/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>44754807
More soap opera Hong!
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My horse only speaks English, so I sold it. Somehow I still don't feel like a hero, dressed with this thick cloak to hide femininity and a head of red like the apples of my homeland, shattered by the bubonic plague. But like many times, it came and went, and the people rose again... Yet unchanged. Weird how no matter how things change, they always remain the same. That's my main motive to be here, so far west on Evropa and looking for an opportunity to journey even further, to this 'New World' as the portugueses de Portugal called it. Maybe there I'll see something different...

Not another kingdom rising from the ashes of the previous one and then returning to these same ashes, hopefully.

The city of Granada welcomed me with thieves and opportunists, and dodging them was almost a training by itself, and there's even a proud note on my part for selling that old and sick horse for some good reais: it meant I won't be hunting for food for some time -- Spain doesn't have the best of faunas --; concealed from curious gaze I descended the city's tight quarter ways entrenched between buildings of barroco, occasionally slapping pickpockets like my master would slap my hand for trying to get seconds: 'unfit of a lady', he'd say, and I'd reply, 'What about a warrior?'

The old fart then would smile and say: 'even less fitting for a dragon warrior.'

Sometimes I wished I could block his Ki paths. Beneath the thick robe, I smiled fondly.

But something puts a stake in my memory lane, a sound unnoticed by the busied people going and coming. To a youkai, it is as clear as the sky above my head. Frowning, I pursue the echoing sound through vielas and becos, paths up and down, like the hunting trials I was put during the height of the Kingdom of Madness, the sound becoming grating and shrill and soon revealing itself in the form of two small frames slumped against a wall in the darkness of an occult varanda, away from prying eyes. I could taste a sort of magic in the air.

Glittering eyes of red flared and stared at me, dense and slit, eyes of death. My own eyes rapidly adjusted to the lack of light and shaped tattered clothes that, if not frayed, would belong on the court of a king of crimson. Folded cartilage on the girl's back gave me the last needed clue: a pure-blooded vampire.

In moments like these humans would certainly panic or maybe rage and kill, following their simple natures; maybe that's what happened to the pint-sized vampire, just tall enough to steal something from the dinner table before supper is ready: Alone with a crying baby, clothes dirty and worn, nightshade hair disheveled, ki weak; there leaves no much interpretation.

Was it inquisidores? Cruzados? A pack of vampire hunters?

I try a step forward, and she clutches the baby as if her life depended on it and displays her fangs; like a wild animal. A tiny and battered one. I raise my hands and slowly pull off my hood, revealing a curtain of red and smile motherly like those in the memories in the back of my mind. The girl doesn't move, just reinforces her position. The baby, blonde like the sun, cries even louder. A spell, it seems, makes it impossible for common people to hear it properly.

For how long is she maintaining the spell? Since she ran away from Greek Fire and silver spears? Even before that?

Calmly, I sit on the other side of the varanda, ten feet apart, back on a pillar, and stare at the two girls. The older sister tries nothing, staring back with pride despite her situation, and I can't hope to restrain a small laugh. She frowns, but her eyes soon harden when she spots me pulling something from beneath the cloak.

I wonder if she suspected a sword of prata, a cruz de Jesus, maybe even garlic? I raise a joyous eyebrow with the whiplash when she sees a héngdi old as the first oak tree ever planted.

Moistening my limps and not hindered by darkness, I play to my crowd of two -- a new record! Yes! --, this lullaby that goes by: 'Águas de Março'.

It's haphazardly put together, it makes no lyrical sense, it's a febre terçã, and is played with a smile and a light heart.

It's music that brings the end of the tiredness.

Eyes sore and mouth slightly agape, the older sister watches as the younger one's crying slowly ceases, substituted by sound sleep, scarlet eyes on me as the music goes on and on until its final note. As if relieved of an impossible burden, her face twists into easy relief, and invisible purple magic circles pop out before disintegrating. She seems to breathe for the first time ever.

"What's your name?" I ask. She stares, gasping for air.

"Remilia Escarlate, descendant of Vlad Tepes Dracul..." It appears she can't find strength for more. I look at the sleeping baby; Remilia understands the unspoken question. "This is Flandre, my little sister."

I smile and nod.

"I'm Hong Meiling. It's a pleasure to meet you, Remi and Flan."