Of Crime and Punishment
This article is a part of Spooktober 2024 and is still a work in progress. Written for the Otherworldly prompt."I will speak with the boy alone now." Nazar turned his head slightly to look towards Ebio as her mouth opened slightly but she quickly wilted under his gaze, dropping her chin in obeisance. Next to her, Issuru placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured, "Come, child. You've done what you can. Now his life is within his own hands." There was a stricken look on his granddaughter's face but Nazar kept his face impassive as he watched them slowly leave the room. Ebio's only other currently present child, Malloy, lingered for a moment, his eyes focused past Nazar on his bloodbrother before his own child, Xiang, pulled him away. As the door clicked shut behind them, he slowly rotated on a heel and looked at the broken boy standing in the middle of the room in his great-grandchild's Italian home. Nazar had never met Darragh Ó Conaill before this night, though he had known of the boy's existence. Issuru spoke of him several times, concerned for what his favorite daughter had brought into their bloodline. He knew that before recent events the boy had lost his memory of his mortal life and it was assumed that those had returned given the dialogue that had been exchanged during the confrontation. The boy had still attacked his own sire in a blatant violation of the Laws. Though, old as he was, Nazar suspected that it was not mere rage that carried the boy forward to that event. Slowly taking a step forward, he began to circle the boy, looking him up at down in a slow assessment. Darragh Ó Conaill was almost a rangy looking creature if it weren't for the obvious brawn that he carried in broad shoulders and wiry muscles. Malloy had detailed that the boy had been something of a drunk and a brawler when he had still been alive, as well as a rake. Nazar could see all of those things in him, in old scars on his knuckles and some kind of heaviness in his twenty-something features. The boy drifted somewhere between pretty and handsome, his features still too baby fat to fall truly into the later category but with just enough edge to not be entirely the former. He could also see the hunter in him, could see the hints that told of the Smith bloodline. The high cheekbones and razor sharp nose were all too obvious markers that almost every fullblood member of the Smith clan carried. That rangy frame was also a clear indicator of his bloodline, as Smith's prided themselves on being fast to strike and kill. And he carried hints of their scent - like oak and fire - underneath the obvious markers of Issuru's line. So far as he was aware, the boy had no knowledge of his hunter blood and it was not his responsibility to tell him. The boy, dressed in simple trousers and a loose flowy shirt, shivered and turned his head away as Nazar stared at him. He could smell the fear in the boy but also knew that this barely century old child had not yet been in the presence of many of the eldest of their kind. Nazar was nearly twelve thousand years past the moment of his own birth and those years carried a heavy weight that he was all too aware of. An otherworldly, foreign weight that he usually tried to shield his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from. Not here. Not now. The full force of his presence made the boy whimper, eyes wrenched shut, and Nazar reached out to gently cup his chin. "Look at me, boy," he intoned softly, holding that trembling jaw as if it were a fragile bird. Green eyes blinked open and the fear in them was delicious to the predator in his soul. That look was proof enough that Darragh Ó Conaill was no longer the beast he had heard so much about from his second son. The feral thing he had heard of would have never cowed so easily, not even before the First of their kind. Nazar smiled gently and asked, "Why did you assault your sire?" The boy shook like a leaf and then breathed, "S-she took me. Stole me. Stole my life. And I-I..." His voice caught and then tears - all clear like a mortal's, indicating that his great-granddaughter had not been able to coax the boy to feed since she had taken command of his wellbeing - welled in his eyes. "I killed so many people," he whispered brokenly. "I-I wanted to hurt her. I wanted you to hurt me." "There is an obvious past tense there," Nazar pointed out. "Do you still desire death, Darragh Ó Conaill?" "Dying won't change what I did," the boy replied. "Or give their family's peace. It wouldn't even be justice, because I...I tortured them." Nodding, Nazar inclined his head slightly. "It was a crime of passion then. Of desperation. Of...what is the term in use now? Suicide. This choosing to attack your sire." "Yes." "And now you want to live." The boy, trembling, just nodded. Nazar could feel his pulse against his fingertips, rapid, beating as fast as a mortal's in his fear instead of the slower pulse their kind typically had. This child had been stolen by his granddaughter and wounded - deeply, deeply wounded. There was blood caked deep into the boy's soul now, even if it was all washed from his skin. Deep stains that he could never escape. And, perhaps, those stains would keep the hold on his restored conscience and keep him from ever truly drifting down the path into a Rogue. Nazar, old as he was, had seen many children die. Yet this bloodstained boy reminded him of himself from so long ago, memories so old that he saw them as if through dusty, warped glass now. Of a man only a decade or so older than Darragh Ó Conaill who had suddenly found himself alone and confused as bloodlust hammered at his new, stronger body. Lifting his other hand, Nazar bit into his thumb and then swiped it across the boy's forehead, smearing his blood across his skin. As green eyes stared at him, he said, "You are spared, Darragh Ó Conaill, son of Ebio, of Issuru's line. Those who know what you have done will know too that I have spared you by scenting my blood." "Th-thank you," the boy breathed and Nazar released him. "Do not thank me, child. This is merely the first line in a battle that you will be fighting for the rest of your life." Nazar looked at him intensely, continuing, "You know what you are. The line you tread close to." "I..." The boy paused, shivering, and then nodded. "Yes." "I will be keeping an eye on you," Nazar said gently. "Because of what you are. Know, however, that I do not want to see you or any of our blood fall to that and I take no pleasure in taking their lives." Green eyes stared at him, fear and hope warring in them, and then the hope won. It was a flicker, it's fires banked by the harsh reminder, but Darragh Ó Conaill held his chin high as he quietly said, "I'll do better. I'm...I'm going to be better." Smiling, Nazar finally tempered his otherworldly presence as much as he could and reached out to pat the boy's shoulder. To his credit, he did not flinch at the touch. "Live well, Darragh Ó Conaill," he said warmly.
Timeframe: 1782
Location: Italy
Event: After hearing the testimony of Ebio, Malloy, Xiang, Gnaea, and Trjónn over several days, Nazar orders all of them out of the room so he can speak with Darragh alone.
Consquences: Nazar spares Darragh, in part because the broken boy reminds him of himself when he became a vampire. He does note, however, that he will be watching for if Darragh ever becomes what they all fear he might be.
The third child of the vampire Ebio, he lost his memory of who he had been when he was turned in the 1660s and became little more than a killer driven by intense bloodlust. By the 1780s, he regained his memory and has since struggled to control the aftermath of his years of bloodthirsty killing and figure out a place to belong. Taking a myriad number of jobs since then, he's spent his long life trying to make up for who he was for more than a century, including taking up the position as a consultant to the FBI that led him to moving to the town of Bigby Fork.
The First. The most ancient of vampires. Many don't actually believe he exists, others think he died a long time ago. Even he himself barely remembers the man he once was, the memories viewed as if through dusty, warped glass. He knows he had a family. That he loved a woman. That he had children. But the day that some twist of fate made him what he is, he lost it all. Unknowing if they lived or died or, worse, if he killed them in the haze of his first bloodlust.
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