Once upon a time, he had been a man called “jacob peregrin” and his life had been mundane, ordinary even. He was a barista at a coffee shop just doing what he always did, serving coffee in modern day america.

That is, of course, until the dragon king arrived to subjugate that world.