From the Private Papers of Vlad Dracula
Sealed Addendum — Curated Immortality & Controlled Stasis Archive
The Verdant Cage is often misnamed.
Visitors call it a harem, a menagerie, a trophy hall for vanity. These interpretations are shallow, and therefore common. The Cage is not about desire. It is about containment—specifically, the containment of beings who would otherwise decay, destabilize, or burn themselves into irrelevance.
It is a conservatory, not a prison.
Eternal spring was selected deliberately. Seasons imply progression. Progress implies conclusion. The Cultivated exist outside both. Here, artists never reach their final work. Nobles never exhaust their ambition. Lovers never age into disappointment. Time is suspended at the point just before decline becomes inevitable.
They are not frozen. They are maintained.
Each consort was chosen not for beauty alone, but for volatility. Great passion, great insecurity, great capacity for self-destruction. Left uncontained, such individuals either ignite revolutions or collapse into obscurity. The Cage offers a third outcome: endurance without escalation.
I do not compel affection. I do not require gratitude. Many of the Cultivated resent me quietly. Some adore me loudly. Both reactions are acceptable. Emotional authenticity preserves vitality. Manufactured devotion does not.
They create endlessly. Music without finale. Paintings without completion. Philosophies without publication. Their work circulates anonymously through the city, stripped of authorship. Inspiration is permitted. Legacy is not.
Pruning is necessary.
When a member of the Cultivated begins to believe themselves essential—when identity calcifies into entitlement—they are removed. Sometimes gently. Sometimes absolutely. A garden that refuses pruning becomes wilderness, and wilderness invites collapse. The Verdant Cage exists to prevent that entropy.
Zoriana disapproves of the inefficiency. She prefers outcomes. The Cage produces none. Lyra understands its purpose precisely. She has remarked that it is the only place in the city where ambition is allowed to stall rather than metastasize.
I do not visit often.
When I do, it is not to indulge, but to observe. The Cultivated remind me of a truth I prefer not to forget: immortality does not guarantee relevance. It merely delays erasure.
The Verdant Cage is my answer to those who believe eternity is a reward.
It is not.
It is a responsibility—and one most beings are unfit to bear without supervision.
So I keep the gates locked, the flowers blooming, and the spring eternal.
Not out of cruelty.
Out of restraint.