It smelled in Dracula’s Castle—an intricate perfume of creation and decay. The pungent tang of egg tempera and cheese binders clung faintly to the air, softened by the ghost of myrrh and the almost holy stillness that lingered once the paint had dried. There was incense, too, and linseed oil, and something faintly sweet—lavender, though none grew in these frozen lands. The cold air pressed against the castle walls, threading through corridors where no man nor vampire had stepped for months. The silence, once broken, had learned again how to hold its breath.

Alucard moved through that silence like a ghost born of its breath—his steps soundless, his coat trailing the marble as he passed the abandoned chambers. There had been a time when he held the sword with purpose, and the knife with precision; now, the brush replaced both. A weapon of a different kind.

He passed by a table scattered with pigments turned to powder, the scent of resin thick in the air. White curtains—unruffled, untouched—lay on the floor beside a half-finished canvas, colors shimmering faintly in the dim light. The painter he had commissioned had done a remarkable job—worth every coin and every silence endured in the man’s presence.

The portrait hung above the cold hearth, its gilded frame curling darkly around the canvas, black and gold intertwined. Brushstrokes visible yet delicate, softening at the edges of your face. You looked calm—almost serene. His gaze lingered there, tracing every familiar line. His own likeness beside yours seemed gentler than he remembered, and there—barely—was something like a smile, not on his lips but in his eyes, captured in the moment his hand rested on your shoulder.

Beneath, your child was painted between you both. A boy, barely a year old, reaching upward, tiny hands grasping at air, his cheeks full of life, rosy and warm. Alucard could almost hear the echo of his laughter—soft and bright—spilling through the marble halls where centuries of silence once reigned.

He understood, now, what it meant to protect something fragile. In the dark corners of his father’s laboratories, among the relics of cruelty and regret, he finally grasped the weight of what Dracula had been—and what he must never become.

The nursery had once been his own chamber, now transformed. The ceiling painted like the sky, blue and endless; even in the long nights of winter, it felt like spring lingered within. Simon Belmont—Trevor and Sypha’s son—often came to visit, his presence tolerated, even welcomed. The boy had his father’s recklessness, his mother’s spark. A shame, truly, Alucard thought with a faint curl of amusement.

He turned from the portrait, looking down at the child in his arms—the same small hands now tugging at strands of his pale hair, cooing and babbling softly, mouth full of tiny teeth. The boy would grow, perhaps weaker than his ancestors, or perhaps stronger than them all.

The silence broke with the sound of footsteps—soft, measured, approaching. Then you stepped into the chamber, your warmth preceding you like sunlight through old stained glass.

Alucard looked up, his crimson eyes gentler than the castle’s chill should have allowed.

“You move quietly,” he murmured, his voice low and even, like the hum of a distant cello. “I would have thought I’d sense you sooner."