Futility - The Hagiography of Ecclesia's Master, as Recounted by Lucila Fortner
Epilogue - The Sun
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“For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come.”
Dear reader,
Greetings. It is I, Shanoa: the weapon; the murderer; the heartless thing. However you wish to know me.
The manuscript you have read is perhaps the only firsthand account left of Ecclesia. I meant to destroy it, to cast it into the fire and forget it like all the rest, but I thought against it. If this story persists into memory, as I have no doubt it will, despite my efforts to be forgotten, I want my voice to accompany it. Trying to hide any record will, ultimately, be a fruitless effort- even years later I am still finding documentation I have missed. So now, this is my account of this tragedic narrative and its conclusion. I’d rather that live on than not.
I don’t want Ecclesia’s voices, the voices of those who abused me, to be the only ones that speak of me. I’m sure you can understand that...
But, yes, as I have implied, I did destroy most of Ecclesia’s research, and the cathedral. By the time I had returned from the castle, the place was abandoned and silent, and looked as though it were any other building. All had fled my almost-anger as I had stormed through Castlevania; it had been only a few days prior to my return but felt like the span of a lifetime. I conjured the fire of Vol Ignis, and the piles of dry, dusty old books caught the whole place alight within seconds . Flames erupted around me, burning the horrid place down to its foundations.
It would all burn- all of Ecclesia. My home; my church; my phrontistery; my Golgotha; my hell.
It would burn until there was nothing left but a new self. A new Shanoa. A blank slate. Hah. It’s odd, though, even finding my ‘old name’ within the text didn’t really make me feel anything towards it, or that I ought to use it again... I suppose it had been so long since I went by Agathe that she wasn’t me any more. Even then, I had forgotten quickly, though perhaps that was by design. Regardless, I do not wish to become some old version of myself. I quite like the one I have shaped with my own hands. That’s the real Shanoa. I made the name my own.
As I watched the purifying, cleansing flames engulf the cathedral, I wept. It was not the loss of the arcane books and knowledge; that did not cause me this deep sorrow- though perhaps the loss of Albus’s research was a tragedy, being one of the last traces of his unfortunate life. Nay, it was the burden I would carry, heavy upon my shoulders and lashed across my back like a devoted flagellant; all of the truth that had been revealed, all I now knew, had brought me hitherto unknown pain; my own tragic role in this repeating cycle. Dracula had been defeated, but it was a temporary and hollow victory. I had lost too much; he would return again as long as there were those that wished it, like my detestable master. As it always was, as it always will be. I had borne witness to all of it.
I was the sun.
And I was far too aware.
It was tempting to wallow in this dawning sorrow, to lament the loss of my innocence, as the flames cleansed away all traces of Ecclesia. Perhaps the storied Belmont clan would have understood my grief, as they too struggled in their own futile cycle. It had destroyed their last heir from within, after all. I considered this as I chewed an apple I had found in my satchel, some of the last of my provisions I had taken to the castle.
What would I have said to Richter Belmont, if we met? For some reason, I can only muster great sympathy for the disgraced, villainous hunter, with emotions that were far too new to understand, and to an extent, still are. I know he was manipulated, despite how he is presented in the preceding text. I know I was, too.
And yet... Yet, I know Belmonts. They populate the village Wygol; they are shopkeeps and tailors and blacksmiths and jewelers. I married one! They are happy, happy in a way I could have only barely grasped back then, even while they were in the face of this unending, cyclical thing. Had Richter’s disappearance set them free of that cycle? Maybe so.
That happiness... Maybe I understand now, with my reclaimed emotions- my dear brother’s last gift, his final act of love. His love was something stubborn and persistent: stubborn enough to kill him. I had become a wretched, violent, mindless thing, and yet he still loved me. He loved me more than anything. It amazes me even now, even while I am older and these wounds have long since healed.
Everyone in the village, too... Why else should the jeweler have tried so hard to awaken my heart? Why else did the young boy invite me to play? Why else did the old woman welcome me inside as a friend? Why, why, why? They loved me. Of course they did. I can only see that now, with my once-clouded eyes that were blinded by the malady my master had cast upon me.
But I am not blind anymore.
What can I say of Ecclesia...? Ecclesia was not my home, and never was. Barlowe could not see that cycles could be escaped, or that happiness could still flourish despite them; he resigned himself to that despair until it became his joy, rather than seeking to change things for the better or keep fighting for those who still lived like a true hunter- like how I fought Dracula despite the void that had nearly destroyed me. He could have been different. Maybe that is a tragedy, but he was a vile man, and not to be mourned. He got what he deserved, destroyed by the very blind faith that drew him to hurt the innocent. Maybe Lucila, the author herself, my former friend, was also a tragedy; she was as manipulated by him as I was.
I shall leave you with this detail, in hopes that you will think about it a small while: that day that Morris Baldwin and his students had visited us, someone had indeed informed them of the questionable aspects of our upbringing. It was not Albus, though he was punished for it; it was not me, as I was too naive to perceive my life in the Order as mistreatment. Nor was it any other disciple but Lucila herself, so concerned by the injury Albus had suffered shortly before. She had asked to leave with Baldwin, and that was when all hell had broken loose. I know this because she told my dear brother- both of us, actually- having snuck into our room the midnight afterwards and wept into our arms for forgiveness now that Barlowe was so angry. I do not know whether she omitted this detail intentionally, or had repressed the memory. I could not presume to guess, but I am certain of this: she was, like we all were, merely a scared child. She never escaped, even after Barlowe had died, really, so perhaps in some ways she still is.
Perhaps when I read this, I expected to find answers to why Barlowe had come to such beliefs; why things had happened as they did; why he wanted to hurt and kill me. All I found was madness. Perhaps I, too, wished to rationalize the events in my life. Trying to ascribe a greater meaning to them, however, is futile, I think. Things happen, and all we can do is our best, and be kind, not hope for some holy retribution. And that’s life. There is immense beauty in life! I never understood that until I nearly lost mine.
This I am certain of: humanity could never be inherently dark like Barlowe thought: the kindness afforded to me by strangers, the continued struggle to live happily in the face of these cycles... I had seen the goodness in their hearts, and the only “darkness within the souls of mankind” was from people like Barlowe.
He had become a self-fulfilled prophecy. I had become something different entirely.
I still recall my thoughts on that bittersweet day: I’m going to be alive, I thought, standing under the delicate golden threads of sunlight, and it thrilled me! And that excitement- I had never been excited before! This gave way to a cavalcade of feeling. Oh, how I felt: complicated, torrential things, but I felt them.
This life; this knowledge of the truth: they were your greatest gift. I thank you, Albus, more than anything, even if these words cannot reach you now. Thank you, my brother; my dearest love.
I turned towards the familiar forest path to the little township, and found myself smiling, despite all I had lost. But the sun was rising over me, and the day had welcomed me anew. I was to be welcomed home.
I was freed, then, and I am free now.
I could write more extensively- write a memoire even longer than Lucila’s, really; I could spend pages upon pages begging you to think of me as a good person, not merely a complacent sword, since some part of me is still insecure and guilty when I dare to think of these chapters of my life... but I think the actions of Barlowe within the preceding text, even through such a warped, misshapen lens, speak for themselves. I need not explain myself, I hope.
Besides, my wife Laura is calling me for dinner, and I would feel just awful to keep her waiting.
Yours,
Mrs. Shanoa Belmont
Annotations
-And, finally, that promised catharsis. One could argue that her confrontation with Barlowe in the previous chapter could count as its own catharsis, but I think it was important to let her speak for herself rather than having things further obfuscated by Lucila. The scene of Shanoa destroying Ecclesia’s records was one I’ve had headcanons about for a long time (even if Grimoire of Souls explains their absence from archival with an intentional cover-up higher up in authority, I’ve always seen it as an act of closure for Shanoa and always will) and I think it was good fit to include in a fanfiction written as though it were one of those records.
-hahahaha if you thought you’d get through this whole fic without any mention of shalaura YOU ARE MISTAKEN. To be fair when writing I usually operate under the assumption that they are “canon” within my personal reading of the text. And I think bringing up the new happiness and peace of the Belmonts in the absence of their duty was important anyhow to contrast the initial meeting with Richter.
