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When Abolish had been taken in as a servant to the infamous Goldsmith court, he had done so numb. Where most cowered or fawned, he simply stood back and watched, blank-faced and silent. He was a ghost in the halls and his own body as he carried platters of blood rich flesh to the lord’s table, scrubbed rusty stains from smooth stone floors, and carefully dusted treasures from eras long since past. His parents' death had left him with nothing. No home, no feeling, no grave to mourn at. He didn’t come to the castle for work or money.

He came to the castle to die.

It was never an entirely conscious plan, but everyone in the town knew what kind of beast lounged in those dark stone halls. In hindsight, Abolish almost wanted to roll his eyes at the lack of efficiency, but he hadn’t been thinking straight back then, if at all. Besides, he supposed his drawn-out suicide plan had worked out for the better. The death he came for never occurred, though he’d felt the teeth of the lord’s fledglings and drained his veins into golden goblets on more than a few occasions. Instead, he rose. Through the ranks he steadily and silently climbed, effective and professional. It seemed easily ignorable was better than likable. As others fell from the fickle whims of their superiors, he passed like a spectre through their gaze, neither prey nor predator and barely present as he waited upon them. It wasn’t intentional ambition; it merely happened. He barely paid any mind to it himself until, by some unexpected chance, he had found himself at the elder vampire’s side.

Lord Goldsmith's personal servants rarely lasted long. Either they displeased him, he grew bored with them, or on rare occasions he became fond of them enough to give them his gift. It was with the same apathy Abolish had first approached the castle that he accepted the position as its butler. The ring of fine wrought castle keys was handed to him by the lord himself, the trust to care for his home placed in his hands, and despite having danced around the monster’s shadow for years, Abolish believed that was their first time he ever met Scott Goldsmith’s eyes.

He’d thought he knew the colour red well. He’d seen it soak the moon until it shone like a bloodied pearl, he’d seen viscera stain the floors and piled upon shining platters, and he’d looked into the eyes of other young drunken vampires. It was redefined after that night, and ever since, even the freshest blood seemed muddy in comparison to the red so vivid it had cut him to the bone. Deep and sharp and pure in a way that, for the first time since he had been a boy, had made him feel. His heart had stuttered in his chest, the uneven beat pounding in his skull, and the faint brush of the lord’s fingers over his gloved hands had sliced him with a chill more potent than the cold metal keys. Perhaps it was finally fear, but Abolish didn’t shy from it.

He didn’t the first time, nor any other after that. Days turned to months and eventually years. He managed the serving staff, kept the castle utterly immaculate, and offered his lord blood from his own veins. Somewhere during the mundanity of what should have been terror, his purpose shifted, and what had been a quiet death wish turned to something new as he grew ever more aware of his own beating heart in the silence of his lord’s long-dead one. Abolish was as he’d always been—quiet, efficient, professional—but he knew he was seen. Those red eyes, brighter than the moon and blood and the ruby jewels the vampire adorned himself with, would flick to him with piercing awareness.

For all the fear and awe Lord Goldsmith was regarded with, he was shockingly, confoundingly, sweet. Not necessarily soft or even kind, but his words were honeyed with something undeniably pleased when Abolish personally attended him, and he paid not just in his namesake gold but also finely wrought gifts.

Not long after assuming his position, Abolish had found himself in a quiet courtyard where the castle garrison trained. He’d taken one of their blades and, with rusty familiarity, began to train. His parents had once taught him, long ago when they were alive and his capacity to feel wasn’t limited to the strange reactions his lord coaxed from him. Something about the focused precision helped even out his unsteady heartbeat. As usual, no one seemed to pay him any mind. No one but his lord. The gift followed no occasion meriting a particular reward, but one night, not long before dawn would try and fail to crawl through the thick drapes, he entered his office to find a blade resting across his desk. Made of diamond and gleaming with the faint iridescence of enchantment, there was only one person who could afford such a gift.

The next night, Abolish left his room dressed in his black and white uniform, with his wrist resting atop the swept hilt and the thin sheathed blade peaking out from beneath his coat. Lord Goldsmith never said anything, which was telling in itself. Abolish had served long enough to know that his lord rarely verbalised his true feelings, for words were his weapon of choice and he never let something so unwieldy guide them. He wouldn’t go so far as to call the gift a sign of care, but it was something. A sign of trust, of thanks, of some kind of affection. Lord Goldsmith may not have been a good man, but he was the one who had noticed his potential, given him a purpose, and made him finally feel.

Unsurprisingly, few shared such sympathies, and despite the fine conditions in which the vampire kept his livestock, the attempts on his life were as numerous as they were pitiful. His lord laughed most of them away, but Abolish watched. He rarely left the castle, but when the servants visited town he had them bring back whispers with the goods they ferried. Whatever schemes were afoot, no matter how feeble, he kept note of. Whatever threats lurked, he accounted for. Whatever and whoever sought to usurp his lord fell under his careful supervision and, on a few occasions, to the diamond blade he’d been so graciously gifted. He figured he’d known loss well enough to have no need to relive the experience.

It had been both rage and guilt that had nearly snapped his composure when, in his lord’s own throneroom while inspecting the town's most recent offerings, one of them had lunged forward, stake in hand, and driven it straight into the vampire’s heart.

There had been no sound for a moment, as the muffled howl of the wind and the other nighttime murmurs beyond the walls had ceased, and every being living and undead had held their breath. The world had frozen as the wood splintered in his flesh. Dark blood had sluggishly soaked his fine white shirt, blooming like a twisted rose from the wound. The fury which had burned through Abolish’s veins made his heart race until it sounded like the raging gallop of a warhorse in his head, but before he could act, his lord raised a single pale brow. He didn’t blink as he batted the failed assassin away, as he yanked the stake from his chest with a wet tear, and tossed it aside as one would flick away a small irritating bug.

It was that night that Abolish, the castle, and all of the town learned that not even the legends could kill Scott Goldsmith.

He had hoped, foolishly, that it might mark the end of it, that the people would see the futility of trying to kill such a man and finally settle with their fate. In truth, they only became more cunning. Kill became stop. Destroy became contain. For what was death, if not just endless slumber? For all of his efforts and vigilance, Abolish did not see the humans turning to the same dark magic they so despised. The lesser evil to stop the greater.

It didn’t matter much in the end. The witch they contracted died mere moments after her spell was cast. It was one of Abolish’s less proud moments. Had she been alive, he could have questioned her, forced her to break the curse. But no. As the impossible occurred, and his lord’s undying form fell limp as a corpse, he’d acted on nothing but cold, reflexive rage. The diamond blade pierced easily through her chest, and the blood which had bubbled from her mouth as she spat a final curse at him was oh so dull compared to the eyes she had forcefully closed. There was no satisfaction in her murder. It had come too late.

He carried Lord Goldsmith to the crypt himself, entombing him in the cold, grandiose stone tunnels with the rest of his long-dead and long-forgotten lineage. The coffin was sealed with a horribly final screech of stone. When he had finally had a chance to make graves for his parents, there were no bodies to bury, but the tomb’s lid felt all too similar to their headstones. They’d been commissioned with Scott’s own money, in another one of those unspoken shows of gratitude. Abolish could not help but feel undeserving of it as he had stood before his lord’s resting place in the empty grey room. But, at the very least, he could still feel.

The first century of Scott’s slumber was the most fraught by far. Without their sire to keep them in check, the fledglings which had yet to fly the nest fell into bloody squabbles and unrestrained gorging. Abolish didn’t need to reap vengeance upon the town that betrayed his lord; all he had to do was sit back and watch as vampires and humans alike cannibalised themselves in the power vacuum.  Of course, that did not mean he was without duties.

Logically, he knew the vampire was only trapped in torpor, and that without the final death, he was not released from service. So even without his overseeing eye, Abolish continued his work. It was messy in those early days. The amount of blood spills that needed to be cleaned didn’t change, but he found himself the cause of far more than he’d ever thought. Impertinent vampires and humans alike would try to wrest the castle from its sleeping master's grasp, only to be ousted by another or Abolish himself. He learned to carry a silver sword and stake alongside his diamond blade. In the end, he was forced to give up on the grand structure, at least for a time. Just one mortal man couldn’t keep hold of the whole castle. The crypt, however, was a hard line. Immortal or not, Abolish was taking no further chances with his lord’s safety, and the dark twisting catacombs were far easier to protect. It didn’t take too long for the worst offenders on both sides to die, and a decade or so in, most got the message. The accursed castle and crypt were more or less abandoned.

It was around then that he also realised he wasn’t aging.

He’d thought little of the witch’s dying words, too lost in his own fury, but in hindsight, he realised his lord wasn’t alone in being cursed. The castle had no mirrors, but catching his reflection in the overgrown garden’s still pool confirmed it. There were no new lines, no hints of grey in his black hair, and all those years later, the silent fury which had shadowed his expression when he’d killed the witch hadn’t faded. He was frozen in time, trapped, waiting for the man he’d killed for. Perhaps curse wasn’t the right word, in that case, as he couldn’t find it in himself to be mad. He may have gone to the castle to die, but his mind had changed long ago. He could wait. He could be patient. He’d have done it for his family had their death not been final. He could do it for Scott.

The second century saw calmer days. The fledgling vampires were dead or gone, and without Scott’s protection the village had fallen prey to monsters, nature, and humanity alike. Alone in the slowly crumbling castle, Abolish finally had the space to sit back and think. He’d already well exceeded his expected lifespan, but the whole thing felt like a blur of hot blood and cold emptiness. Vigilance was a necessity, and he hadn’t afforded himself the luxury of introspection. There was much to figure out in the wake of the chaos.

His immortality was a trial and error affair. For the most part, he seemed entirely human, with normal if reduced needs and an ability to be hurt like any other. But he felt… static. Not only did his face remain ageless, but the feeling of that day never faded. New ones came and went as any do, but the rage, the guilt, and furious anguish seemed to mar his being like a brand. A wound that only festered and never scarred. Or, perhaps, there was no magic, and rather than the expected apathy, this grief had taken a different form. It didn’t matter in the end; he still had a job to do. He’d never let his feelings or lack thereof get in the way of his work, and he was not about to break that streak a century in.

What did concern him, however, was his memory. He knew from his lord that while immortality gave one endless time, memory only stretched so far. Every dawn, Scott would make himself comfortable in his study, Abolish would bring him a goblet of blood and wine, and the vampire would write. Sometimes it was a brief entry, sometimes he’d spend hours agonising over it, but without fail he recorded every day of his endless life, then locked it away in some secret place deep below the castle. It wasn't until much later that he was honoured with its location, and his lord walked him through the shelves which contained his life, both the centuries he could still recall and those long lost. Scott had outlived himself, and lasted beyond the capacity of his own mind. Like one’s memories of childhood, eventually, one’s history vanished.

Abolish could only hope that the magic sustaining him had likewise frozen his mind, but even if it hadn’t, he too kept note. Every day an entry was written, and with every year Abolish added a new book to the crypt's library.

Sometimes he caught himself wondering if Scott would still remember him when he awoke.

He never dwelt on those thoughts.

He busied himself with caring for the castle. As much as one man could, at least. But most days, he focused his attention on the crypt. The room where his lord lay in torpor was already grand, with its vaulted ceiling and tall stone pillars encircling the finally wrought tomb, but time sought to weather it like it did all other things. Abolish was having none of it. He cleared dust and cobwebs from the crevices, polished the floors until they gleamed like blackened steel, and busied himself with many other menial tasks his position as butler had long since exempted him from. It was pleasant, though, having something easy and familiar to do. A useful task that he knew one day, when Scott awoke, would be appreciated.

And so the second century passed in relative monotony, until a new town built itself from the wreckage of the old, and Oakhurst was born.

It was in the third century that Abolish finally met another vampire. Whether he was a descendant of Scott’s lineage, he couldn’t tell, but it mattered little. He welcomed no others into the halls of his lord, and though the elder vampire slumbered, his power remained, and his claim let no other creature of the night cross into his domain. So it was from a distance, across the crumbling bridge shrouded in evening mist, that Abolish first saw Louis.

The pale hair and the way the shadows clung to him gave him away, and Abolish had left with both a silver sword and a stake by his side.

They had both been unnecessary in the end. Louis was merely curious from what he could tell, and wisely wary of the power he sensed deep beneath the soil, but he’d been kind to Abolish when they’d met. Gentle, concerned, like he was trying to coax a scared animal from its den. It was, ultimately, demeaning and unnecessary, but better than the alternative. He made it clear that the foreign vampire was not to intrude on the slumbering elder’s territory, but if he wanted to have his way with the village, then Abolish was not about to raise his blade to defend the descendants of those who’d done his lord ill. As long as Louis was willing to keep to himself and step in line should Scott awake, then he was no issue.

Abolish wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but he was pleasantly surprised, if wary, when Louis set himself to rebuilding the town. The backwater hamlet slowly grew, and fine stone buildings made to last replaced those of wood and thatch. Though it didn’t hold a candle to the picture-perfect town his lord had curated, it was charming in its own way. But he didn’t trust it. Though Louis was a seemingly beloved mayor, he’d seen mightier fall, and Abolish doubted he’d prove as cunning as his lord. To his knowledge, he’d met no other vampire able to survive a stake. No other who was truly unkillable. Whatever magics the elder vampire used were likely long lost to time. However, Abolish never intervened, only watched. He preferred it that way. Better to know one’s enemy, better to wait to see how the cards fell, better to not get himself killed before Scott woke.

To Louis’s credit, he did make an effort to change that. Many evenings before or after hunting, the vampire would wait at the end of the bridge, hiding his teeth behind a soft smile. Sometimes Abolish ignored him, but occasionally, when the crypt was cold and he’d spent so long staring at Scott’s silent tomb that the twisting in his chest made him wish he never relearned how to feel, he would join him. Most of the time, it was idle conversation, but Louis was always prying for more. Prying about himself, about why he was in the castle, how he was alive, who he served, why he waited.

It was the last question that had made a flicker of expression cross his blank face. Louis offered him an out, a place in the village, somewhere more comfortable to await his lord’s return. He didn’t take it. Couldn’t. Just as he couldn’t seem to give an answer that made Louis look at him with anything other than pity and doubt.

He waited because he had never been released, because his lord still lived and he still had a job, because he would be rewarded richly for it, because this place was his home, because he prided himself on his work, because he wasn’t ungrateful and disloyal like his lord’s fledglings, because one day it would be worth it.

He waited because…

His mind refused to spell it out in any of the blunt logical ways he preferred, and the feelings he’d never bothered to decipher merely constricted in his chest until they stung. He was Scott’s butler, the head of his servants, and his most trusted confidant. He was good at his job. He was rewarded for his work. That should have been that; it should have been simple. For over three centuries, he had pretended it was. He could continue to do so.

So he never told Louis, and he stopped trying to understand the way he ached and hoped at the sight of his lord’s tomb or refused to leave it.

Eventually, Louis stopped asking.

By the time the fourth century came around, Abolish determined that his memory had indeed been preserved along with his body. Nothing faded. Not the vividness, the clarity, or the pain. It was something of a relief to know he would not forget his parents, he would not unlearn his past, and he would not forget his purpose. He still made note of every day, just in case. Besides, it would be helpful for his lord to have a record of the centuries he’d missed.

Life became a blur again. He’d clean, hunt, cook, check the castle, do maintenance, check his store of silver and stakes, care for his blades, train, stare at Scott’s tomb, avoid his tomb, polish the cutlery and glasses which remained, write, take inventory of the wine cellar, visit town for supplies, avoid Louis, dodge questions when he failed to avoid Louis, and a litany of other small and numerous activities that he’d performed a thousand times. He’d always liked being alone, having some quiet, and often relished the time after work where he could dedicate his time to nothing but himself. But after four centuries of nothing but his own time, the things which had once brought sparks of joy or relief grew dull. He’d always subtly rolled his eyes at his lord’s fickle nature and need for constant entertainment, but he found himself feeling some sympathy for the man. He had lived twice as long as Abolish had; it was no wonder he was the way he was.

It was the boredom that eventually drove him to peruse Scott’s library. He’d entered many times over the years to ensure the books were being preserved and entered his own into the collection, but out of respect, he’d never sat down to read any of them. His lord had never ordered him not to, however, so he figured he could get away with the small slight.

Reading became another of his tasks, as he spent hours poring over countless pages in Scott’s fine hand. The older books were written in languages Abolish couldn’t read or hardly recognised, but the editions within the last few centuries of the vampire’s wakeful life were legible enough. Contrary to his charming and ostentatious persona, his journals were startling… utilitarian. Most entries were short, efficient summaries of the day, only extending when something of note had occurred, though sometimes Abolish would find one of the entries Scott had clearly agonised over. He could picture it clearly in his mind; his lord at his desk, the light of a red moon shining through the tall windows behind him and glinting off the wet ink. His eyes would be narrowed, lip pursed, though even when fraught his ageless face refused to wrinkle or break its porcelain perfection. He’d sigh, the noise more like a hiss as it came through sharp teeth, and take a sip from his goblet.

Abolish always prepared his nightly drinks himself. He’d pick the wine, pick the blood, trying to match both to his lord’s needs and moods, though he could admit a selfish preference to using his own.

Scott wasn’t there to write anymore, and his study had long since fallen into dilapidation despite Abolish’s best efforts. Now, all he had left were the words. The pages were fragile after so many years, but Scott always chose materials that stood a chance at lasting, and the library was kept under tight conditions to preserve his tomes. Abolish was gentle with them all the same, keeping his gloves on and scarcely daring to breathe on the precious vellum. The longer entries tended to ramble, often about seemingly inane events that had somehow caught the vampire’s mind and refused to release it. The bluntness which characterised the rest of the entries carried through as a feeble facade over feelings which Abolish could not discern, and seemingly Scott as well. They were… confused.

He had never known his lord to be unsure of anything. He’d never even considered that he could be anything but utterly, entirely, and absolutely confident. Scott never faltered, never spoke a word that was not well placed, and even when expressing confusion or frustration he played it off with such composure that it seemed they hardly mattered in the first place. Abolish reread those entries several times. Like his lord, he could not puzzle them out, but they were… familiar. The way he described strange stirrings in his blood and inexplicable aches reminded him of the pattering of his heart and the lingering strain of all he kept boxed away. Abolish had never bothered with his feelings; it never seemed worth it. It brought a strange sense of warmth to read that his lord was the same.

Perhaps that is why they had understood one another so easily.

Perhaps it was why, despite his best efforts, Louis and all his wisdom never meant much to him. He was perfectly pleasant, but Abolish acted and understood the world in too different a way for their eyes to ever truly meet as they had with Scott’s. It didn’t matter anyhow. The vampire was dead by the next century, as was the village.

Just as the old town had foolishly turned on his lord, Oakhurst burned their mayor. Once more, Abolish only had to sit back and watch as the aftermath of their mistake consumed them. He didn’t know the new vampire who wiped out the village, but they never came to the castle, so in the end, it wasn’t his business. Louis had not deserved death, but he had doomed himself the moment he turned his back to humanity, believing them toothless. It was a lesson Abolish was coming to learn well. When Scott eventually woke, maybe he’d suggest a different feeding method than keeping the town as livestock. They were too unpredictable, too unstable. There had to be a more efficient way of feeding.

He added such planning sessions to the routine of his fifth century. It was undeniably demeaning to look upon his own kind in such a dehumanising way, reducing them to little more than cattle that needed to be corralled into obedience, made into docile willing meat, but it was necessary. He’d long since tired of humanity’s chaos; things could be more… organised. So he drafted systems, scrapped them, rebuilt a new plan from the ground up, and repeated the process through all kinds of concepts. He knew Scott possessed the ability to make thralls, turning humans into obedient ghouls whose aging slowed and minds gentled. He wasn’t overly fond of it, however. The malleability and simplicity of their beings bored him, according to the references Abolish found in his journals. There was no game to his manipulations anymore, no wit required, no satisfaction of a hunt well done. After centuries of repetition, Abolish couldn’t help but sympathise with the sentiment.

A stable backup, but hardly fit for an elder vampire’s main course.

Many more designs filled his mind as the years passed, and he endeavoured to eliminate all unpredictable factors from every new conception. He set aside a new section of the library for his drafted plans, ensuring each would be ready for review by the time his lord woke up.

However long that was.

It had been an awfully long time.

Abolish supposed he’d lasted this long. No reason to falter yet.

He’d stay. He’d wait. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. The people he knew were dead, he’d outlived the world he knew, and the one person left, the one person who knew him, the one person who he…

Who he cared for, in some form, as an employee appreciates a benevolent boss, or a rescued hound their kind master.

All he had left was in the castle. There was nothing to do but wait. Maybe if he’d listened to Louis all those years ago that would not be the case, though, if he’d listened to Louis he also surmised he’d likely be dead. He couldn’t die; he couldn’t leave. Abolish had to be there when Scott woke up. His lord would be stepping into a new and unfamiliar world. It was Abolish’s duty to make that transition as seamless as possible.

And so, he waited, he stayed, and five centuries crept closer to six.

In the silence of Oakhurst’s desolation and the slow drag of his extended life, it was inevitable that he would eventually run out of things to distract himself with. That one day, once more, he would be forced to confront the question. He had dozens of answers, but Louis had been right. None were quite the truth, not the whole truth, just fragments. Excuses. For all his attempts to rely on rationality above all, there was no escaping the fact that his entire life had been shaped by some insane, illogical whim.

It settled one day, when he was walking through the crumbled pillars and time weathered walls of the castle, the memory of their former grandeur still crisp in his mind, that he finally found his reason. In the old throne room, just beneath the now destroyed dais where his lord had held court from, was a strange light encased in crystal. The beacons had been created long ago by magic Abolish did not understand. When people lived in Oakhurst, they had shone with a warm, honeyed light that made his skin prickle. Now, most were faded. But not this one.

The one which they had dared to place in his lord’s castle gleamed a vicious and bloody red. No ritual had been undertaken to change it, but as the centuries passed it began to bloom with familiar dark power. Abolish supposed Scott’s mere presence must have done it. Not even their bright protective beacons could withstand centuries in the shadow of an elder vampire, it seemed. He liked to sit in its dim light some nights. To pretend it was the light of a blood moon streaming in through the windows as his lord sat upon his throne like a marble idol, still and pale as death, overseeing the chatting of fledglings and the fearful silence of his servants with eyes the colour of blood upon a blade. The beacon was the closest thing he’d found to their unnatural shade in centuries.

He spent hours watching it. Hours wondering why, or if he were to put it more aptly, knowing exactly why, but finding no words or reason to explain himself.

He had paused before it as he had many times, blank face lit with its cold glow. He stood where petitioners once had, at the foot of the now shattered stairs that led to the throne, from which his lord would look down at them. He’d pick them apart with a glance, peeling back skin and flesh and unwind their veins until he reached into their beating heart. He’d smile, something sharp and sweet like a draught of wine which burned on the way down. He’d hold out a clawed hand and Abolish would place a goblet of freshly drawn blood in it, and the petitioner would watch as their lord took their offering with languid, considering sips. Whether or not he acquiesced to the request didn’t matter, but it was that moment which spelled out one’s fate. The moment when Scott made his judgment, where he tasted one’s blood and looked into their soul.

Scott had done the same to him, once.

Scott had seen him.

He was the first person to do so since his parents had died. Not just look, but see. To take one glance at him and pierce straight through his blank facade and walled off heart and strip him bare of all that had smothered his feelings. He’d acknowledged him, rewarded him, given him purpose and worth and a place where he could thrive. Scott had drunk his blood and, with the purposeful precision of a coroner dissecting a cadaver, used it to witness the heart of him. It was so unlike the clumsy rushes through which his fledglings had glimpsed him. They had never mastered the art of drawing memory and emotion from blood. Scott had only ever scoffed at their clumsy attempts. No one knew him as his lord did, and no one knew Scott as well as Abolish. He’d only spent a short while with him in the grand scope of his vampiric life, but he’d been let into his tomb, his library, his rooms. He’d been trusted, understood, perhaps even… cared for?

It didn’t matter much, in the end, because Abolish had nothing to shield him from the fact that he most certainly cared. It wasn’t the care of a dutiful servant, or even quite that of a friend for another. It was something else, deeper and more convoluted, tied up in so many knots he wasn’t sure it could ever be untangled, let alone broken.

Scott was his lord. His.

There were no words which could adequately describe it, so he settled with that. A short and simple possessive for the one thing he had left and could not stand to lose.

If he had to wait another six centuries or a hundred more, then so be it. Abolish had always been patient; one could not survive working in a castle of temperamental vampires if they weren’t. He could withstand whatever amount of time need be.

All he wanted, was to see those eyes open again.