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[ the historian ]
In the Year of Our Lord 1456, Drakula did many terrible and curious things.
Born in Transylvania to Vlad Dracul, a military governor appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, Dracula -- son of the dragon or devil -- was a voivode (prince) of Wallachia, and knight in the secret fraternity of The Order of the Dragon, a group devoted to protecting Christianity against Islamic Turks whose Ottoman empire spread further into Europe each year.
Young Vlad is said to have acquired his taste and creative flair for cruelty when in 1438, the elder Dracul betrayed his membership in the Order of the Dragon and aligned himself with the Turks, even going as far as to send Dracula and his brother Radu to live in Sultan Murad II's care, as assurance that he had no plans to attack his new allies.
"What the hell is this, an essay?" Morgy narrowed her eyes curiously at the words that appeared quickly one after the other on the computer screen as Adora's nimble fingers flew over the keyboard. She hovered above and behind where Adora was perched on a modern looking office chair in Morgy's darkly lit study. A small laptop sat on her enormous mahogany desk, making the computer look like a cheap novelty toy rather than a $1500 slice of technology.
"No no no, it's just a quick summary of who we're hunting so we can get the job done quickly and efficiently," Adora replied, her gaze fixed intently on the task before her.
"Isn't he just buried in some monastery in Romania? We hop on a plane, slay some lord of the vampires ass, and bada boom, bada bing and we're done!" Morgy shrugged coolly, as if their plot was straightforward enough to not require much more preparation.
"Listen, Eastside Mario, it isn't that easy. His 'official' grave at the monastery on Lake Snagov was found to be empty years ago. Clearly the guy hasn't been walking dead for five hundred and thirty one years because he's stupid and keeps his sarcophagus in the first place people look."
"I'm not sure a whole lot of people are looking, Dorita," Morgy informed Adora, patting her on the head as if she were a retarded child and would understand the ways of the world yet.
"Why aren't you supporting me in this, woman?!" Adora asked incredulously.
"How many times have you come to graveyards with me to hunt for vampires when I've asked you to?" she asked hotly, her cheeks flushing with pent-up indignation.
"Duh, there's a difference," Adora scoffed, "Buffy isn't real. Vlad the Impaler is, and we know this because if it wasn't for him, no one ever would have dreamed Buffy up."
"I AM Buffy!" Morgy screeched, throwing her arms up in the air with frustration at her best friend for not accepting such an obvious fact of reality.
"I thought you were Sailor Mooooon," Adora taunted, making good use of that retarded inner child.
"And I thought YOU were shut the hell up!" Morgy huffed, crossing her arms angrily under her breasts.
"Okay, okay, Sailor Buffy, chillax," Adora cooed. "Needs more focus on what I'm writing."
"Fine," she grumbled, "but don't fucking say 'chillax' around me."
While in Turkish captivity, Dracula learned much about torture and grew increasingly bitter at the world. In 1447, he learned that his father was assassinated by a relative, John Hunyadi, for his support of the Ottomans and for all the harm he caused the Christian plight against Islam. In this same time period, Vlad was informed that his elder brother, Mircea, had his eyes gouged out and was buried alive by the boyars -- nobility -- of Tirgoviste, the Wallachian capital.
What would have been Dracula's throne under normal circumstances was now held by these mutinous boyars, so with the help of Turkish cavalry -- whom he befriended during his relatively unscathing captivity -- and with his own brilliant military scheming, Vlad reclaimed his rightful throne and killed his father's murderer.
When he was appointed Lord in Wallachia, he had all the young boys burned who came to his land to learn the language; four hundred of them. He had a large family impaled and many of his people buried naked up to the navel and shot at. Some he had roasted and then flayed.
And so began one of three reigns of terror that, although only a cumulative seven years, saw more blood spillt on whims than most any other tyrant of Dracula's time.
"Is that true?" Morgy asked, her face softening with a more genuine curiosity.
"I'm not sure, but he did impale assloads of people for the tiniest indiscretions. His reputation preceded him all over Europe, even though he was only the lord of a really small place. That's why Bram Stoker modelled his count after Vlad."
"Did he? Vlad the Impaler didn't look much like the Count that Stoker describes, though."
"But there were lots of similarities... you need to drive a stake through a vampire's heart to kill him or her, which is some serious poetic justice for a species who started out as some guy's lust for impaling people. And according to Van Helsing, another way to ensure that a vampire will stay dead is to cut its head off, and Vlad is said to have been beheaded. Plus both the character and person are Transylvanian. Or, for example, Vlad tortured and impaled bugs and rodents while he was imprisoned, which is reminscent of the Count's shifty sidekick, Renfield, who, in the book, eats bugs while in the nuthouse."
"So he liked to kill people; that doesn't make him a bloodsucker or undead. Where'd that jazz come from?"
"Eh, that's where it's hard to tell fact from fiction. Some say he had a blood allergy or something that made his face look very pale and his lips plump and red, and that the disorder made him get crazy when he saw blood. I can't tell if this means he craved it or was sickened by it, but it must be the former since he also apparently drank the blood of his victims and feasted on human flesh."
"Barf."
"I knooow, I bet human meat is gross and stringy."
"Not babies," Morgy reminded. "Hot buttered babies would melt in your mouth!" Adora stopped her typing momentarily to look curiously at her friend.
"You and your hot, buttered babies," Adora said, shaking her head knowingly.
"I'm just sayin'!" she shrugged her shoulders and raised her hands in front of her, as if staving the blame off of herself for babies being so delicious.
"You know, he was like the Hitler of his times. He set out to cleanse his people of the sick, weak, lazy, handicapped and poor."
"That's terrible, yet I can't help but think that SW needs some of that action."
"Yeah, except replace 'sick,' 'handicapped' and 'poor' with 'egomaniacal,' 'entitled for no reason,' and 'full of shit.'"
"I should totally do that with the roster!" Morgy squealed, her eyes lighting up with glee.
"Yeah, Dracula announced to his kingdom that none of his people should go hungry and invited all the 'unfortunate souls' for a feast. Once they were sufficiently fed and drunk, he asked them how they'd like to never go hungry again, and when everyone cheered in response, he granted their wish by having his men board up the banquet hall and set it on fire."
"That's so badass!" she squealed again, a dreamy expression of newfound possibility on her face.
"Kay, I'm going to skip this battle crap; that's the boring part of history, where all the men run around beating each other up in the name of their cocks and thrones."
"Again, the similarities between our industry and history are undeniable. You'd so fail this essay if you were in school, skipping over a whole chunk of events."
"It's not an essay, woman, we're just educating ourselves! His battles mean little to us in terms of his undeadness and where we can find him. The beauty of the internet is that we have access to a ridiculous amount of historical documents that have been transcribed and posted on virtual libraries."
"Don't those cost money?" Morgy asked. "You have to subscribe to them or pay by the article."
"Oh yeah, P.S. I borrowed your credit card."
Most of Vlad's adult life was spent protecting his kingdom from being monopolized into the Ottoman empire by the Turks and defending Christianity against Islam; an odd quest for a man who would come to be the very symbol of heresy and that which is unholy.
It is said that Dracula had a passion other than bloodshed: books. In particular, he dabbled in the occult and called for his servants and assistants to bring him volumes on the subject from anywhere they could. He is believed to have found the secret to immortality in undeath in one of these tomes, and in the course of fulfilling his new destiny, required a formal Christian burial. He was generous to many monasteries but was in particular patron to the monastery at Lake Snagov, where his "official" eternal resting place lies at the base of the altar.
The cause of his death is largely disputed, but it is likely that he was killed in battle against the Ottomans; possibly by one of his own boyars who did not recognize him while he was disguised as a Turk. Upon his decapitation, his head was likely placed on display atop a tall spike at the gates of the Sultan's palace in Constantinople -- Istanbul -- for all to know of their victory over a great tyrant. Dracula's head likely loomed high above the heads of other downed enemies, symbolizing the importance of his defeat.
His men returned his headless body to Wallachia, but the head could not be smuggled easily away from the heavily guarded Topkapi Palace. Upon his arrival in Snagov, bizarre things began to occur while the resident monks prayed for the soul of their patron. The body was at risk for damnation without its head, and it has been reported that the Impaler's body rose from its altar and floated in the air momentarily before dropping back into its place. Other monks claimed that a small animal symbolic of the devil scurried over the body; regardless, they were terrified and interrupted their meditation to search the church throughly for any signs of life or disturbance. They turned nothing up.
The terrifying event spurred the monks into action, and they knew they had to reunite Vlad's head with his body if he were ever to rest eternally. And so began the journey of bringing the holy relic from Constantinople through the Ottoman occupied Balkans and and to Snagov.
If the body is neither in Snagov, nor in Istanbul, it can only be concluded that the location of Dracula's sarcophagus lies somewhere in between in the land of the Slavs.
[ 100 ]
Can someone tell me when I have sat down in front of this camera with the sole intention of listing off my achievements? Because I can't quite remember... I'm pretty sure that's usually what my opponents do instead, thinking I give a shit that they were awesome back in the day when Flame was top-notch competition. I prefer to stick to clarifying why they're morons, just in case they were confused about it, as morons often tend to be. Quite frankly, I don't care if anyone knows what I've achieved in the past, because it has little relevance to what I'm doing now.
And for the love of god, people need to drop this "fighting champions" crap. It's a well-known and established fact that we, the wrestlers, DO NOT PICK OUR MATCHES OR OPPONENTS. It's easy to say, "Well you weren't a fighting champion, but lookie here! I soooo am!!!" when you know it's Corey Page who ultimately decides what the cards look like and you can just talk out of your ass to look brave.
I don't see anyone offering to defend their title willingly. Nobody is exactly fielding challenges around here, except for maybe Morgana, who's the first to say that if you want a chance at her title, earn it and go for it.
Last week, I pretty much challenged Roxy Erikson, did I not? Where's my response? Where's my match? You can't say I haven't earned a chance to face her because, well, she's lucky if she manages to bend a paper clip in the opposite direction, let alone wrestle with skill. And I'd even be doing her a favour by getting her exposure through my name, because god knows that nobody knows who the fuck she is.
Fighting champion, eh, Cas? Please. Lick my asshole -- I promise there aren't any stray dingleberries lurking around in there, which I'm sure is more than you can say about your new sidekick.
I feel no shifting of tides around here, because the "tide" is controlled at the will of the best on the roster -- i.e. Morgana, me, Stevie Swing, Leah Petrelli. If you think that teaming up with people like Roxy Erikson and Shane Donovan is going to be revolutionary, you're far more misguided than I thought. You're infinitely better at what you do than they are, and if you want to establish any of your "legacies" anew, you need to cut the dead weight now, no fucking joke.
Sadly, yes, I do have to prove myself against you. It's a shitty situation that's borderline laughable, but here we are.
I'm not taking it lightly, so you'd better get readjusted to that all Wifey, all the time programming, because it's not going away.
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