“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!?”

 “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know, **** never—”

 “Don’t blame that lazy excuse for a father for your own ignance! You just ruined an entire harvest cause you sprinkled that shady stuff all over the corn! What’re you gonna do when the whole town starts starvin’ cause an eighth of their crop went bad!”

 “It was supposed to stop the bugs!”

 “And look how that turned out! Now we got no corn at all, ‘stead of a few bad bunches.”

 “I’ll fix it. I promise! I’ll talk to the person I bought the pesticides—”

 “Shut the hell up! The real pest here is you. You’re lucky it didn’t kill us all ‘n zombify us or somethin’! I can’t believe this… You’re worthless, just ‘s bad as your father! Get outta here! ‘fore I beat—”

 “AAAAH!” A feminine yelp broke the silence of the peaceful bedchamber.

 Bolting upright, the confused ex-lieutenant gasped for air as he took in his surroundings, the furious face of his mother already a hazy afterimage.

 This wasn’t his family’s old home at all. Instead he was in a rather luxurious linen bed, soft purple sheets covering his legs with a matching canopy overhead.

 The room had a rather… delicate atmosphere to it; the ceiling looked like pale gray marble, the walls were painted in a lilac hue, and the floor had been coated in a soft dark red carpet.

 Hanging from the ceiling was a strange fixture akin to the chandeliers he saw in noble households, but there were strange glass casings instead of candles attached to it.

 Against the wall to his right were curtains stretching to the floor, glass doors leading to an outside balcony just on the other side. Opposite them was a smooth rosewood door, likely leading out into a hall.

 He could probably escape from the balcony—assuming the walls were actually scaleable. He did recall the spires of the capital towering overhead as they skulked through the city’s back alleys. But…

 Lined up along the wall across from him was a lacquered mahogany dresser, a cabinet filled with glasses and bottles, and between them, a vanity and stool with a set of folded clothes atop it; in the vanity’s mirror, reflected back was…

 …The visage of a pale-skinned, silver-haired, pointy-eared and scarlet-eyed girl. Her hair was somewhat messy, its luxuriant strands pooling around her on the bed and half-covering one of her eyes in a loosely swept fringe. The reflected girl’s vertically slit pupils widened in shock.

 Before he knew it, he’d rushed over to the mirror and reached to touch the cold glass with a trembling hand.

 “This is…”

 It was the face of the monster who’d defeated him, the demonic tyrant who held the entire world in a chokehold.

 Except, younger. The youthful roundness of childhood had yet to fully leave her cheeks.

 And also, this was a mirror, which could only mean…

 “No, no no no this can’t be. How could this— I’m a human! A man! Not a… a…” his voice trailed off, his throat gripped by panic. He couldn’t bear putting it to words.

 Every syllable he uttered felt off. He spoke with the dull flatness a soldier would, but his pitch and register were undeniably higher and… cutesy.

 Tearing his gaze away from the… reflection, he looked down at the clothes… and his face contorted once more.

 They were neatly folded and looked luxurious—probably, he couldn’t make heads or tails what sort of material had been used—but at the very top was a small strip of cloth with a little bat detailed on the front, as well as some sort of… padded cloth harness?

 “Nevermind whatever this is, I can’t wear these! This is… clearly—”

 “Hellooo~ Do our ears deceive us, or is our darling little flower already up and about on her— Oh?”

 The door to his room exploded open as the Tyrant herself barged in, red eyes wide with surprise as she saw his exposed figure… huddled around the corner of the vanity, glowering up at her.

 His captor had changed out of her formalwear, now garbed in soft red-and-white checkered flannel pants and a loosely buttoned white top, a night-cap adorned with a fuzzy red ball with bat wings sticking out of it resting atop her head.

 “What’re you doing just barging in here! Die! But like actually, though!”

 “That’s no way to talk to your mother, even if we did barge in on you in the middle of dressing yourself…”

 “I was not… was it your idea to put these clothes out? What are you thinking! What even is this!?”

 He shook the harness around by the strap, still cowering behind the corner of the vanity.

 “That’s a bra, dear. Do you need mommy to help—”

 “No! Don’t come near me, you damned monster,” he shouted between heavy breaths. “Get out! Don't even think of coming back!”

 A small frown creased across the monster’s lips, “Oh, well, of course. You’re hardly an infant, after all. We… shall return later to check on you, and wait in our room until then.”

 She closed the door, an uncomfortable silence falling upon the confused man(?)’s shoulders. A bizarre feeling struck him, as though he’d done something wrong.

 He slowly stood back up, placing his hand with the bra atop the bundle of clothes.

 “Did I… actually just make her sad? No, don’t be ridiculous, that thing’s the source of all mankind’s despair and suffering. It’s just a trick.”

 His eyes slid back up to the reflection in the mirror. “Grr… why me!?”

 He threw himself back under the covers of the bed, sinking his face into the pillow.

 ＊　＊　＊

 Exaltare Lilianna Majalis Aphtangloa was a woman who neither broke nor bent to the whims of others.

 She’d overseen the expansion of their empire into the Whorling Bay—considered the greatest territorial acquisition of the past five millennia—and went on to revolutionize international politics with the creation of the Spire.

 While it sounded simple in retrospect, it’d been anything but. Even the most progressive of the Seven Families balked at the notion of sharing power with the “lesser races,” but Lilliana knew that the only way forward was to give them a voice.

 The mind would grow numb to fear and force if it didn’t also experience relief.

 Besides, the other nations stood virtually no chance of outmaneuvering the Vampires, when their ambassadors hardly lasted a century. How could they possibly hope to outwit the eldest dwellers of the continent?

 Such was her pitch to the Seven; the leaders of Drimus were quick to fall behind her, being her original family, but the others…

 For decades, she argued with the remaining six, assuring them that having the majority meant there was little the other races could do even if they all banded together, while they protested that it would pave the way to future concessions. They weren’t wrong, but they had forgotten how this all came about to begin with.

 And more to the point, their argument missed the fact that she intended to use the other races to work around the unfavorably positioned traditionalists.

 Perhaps they, in their ignorance, thought that the other members of their glorious empire could simply be browbeaten into keeping their heads down.

 Regardless, she’d succeeded and the neutral territory and structure were established, and even the humans had a seat reserved for them—though it was never once filled.

 Imagine what the Seven would say if they learned what we have wrought this time… hmhmhmm~

 It would be impossible to talk her way out of. Even though her daughter had turned out perfectly healthy, managing to inherit her blood more readily than any heir-potentiate produced by the Families, it’d throw the entire Empire into anarchy if word of her origin got out.

 The accusation that she’d created a ghoul to lead the world to a new era would already be more than enough to see her entire legacy tarnished and her head on a pike.

 But she’d made her decision rationally, deliberating the matter for an entire sparring session. Her daughter had managed to survive a life-or-death examination, and had sharp instincts.

 Still, there’d be quite a bit of scrutiny falling upon Lycoris, as the families tried to suss out where exactly she’d crawled out from. “Fortunately,” only her handpicked personal guard had encountered the pair of humans, and her daughter had killed most of them, somehow.

 And she still had another trump card to play, thanks to her daughter’s incredible gift.

 She’s quite the prodigy indeed, except…

 More troubling than any potential political fallout, was that…

 “She really doesn’t like us all that much… Oh sister, what are we to do? Did we approach too strongly? Or was it simply unfortunate timing?”

 After plucking a bottle and glass from the cupboard, she sat down in her velvet chair, poured a quarter, and stared at the crimson ichor.

 “Perhaps she was merely cranky after just waking up? She did spend almost an entire day asleep after we bathed her and tucked her into bed.”

 Normally such a task would be left to servants, but she had to move carefully, ensuring that word of Lycoris didn’t spread before the embrace of her heir was announced. Not even her most loyal underlings, the ones permitted to serve in the private wing of her palace, could be trusted with this information.

 It was fine if they suspected something, so long as they didn’t have any hard evidence.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

 “After this glass… We’ll try with a different tack. That should give her enough time to settle down.”

 She chuckled softly at herself. She’d chosen to walk across the thorns of this brambled tightrope, so why not relish these new feelings, rather than fear them?

 She was the Exaltare—Ruler of the vampires, and the world by proxy—there was nobody more wise and capable than her.

 Though she’d finally encountered the one thing she lacked experience in, Lilianna would find a path into her daughter’s heart, no matter what.

 ＊　＊　＊

 “…Maybe she really did leave.”

 He poked his head back up, a pair of fang-marks left in the pillowcase from his frustrated grumblings to himself. He hadn’t actually gone back to sleep; he felt almost too energetic to remain lounging about, and his head ached from staying in bed so long.

 His eyes wandered over to the drawn curtains, and back to the clothes on the vanity—though he pointedly avoided the mirror.

 “I can’t escape while naked… though, where would I even escape to? I doubt I’d make it out of Empire territory on my own. Maybe if I could still get in touch with one of the allies we made along the way, but…”

 He reflexively peeked at his distant reflection out of the corner of his eye. Frustrated, he tossed the irritatingly comfortable sheet over his body and hugged his slender knees.

 No one would trust him as he looked now. Much as he hated to admit it, he looked just like that woman. Anyone who caught sight of him would either flee in terror, or cringe with disgust.

 Though, he was quite used to the latter from his childhood.

 His mother had been an abusive woman who refused to accept reality or try to change at all, and his father was an alcoholic who’d beat him to take out his frustrations with his wife.

 He didn’t like thinking about them… perhaps it was just the nightmare he’d had—or the fact he’d regressed into a petite little girl physically, without a trained physique to mask his insecurities—but he found his mind wandering back to the adults who’d given him nothing.

 When his father passed away, he didn’t bother going back to that woman, instead choosing to live as an urchin on the streets of the closest walled city he could reach. Once he was old enough, he applied to become a soldier and quickly distinguished himself through his fervent swordsmanship. But even after proving himself, the looks of disgust remained; the only difference is they were rooted in envy instead of contempt.

 Eventually he’d climbed all the way up to the rank of lieutenant-commander of the Third Ray. But after getting closer to the royal family…

 He let his mind wander, thinking back to his comrades as he sat under the sheets.

 Elham, the cheerful redhead who never lost his optimism, not when facing a village ravaged by the Vampires, nor when concocting some horrifying catastrophe and calling it dinner. His knowledge of wildlife and nature was truly second to none—which perhaps was part of the problem. He’d loved to speak at length about the medicinal properties of herbs and how they were good for one’s health… except for the taste. His death was a loss for all who valued wisdom, or treasured kindness and empathy.

 Tatyana, the woman who on the surface seemed sharp, sensible, and determined; she’d been respectful of the effort and dedication both he and the Hero had put into mastering swordsmanship, seeing a parallel to the years required to gain such a pool of magical know-how… Perhaps it hadn’t all been a lie, but he’d never know, nor could he ever forgive her for Elham’s death.

 And finally… The Hero, the Goddess’s chosen, humanity’s savior. Mizar, the Stardust Champion. With humility even greater than his boundless strength, the man was nearly two decades younger than the lieutenant-commander, and yet was preternaturally gifted with both sword and magic. The Hero could effortlessly hold his own against him and Elham at the same time in a two-on-one sparring session. Yet he always claimed that his swordsmanship was inferior…

 I know he sacrificed himself to give me the chance to face that monster without interference, but why? Surely he would’ve fared better against her than me, even if I could only hold out against the reinforcements for so long… Why…

 “Why did he sacrifice himself for me? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around!? Wouldn’t he have been able to destroy… …Come to think of it, I don’t even know her name.”

 “Lilliana,” came a voice from right beside him.

 “HGBWAHF!?”

 He would’ve jumped out of bed, if not for the sheets wrapped over and around him.

 The bedding stretched as he felt someone else sit down beside him.

 “Our apologies for returning before you’ve dressed yourself, but we were… worried about you.”

 “Worried? Heh, thought I’d given you the slip and ran?”

 “You were quivering. You still are.”

 He realized after she pointed it out that his knees were shaking.

 “You needn’t view us as a ruler, Lycoris. We are your mother. If something is troubling—”

 “Of course something’s troubling me! And cut that shit out! You’re not my mother, you’re a monster. You murder humans for sport, keeping us caged like animals at the edge of a peninsula with no means of cultivating land or expanding our territory, leaving us no choice but to fight and kill just to see the next day! How could you ever understand the hatred that’s built up over centuries for you!?”

 It felt as though she’d begun to say something, but he couldn’t hear it over the pounding in his eardrums.

 “This room alone is probably worth more than the whole territory I was born in! And those machines I saw on the way here… I bet they make life real easy for you, don’t they? You’ve probably never spent a day in your life wondering how many days you’d have to fast, just to make ends meet! You’ve never had to wonder if a horde of Sylphs or the Piscin navy will suddenly show up and pillage your town, killing everyone you’ve known! Do you know how many people I’ve seen broken and killed because of them!?”

 At some point, he’d ripped the sheets off to shout at her directly, the vampire looking more solemn than surprised—and yet, she seemed unguarded, somehow.

 “What do you even want from me!?”

 “To inherit our position, and guide our people to a brighter future.”

 The absurdity of her subdued reply rendered him momentarily speechless.

 Is… she serious? But I’m the enemy! Why doesn’t she suspect that I’ll just betray her and send them all into… wait… if I played along with her, then maybe I can dispose of the vampires. If I sacrificed myself and became a monster, but… Can I really do that?

 He couldn’t squander the chance Mizar had given him, the opportunity this beast’s blunder had permitted him… but the thought of himself as a Vampire was beyond revolting.

 He didn’t even know the first thing about leadership, after all, he’d lost his position for a reason…

 “And you actually think I’m capable of that!? ME!!? I’m just… one insignificant person. A guy who hates your kind with a passion, who thinks a ‘brighter future’ wouldn’t have you fiends in it at all!”

 Feeling out of breath after shouting, he was off guard and failed to react as she suddenly reached out and grasped him, pulling him against her chest and putting a hand to his head.

 “There are many things we would like to say, but… most of all, We are… no, I am sorry, my child.”

 His mind blanked, the warmth and the floral aroma of spring greenery suffusing him as her arms tightened protectively.

 “What are you… I’m… not your…”

 “In truth, we have never once seen a human in person. We know of their plight, and of the reason they must be carefully managed.”

 “What…? You have a human right here.”

 “We meant what we said,” she demurely chuckled, lightly pinching one of his ears. “…Is it the fact we chose your garments that you find them so distasteful? There are others in the dresser…”

 “H-Huh? No! It’s because I’m a… man, obviously,” he grumbled. “Those aren’t the kinds of things a guy should wear.”

 How could this Demon Lord be so kind? It made him want to bite her hand, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to force her away.

 “Setting aside the subject of your narrow-mindedness, have you not peered at your reflection in the mirror yet? Would you not find it more appropriate to dress in a manner that fits your current form?”

 “How can you just… say that so casually!?” he groaned in exasperation. Perhaps he was being stubborn and childish, but this woman’s logic made no sense.

 “The Exaltare and her heir are always female. That’s simply how it is, how it has always been.”

 “You can’t just turn someone into a girl and expect them to go along with it like it’s nothing! I don’t even know anything about your society in the first place!”

 “Is it really so strange? Clownfish are protandrous, as are certain breeds of Sea Bream. I would find it no surprise if the Piscin are too… though they might find that insulting, hm.”

 “…A-Are you calling me a fish?” he couldn’t stifle the bewildered chuckle that bubbled out of his throat.

 “No. I’m saying it’s natural,” she patiently explained.

 Even though he wasn’t tired, her voice carried a dulcet softness that compelled him to close his eyes and bury himself against her, like a siren’s song. But he was a grown man! In his forties!

 On the inside, at least…

 “Plus, how do you know you won’t like something if you never try it, hm?”

 “I’d argue there’s nothing natural about this, monster…” he muttered half-heartedly, “And don’t talk to me like a child, I’m—”

 “Not even a century young. And if you’re going to act like a stubborn child, then why wouldn’t we regard you as such?”

 Though her tone hardened slightly, she didn’t let go of him. Repulsed as he thought he should feel by it, he felt… safe in that moment.

 Like nobody could touch him, with the strongest being in the world protecting him. Nobody could judge him.

 “…why me?” he muttered more pitifully than he’d intended.

 “That’s quite a complicated question… We are sure one day you’ll have the answer you wish for, but for now, all we can say is that we saw ‘potential’ within you… We know that’s unsatisfying on its own, but one day you’ll come to understand it as we do.”

 She slowly ran her fingers through his hair.

 “If you try, at least a little… we are sure that you will find common ground, that you’ll see more than just a monster in the mirror. Perhaps you’ll even find something to enjoy with all your heart. Being a sovereign doesn’t mean all freedom, after all. We would go mad if we never had a single moment to ourself.”

 Lilianna closed her eyes and loosened her grip.

 But he didn’t pull himself free.

 “And of course, you can always come back to mommy. If you fall, we’ll pick you back up.”

 She said nothing else after that, the rhythm of her heartbeat against his ear overpowering the distant rumble of clouds.

 He wasn’t sure what to say in response. Nothing felt appropriate. He’d done nothing but reject her, and while he didn’t think he was necessarily wrong to, he still…

 He thought back to his parents, how they never once heeded the counsel of others, how they left each other and abandoned him to the wolves.

 Surely, he could be better than them. Wasn’t that why he strove to become a knight worthy of respect? Why he personally tutored and instructed his soldiers? Why he entreated the King about his daughter’s grief?

 Wasn’t that the reason he joined the Hero’s party, and fought for the future?

 Perhaps… he could at least humor her, even if he couldn’t reciprocate the creature’s kindness or affection.

 And worst case, he could just fall back on that earlier thought, and destroy the vampires from within. Sacrificing himself for the sake of humanity… perhaps that was how he would carry on Mizar’s legacy.

 “What… did you call me again?”

 “Lycoris Aster Aphtangloa, daughter of Lilianna Majalis Aphtangloa.”

 “Right, then, could you help me into those clothes, Lilianna?”

 Lycoris’ mother smiled softly, an ominous fang peeking out from under her lip.