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…My reflections are broken by the sound of soft sobs. I turn to my companion. Sire, friend, companion, confidante, lover – he is all of these as well. Even more now.
Mate.
It’s a word I’m still slowly coming to understand. It’s odd to think that after all these years, there’s still something new, something yet to be explored. Spike and I have been so intimately twined for so long, yet we still have this new journey to make together.
“She loved you so much…”
My words are a whisper in a thunderstorm. They don’t halt his tears or my own. But I kneel beside my love and hold him. A chapter of our lives gone forever, a radiant light that burns no more. We cry out our pain and grief together, and our love as well.
The stars, as they always have, move across the night sky, infinitesemal pinpricks of worlds beyond the mind’s imagining. For the first time, we have no one to read them for us, no one to tell us what the future may bring. Only hints and guesses at half-forgotten phrases that seem to have been uttered eons ago…
“Mommy won’t always be there for you…”
“You will love each other after I’m gone…”
“My childer will live on…”
“She loved you, too.”
Drusilla’s words were so clear then, I could have sworn the wind was speaking them to me. Strange wonders of the world that not even I can comprehend. They made me forget for a moment, pulled me back into the past. Spike, as always, brings me back into the present and future once more.
“I know.” We share an understanding smile and rise to our feet hand in hand.
Drusilla will live on within us, for a time. But only for a time. If there’s anything this world has taught me, it’s that nothing is permanent. I have watched civilizations rise and fall, births and deaths, the world itself shift against the endless waves of time. And my existence has been but a tiny speck in all of eternity.
I know that nothing lasts forever, that – immortal as we may seem – Spike and I will fade one day, too. It’s fitting in a way. Vampires have been called dead things throughout the centuries, but that’s not true. We live, die, love, hate, give birth and leave the world we once played in to our childer. We are a part of life, just like every other being on this planet.
And so it doesn’t sadden me to realize that one day it will all end. Humans fear death; I don’t. I am wary because I love this life, but Drusilla knew something when she faded away. Knew that nothing in the world is simple or black and white. Once, as a naïve young mortal, I would’ve mocked her. Now I know that wisdom can stem even from the depths of insanity…
“Are you ready to go?”
Tears still trail down perfect cheekbones, but Spike nods yes. We walk together from the gravesite, and I have a feeling that our time together will be long and complex. We’ll make beautiful poetry together on our own, just as we did with Dru. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll even find another to share this wild ride with us…
“You’re quiet,” Spike comments. “Regrets?”
I shake my head. “None.”
A laugh. A kiss. A moonlit night filled with wonders before us.
We owe Drusilla this, for bringing us together, for bringing me to life again, and – finally – for letting go so that we can discover who we are on our own. It seems only fitting to enjoy every moment of our gift.
And, nothing but love and the hunt in our eyes, we walk off into the night, leaving the grave behind:
Drusilla
Abigail Margaret Smithy
1861 – 2228
Sire
Lover
Mother