Yonowaru in Chaos
gaspard de la nuit
ooh, Castlevania fic. I did this out of frustration out of my old one (and another Chronicles one I was planning), but they're gone with my failed hard drive. So while I'm recuperating, I've decided to write this one.
Oh yeah, and to commerate my 365 days at SPPf. *confetti*
This should probably be a short one, in terms of chapters, but if I decide to include certain excerpts from the games themselves, then it may stretch further than it should. Even so, chapters shouldn't be too long, since this is relatively carefree fic of mine (i.e. not very seriously taken).
As to which games this fic covers, it's centred around the events since the beginning of Castlevania: Bloodlines and (well) into Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
*Any* advice is accepted, just don't flatter/swagger me.
If anyone wants to be on a PM List, post it here (or PM me
).
And so, in normal fic tradition, I bequeath you with a prologue:
He was painting again, tonight. It was never a pleasure to sleep while the faint scratches of his pencil echoed through the hollow, wasting house. While it was not unusual to hear him on the canvas again, it did not convince me that he would get any better. I found it annoying, with reasonable justifications, that he should be so stubborn as to try yet again. Even a cat knows not to be curious, twice, and he should’ve known very well that there was no such thing as a second chance.
Quitting, I opened my eyes, to peer through our bedroom door, ajar, with the flickering of the outside candle casting through. Being tired as I was, my eyes did not stay open for long. Instead, before I considered getting up and alerting him, I resumed the struggle with the irritating scratches and closed my eyes, repositioning my posture upon the rigid, creaking mattress. There was no point discouraging him tonight, nor on any other coming nights.
He seemed to hear my tossing over; the pencil strokes quickly came to a halt, and I heard his footsteps on creaking, wooden floor towards my room. I heard him adjust the door, and I felt his inquisitive gaze and the warmth of candlelight on my receding head. He did not remain for long, and quickly resumed.
It was not long, however, before he and I met with another disturbance. I heard the girls’ bedroom door open, followed by a sleepy shuffle of footsteps, too little to creak the floorboards.
‘Painting again, Mister Hitler?’
It was Chloe, her firm voice struggling against her sleepy facade.
‘Yes, Miss Chloe, I was hoping to try something...something new.’
It was not easy to hide his tired voice, and he seemed to meet increasing difficulty in doing so, even in the daylight hours.
‘Father doesn’t like you painting at night though,’ I heard her say. She always had this funny tone of voice when taking me into consideration, especially now, when her usually narcissistic-sounding voice was subdued by her drowsiness. ‘But he says you’re too stubborn to listen to him anyway, so he doesn’t tell you off often.’
She also had a gift at being a bit blunt, whether or not she was aware of it.
I heard him sigh.
‘I’m afraid he’ll have to be patient with me then. With Vienna’s standards, I don’t think I will be achieving any satisfaction from him or the Academy anytime soon.’
‘I’m sure you’ll make it someday, Mister Hitler.’
‘Thank you, Miss Chloe, you are really too kind. But drawings of buildings alone won’t get me far with the Academy.’
That had been one of the reasons why I found his enamoured painting of architecture quite frustrating. I admired his works of the Viennese scenery, but with only that in consideration, his pursuit of professional painting was all but a pipe dream. He had been told again and again that his interests and gifts lay in architecture, but he was tenacious, and despite the Academy’s, and my, recommendations, he continued to pursue an occupation of painting, one that certainly didn’t get him far, with economics taken into account.
‘Regardless, it is only right for Father, Melanie and I to give our support to you,’ Chloe said, her voice reclaiming some of her insistence.
‘I’ll try my best,’ I heard him sigh, before Chloe said her goodnights and resumed to her sleep.
With my ears better tuned in, I realised that there was something different about Adolf’s strokes. Tonight, they were more rounded, and gentle, it could not be; there was a different Adolf Hitler outside. He resented the animate in his paintings for as long as I had met him, and yet, clearly, his pencil strokes were remarkably round and flowing. There was something wrong; I must investigate.
Despite my stimulation to inspect this new approach, my aging bones did not allow me to elevate myself from the bed without expending a veritable amount of effort. When I did so, I reached for the door. He noticed me immediately as the door swayed open, his gaze shifting to the dimmer part of the room where I stood. As I had anticipated, there was no opera house, nor a countryside castle, but rather, an amateur sketch of a female figure reminiscent of those marble figures from the Volksoper. Even to the untrained eye, it may have been the messy sketchwork that would eventually become a grand masterpiece to be hung in the walls of the Louvre. But I knew better.
‘Her arms are too short, Adolf,’ I said, pointing to the arm resting on the figure’s shoulders, her hand pinned on her robe.
He sighed again, resting the pencil, crimson in the candlelight on the aisle bench. He stared at it for a while, not investigating, but a general stare.
‘What is her name?’ I asked. I wanted to help him, seeing as he had finally come to a turn of principle.
‘Germania,’ he said, with the same tired voice. It was hard to discern any expression from his tone; he was holding back his anger again, I assumed.
It would be of no use to comfort him now, so I left it at that.
‘We’ll be moving out of Vienna in about three months,’ I said instead.
‘Thank you for your notification, Mister Brauner,’ he said, still holding his tired, expressionless tone.
‘Do you have a heading?’
‘No I don’t, Mister Brauner.’
‘Do you wish to follow us?’
‘To where, may I ask?’
‘To Ypres, in Belgium, near the French border.’
‘Very well, then.’
He inquired no further.
I went back into the bedroom, shutting the door, but a wind from an open window slammed it with an unhesitant thud. As I went to bed, I heard a violent upheaval of canvas, then a shout of released fury.
It was the last I heard from him before we moved out of Vienna.
Oh yeah, and to commerate my 365 days at SPPf. *confetti*
This should probably be a short one, in terms of chapters, but if I decide to include certain excerpts from the games themselves, then it may stretch further than it should. Even so, chapters shouldn't be too long, since this is relatively carefree fic of mine (i.e. not very seriously taken).
As to which games this fic covers, it's centred around the events since the beginning of Castlevania: Bloodlines and (well) into Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
*Any* advice is accepted, just don't flatter/swagger me.
If anyone wants to be on a PM List, post it here (or PM me
). PM List said:
Contents said:
And so, in normal fic tradition, I bequeath you with a prologue:
Mental Journal Excerpt: Jan. 27th 1912
He was painting again, tonight. It was never a pleasure to sleep while the faint scratches of his pencil echoed through the hollow, wasting house. While it was not unusual to hear him on the canvas again, it did not convince me that he would get any better. I found it annoying, with reasonable justifications, that he should be so stubborn as to try yet again. Even a cat knows not to be curious, twice, and he should’ve known very well that there was no such thing as a second chance.
Quitting, I opened my eyes, to peer through our bedroom door, ajar, with the flickering of the outside candle casting through. Being tired as I was, my eyes did not stay open for long. Instead, before I considered getting up and alerting him, I resumed the struggle with the irritating scratches and closed my eyes, repositioning my posture upon the rigid, creaking mattress. There was no point discouraging him tonight, nor on any other coming nights.
He seemed to hear my tossing over; the pencil strokes quickly came to a halt, and I heard his footsteps on creaking, wooden floor towards my room. I heard him adjust the door, and I felt his inquisitive gaze and the warmth of candlelight on my receding head. He did not remain for long, and quickly resumed.
It was not long, however, before he and I met with another disturbance. I heard the girls’ bedroom door open, followed by a sleepy shuffle of footsteps, too little to creak the floorboards.
‘Painting again, Mister Hitler?’
It was Chloe, her firm voice struggling against her sleepy facade.
‘Yes, Miss Chloe, I was hoping to try something...something new.’
It was not easy to hide his tired voice, and he seemed to meet increasing difficulty in doing so, even in the daylight hours.
‘Father doesn’t like you painting at night though,’ I heard her say. She always had this funny tone of voice when taking me into consideration, especially now, when her usually narcissistic-sounding voice was subdued by her drowsiness. ‘But he says you’re too stubborn to listen to him anyway, so he doesn’t tell you off often.’
She also had a gift at being a bit blunt, whether or not she was aware of it.
I heard him sigh.
‘I’m afraid he’ll have to be patient with me then. With Vienna’s standards, I don’t think I will be achieving any satisfaction from him or the Academy anytime soon.’
‘I’m sure you’ll make it someday, Mister Hitler.’
‘Thank you, Miss Chloe, you are really too kind. But drawings of buildings alone won’t get me far with the Academy.’
That had been one of the reasons why I found his enamoured painting of architecture quite frustrating. I admired his works of the Viennese scenery, but with only that in consideration, his pursuit of professional painting was all but a pipe dream. He had been told again and again that his interests and gifts lay in architecture, but he was tenacious, and despite the Academy’s, and my, recommendations, he continued to pursue an occupation of painting, one that certainly didn’t get him far, with economics taken into account.
‘Regardless, it is only right for Father, Melanie and I to give our support to you,’ Chloe said, her voice reclaiming some of her insistence.
‘I’ll try my best,’ I heard him sigh, before Chloe said her goodnights and resumed to her sleep.
With my ears better tuned in, I realised that there was something different about Adolf’s strokes. Tonight, they were more rounded, and gentle, it could not be; there was a different Adolf Hitler outside. He resented the animate in his paintings for as long as I had met him, and yet, clearly, his pencil strokes were remarkably round and flowing. There was something wrong; I must investigate.
Despite my stimulation to inspect this new approach, my aging bones did not allow me to elevate myself from the bed without expending a veritable amount of effort. When I did so, I reached for the door. He noticed me immediately as the door swayed open, his gaze shifting to the dimmer part of the room where I stood. As I had anticipated, there was no opera house, nor a countryside castle, but rather, an amateur sketch of a female figure reminiscent of those marble figures from the Volksoper. Even to the untrained eye, it may have been the messy sketchwork that would eventually become a grand masterpiece to be hung in the walls of the Louvre. But I knew better.
‘Her arms are too short, Adolf,’ I said, pointing to the arm resting on the figure’s shoulders, her hand pinned on her robe.
He sighed again, resting the pencil, crimson in the candlelight on the aisle bench. He stared at it for a while, not investigating, but a general stare.
‘What is her name?’ I asked. I wanted to help him, seeing as he had finally come to a turn of principle.
‘Germania,’ he said, with the same tired voice. It was hard to discern any expression from his tone; he was holding back his anger again, I assumed.
It would be of no use to comfort him now, so I left it at that.
‘We’ll be moving out of Vienna in about three months,’ I said instead.
‘Thank you for your notification, Mister Brauner,’ he said, still holding his tired, expressionless tone.
‘Do you have a heading?’
‘No I don’t, Mister Brauner.’
‘Do you wish to follow us?’
‘To where, may I ask?’
‘To Ypres, in Belgium, near the French border.’
‘Very well, then.’
He inquired no further.
I went back into the bedroom, shutting the door, but a wind from an open window slammed it with an unhesitant thud. As I went to bed, I heard a violent upheaval of canvas, then a shout of released fury.
It was the last I heard from him before we moved out of Vienna.
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