Mordred and Dracula

Mordred could see the castle from miles away, a blackish parasite on an already dark landscape. It seemed to lap up the darkness, drinking it in with its mere presence. There was a strange beauty in its grotesqueness. Black clouds swallowed the skies, and were it not for his affinity for darkness he would see nothing at all. Gargoyles covered the towers, made in the form of every horrible thing. Fiend, manticore, chimera, orc, and harpy. Skeletons stood impaled by wooden pikes, faces still in eternal screams. The lord of this castle had dark tastes, a black beauty indeed.

Enough sightseeing Mordred thought to himself. He was here to end this. Swooping down he landed a few meters from the main door with the grace of an angel, a thing which he was not and would never be. Mordred was akin to this structure, a thing of infinite darkness, something that should not exist in a world of light. A door shaped like a hell mouth, fanged, red and gaping marked the entrance to the castle. As he moved towards the door the mouth opened, beckoning him forward. So he was expected.

A dozen or so orcs and lesser fiends guarded the entrance, but they made no effort to stop him. Their existence was pointless, the most powerful being in Verallia lived here, omnipotent and unchallenged. He had probably given them orders to let him pass. Besides, Mordred could turn them into dust with a mere thought. Mordred took dainty steps into the door, ignoring the monsters who flanked him until one had the audacity to snarl at him.

A faint smirk tugged at Mordred’s lips. With the same effort it might take him to swat a fly he flapped his wings, both black but one with the make of a dragon and the other that of an angel. The guards went flying, several hundred feet if his eyes were not lying to him. A tsk tsk inadvertently fled his mouth. He had been too kind. The flesh would have fallen off their bones if he had done it correctly. Unperturbed he walked into the gaping mouth and into the abyss.

A blood red flame tinged in black was the first thing that greeted him. With each step he took the flame stayed ahead, and Mordred assumed it was leading him to his destination. An army of lesser fiends, imps and the like, scrambled around him doing various jobs. They swept, carried around trays, rearranged furniture, everything that servants were supposed to do. Like the ones outside were supposed to do, they paid him no mind, moving as if he were not there. Mordred continued to chase the flame, throughout a place that seemed much bigger on the inside then the out.

Paintings and statues depicting brutal scenes covered the walls. Vampires drinking blood from the skulls of dragons, Fae being impaled by stakes of fire, hordes of strixes slaying phoenixes, pyramids built from the bones of the fallen. This was a shrine to the macabre, to everything wrong with the world. He would end this madness or fall trying.

The flame grew brighter as they got closer to their destination. Soon the walls got more elaborate and chaotic, almost like they were falling in and themselves, like the creature that lived here violated the laws of the natural world. Mordred saw a door with bones for hinges and he knew that was where he must go. The flame burned hotter than ever as he walked in, before going out, like his life would if he failed. A sense of completion filled him. If he could slay the creature that lived here then all would be right in the world.

It was like a different dimension of its own, and Mordred was sure that this room more than any other completely violated the laws of physics. Swirls of astral energy flowed around him, and when looked down he saw white lights in a dark space like outer space. It was among the most beautiful things he had ever seen, it’s beauty surpassed only by the being who lived here.

He did not know what he had pictured Dracula to look like, but this ethereal being of darkness was not expected. Perhaps like something ugly, something eldritch, something alien. The only mark of his vampire/demonic nature was the pale skin, horns, and the bloodstained fangs he didn’t bother to hide. Otherwise he looked every bit as Fae as Mordred. Jet black armor splotched with red stains that mimicked blood covered his muscular frame, and for a being centuries old he looked no older than Mordred’s eighteen years. The throne of bones he sat on cracked and creaked as he moved to get more comfortable, as if he didn’t notice an equal in power was before him.

“ I have been expecting you.” His voice was sinister and seducing like poisoned honey.

Mordred manifested a blade from shadows and pointed it straight at the fiend.

“ Prepare for death.”