Streets of Hope

How does your perception of time change from the mortal standard? Is a week still a week, or is it something else, in terms of your perceptions of said week?

"Sometimes, I am bored. I am tired, too. Sometimes because of work problems. Sometimes, because my age weighs on me. I sleep more - kill time in the egg. If I cannot sleep, then time appears slow. Each second is torture. You mortals then live faster than me, and I feel like sculptor tore me from the earth with his tools. Rigid and lifeless.

Then, honor and duty call again. My old blood stirs. Love sparks a blaze in my chest, or good friends light my eyes. Time goes fast. I forget entire centuries, because I have no need to remember them in detail. I am happy.

I find myself thinking to the past and weighing the Good and the Bad. The Bad sticks to my mind like flies. I would swat them away with my blade, if I could. Pesky memory-flies of old failures and ancient sorrows... The Good never wants to be recalled. It is warmth in my chest and heat in my eyes. It is half-remembered lyrics to a tavern song, so bright like fire against the darkness... The Good is feelings, sensations, more than memories.

If Katherine passes on, I will remember her well for a time. Then, her face will fade away. Her voice will grow indistinct. She will blend in all the other women I have seen - and still become more than them. She will be the one I will have loved. I will forget all of her, except the fact that she loved me.

Vampires are not like dragons. Or mages, either. They remember more, perhaps because they remember being mortal. Dragons can die, but we can live for so long that the mind has to forget for us to remember new things.

My years in rookery are faded. My childhood is a song. My boyhood is mountain range in Carpathians. The Orkneys and Earl rise out of fog. Constantinople with Cordatus. Then, the libraries burn, and I return to Dragon's Peak. I sleep for years and rarely awaken. Every time, new selkies greet me. Every time, I am less a dragon and more a god. I grow more and more alone, trapped in the wonderment and fear of others...

I have not gone mad because of Cordatus. Because of Katherine and Earl. Otherwise, I would have gone mad. Three thousand years is too long."

He sighs

"Far too long..."