Power...
This experience with the vampires has brought that truth starkly back into focus. So often, it all comes down to power, in the end. Simple and uncaring of any grievances or plights. Who has power over whom. 'Meaning'? Subjugated.
But it goes beyond mere brute control, or even elaborate coercion. The intersection of time--present, past and future--and space, implicate infinitely branching, twisting, tendrils of detail and nuance...
All I wanted was to accrue more power. Enough to choke out that which was so clearly insurmountable, before. To exert my will, my values, upon that enemy of my very being. To live long enough to destroy that blight Nemo, and as many others of his ilk as I could, before the final sleep overtook me. To try to bring about my vision unto the world, as every being naturally does.
But when that other one, the mad 'game'-tyrant (or the 'other' one?), was beaten into flight by a sufficient muster of power of those still with hope and aspirations, those still-living beings... Subjugated, finally, in contrast to my projections... Weak, the absolute tyrant looked so pitifully weak, then--an image shattered...
How was it, that he was the most powerful, then, of all times?
His games, his dilemmas, they brought one's moral protocols into question, brought out the uncertainties, the faults... Demanded new clarity and precision, wrought of tough decisions... Coming out possibly the better for it, of all things?
And yet, they didn't understand... They didn't understand what he showed them, again and again, the inadequacies of their compulsions and convictions... The ways in which they were lacking...
They still held onto the same single-minded, indiscriminate responses... Unbelievable as it was, to me... 'You see?' said they. 'This proves that if we fight, we can win!' I have no words... So utterly lacking in intelligence, and so easily rendered self-defeating in any number of circumstances...
They came away from that fight worse off than when we were, all of us, being tormented, tested, mortally threatened, by the fiend... Regardless of the nature of his intentions... The function, the effect, is the same...
They came away from that fight with reinforced delusions and fatally false confidence. 'There comes a point at which willful stupidity becomes a sin,' I said. They are... stupid. Most of them. They are, difficult to care about. Does blind, indiscriminate care, have meaning, thou Paladin-soul? And yet... I must try to find something to care for, within them. Try to wipe away any of my own skewed prejudices and bitterness, stained by my life, and to seek out, to do justice to, that wonderful, vibrant manifestation of Life energy. To continue to have faith in that. I must.
