Once upon a time... there was a shade.

(Gabriel/Aldren)

A shade of himself was all he had to hold on to. The rest had been killed and drowned. He was locked behind bars, and inside he wept. There was a Father who didn't speak to him, there was a Mother who was dead - whose body he would not see. There was a love he couldn't love. There was a city where he would never be.

"Just give me the blood..." the words echoed throughout the cell. They crawled and slithered.

"That's one... two... four names... be back..."

He hadn't returned, and now the shade was frantic. There was a woman he tried to think about, but he couldn't remember her name, or if she had ever given it. There was something he kept trying to hum, a tune lost in the back of his mind... but his lips would not form it. Always and constantly there was a pulsing in his head and a pulling in his stomach. His skin crawled, his eyes burned, and his throat cried. For the first time in over sixty years the shade was actually breathing out of necessity, for if he didn't he felt he might implode.

The torch light flickered through from outside. Shadows danced on the walls, and where usually their edges would be followed by the shade, he was naught but unmoving. Unfeeling. Silent, and uncaring. Yet, his thoughts were a sea. A crimson sea.

'He knows... he knows... he knows the names were false.'
'How could he? How?'
'He's a Dryth! Could you not feel it? And you stupid, stupid - oh He would be disappointed.'
'I can't keep anything straight! I can't resist... I can't stop... my thoughts are like a mortals. They race, and, oh Lord help me! Lord help me!'
'What will--'
'No, no...'
'Tell him! Take revenge! The ones who put you in here, the ones who will take this city in their hands and crush it, waste it.'
'No! I must get out. I can use them, use them all! If I can get out, they'll find the ones who can be converted, and I'll teach them...'
'You won't get out - just tell him. Take your revenge on those souls who would kill with only the purpose to kill.'

'I remember something... a vision long ago... there was a sad man, and I felt him through every bone of my body. He echoed inside of me, and me inside of Him. To me He showed a vision of a garden in night, with beauty on the air, upon my nose, and in my eyes. Speckled in starlight every flower opened and closed, with each softly taken breath of the night...'

Now the flowers bleed red, and the shade might reach for them... but they crumble.

'Here am I sitting in a tin can...'

(Gabriel)

The blood isn't everything.
The blood isn't everything.
There's more to it, there has to be. More to Him... more to Us...
Just a curse. Something we need, something to be dealt with like a fly.
It isn't everything.

I have never lied to myself about this. I've always known I've been trying to convince myself. It's always been a battle against myself, to tell myself that there is more. There is love, there are shadows, there is freedom, and truth. Yet never before have I been losing the battle so badly.

Who am I kidding? I've lost the war.

I've never wanted it more. I used to prolong it, prolong it so that when I took it it would be all the more sweet. Now it has been prolonged too long. On the edge of my vision I can see it, a crimson veil, and the tightening in my chest returns to me like lightning. Every vein which is on the man, shackled across from me, is apparent. Every pulsing -glorious- vein.

Stark beauty, and beauty it is, if I could but slice it open. I want it. I need it, so badly. It calls to me and calls, and there's no echo anymore to stop it. I am forsaken, forsaken and at the mercy of the curse.

I'm afraid I won't be able to stop anymore... I was a fool to forsake it so. I was thirsty when they put me in here, and now, now my very essence is slipping away behind it. Blood runs down my wrists from where the shackles cut into me. If I could break loose... I must break loose. I can't handle this. It's not the pain, no it isn't. It's knowing that the blood is all I want. It's never far from my thoughts. I don't want to find Lilian, I don't want to stay with her, I don't want revenge, I don't want to have the mortal love come with me into the night...

I don't want to play a fucking lute.
I don't want my violin...
Oh Father...

I just want the blood.