If you thought the previous post would take the place of my Sunday Excerpts, you thought wrong. This one comes a bit in the evening (or night as the case may be), but it is still considered part of my Sunday postings.
Tonight’s excerpt comes from the end of Changing Times: A Vampire’s Tale. Clarissa survived the Great Change and traveled the entire world after the human race was abolished and those who remained were turned into the first furs. She witnessed many things and helped start the first Bard Hall where musicians would learn the art of diplomacy, music, and entertaining. Think of it as a version of the Harper Hall from Anne McCaffrey’s books. This whole story was written in a diary format so you see how she saw things as she wrote them down.
Personally, I consider this one of my better death scenes but we get to see her feelings before she does the deed. I hope you enjoy this one.
I sit here now on my balcony, looking out over the forest with nothing more than the moon, and a single candle lighting the darkness around me. This paper, and this quill I use are but pale memories of what I once had. For the last several hundred years, I have sat in this very chair, contemplating the night sky and wondering if Adam did make it through that long sleep, or if any other I once knew survived as well.
The town this castle was built near has grown since I first made this my home. It was once a tiny village with barely a single street running through the middle of it. Now, its a bustling community. Once in a great while, I go down and walk among the mortals, watching them go on with their lives and adding a bit of musical entertainment. Just as in my younger days, I became well known, and my infrequent visits became a celebration for these people.
Their joy became my joy, but it was pale compared to what I had once known. This unlife of mine was becoming boring regardless of what I tried to do. The years brought me many good friends among the mortals. Mages and nobles alike were among my friends. Only one, an orphaned fox captured my attention. He had a talent that rivaled my own, and under my care, he blossomed into a great bard.
It is to him that I gave my final instructions. Before he left to travel the world and make a name for himself, I made him promise to return to this castle once in a while to make sure I was still around. If he ever returned and found that I had finally given myself to the sun’s rays, he was to take this journal to the only mage I trusted so that a preservation spell could be cast on it.
Yes, my dear reader, I am planning for my last days. This existence no longer holds anything for me, and my closest and dearest friend and childe knows it. He’s been watching me closely for about a year now. He and I have both lived for well over two thousand years now, and have watched the world change.
I’m trying to hang on long enough to see three thousand years, but I don’t know. That’s an awful long way off. Maybe a nap, but I doubt a long torpor induced sleep would do any good. I miss my family and friends, the life I had when I was just a simple singer trying to make it big, and the adoration of fans that would run up out of nowhere just to ask for my autograph.
There is only one question I have that I cannot answer. Maybe, you, dear reader, can answer this for me after you’ve finished reading this journal. The fame I have earned before the world was remade, and the fame I earned after, was it all due to my own natural talent as a singer and songwriter, or was it because of ability of mine after I became a vampire? Or could it, by perchance, been the result of my sire’s work behind the scenes? It is something I would like to know, but the answers elude me even now. Maybe I am just too tired with living to try to answer them myself.
The castle is finally quiet, dear reader. My only surviving childe is resting, and everyone else is either asleep or gone. Just so that you what it looks like on this last evening of my life, I’ll describe what I see now. This castle looks out over a valley, there’s a river down there, reflecting the starlight as each star winks out for the night. There’s a forest in my immediate vicinity, concealing this castle from the town sleeping below. The eastern horizon is just beginning to color with the rising sun.
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