Castlevania Nocturne: A Guardian's Tale (Part 1)

Shimmer

"Iris! Rosie! Don't run too far!!" Emma called after her daughters.

  "It's all right dear." Cyrus took her hand. "I will watch them."  Emma sighed and nodded, watching her husband race up to their children and playfully catch them." Giggles erupted from the girls as they tackled him.

"Race you Dad!" Iris challenged.

" Can't beat us!" Rosie laughed.

The girls sped off with their father running off with them.

I swear Cyrus is a little kid in a man's body. Emma chuckled to herself. She couldn't have asked for a better husband and father.

"Mother." The small child tugged at her wrist. "May I run with them too?"

"Not yet, Lyudmil." Emma held his hand. "You're just getting over a cold, I don't want you  sick again."

"I won't ." Lyudmil complained. "Grandfather told me you can't get sick that way, it's from the germs. They get into your body and make you sick."  

Emma wanted to chew out her father for being such a genius. They were lucky they lived in the city of Belmont, where the advanced knowledge of her grandfather's castle, the Belmont Hold, and the Whisperers Guild made their people the most intelligent and well learned in the modern world. Elsewhere the four year old boy would've been beaten, chastised for 'madness', or worse.

He's already smarter than most kids his age, and more of a handful.

"That's true, but you also need to give your body time to recover, so it can be strong enough to fight off the germs again." Emma explained.

"I feel better already. I wanna run." Lyudmil insisted.  His sniffle revealed otherwise. Emma wiped his nose with a kerchief. "The only thing running right now is your nose. In time, my son."

"But they'll get to the lake before us." Lyudmil sighed glumly. "We'll be left behind."

"Not if we catch up with them." Emma smirked, kneeling down.

Lyudmil tapped his feet excitedly, hopping onto Emma's back and holding on tightly. His arms wrapped around his mother's shoulders and feet around her waist. Emma stood up. "Are you holding on tight, little monkey?"

"Yes!" Lyudmil squeaked.

"Okay! Here we go!!" White wings burst from Emma's back and she glided above the ground, breezing past the trees and her surprised daughters! Lyudmil cheered and giggled, raising his fist to the sky when they reached the pond before his sisters could. "We won we won!!" His nose ran like a flooded river.

"All right little sniffle-snort. Here, wipe your nose." Emma gave him the kerchief which Lyudmil cleaned his face. "Can we fly when we go back home, Mother?"

"Maybe." Emma folded and dispersed her wings. "You know, your grandmother used to do the same thing with me when I was your age. Sometimes' she'd fly me up to the top of the castle!"

"Can we do that too !?" Lyudmil happily flapped his arms the way Emma did as a child.

"Maybe one day." Emma mused. Emma already knew how to fly on her own by then. "When you're a little bigger." And I know for certain you're strong enough to hold on and have your own wings.

"I wanna fly!" Lyudmil giggled, jumping around and waving his arms pretending they were wings.

They met up with the rest of their family at the pond on the edge of the meadow.  Emma sat in her favorite spot under the pine tree, watching her daughters frolic among the wildflowers." Mother, can I go by the water? " Lyudmil tucked on Emma's sleeve.

"All right." Emma relented. "But stay by the edge."

Lyudmil nodded and happily trotted off. Cyrus approached Emma and sat beside her against the tree. The couple huddled into each other, with Cyrus wrapping an arm around her.  "Finally everyone's through being sick." He sighed in relief. 

"You said it." Emma agreed. "When the twins came down with the cold, I knew it was only a matter of time .........." She breathed in the summer air. "He took longer to get over it."

"That's because he refused to rest in bed." Cyrus nudged her. "And he's younger."

"I know." Emma nodded. "I just worry about him a little more than our girls. He takes more after the human side of his family." 

"He has your intellect, and your eyes." Cyrus stated. "He's still a young child, love. He may surprise us."

They observed their son collecting rocks at the edge of the pond. His sisters joined him and helped collect rocks by the bank, tossing a few into the pond. Emma and Cyrus watched their children, full of love and amazement. The Great-Grandchildren of Dracula, the Grandchildren Adrian Tepes and Egrigori Zaharial, and  children of a Nephilim and a Whisperer Alchemist. What a heritage, I wonder what journeys their lives will bring.

Emma knew one thing for certain, wherever life would take them, she would always be there for her children.

Lyudmil stopped collecting rocks when something caught his attention at the pond. His sisters seemed noticed it too, staring like curious cats above the water's surface

"What are they looking at?" Cyrus wondered. Emma felt pressure form in the back of her head like an oncoming migraine, and heard a near silent crackle like embers popping over a campfire. Her pupils shrunk and she stood up.

"Mama! Papa! Look!!!" Lyudmil pointed to a blurry patch over the pond. "A rainbow!"

Emma caught the shimmering air, the pressure in the back of her head intensifying.

"A rainbow? I don't see anything ." Cyrus remarked amused.

"What do you mean you don't see it Papa!?" Iris exclaimed.

"It's right there!!"  Rosie pointed to the shimmering spot growing larger.

Emma's glyphs prickled in an eerie and unfamiliar way.

"Children come over here right now!"  Emma demanded with her divine voice. Her children inherently obeyed, running over to her.  The tension snapped and the shimmer vanished.

"It's gone!" Rosie exclaimed.

"It just disappeared!" Iris gasped.

"Aww. It looked really pretty. Do you think we can make another one by splashing water into the light? Grandfather showed me how to make rainbows." Lyudmil wondered .

"What did you see?" Cyrus asked.

"A shimmery rainbow." Lyudmil pointed. "Right over the water. It disappeared. Did you see it Mama?"

"I did." Emma kept her calm. "Let's head home. It's getting too hot to be outside."

"But mother we just got here." Iris whined.

"We'll come back another day." Emma said, looking at her husband worried.

Cyrus didn't understand, but he knew his wife was scared. " The pond's not going anywhere, my dears. We'll have lunch with Grandma and Grandpa in the big castle, and do a scavenger hunt." He darted a look at his wife, who nodded. "That sounds much better doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Rosie agreed.

"Can we go now?" Asked Iris.

"Yes." Emma said. "Let's make our way there."

Lyudmil held her hand on their walk back home, where the parents packed lunch and toys, reining up the horse cart as they journeyed into the city proper.

"Mama? Can you fly me up top on the Castle?" Lyudmil asked, sitting next to her. 

"Another time, my darling." Emma stroked his dark grey mop of hair, inherited from his  father. His eyes were gold like his mother and grandfather's.