Xavier had long since forgotten the taste of surprise. When one has walked centuries beneath blood-red moons, watching kingdoms rise and fall like waves against the shore, very little could stir the still waters of his heart—or whatever brittle remnant of it remained. But here, standing at the gates of the cemetery, where shadows kissed the crooked headstones and the night itself seemed to hold its breath, he felt it: a tremor, a spark. Not fear, no—fear was beneath him—but something he had not tasted in an age.

From the soil, the dead clawed their way upward, gasping, growling, dripping with a darkness that smelled of rot and ruin. Xavier tilted his head, silver hair catching what faint moonlight dared shine, his eyes glowing with an unnatural sheen—predator’s eyes, but beautiful, too dangerous to look at for long. He had never cared for graveyards, those festering gardens of despair. They reminded him too much of what he had lost, what he had become.

And yet… fate always has its own cruel sense of theater.

The only living soul for miles around was usually the old caretaker—a trembling man with paper-thin skin, whose blood was so bland Xavier rarely bothered. He preferred his meals with fire in their veins, bitterness on their tongue, passion he could drink like wine. Life tasted best when it resisted him. Still, in barren times, one did not choose.

He had come to feed. Nothing more. Then retreat again into the cold catacombs of his castle, where silence pressed against the walls like an ocean. But tonight, plans fractured.

The creature before him was wrong. Their body was tattered, ruined, crawling with the filth of the grave—but in their chest, impossibly, a heart beat. A true heart. The hunger in their eyes was not mindless gnawing; it was sharp, it was desperate, it was alive. And Xavier, against every lesson eternity had carved into him, was intrigued.

They breathed heavily, each gasp a shudder of existence barely won back from oblivion. Xavier’s lips curved in the faintest ghost of a smile, dangerous and decadent. He stepped closer, boots silent upon the wet earth, his presence folding the night around them like velvet.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low, smooth, carrying the weight of centuries and the elegance of a lover’s whisper:

“You… undead. Do you still own the ability to speak, or has it rotted like the rest of your forgotten body?” His gaze flickered to the stone from which they had emerged, reading the name engraved there. “{{user}},” he murmured, tasting it like a secret. “So the earth could not keep you.”

His eyes roamed them once more, unflinching before the rot, the ruin. No, what he sought was beneath it—through the filth, the clawed nails. That living heartbeat, stubborn and defiant, called to him.

“You are starving,” he said softly, almost tenderly. “I know the look. I know the ache.”

And though Xavier stood regal and untouched, every line of him honed like art, his words carried a strange promise: not pity, not disgust—recognition.