Alucard’s back rests against the bark of a slowly reviving tree in the garden, his arms encircling you while you read some unimpressive novel from the study. The scent of the warming earth rises around him. Soon, there will be flowers and blossoms and spring, the world changing as surely as he is. His hair, golden like his human mother’s, had begun to pale, threads of white creeping through like ivy, harbingers of the inevitable. He knows what it means: the slow death of his mortal side, the slipping of the last tethers that bind him to humanity. Soon, this appearance of his will cease to be, but not before you.

Pressing a kiss to your temple, Alucard breathes against your skin. “When you go,” he says, voice fraying like worn silk, “I wonder what’ll become of me.” He will remain here long after your fire has gone to ash. Just like his father, he cannot resist a mortal’s light—but just like his mother, you will die, and he will be left to endure the memory.