From the Private Papers of Vlad Dracula
Sealed Addendum — Martial & Anomalous Relations Archive
My oldest friend…
Remi is a disappointment.
That is why he survives.
Born of a Pureblood lineage that predates my empire, he should have embraced the Forever Night as culmination. Instead, he treats it as corrosion. Where his kind finds certainty in stagnation, Remi finds insult. He does not fear eternity. He despises it.
This is not rebellion born of grievance. It is rejection born of taste.
Remi’s detachment is often mistaken for neutrality. This is an error. He observes because he judges. He withholds emotion because emotion clouds measurement. When he speaks of strength and courage, he does so without metaphor. To him, these are not virtues. They are criteria.
He respects the sword because it cannot lie. Unlike Blood hierarchies or Infernal systems, the blade resolves conflict without abstraction. Position, timing, will. No lineage excuses failure once steel is drawn. This purity appeals to him. It is why he has scarred himself deliberately through duels rather than harvesting power through safer means.
His disdain for vampiric existence is philosophical, not moral. He views immortality without risk as an abomination of form. A body that cannot be meaningfully threatened becomes ornamental. Remi refuses to be ornamental.
He seeks challenges not for chaos, but for calibration. Each worthy opponent confirms that strength still exists beneath the rot of imposed order. When no such opponent presents itself, he dismantles power structures directly—not to liberate others, but to see if resistance emerges.
It often does not.
His connection to Kade Litrel’Mi is… inconvenient. Where Remi embodies discipline sharpened to clarity, Kade embodies refusal sharpened to motion. They are incompatible in doctrine and yet aligned in outcome. Both disrupt systems without claiming replacement. Both leave power unfinished.
Remi’s sword, Sol Invictus, is not irony. It is indictment. He carries it not as a symbol of hope, but as accusation. Every strike asks the same question: Can you justify your continued existence?
I do not pursue Remi. I do not elevate him. I do not correct him.
He functions as pressure.
Pressure reveals faults more efficiently than loyalty ever could.
Should Remi one day turn his blade toward me, it will not be for justice or prophecy. It will be because he believes the challenge worthy.
That is acceptable.
Some enemies are more useful alive than obedient.