AMoS Chapter 3-3

[eiahmon]

Title: A Moment of Stupidity Part 3: 1,118 - 1,450
Rating: R for language, and mentions of RAPE and M/M SLASH. Don’t like, then don’t read.
Disclaimer: Castlevania and its characters and situations are the sole property of Konami. I am making no money or profit off of this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: AU. What if Joachim Armster had lived through his fight with Leon Belmont? What might have been different? Well hang on, because Joachim is going to tell you all about it. From his kidnapping and forced turning to his rescue from the ruins of Walter’s castle, and from Trevor's birth and to Richter's death of old age, he tells all - and blames it all on Leon while he's at it.
Section Summary: Part 3 covers the 332 years between Leon's death and Castlevania: Legends.
SPOILER WARNING!!! Spoilers for many of the Castlevania games!!
WARNING!! This fic my offend the religious! Read at your own risk!

3.
Returns

The journey from our home in what is now Wallachia to the Bernhard family lands in Germany took only six days. It was never voiced, but the both of us were thinking of a young Walter, devastated by the loss of his parents and child, starving, and fearing for his life, running in the opposite direction. Since he had been much younger and less powerful, he had moved much slower, and from what he had been told, Silvanus figured that Walter had been on the run for nearly three weeks before he collapsed from exhaustion on Silvanus' lands.

We crossed onto Bernhard land in the late evening, and our presence was noted immediately. To my surprise, Kerwin did not wish to avoid any that would come for us. Instead he waited patiently on the edge of the territory that he said was Gannet's. Soon enough, he said, they would find us.

He was correct, because we had been waiting less than 20 minutes when we were swarmed by nearly a dozen members of the Bernhard family, bound, and marched towards Gannet's small castle. I was more than a little nervous about it; there were so many of them, and I knew that there was very likely more scattered about. Kerwin, on the other hand, seemed completely unconcerned and unfazed.

In short order, we arrived at Gannet's castle, and Kerwin and I were taken into the main hall, where the entire family had gathered. Men, women, children, everyone was there, most with the same red hair that Walter had possessed. I did spot one that did not; a woman with wavy black hair, and the resemblance between her and Kerwin was startling. I realized then that I was looking at his mother.

We were marched up to a dais at the far end of the hall, where a vampire with long hair the color of red wine and eyes that reminded me of a storm front was standing. His clothes were finely made and decorated with delicately done embroidery, which screamed wealth and power.

We were halted at the foot of the steps leading up onto the dais, and the low murmuring going on in the room fell silent when Gannet raised a hand. He then dropped his hand and regarded us silently for a second.

“Kerwin Bernhard and Joachim Armster.” he said, and I couldn’t help the shiver than ran up my spine at the sound of his voice. He sounded so much like Walter; he had a rich ringing baritone that sounded nearly identical to his nephew’s. “My nephew’s son and child. I offer you my deepest sympathies on the loss of your own son, Kerwin.”

“I would thank you for them,” Kerwin replied easily ‘if I believed for an instant that you were speaking truthfully.”

Gannet laughed then, and again he sounded so much like Walter that I shivered.

“Do you not like the sound of my voice, child?” Gannet asked; he had seen my shiver “I heard multiple times when Walter was a child that he and I sounded alike. Does the sound of your master’s voice frighten you?”

“Walter is not my master.” I said, shocked at my own boldness and the firmness of my voice “He has not been so in over two centuries.”

“Yes, I know all about Walter’s death. Foolish child, he pissed off the wrong human, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but at least he didn’t condemn his nephew to death because of an accident.” Kerwin replied. I heard the others in the room shuffle nervously at his words, but Gannet only laughed again.

“You are a bold one.” he commented, sounding amused “I shouldn’t be surprised though, considering who raised you. Walter never did learn to respect his betters, shame on Emery and Leila for not educating their child properly.”

“Blame my mother for refusing to have a hand in my upbringing.” Kerwin said calmly, but I could feel his rising anger through our sibling bond.

Gannet chuckled. “That is true, very true. Why don’t we rectify that? Siomha, come here please, and let your son know that you’re here.”

There was a second’s pause, and Kerwin abruptly staggered. He managed to keep his feet, but I could easily feel his shock at the sudden flaring of a parent/child bond that up until then had been held closed. Footsteps rang out clearly on the stone floor, and the black haired woman that I had seen early walked up to stand beside Gannet.

“Hello my son.” she said quietly.

“Lady Mother.” Kerwin all but spat the words, and I knew that the respectful title was more sarcasm than anything.

"Well at least your father taught you some manners." Gannet replied, sounding oddly pleased.

"And he didn't leave me to starve after birth either. So which is worse, Gannet? A vampire father that fails, as you put it, to teach his child properly, or a vampire mother that refuses to feed her newborn son?"

"I did no such thing!" Siomha shrieked, and Kerwin just snorted.

"So my father was lying to me when he said that I was so ill when I was handed over to him that I was nearly four months old before I started to behave and respond like a normal infant?"

Siomha blinked at the accusation, and Gannet gave her a dangerous look. Laws were laws, and by starving her newborn son and risking his life, she had broken one.

Gannet waved his hand at us. "Take them away; I will deal with them later. Siomha, you and I need to have a chat." Siomha cringed as we were led away, and Kerwin wore a self satisfied smirk on his face. We were taken to a cell in the dungeon, and as soon as the door slammed shut behind us and the heartbeats of our escort had receded, Kerwin sagged with relief, only then showing how nervous he was. We waited until our guards had retreated down the corridor, and then Kerwin opened the bond between us as far as it would go.

Do not speak out loud in here. he told me mentally. They will hear everything we say, no matter how quiet we are. Right now I'm holding the bond between myself and the rest of the family closed, so we may speak freely this way.

I nodded. Now what do we do?

Wait for our chance.

Chance? You really intend to challenge Gannet?

I will not spend the rest of my existence looking over my shoulder, and I will not have Matatias living in fear.

Are you sure that you can take him?

We will have to wait and see, won’t we?

That doesn’t make me feel any better.

Kerwin gave me a wry smile, and the bond between us closed down to its normal level.

We passed the night in quiet contemplation, and I was glad that we had hunted before crossing onto the Bernhard lands, since we had no idea if they were going to provide that sort of thing. Sometime after midnight, I glanced up at one corner and was startled to see another vampire in the room with us. The child was grown, but still young, and his red eyes were wide with fear behind a tangled curtain of red hair. A heavy metal collar around his neck was attached to the wall by means of a heavy chain, while smaller chains hung from his wrists. The child could likely move no further than the corner. His eyes met mine for a brief moment, and I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of grief, terror, and despair.

“Joachim?”

I looked over at Kerwin to see him looking at me in concern, and I looked back at the child to see that the corner was empty of all but rusted chains.

“Did you see that?” I asked, not giving any thought to being overheard.

He gave me a strange look. “No,” he said slowly “What did you see?”

I sent him the image of the child in the corner, and he sighed, and I felt another sense of grief, this time tempered with anger, and it was coming from him.

“Kerwin?”

“It was Father that you saw.” He sounded so sad then, and I could feel it echoing down to me.

“You mean Walter’s haunting this place?”

“No, Joachim, he’s in the Crimson Stone remember? It’s likely just a residual memory, stamped into the area by the emotions he was feeling.”

“Such a thing is possible?”

Kerwin nodded. “I’ve seen quite a few of them. For the longest time, there was one in the castle of Silvanus crying on the sofa in the library, but it faded with time. Think about it. Father had lost his father, and his child. He was locked away down here, and they were torturing him, and he knew that he was going to be executed. I would have been surprised if there hadn’t been an impression left here.”

We lapsed into silence after that, but both of us kept looking at the corner where I had seen Walter, and a few hours later, he appeared again. This time, he was lying on the floor, with several shadowy forms around him. The shadows were moving, and though Walter was silent, we could plainly tell from the way he was struggling to get away and crying out that he was being beaten.

I didn't want to watch, but I couldn't tear my eyes away, until Kerwin tapped me on the shoulder. I looked over to the left and spotted the shadowy but still recognizable form of Gannet dispassionately watching the beating of his nephew. Walter evidently spotted his uncle, because he reached out to him, pleading for rescue, only for his pleas to be ignored when Gannet simply vanished from the scene.

I felt sick, and looking at Kerwin confirmed that he felt the same. No child deserved to be treated the way that Walter had. The fact that it was his own family inflicting the abuse made it so much worse.

That apparition, memory, whatever it was, faded after that, only to be replaced an hour or so later by another. This time, we witnessed Walter being half dragged, half carried into the room by two of the shadowy figures, dropped in the corner none too gently, and locked into the chains. The shadows left, and Walter curled up into a ball on his side, shaking, with tears rolling down his face, looking shocked and horrified.

“He just watched Adelar die.” Kerwin said quietly, and I nodded. The apparition faded after a few minutes, but it was enough.

When the guards retrieved us in the morning, Kerwin looked ready to tear Gannet apart with his bare hands, and I was ready to join him. No matter how cruelly Walter had treated me in the last few centuries of his life, he had been an innocent child at one time. And no child deserved the abuse that he had suffered.

By the time we reached the hall where Gannet waiting on the dais, the power was rolling off of Kerwin in waves. The heavy wooden beams that supported the stone ceiling above us creaked ominously, and dust sifted down as Kerwin passed under them. Gannet's arrogant smile turned into a frown as he looked up at the ceiling and then down at Kerwin. I believe that he did not expect any child of Walter's to be powerful.

He certainly was going to be in for a rude shock.

"And where, my dear grandnephew," he asked "did you inherit such power? Certainly not from your father. Walter was never going to be as powerful as me. So where did you come by this?"

Kerwin just smiled. "Simple enough, my dear granduncle. Father was sired by Silvanus Asenti three weeks after his mother set him free from your dungeon." Gannet frowned again at the information - he no doubt knew who Silvanus was - and Kerwin telegraphed his intentions to me a split second before he moved. It was all I needed as I summoned my swords and set them around me. I couldn't make them invincible to attacks here, but they were still prove a difficult barrier to get through. I set them flying out in a large circle around me, easily decapitating the guards. Screams of shock and surprise filled the hall as Kerwin streaked towards the dais. Gannet barely had time to blink before he found Kerwin standing in front of him, with Kerwin's arm thrust through his chest and out his back, with his still beating heart in Kerwin's hand.

Gannet looked at his grandnephew and smiled grimly. "Masterfully done, Kerwin Bernhard. Masterfully done indeed." And with that his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor as Kerwin pulled his arm free. Kerwin stepped back and with a nod, he set the body aflame before tossing the now stilled heart in the flames to burn. He then spun on his heel and walked down the center carpet towards the exit. I followed him, and no one moved to stop us in the silent room.

We walked away from the castle without a backward glance, and we encountered no one until we reached the border of the Bernhard lands.

“Kerwin.”

Kerwin closed his eyes. “What do you want?” he asked, and his mother stepped out of the trees.

“Where are you going?” she asked “You are the head of the Bernhard family now. You can stay here and take over Gannet’s home and territory.”

“I have no family here. No, with my father and son dead, Joachim is the only family I have. So no, I am not staying. I am going home, to MY home.”

“Kerwin...”

“Goodbye, Siomha. I never wish to see you again.” With that, Kerwin calmly walked out of the Bernhard lands. I went to follow him, but a plea from Siomha stopped me.

“Please, Lord Armster.”

I turned to looked over at my shoulder at her. “Please what? You left him to die and refused to have any claim on him. Did you expect him to welcome you into his life with open arms? His father died, and then the head of the family that you followed put a death order on your grandchild. I imagine that you didn’t raise a finger in protest, did you?”

She said nothing, and her silence was answer enough. I turned away and walked on, following Kerwin. As I walked away, I could hear Siomha weeping.

******

We returned home just under three weeks after we left, and as soon as we were in a semi private place, Celia pounced on Kerwin and kissed him senseless, while Silvanus looked on with a smile. Once Celia had let go, and Kerwin had regained his bearings, he went to check on Matatias.

A healing sleep is very deep, more like a coma than normal sleep, though a sleeping vampire will be able to feel the presence of their master or family, though they may not be aware of it. I could feel him sending his love and assurances that Matatias was safe through their bond before he left the child to sleep.

“Is it done?” Silvanus asked when he came back into the room, though I’m sure that he already knew the answer.”

“It is.” Kerwin said heavily as he flopped down bonelessly into a chair. A servant appeared then, making me wonder and not for the first time, if Kerwin used his mind to order his servants around, and she handed out spiced wine before departing. Kerwin drained his in a single gulp, and he sighed.

“I cannot believe that I did that.” he said quietly.

“You did what you had to do.” Silvanus told him firmly “You, Matatias, and Joachim would have never had any peace as long as Gannet lived. You did what you had to, to protect your family and children. Never regret what you did to protect yourself or others.”

Kerwin closed his eyes and nodded, and the room fell silent. Silvanus departed that evening, after many thanks from Kerwin and myself for looking after things for us. Celia checked on Matatias before she went to bed, though I noticed that it was Kerwin’s bedroom that she retired to. Kerwin and I stayed up a little later in the parlor before I said that I ought to go home and stood up. Kerwin wished me goodnight, and he too stood up. I was at the door when I turned around to see him standing in front of the portrait of Walter and himself, and as I watched, he raised a hand and gently brushed his fingers across Walter’s painted face.

“It’s done, Father.” he said softly, and I saw a single tear run down his face. “It’s over.”

I walked up to him and put my arms around him, and he leaned against me, shaking. I looked up at Walter’s face, thinking of the innocent child that he had been and the monster that he had become. I wondered that if his mother had known the catastrophic effect that the Ebony Stone was going to have on her son’s sanity if she would have still given it to him.

After a long moment, Kerwin straightened up and looked at me with a weak smile. “Goodnight, Joachim.”

“Goodnight, Kerwin.”

I looked in on Matatias before I left to see him sleeping in the same position that Kerwin had put him in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Reaching through Kerwin, I sent him my love, and then I departed for home.

******

Godric vanished from the area within a day of our return, and we guessed that he had taken the hint and left. We had no more trouble from the Bernhards from then on, and for the next 154 years, things were quiet.

But then in the year 1405, a two millennia old vampire named Kalen, who lived on the eastern side of the mountains that made up the neutral zone, died suddenly. His territory was then swiftly claimed by the vampire that we assumed was his killer, and many of us wondered at the power this newcomer had to possess to kill such an old, powerful vampire so easily. We waited with bated breath, and more than a little fear, for this new vampire to appear at that year's council meeting, but he did not show. Angered at this show of disrespect, two other eastern vampires, Telleh and Lucian, opted to go teach this newcomer some manners, completely ignoring that the newcomer had killed a vampire that was much older than them.

They did not return, but a letter was delivered by a human servant to many of the other vampires in the area, including myself and Kerwin, stating that this new vampire, who gave his name as Lord Vlad Dracula Tepes, wished only to be left in peace. He had claimed Kalen's old territory as his hunting grounds, but we could come and go on it as we pleased. Anyone who antagonized him would meet a swift and violent end.

I told Kerwin that I wasn't sure which worried me more: the fact that this Lord Tepes had so easily killed three vampires, one that was over 2,000 years old, or his matter of fact way of saying that he could easily do it again. I wasn't the only one leery, and at the next council meeting, it was quickly and unanimously agreed to leave Lord Tepes alone. We were baffled as to why he gave us all permission to wander through his territory, though I'm sure no one wanted to go ask him.

He didn't appear at that council meeting, nor did he show at the next one, in 1410, and some of us wondered why he was hiding from us. Was he on the run from family? Was he really less powerful than we thought and had just defeated Kalen, Telleh, and Lucian by some fluke? We didn't know, and it seemed as though none of us would find out.

Until, in 1429, I received an invitation to come and meet Lord Tepes and be a guest in his house for several days. Though the invitation, which bore a seal that said "Tepes" on the envelope, was shocking in its own right, it was the signature at the bottom of the letter and the two sentence request written above it that made my blood go cold.

If you have contact with Leon's descendants, please I ask that you do not speak of me to them. I wish to speak to you alone and uninterrupted.

Sincerely yours,
Mathias Cronqvist

Chapter 2 -- Chapter 4

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