FIC: The Whispering Grass, Tanz der Vampire

[nineveh_uk]

The Whispering Grass by Nineveh_uk
Chapters: 1
Fandom: Tanz der Vampire
Rating: T, CNTW
Characters: Graf von Krolock, Gräfin von Krolock


She didn't know that he was lost: that he still lived, but not as he had before. That she had doomed him to this wandering in the dark, lost in the mountains and forests and the heartbeats of the birds that sang outside his window, and in his soul a lust for unnameable things.

***

Or, if this were a Friends episode, The One where the Count accidentally murders his wife. I suspect that this fic really doesn't work without canon contest. Short version, it's backstory fic about a verse of a song that is basically the sick version of Fields of Gold*, in which the vampire count - who is having a moment of "Being a vampire is terrible, you murder everyone you might feel for, and also you have to spend eternity knowing that you're not a brilliant genius, you're pretty average. It's all a metaphor for capitalism anyway"** - recounts how the first person he killed was an unnamed woman who is generally assumed to be his wife***. It is overwrought, involved some ridiculous googling in the course of which I discover the existence of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, which sounds like a slightly desperate literary novel attempting wry humour, but I enjoyed writing it and the first audience of fanfic is ultimately the author.

* Though having now seen the video, that might also be Fields of Gold itself,. Why exactly is the singer is walking at night through a graveyard while long-ago images of his lover and children are glimpsed through his silhouette?

**It's a good song, if heavy on the manpain. Vampain?

***Though there's a vid of one performance where the tomb he is angsting in front of appears to have a soldier carved on it. I read a Word of God interview with the lyricist that seemed to imply that he's actually making all of it up in order to manipulate a couple of characters who are over-hearing him, which would be a plausible interpretation if any of the actors had ever played it like that ever.

Comments

[azdak]

I have very little time for Count von Krolock and even less time for Die unstillbare Gier (which is, as you say with characteristic understatement, heavy on the manpain - "Woe is me! I kill everyone I love because I want to!"). If anyone could make me feel sympathy for him, it's you, and I greatly admire the literary skill with which you tell us his backstory (why is his first victim generally assumed to be his wfe, by the way? I assumed he seduced her - rather than engaging in respectable marital intercourse - so I'd be interested to know what I'm missing). I did wonder how it fits in with the Count's ancestors also all being vampires - is the portrait gallery something that just has to be discounted because it contradicts everything we see (or hear, in the case of the song) about vampires? Or is there perhaps an argument that the Krolocks are a line of super-vampires that can reproduce and eventually retire from being Count to make way for the next one? In which case there might be a vampiric Countess knocking around somewhere. Perhaps she was off visiting her mother during the events of the musical.

Much as I love the idea that Krolock is laying it on thick for his listeners - it might even rescue the song for me - I can't qite see what he would hope to gain from it. I mean, he's already planning to eat them, and if they were busy escaping they'd hardly turn back just because he whinged about what a hard time he was having.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Why exactly is the singer is walking at night through a graveyard while long-ago images of his lover and children are glimpsed through his silhouette?

Because he's a ghost? I mean, I've always thought it was fairly clear that "Fields of Gold" is from the point of view of someone who is dead, but maybe I'm just weird. (I just found out that apparently there is a large contingent of people who do NOT think "Paint it Black" is about death, so maybe they are the normal ones and I am weird...?)