§
Vampire Command and Vampire Charm have ironic origins. The intentions of the higher Immortals (to the extent that anyone from the Mortal Realm or the Fundamental Realm can understand the intentions of higher Immortals) was the protection of mortal individuals from the dangers that Immortals in their midst could pose.
The reasoning (again, see previous disclaimer) goes like this: the true purpose of the Elders is the education, protection and assistance of mortals, but as descended Immortals, they will be unable to avoid becoming objects of worship in the long run. With careful application, this effect could benefit the mortals rather than injure them, but mortals have a tendency toward fanaticism in the name of worship, to the point of potentially harming themselves. We shall give Elders the power of Command, to allow them, when all else fails, to stop mortals who are taking things too far.
And with respect to Charm, the rationale (as far as we can understand) has a similar logic: among the most badly distorted mortal cultures, when they should arise, the Elders will have the greatest difficulty recruiting local partners, at the time when these cultures are in the greatest need of intervention. We shall give them the power of Charm, in order to turn the most astray into allies for the greater good.
And as far as the morality of these powers is concerned (with a reminder that the morality of higher Immortals has many folds and dimensions inscrutable to those of the Mortal and Fundamental Realms): the Elders, being descended Immortals (albeit the very juniormost, the denizens of the Fundamental Realm), possess a degree of discretion sufficient to insure that their possession of these powers will not be abused. And after all, the Elders will be under the supervision of seniors from the First and Second Harmonic Realms, with their leader of even higher cultivation, who can intercede if anything should go awry.
My attitude toward Command and Charm, finding them distasteful, is probably a remnant of that ‘degree of discretion’ in Senhion’s heart… or perhaps it is simply mortal morality, viewing these powers with dismay. Especially since the reality is, nothing in the Mortal Realm is permitted to be perfect. The ultimate law of mortality is that entropy is inviolable. Because perfection would violate entropy, nothing can be perfect, and thus the implementation of Command and Charm must be imperfect. It can misfire when imperfect creatures, nonmortals like me, lose control of ourselves, no matter what ‘degree of discretion’ we may possess.
§
When Mireia took the news of her condition without concern, I wasn’t particularly surprised. Vampire Charm has a strong effect on the mind. It should be awful news, and yet, to the person affected, it sounds instead like a wonderful thing. The effect can be likened to love, although it would be more accurately described as the hijacking of love, the redirection of all the target’s love to the source of the charm. Being hopelessly attracted to the one you love sounds like a romantic fairytale, even though in reality, it’s brainwashing.
That’s why it is so unacceptable. Perhaps those great seniors can view it as righteous, but my heart is still mortal in the end, and will probably remain so, at least until I am once again Senhion. And perhaps not until I am once again an immortal of the Fundamental Realm, the form of my original birth.
I frowned at the girl in the bed next to me. “Miss Mireia, I want to make sure you understand. The feelings you are having toward me are not your own. I will be asking His Highness to bring in a specialist to cure you of this condition, so you can regain control of your heart.”
She grew a slightly wry smile, then nodded. “I already understand my condition, My Lady. I was trying to hide it. Looks like I failed.”
Her answer perplexed me. That wasn’t a normal response for a Charmed person.
“Hide it?” I echoed, prompting for clarification.
She explained, “I know a mind technique that is helping me to behave myself. To be honest with you, I would probably be embarrassing myself horribly without it. I’m… having some very inappropriate urges toward you, My Lady. I assume you know about it?”
Before I could respond, she waved her hand quickly. “Don’t worry, My Lady! I’m very good at this. I won’t attack you!”
I was now far more worried than I had been. My judgment of her current condition was mostly based upon her behavior. If she was somehow controlling it with some kind of spiritual technique, I could be very wrong about her condition.
“Mind technique… some sort of training?” Chiara wondered.
She gave a troubled smile, implying she would have difficulty explaining, then stated, “Can I just say it’s also how I concealed the… more dramatic effects of My Lady’s feeding, and leave it at that for now?”
More dramatic effects… I looked at her, and said, “Umm….”
And left it at that. I couldn’t figure out how to ask her exactly how dramatic that effect had been. The way she began blushing though, I could guess.
“So, you’re saying it’s good that people couldn’t tell what you were feeling?” Chiara asked, with a teasing tone.
Mireia blushed a little and muttered, “Something like that.”
“Chiara, be nice,” I warned.
Chiara continued to have a teasing smirk for the younger girl, still wanting to rib her. I sighed and decided to ignore her.
“Miss Mireia, make sure to cancel that technique when the specialists look at you. We need to have you diagnosed, and cured, if possible.”
“If possible?” she echoed.
“Whatever this technique of yours is, it’s apparently masking the symptoms. You may be too far gone, already.”
She still didn’t look bothered by it at all, which was definitely a symptom of Charm. “And if I’m too far gone?”
“You’ll fall into blood bondage to me,” I told her, bluntly.
Finally, understanding lit in her eyes and she showed something like concern. “I see. Yes, I suppose I should consider that to be a problem.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Mireia…”
The girl continued, “You need not apologize, My Lady. I mean…”
With a brief frown, she dropped her voice slightly, then said, “I’ve already done… far worse to you, after all. I would rather you just think of what happened today as getting some payback from me.”
I breathed in a long breath (relieved to not be gurgling or feeling knife-like pain anymore), then let out a long sigh. She had just opened a subject that I needed to discuss, but didn’t know how to broach.
No time like the present, I guess.
“Miss Mireia, you’ve met Diurhimath, I gather. Do you know him by that name?”
“You know Diur?” she responded, surprised, then looked worried. “But…”
She looked at me uncertainly, and I guessed the reason why.
“I take it that you know he was the culprit behind the vampire attacks that I was accused of, at school.”
Diur was the one who committed the crimes that caused me so much grief in Copen. At the time, he had seen no other alternative, and had been desperate to raise his power, in order to defend the school and me from the evils being plotted by the demons he could detect there.
Her eyes answered my question. She knew.
I explained, “I witnessed one of his attacks during that time at school, but I did not become properly acquainted with him until later. I understand that he saved you from Parna House.”
Mireia stared at me for several seconds, as if trying to read something in my eyes. Finally, she asked, “Exactly how much do you know, My Lady?”
“Well…” I pondered that question. “Quite a lot, actually, but a number of things contradict each other.”
“Contradict each other?” she echoed.
“Mhm. Well, it’s like this,” I said. “I know what he, and… certain others, have told me about you, and I know what you told me, back when I was in that jail cell. And some of the key details on each side simply do not match up.”
“I… don’t remember telling you much,” she said. “But I remember that you guessed that I wasn’t… originally from here.”
She said those last words with a glance toward Chiara.
I turned toward Chiara myself, and told her, “My Lady, we’re going to discuss a Royal Secret or two now. I’m ordering you not to reveal what is said to anyone.”
“Understood, Your Highness,” she answered succinctly.
A brief moment of confusion appeared in Mireia’s eyes, because Chiara had used an address for me that neither she nor anyone else (other than Dilorè) typically uses. She likely did so in order to acknowledge my status as a technical member of the Royal Family, who had the right to issue an order like that.
I told her, “First and foremost, Miss Mireia is similar to Ryuu and me. She is not originally from this world.”
“Ah…” Chiara nodded, understanding immediately.
“She knows about you?” Mireia asked.
“She knows quite a lot,” I nodded. “But that’s the first problem I have about you. Diur described you as an alien wizard. But when we spoke, you knew about otome games, which meant you came from the same world as Ryuu and me. Those two things don’t make sense together.”
“O-to-may games?” Mireia asked, sounding the word out as if it were unfamiliar.
“Um… the kind of games we discussed. With the heroine and villainess and capture targets?”
“Oh. Maiden games, you mean.”
“Oh… that’s right. You’re translating. No, that’s wrong. ‘Otome’ is Japanese for ‘maiden’, right? Why don’t you recognize that word?”
In Japanese, the word is literally, otome geemu. Or just otomege for short. In other words, I had nearly been speaking Japanese when I said ‘otome games’.
“Ja-pa -neez?”
“Nihongo?” I suggested as an alternative.
“Niho… what are you talking about?”
Was she from some other country? But if she were familiar with the games, she would still know the word, wouldn’t she? Or maybe I had that wrong…
“What country are you from?” I asked.
“Why, the Empire, of course,” she answered immediately, as if it were obvious. “I assumed you were too, since you know about that kind of maiden game.”
“Empire?” I asked. British Empire? Japanese Empire? But those were from long before when such games existed. “What empire?”
“The Great Northern Empire of course! You weren’t from there? Perhaps you were from the Egalitarian Federation? The Maritime Republic? One of the urban colonies in the Southern Hemisphere?”
“None of this sounds anything like anywhere in my world, actually,” I told her, completely bewildered.
“Was it a coincidence?” she asked, equally bewildered.
We were from entirely different worlds.
I stared at her for a bit, then nodded. “Well… a lot of cultural factors carry over from one world to another in the Human clade. Reincarnation, synchronous creativity, contact with the Sea of Knowledge, duplications happen for many reasons. I guess… your world and mine somehow developed the same games?”
She tipped her head. “Is that possible?”
“My home country speaks English, a different language than Ostish, and yet standard Ostish names, like Roderick and Amelia and Owen are perfectly the same as English names. If that’s possible, then I suppose two worlds could have the same game. There are hundreds of billions of worlds in the Human clade, throughout the universes of the Mortal Realm.”
She began to look a bit bewildered, and I noticed I was throwing in some details that were subjects she knew nothing about. I reminded myself to consider my audience more as I spoke.
I hazarded, “So I am guessing… even though your world had those games, it must have had magic as well?”
“Wouldn’t that be natural?” Chiara wondered.
“The world that Ryuu and I come from has no wizards or magic at all. Magic is non-existent in that universe,” I explained.
“It’s what?” Chiara asked. “But the vehicles and machines that Ryuu has described to me…”
“It’s a very different world,” I told her. “Those things work on completely different principles.”
“I really… I’m having trouble imagining that, too,” Mireia said. “How could you have any complex devices without magic? To have the games I played without the alchemies of information or light solidification? Without magic, you can’t have memory marrow either…”
Yeah, it sounded like gibberish to me, too.
“Miss Mireia, I think you don’t have any of those things on Huade, either,” I noted.
“But here, you don’t have handheld picture games,” she retorted.
Handheld picture games… must be the literal translation of her world’s term for personal game consoles.
I sighed. “This is getting us nowhere. Miss Mireia, why don’t we start over? I really want to know exactly what happened at school, and what exactly your involvement in it was.”
She frowned. “If you think that when I tell you, you will find what I did to you to be forgivable… Well, I don’t think it will.”
“I just want to know what happened, Miss Mireia. Please tell me.”
