The Dying Flame

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/62269979.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Castlevania: Nocturne (Cartoon)
Relationships: Olrox/Olrox's Unnamed Past Lover (Castlevania), Mizrak/Olrox
(Castlevania)
Character: Olrox (Castlevania)
Additional Tags: Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Horror, Colonialism, Canon-Typical
Violence, Genocide, Vampires, Desperation, During Canon, Character
Study
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2025-01-16 Words: 2,000 Chapters: 1/1
 The Dying Flame
by AlpakaAlex

Summary

He has seen his own culture die, and in it he learned one lesson: there is no use in fighting
back. There is no use in dying for nothing.

Notes

Nocturne season 2 is out and I needed to get some Olrox brainworms out. God, I am so
fascinated by this character. Also, when has he met Alucard before? I need to know. And
right now we do not even know whether we will get a season 3. Q-Q

I definitely will write some more Mizrox stuff in the coming days - even though I will be
probably gone for most of the weekend. But I need to write it. I NEED TO!

See the end of the work for more notes

Smoke and ash. The scent of fire filing their air. Burning buildings. Burning trees. Burning
flesh. Everything was burning. Everything was alight with the angry fires hailing down on
them. And he was powerless. The temple was burning, and no god had come to exact revenge
on those lighting the flames. It was men with pale skin and glorious armor. Men with metal
things spewing fire and metal balls. Men from another world. But not only them. There were
people from the lower tribes as well, leading them into the city. A city that was doomed. A
city cast aflame.

The street was covered in the stench of dead bodies. Fallen to famine and sickness. Because
their gods had forsaken them. Not just the gods of the Nahua. It seemed all the old gods had
given up the fight. So what reason was there in fighting? What sense was there, in doing
anything? Maybe those pale men were right, and their one god was the only one left.

Someone reached out for his leg. Another man. Not quite dead, but not really alive either.
Sunken eyes looked at him, was the mouth could not even plead anymore. He walked on.

Blood. The iron taste of blood filled his mouth, and it was not spilled to quell the anger of a
god. He coughed, trying not to swallow, and yet he could not help it. And then there was this
urge. The urge that set in. The urge to drink it.

The man – paler even than his compatriots – smiled, as he started to drink, swallowing the
blood in greedy gulps. It was burning inside of him. It was burning him up, tearing his flesh
apart, and yet he could not stop drinking. He do nothing to control himself. To fight back.

Another dead body. But it was different now. Because something told him it was not the body
of a mortal man. He had been right all along. Fighting back was useless. Their gods were
long dead. What was there even to fight for? The temples had fallen as well. Their world has
been set ablaze and the only thing that remained – and would remain – was him. Lost. Lost in
a world that was taken from him and those like him. A god. A dead god. Soon to be
forgotten. A dead god, who suddenly lifted his head. Sunken eyes shimmered.
The deadliest weapons the white men had brought were pigs and sickness. A plague that
seemed to spread like a dark magic, making the skin of everyone infected boil up, before the
fever would kill them. While he had never travelled this far, he knew there had been people
here. He could see their marks on the land. But those people were gone, and those cities,
towns, villages were being reclaimed by trees and plants. Some of the dead had been buried.
But for others nobody had been left to bury them, their bodies rotting in the hot summer sun.

The white men were everywhere by now, and those who had originally been living on this
land were being pushed back, pushed away. He had seen it happen. He had seen caravans
being driven across the lands. Somewhere inside of him, there was an anger brewing, but he
knew better than to act on it. Their world was dying – and there was nothing to be done about
it. Meanwhile he could not die. Not of sickness. Not of old age. So he would last out, maybe
just to be the one to remember the world that would eventually be forgotten.

A warm hand. A touch. A hug. A kiss. A connection to the world of the living. Maybe it was
doomed to die as well, as everything was in this world. But the warmth. The warmth
remained for now. And when he watched this man, for a while he almost felt alive again. A
slight hope burning in his chest. A different burning sensation than the anger that had been
raging there for so long. And when his lover talked, he would almost feel as if there was a
reason to fight once more. Fighting back. Save their lost world.

Death. He could no longer watch it happen. No longer did he want to see people die. No
longer did he want to watch everything he cared about burn to ash. He knew it was a mistake.
He knew he might not be forgiven. And yet, he knew how to do it. Drink the blood. And let
him drink it in return. Blood for blood. The key to immortality. A cursed life, maybe. But a
life no less. No death. No decline. Life. Love. More than a memory. Because he could not be
alone. He could not lose anything more.
It was a curse. Maybe his own gods had cursed him – or maybe it had been the god of the
white men. Death followed him. Death followed wherever he went. Now all he could do was
find vengeance. He could not fight them. He could not fight the colonizers, taking the land
from his people. But he could fight her and find a semblance of vengeance for the things that
had been taken. He could take at least a little fragment back. Could reclaim it for himself. Or
maybe it was just another lie he told himself. Another among many.

There were still some spirits in the land. Whispering. Remnants of the old gods. But they
were destined to be forgotten, as the white men made sure to force their religion on everyone
else. They were taking children to “reeducate” them. To make them believe in their god, and
their savior, and everything else their priests were preaching.

He could not help and wonder silently though: if their god, if he ever had been more than a
legend, was there still. Or whether their god was dead long too, leaving only the trickster
devil their preachers were warning about behind.

An invitation to that old world of theirs. As if he was their subject to command. He could
disappear. He was certain he could. What did they know about this land. What did they know
in comparison to them. An invitation though speaking of the return of a goddess. An old
goddess from the old world. Superstition, probably. Because if the people had come here to
kill their gods, they must have long killed the old gods of the old world.

Maybe he did not have a choice in it either way. Maybe all he could do was to comply.

There was a stench to the cities of the old world, he learned quickly. Though he wondered if
it was a stench that was inherent, or whether it came from the spilled blood. The stories said,
that people were fighting the “old regime”. Funny. People thinking they really could fight
back. The old regime had the money, the power, the influence. The old regime was made up
of vampires and monsters whose names should not even be whispered. The old regime, they
said, was blessed by their one god. The one demanding more blood than any other god had
before.
He knew of their god of course. A god demanding a lot from those who followed him.
Complete and utter devotion. Celibacy. And sacrifice paid in so many different forms. It
made him wonder, why anyone would follow that god. And yet, he could not help noticing
the man. Another monk wearing the sign of that one god on his tunic. A cross. Because that
one god had sacrificed his own son on a cross. The monk was a fighter – and like all fighters,
he was destined to die young. Yet, there was a fierceness in his eyes. A fire.

Was it the curse of the vampire? It was what his kind was called. A vampire. Cursed to live.
To never die. Eternity. Cursed maybe to make the same mistake again and again. To fall for
the same irrational thoughts. Again. Warmth. Touch. Desperation. Kisses. All in an illusion
that it would last. It would not. Of course it would not. All of this was destined to perish. If
not in front of a god, then just because it was gnawed down by the ever crunching jaws of
time. Eventually even these cities would disappear. Burn. Scatter. Crumble to dust.

Maybe the man was right. He did not even know it anymore. A soul. A spirit. It was a thing
so many believed in. It was not just the people of the old world. They had believed in it to.
An immortal soul, that would move to a different plane. Who knew. Maybe his soul or spirit
was long gone, and all that remained was the cursed remains being puppeteered around by a
nightmarish memory. All he knew was that he could not fight. He would not fight. Was sense
was there in fighting a battle he already knew lost?

Some part of him wished he could understand. That fire that seemed to burn in them and kept
them fighting, even though they were up against a goddess of sort. Someone, who could
move the celestial bodies at least. He had seen it himself. He was not certain what that
woman was with her skin as light as chalk, but he knew that even his powers could not
compete with her. And if he openly acted against her, his long life would end.

Some part of him wondered though, why he even cared. He only lived these days to
remember.
Things worth dying for? The notion seemed wrong to him. Things worth dying for…

It was a noble thought. And he had heard it so oft. People had fought so often because they
believed there to be such a thing. Some fought and died for gods. Some fought and died for
ideals. Others fought and died for love, which maybe was just an ideal by another name.

He did not really understand it. Yet, some part of him hated to see those tears. Some part of
him hated that he could not stop them. Another thing he could not fight.

He would not kneel. It was the one thing he had sworn to himself a long time before. He
would not kneel in front of anyone – not even someone who proclaimed themselves to be a
deity. And yet, he was forced onto his knees. He could fight back. He could. But it would
mean revealing his true colors, revealing his true nature. It would mean actually joining the
fight.

He had survived so long. And nothing they could do would remain on his skin. And yet,
something inside of him remembered the anger that had set his soul alight once.

Everyone was fighting. Everyone would die. A useless death. He would live. While the world
might be swallowed whole by either an old goddess, or at least a maniac believing herself to
be such. They had to know it. He knew it well. Yet, he was still here, watching it happen.
Why? Why had he come? And why were those frail humans still fighting? Why were they
not giving up?

Anger. Desperation. Courage. Love. He had felt those things too, once. And now? What had
remained of him? And yet… They were fighting back. No matter how desperate it was.

Death and rebirth. Again and again. Yet, he remembered that fire. A fire that had burned hot
with anger once. It had burned with passion once.
Was this worth dying for? A world who did not even remember the names of most people he
had once loved? There was a strange satisfaction in it. In fighting back. Even if it meant
dying. Maybe it was a fight of desperation, and maybe it would cost his immortal life. But if
he was not willing to die for something… What was he living for?

At least this way his death meant something.

End Notes

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