[ The next few weeks are spent in preparation. They go through Leon's journals, and through Enid's writings on the geography and politics of France at the time. Since their eldest sister's near-turning, Leon's story (and in particular that stone, the one that could draw the vampirism out of a body) had become a keen interest of hers. Leon's journals are written after the fact, based upon memory rather than the emotions of the moment, and biased by knowing what would happen. All 'I should have known's and regret, with only the slightest clues that Mathias had ever been a dear friend to him.
Which makes it easier, because it disguises the depth of the betrayal. There's no change in the way he speaks of Mathias after Sara's turning, only the slight tone of disgust (with Mathias, yes, but also with himself) throughout.
The old Trantoul estate - likely abandoned after the massacre, though it's hard to say if it remained so for four centuries after - seems as good a place as any to start. The childhood home of Leon, taken in by the family after his father died in service to them. The first place to offer Mathias shelter and work as a brilliant young doctor whose methods scared a few too many people. The birthright of Sara, only child of the first cousin of the King of France. The base of operations used by Mathias, Leon and their whole company. It would be the best place to work from but the mirrors won't even show it, let alone allow a way to be opened there. ]
Your father warded the whole place after Justine's attack. [ While he was still tending to Sara, to keep anything from finding her and harming her more. ] Even Enid had no fucking clue what half of the spells he used were.
[ Sypha has been trying to figure them out, of course, but it's difficult when all they have to go on are Leon's notes and the fact that the mirror just reflects their own frustrated faces. ]
Only makes it a better place to work from, if we can't be spied upon. We can start from a few days' travel out from it and go on foot the rest of the way.
[Perhaps it is right that this has happened, in all the horrible parallels the three of them have now become accustomed to. Two fucked up families. The unfuckening recent, and so to go over all these old wounds is to ensure that they are well and truly put to rest. Ways to ensure the past does not repeat itself.
Or else a prelude to exactly that, which is a thought Alucard refuses to entertain. They're agreed on that much: the past is gone, all else is built anew.
Besides, there's a greater logic to this. The east of Europe is settled now. Belmonts are back to enforce order, Tepes has absolutely no desire to deal with the things of the night. So west, west is where there is no order. West is where these two fucked up houses fled from. Let all the night things go home to roost.
There is no prophecy to guide, only the sense of real danger if they do not act quickly enough. Research in Leon's journals is fundamental. Alucard scrambles to get a sense of what France's current situation is like and where they must tread carefully. The estate is an old landmark for those who live near by, it seems, and considered a place to keep well away from. Good. Privacy. Or else whoever's responsible for this theft is also using the place because if you're going to re-release a hell on the west, why not spite the people involved at the start?
Alucard's other priority is ensuring home is secured in the mean time. Trevor and Sypha will go through the mirror, then he'll follow in another way so the distance mirror can be packed away and come with him. Other spell work is in place. The castle and hold are obscured: just a part of the forest now.]
That will have to do. If the place is in use by opponents, then it gives us time to consider other bases of operations.
[He's found a few abandoned spaces to make use of: a small abandoned hunting shack that was perhaps a part of a neighboring estate. Ironic, naturally, but it is well and truly abandoned and in the middle of the forest. No one will notice smoke coming from the chimney for the still cold spring nights.]
Whatever spells we break, we apply here when we return home. Better for us all.
[Safer for them all. Alucard still sleeps closest to the door. He's pressed almost too close to Sypha at night, makes a point to ensure that there's one arm resting on Trevor somewhere, because this is the kind of work that demands hardness. It needs to be tempered with affection.]
[ There's a melancholy to that - one of the spells upon the place keeps the mirrors from watching it. They had always been an imperfect solution, but there's still something deeply sad, knowing that they can't be an option again. They had made them all so happy. Squabbling over what to bring back to the castle and what should never have been brought into the wagon in the first place. The nights that Sypha fell asleep early with one hand over the mirror and Alucard couldn't understand what flaw in the magic could result in not being able to see them. The few times when he had contacted them unexpectedly and turned very formal and very awkward to apologize for the bad timing while Sypha only grinned wickedly and found somewhere good to place the mirror and breathlessly told him to stay and watch. They can't have that again. Not in a world too dangerous for it.
It's unfair. ]
If it's in use, we're fucked. Unless you or Sypha can figure out how to break whatever shit your father cast to protect it. This was-
[ This was back when your father gave a shit about not dying. When he was acting in defense of someone he loved. Even 400 years later, even spells cast when he was mortal, that makes it a terrifying prospect. ]
[The mirrors have to be tools of basic need again, not of comfort. There's time for sentimentality about it later, but for now they're about travel and about ensuring that this entire thing goes right. Alucard hates it too (he's kept both mirrors as a horrible trophy of victory, not cataloged in the Hold but put aside in his own little collection of them) but some things must be what they are.]
I would argue that Sypha also broke the castle, but that was with a boost from your family's research. Approaching this place would be starting from scratch. But...
[Alucard pauses, then tilts his head in genuine consideration.]
If it is similar to the front doors, where blood calls to blood, then we may not be in as deep as it seems we are.
[He knows. He knows it sounds like magic, and there's an apologetic look on Alucard's face, but trying to think like his father 400 years ago means relying on less elaborate mechanisms and more magic. Somewhat base. More blood and spit and who owns what.]
[ As long as there's no accusing Leon of using magic (he did. he absolutely did. but Trevor is weird about these things) he's fine with it. It makes- some sort of sense. The castle responded more strongly to Alucard than it did to Carmilla, and what is the castle of not the final, terrible result of Mathias' early research into Alchemy? ]
How long should we expect it to take for you to catch up with us?
[ Or, to put it more accurately: How long without contact before we need to worry that something's stopping you from doing so? ]
[Alucard's working theory is that the house might well be like the journals, in which case it can only ever respond to Belmont blood. If he's wrong, then so be it, and they're either out a place to stay (and the memories that surely must wander those halls), or else there is to be some fiercer fight.
The question is given real consideration. Relying on his father's means of travel is more complex spellwork than he's done (he and Sypha have been testing, of course, because this is vital), but there is still a certain amount of preparation required. The distance is so much longer than anything the two have tried before.]
Three hours. Four at the most. If something is truly awry, I'll find another means of contacting you both, and you should proceed as if I'm with you.
Hours. Here I was expecting to be measuring the time in days.
[ He'd known that Alucard and Sypha were working on perfecting something, but he's not really been paying enough attention to understand what, too involved in the more Belmont-ish side of preparations. ]
That's barely enough time for us to find horses. [ A pause. ] And you'll be well when you do appear, all else going according to plan? No cost to it that we need to worry about?
There was a reason my mother always specified that he travel as men do.
[And there was some fear in going through all of those spells, giving up even an inch of that half-human portion of himself. It still sits ill, but it is the best of all options. To travel all the way to France on boat or over land would take a month at least.
So traveling as night things do it shall be.]
The cost seems to be nothing more than me actually sleeping for eight hours rather than four or five.
[Trevor gets a very gentle elbow for the comment. For all the man claims and often is total garbage at giving actual support, he does know certain things and is more than capable of responding to them appropriately.]
We're going to have this argument later in the middle of a forest where Sypha and I can both yell at you and shame you for making us raise our voices in case we draw attention to ourselves.
[Okay, so maybe he just totally revealed the battle plan, but this system's worked in the past.]
You took full watch practically every night between the boat and here. We learned it from you.
[ It's nice, to be squabbling like this. No edge to it, no anger behind it, just throwing words at each other. Horrible things bring out either too much softness or too much anger in both of them. This argument means that despite everything, for now, they can still both believe that all is going to be well. ]
You two absolutely did not, this was an issue you two developed traveling. Don't even think of pinning it on me.
[Is this the stupidest argument they could have before all of this? Oh, there are doubtlessly stupider. But it's this argument they'll die on little fake hills on before everything must be serious.]
Look, maybe I thought that they'd look nicer on the outside. If I end up taking full watch the tonight, I'll let you and Sypha take watch tomorrow. Fair?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryptsleeper) wrote2018-11-10 11:26 pm
no subject
Which makes it easier, because it disguises the depth of the betrayal. There's no change in the way he speaks of Mathias after Sara's turning, only the slight tone of disgust (with Mathias, yes, but also with himself) throughout.
The old Trantoul estate - likely abandoned after the massacre, though it's hard to say if it remained so for four centuries after - seems as good a place as any to start. The childhood home of Leon, taken in by the family after his father died in service to them. The first place to offer Mathias shelter and work as a brilliant young doctor whose methods scared a few too many people. The birthright of Sara, only child of the first cousin of the King of France. The base of operations used by Mathias, Leon and their whole company. It would be the best place to work from but the mirrors won't even show it, let alone allow a way to be opened there. ]
Your father warded the whole place after Justine's attack. [ While he was still tending to Sara, to keep anything from finding her and harming her more. ] Even Enid had no fucking clue what half of the spells he used were.
[ Sypha has been trying to figure them out, of course, but it's difficult when all they have to go on are Leon's notes and the fact that the mirror just reflects their own frustrated faces. ]
Only makes it a better place to work from, if we can't be spied upon. We can start from a few days' travel out from it and go on foot the rest of the way.
no subject
Or else a prelude to exactly that, which is a thought Alucard refuses to entertain. They're agreed on that much: the past is gone, all else is built anew.
Besides, there's a greater logic to this. The east of Europe is settled now. Belmonts are back to enforce order, Tepes has absolutely no desire to deal with the things of the night. So west, west is where there is no order. West is where these two fucked up houses fled from. Let all the night things go home to roost.
There is no prophecy to guide, only the sense of real danger if they do not act quickly enough. Research in Leon's journals is fundamental. Alucard scrambles to get a sense of what France's current situation is like and where they must tread carefully. The estate is an old landmark for those who live near by, it seems, and considered a place to keep well away from. Good. Privacy. Or else whoever's responsible for this theft is also using the place because if you're going to re-release a hell on the west, why not spite the people involved at the start?
Alucard's other priority is ensuring home is secured in the mean time. Trevor and Sypha will go through the mirror, then he'll follow in another way so the distance mirror can be packed away and come with him. Other spell work is in place. The castle and hold are obscured: just a part of the forest now.]
That will have to do. If the place is in use by opponents, then it gives us time to consider other bases of operations.
[He's found a few abandoned spaces to make use of: a small abandoned hunting shack that was perhaps a part of a neighboring estate. Ironic, naturally, but it is well and truly abandoned and in the middle of the forest. No one will notice smoke coming from the chimney for the still cold spring nights.]
Whatever spells we break, we apply here when we return home. Better for us all.
[Safer for them all. Alucard still sleeps closest to the door. He's pressed almost too close to Sypha at night, makes a point to ensure that there's one arm resting on Trevor somewhere, because this is the kind of work that demands hardness. It needs to be tempered with affection.]
no subject
It's unfair. ]
If it's in use, we're fucked. Unless you or Sypha can figure out how to break whatever shit your father cast to protect it. This was-
[ This was back when your father gave a shit about not dying. When he was acting in defense of someone he loved. Even 400 years later, even spells cast when he was mortal, that makes it a terrifying prospect. ]
no subject
I would argue that Sypha also broke the castle, but that was with a boost from your family's research. Approaching this place would be starting from scratch. But...
[Alucard pauses, then tilts his head in genuine consideration.]
If it is similar to the front doors, where blood calls to blood, then we may not be in as deep as it seems we are.
[He knows. He knows it sounds like magic, and there's an apologetic look on Alucard's face, but trying to think like his father 400 years ago means relying on less elaborate mechanisms and more magic. Somewhat base. More blood and spit and who owns what.]
no subject
[ As long as there's no accusing Leon of using magic (he did. he absolutely did. but Trevor is weird about these things) he's fine with it. It makes- some sort of sense. The castle responded more strongly to Alucard than it did to Carmilla, and what is the castle of not the final, terrible result of Mathias' early research into Alchemy? ]
How long should we expect it to take for you to catch up with us?
[ Or, to put it more accurately: How long without contact before we need to worry that something's stopping you from doing so? ]
no subject
The question is given real consideration. Relying on his father's means of travel is more complex spellwork than he's done (he and Sypha have been testing, of course, because this is vital), but there is still a certain amount of preparation required. The distance is so much longer than anything the two have tried before.]
Three hours. Four at the most. If something is truly awry, I'll find another means of contacting you both, and you should proceed as if I'm with you.
[They are words Alucard dislikes saying. Deeply.]
no subject
[ He'd known that Alucard and Sypha were working on perfecting something, but he's not really been paying enough attention to understand what, too involved in the more Belmont-ish side of preparations. ]
That's barely enough time for us to find horses. [ A pause. ] And you'll be well when you do appear, all else going according to plan? No cost to it that we need to worry about?
no subject
[And there was some fear in going through all of those spells, giving up even an inch of that half-human portion of himself. It still sits ill, but it is the best of all options. To travel all the way to France on boat or over land would take a month at least.
So traveling as night things do it shall be.]
The cost seems to be nothing more than me actually sleeping for eight hours rather than four or five.
no subject
[ He laughs. He knows that using his father's powers to do this can't sit well with Alucard. ]
Sypha and I take watch tonight, then.
no subject
[Trevor gets a very gentle elbow for the comment. For all the man claims and often is total garbage at giving actual support, he does know certain things and is more than capable of responding to them appropriately.]
Four and four. You don't take a double shift.
no subject
[ That's a 'we're going to have to argue about this, aren't we?' tone. ]
no subject
[Okay, so maybe he just totally revealed the battle plan, but this system's worked in the past.]
no subject
So I'll already have done what I want.
no subject
no subject
[ Srry Alucard you're stuck wit two self sacrificing idiots. ]
no subject
no subject
[ It's nice, to be squabbling like this. No edge to it, no anger behind it, just throwing words at each other. Horrible things bring out either too much softness or too much anger in both of them. This argument means that despite everything, for now, they can still both believe that all is going to be well. ]
no subject
[Is this the stupidest argument they could have before all of this? Oh, there are doubtlessly stupider. But it's this argument they'll die on little fake hills on before everything must be serious.]
no subject
[ Excuse you they were both always like this. It just never came up on the way to Dracula because Alucard barely needed sleep at all. ]
no subject
no subject
Look, maybe I thought that they'd look nicer on the outside. If I end up taking full watch the tonight, I'll let you and Sypha take watch tomorrow. Fair?
no subject
[But the offer is...that's fine. And Alucard relents.]
Very well, that's fair.
no subject
Maybe it is. Good a defense as any against being disemboweled. Once your guts are out, they can't get any more out.
no subject
[How does he share a bed with this.]
no subject
[ IS THIS BULLYING? IS THIS FLIRTING? It's probably both. ]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)