The Princess of La Manchaland Rodion/Identity Story

Overview

Voicelines

Identity Story

Speaker	Dialogue
	We were happy… at first.
	Father spent his days twaddling about silly things like dreams, but… I suppose he had his own charming mirth.
	But it was a good life, if the worst thing I had to do was to placidly indulge his stories.
	My memories of the years I lived as a human have all but disappeared, but… at least this life had to be better than whatever that was.
	Maybe that's why I agreed to become his Kindred.
	… Or, maybe I was seduced by the promise that my beauty could be made to last for all eternity.
	I began to understand my Father only when I began to create my own Kindreds… my Children. When they began to grow in number…
	I understood that Father wanted us to be happy.
	He wanted to free us from the crippling loneliness, for he was the first to suffer it.
	Or so I thought.
	Until some traveler visited our Castle and deluded my Father with that sickening manipulation that his dream could somehow be realized even in the waking world.
	… Sancho.
	Father always tried to bring us two closer, as if we were 'sisters'.
	Perhaps it was fortunate that neither of us was the friendly type. We both liked to put up a wall between us and the rest of the world. So, naturally, we distanced ourselves from each other as well.
	I had a degree of faith in her, however; her strength, her abilities, and her… more down-to-earth perspective on life that heavily contrasted our Father's wild imaginations.
	Sancho never had Children of her own, but she always seemed… at least neutral when it came to looking after my Kindreds.
	… And it is that odd distance between us that brought this plan to fruition.
	Though we were both Second Kindreds, I could let her take care of our Family, to look after my Children and their Kindreds… while I devised this plan.
	Eventually, our Father's sanity was completely broken; he destroyed our castle and built a bizarre amusement park in its place…
	… rambling a plan that seemed to have come straight out of a madman's dream that we could coexist with… humans.
	That we must live begging for stagnant blood in packs when veins, pulsating with hotly flowing blood, walk right past us.
	That we must subsist on that thing, more flavorless than even pastel paste.
	That all of his Kindreds must live trapped in a fate worse than that of a Bloodbag… all for the future in which Bloodfiends and humans may coexist in harmony.
	His eyes gleamed with the conviction that to dream, he could endure even the yearning for blood…
	Yet… desire is not something that can be so easily overcome.
	It has broken my undying loyalty; this hunger coerced me to think of committing the inconceivable crime of filial impiety.
	No. It may just be that I do not have the strength to pursue the dream as he does.
	… There was a peddler, a merchant of odds and ends who'd always come to visit us at the amusement park.
	Our Father is… tragically naive and innocent. Every time the merchant brought him false Relics, he'd get swindled into buying every single one of them.
	But the peddler didn't just carry counterfeits.
	Sometimes, Sancho and I would go behind our Father's back to threaten the peddler, and we would be presented with an authentic relic the very next day.
	So, one day, another day of suffering through that hunger, I thought to ask the peddler about this rumored Relic.
	'Say, do you know about the legendary helm of Mambrino that brings the wearer to equal ground with all those around them?'
	That little tomb raider could not possibly have imagined what we were planning to do with the artifact.
	Of course not.
	Just as we could never gain an understanding of humans, just as we could never be one of them, no matter how long our lives may be…
	… They won't ever understand us.
	Gregor, that Child… he claimed that wasn't true. That humans were really starting to see us in a new light, but…
	… I saw it all, from the apex upon which I stood.
	Humans looking up at me and the Parade, their faces brilliant with happy smiles…
	… and Bloodfiends, who shuffled among humans with their eyes lost and wavering with hunger.
	It doesn't matter anymore.
	It doesn't matter whether humans saw us in a different light or not.
	What matters is that I… and my Children… are going hungry.
	Besides, Sancho agreed with me. We couldn't just sit here and watch that human corrupt our Father with that silver tongue.
	Finally… the preparations for the Carnival are complete.
	Now, I leave this endlessly whirling yet stagnant, self-devouring Parade…
	… and announce the beginning of a true feast of blood.
	Ohh…
	It's going to be so… beautiful…

World of La Manchaland Identity Stories