[Sypha's being dragged along by Alucard's hand and not much else. This spell, it's trying to mimic the powers of compulsion without actually being a vampire to do it. A detail worth puzzling over later, because moving through this horrible counterweight demands too much energy.
It's a wonder any of them can fight it. They're used to not leaving doors unturned, maybe that's why any of them can manage at all. Alucard's feet nearly slip on the floor for all his effort, and he's sweating by the time his hand take's Trevor's.]
Understood.
[Alucard knows how much that hand ought to weight. It's like lifting twenty men. He strains as he moves that hand to the door. Nearly collapses from the effort of keeping it pinned there.]
[ Though a red stain starts to spread across the door as he works the cut against the rough wood, nothing happens.
Which is something of a relief, because he can hear how Alucard is having to strain to push his hand against the door, and he knows the vampire's strength. If it had worked, and this had ended and suddenly put them all at the mercy of the amount of force they were putting in to all of this, chances are his left hand would be crushed beyond use for a long time. ]
Shit, nothing.
[ On the other hand, it's a problem, because it's far too late to go back. He's not sure he has the strength left to move his legs, and the difficulty of moving is very swiftly also becoming difficulty breathing. Sypha's eyes are already starting to glaze over, her skin losing its colour. He can feel his heart pumping harder, straining with the effort of continuing to move blood around his body. ]
[One second. Alucard releases Trevor's hand. It falls away so quickly, it's doing what the horrible fucking spell wants. There's either one other way for this to go, or they're all going to retreat. In the hand that has just released Trevor's, he lets his fingernails extend. Claw into his own palm. Bleed on the door.
His father was always possessive. Why wouldn't he put the worst of the work on his own door?
(There is something else here, that his father expected both Belmont and Tepes, but that is too weighty and horrible to consider. It is such a different side to the man, one that doesn't sit right. Even with his mother, Dracula was not like this.)
The door opens without a noise. Alucard collapses in the threshold.
[ Through some combination of herculean effort and an idiot's luck, Trevor manages to fall in such a way as to catch Sypha. He can handle the back of his head smacking against against the stone floor with a horrible crack, god knows his skull is thick enough.
He gulps down air, shaking Sypha's shoulders until she shudders and coughs and finally breathes in, fingertips digging into the cloth of her robes. ]
Fucking hate shit messing with my head.
[ He pushes himself into a sitting position, careful not to roll Sypha off him by doing so, and brings his hand up to that old bite scar at his collar out of habit. Nothing there, of course.
Light flows out from the now- open door. Beyond it is a pair of rooms. The first looks to be a clinic. Bottles and books line every surface. Pages have been torn out of some of them, pinned to walls or shelves and covered with annotations in handwriting that seems to have started careful and artful and grown wild and desperate. Bloodstained cloths and bandages are scattered around the floor and over a bed with bloodied linens.
Attached to the clinic is what appears to be its owners quarters, and it is so immaculate as to seem completely unused. The bed certainly hadn't been used in a long time even before this place fell under its spell.
And there is the dog. The tiny, yappy sort, the kind that might have been useful for ratting if this particular one was not very clearly extremely spoiled. Lying on the blood-covered bed in the clinic, whining sadly but unharmed. It gives a yip of welcome and bounds over to Alucard, sniffing at him and yipping again. ]
[Never mind the vestiges of his father's human life. There's Trevor's skull on the ground making a sound that it should, never, never make and Alucard's pounced over that way to make sure that this isn't something bad. The vampire will fuss over this because head injuries are not something they need right now.]
If you start to feel woozy, you need to tell me immediately.
[That's an order, given his tone. But then the three of them are back on their feet and pushing into the part of the house that resisted them at every step. Alucard moves slowest. He is treading into something truly unknown.
There's...there's something familiar in the clinic. The torn pages, the handwriting, the organization apparently hasn't changed in 400 years. There's a patina of desperation to it in a way much of his father's work never has, but...it echoes those horrible moments between his father's appearance at Targoviste and sending Alucard into a year long recovery. That aches.
The dog is new. And very tiny. He looks down at it, deeply baffled, then over to Trevor.]
I really hope this isn't the origin of your family's dog thing.
I feel woozy. [ It's true, but it's half genuinely doing as he's told and half just being a dick. Think it's just the compulsion, though. Ugh. ] Been a while since one was that bad.
[ It doesn't take a genius to piece together the story here, so Trevor's not too slow to catch on. This is where Mathias must have been trying to tend to Sara. That's why it was so well defended. That's why nothing short of his own blood could open the way in. He crouches down to get a better look at the tiny dog, steadying himself against the doorframe because he's not quite sure he trusts himself to not fall over again. It yips again, licking at his hand when he reaches it out.]
[Alucard spends a good minue or two searching the room, muttering under his breath about someone never sitting down for two seconds, but he finds an abandoned chair in the corner eventually and brings it over for Trevor.]
Sit, at least. I'm not about to rush forth from this place after all the effort we had to put into breaking that barrier.
[He wants out of this place so bad. Everything feels just that littlest bit wrong, looking at the world through the bottom of a glass. Everything is familiar but not, and he is intruding on something he was never even supposed to know about.
The dog, at least, seems to like Trevor. So that's a point in their favor, and they may yet need this little thing to help.]
And while that may be true, I have a certain feeling about this...
[That dog has a nicer collar than some of Alucard's hairties.]
[ To be fair, at least one of Alucard's hairties was just shredded infirmary blankets. He sits, and the dog clambers into his lap and settles there. ]
We could say it's Sara's. It was allowed in here with her.
[ He picks up bottles that can be reached from where he's sat, looking over them. All are labelled, but only a few have the good manners to be labelled in french. Most are in one of those languages that Alucard and Sypha like to talk about from either side of his chest while he tries to sleep. A couple are in what he suspects to be latin, but not words he ever learned. ]
I'm going to take a wild guess that these are all medicine.
[If the dog is a ratter though, then it might have gotten more than just rats. Alucard remembers the details about the Belmont's dogs, and...oh, it's so very possible. But the thing didn't react to half-vampire blood, so the theory is easy to put aside for now.
Alucard moves down the display of bottle after bottle slowly, eyes on the labels but never daring to touch anything. His arms are folded across his chest. The look he gives each and every bottle is the same as he gave the strawberries. He trusts nothing.]
Yes. But not as developed as it is back home.
[400 years out of date. God, the handwriting hasn't changed at all.]
And most of it looks as if it was dwindling, or else ordered in small quantity to begin with. That's...[he was experimenting and needed to try everything.] sobering.
[ All the wrong choices, made for all the right reasons. She'd been dear to him, so much so that he'd been willing to leave for the crusades at her word. To lose her so soon to injury when he'd spent his whole life training to save people from the same- ]
He was desperate. He did it because he was desperate.
The fuck do you want me to say? That he did it because he was a piece of shit who'd turn on them for no good reason? That he was after power? Something that would actually justify four hundred years of stupid fucking sacrifices?
[ The dog whines at the raised voice. He sighs through gritted teeth, because snapping back at Alucard isn't helpful. He looks completely defeated as is. ]
Spell's broken now. We can search without you, just let you know what we find. Fuck off.
[That last question is the one that stings most. There's a visible flinch, because that one feels the most true in the moment. Never mind the dog, and Alucard's nearly at never mind the head injury.
Maybe space is best right now.]
I'll be in the kitchen then, making sure our food is separate from what's here.
[There are other things to unpack too, like the mirror, but that can wait now. Alucard's gone before Sypha can protest that splitting up is not a good idea at all, his boots echoing through the main hall.]
[ With Alucard gone and Sypha too busy being annoyed at them for arguing to be annoyed at him for getting up out of the chair, he does just that.
It's a little while before Trevor and Sypha finally emerge from the room, a thin book in Trevor's hand. He presses his other hand up against the wall as he walks to steady himself while the dog does its absolute best to trip Sypha, rushing around her feet as she walks. ]
You done being an asshole?
[ It's still a little more confrontational than is right, and certainly far too confrontational for Sypha's tastes. There's a brief squabble. He means are you feeling better? and No, I mean is he done being an asshole. ]
Here. [ He holds out the book as he crumples on the three stone steps that lead from the kitchen into the rest of the house, sitting on them and keeping a hand on the doorframe. ] Most relevant shit we could find. His notes on that fucking stone.
[The space is good. The space means that the kitchen is safe to use, the space means that the mirror is unpacked and put in front of the storage room where all the food they can't eat is. Shown in the reflection is the exterior of the castle, beautifully hidden as nothing more but a crop of tall trees that have totally and always been there, what is anyone on about?
There's a fire in the hearth when the two return, a black cast iron pot sitting beside the fire with something boiling in it. On the big counter, there's a few parsnips, and Alucard is using a normal sized knife to cut through it all instead of being extra by using his sword to do it.
The asshole comment gets ignored.]
Let me wash my hands off before I touch it.
[....Shit there's no sink with running water here. There's a deeply annoyed noise from Alucard as he's forced to wipe the dirt from the parsnips onto his trousers instead, then walks over to take the book.
Fuck the book. He frowns, and grabs Trevor's wrist instead.]
Sit down.
[The kitchen table here is just a long table meant for servants with a bench on either side, but it'll have to do.]
Worse than I've had recently. Usually- Usually I have the good sense not to land on my head.
[ He grumbles a little at being moved around. He was sitting down already! Uncomfortably and in a precarious position and liable to slide ungracefully down the steps, but sitting down. ]
'm fine. [ There's a slight slur to his speech there, but he frowns and corrects it. This is too much like drunkenness for comfort. ] I'm fine. I'll just have a bastard of a headache tomorrow. Are you- [ he can feel Sypha's glare on him. ] -feeling less shit?
[That had not been a good noise. But Trevor's sitting at least, and Alucard's going to take that victory for what it is. The sudden slur, however, gets pursed lips and a very uneasy noise. Fuck. Fuck, and in a place where they need to be alert.]
We may be best off staying in the kitchen tonight. If that dizziness hasn't lifted, I don't like the idea of going deeper into this place and dealing with something happening in the middle of the night with no easy escape route.
[This he can focus on. Everything else is just. It's fine.]
[Alucard catches Sypha's eye over Trevor's shoulder. He nods once, the universal this is actually really bad sign. Then Sypha's off into one of the trunks, because of course they packed a book of medical notes. Alucard compiled them early on, meant to take care of these exact troubles for when the two were on the road.]
This isn't fussing.
[But Alucard does sit, and he puts his arm over Trevor's to prevent the man from putting his head there.]
This is, in fact, fussing. I'm a fucking Belmont, I'm not going to get done in by a door.
[ He puts his head on Alucard's arm instead. This is, in fact, becoming a problem. In the immediate aftermath, fueled by adrenaline as he was, it had just been a little dizziness, but on the walk back from Mathias' study he could barely keep himself upright. ]
We don't have to go back in there, now we know what it is.
You're not going to be done in by the door, you're going to be done in by a head injury and--
[Well, Sypha's found it. A concussion, which makes total sense and brings a wearier look to Alucard's face than there already is. He sighs, the talk of going back into anywhere no longer as important as looking after this is.]
We're sticking in here for the rest of the day. You're staying seated and alert until we give the say so, because the damage is harder to assess since it's an internal matter.
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cryptsleeper) wrote2018-11-10 11:26 pm
no subject
It's a wonder any of them can fight it. They're used to not leaving doors unturned, maybe that's why any of them can manage at all. Alucard's feet nearly slip on the floor for all his effort, and he's sweating by the time his hand take's Trevor's.]
Understood.
[Alucard knows how much that hand ought to weight. It's like lifting twenty men. He strains as he moves that hand to the door. Nearly collapses from the effort of keeping it pinned there.]
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Which is something of a relief, because he can hear how Alucard is having to strain to push his hand against the door, and he knows the vampire's strength. If it had worked, and this had ended and suddenly put them all at the mercy of the amount of force they were putting in to all of this, chances are his left hand would be crushed beyond use for a long time. ]
Shit, nothing.
[ On the other hand, it's a problem, because it's far too late to go back. He's not sure he has the strength left to move his legs, and the difficulty of moving is very swiftly also becoming difficulty breathing. Sypha's eyes are already starting to glaze over, her skin losing its colour. He can feel his heart pumping harder, straining with the effort of continuing to move blood around his body. ]
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[One second. Alucard releases Trevor's hand. It falls away so quickly, it's doing what the horrible fucking spell wants. There's either one other way for this to go, or they're all going to retreat. In the hand that has just released Trevor's, he lets his fingernails extend. Claw into his own palm. Bleed on the door.
His father was always possessive. Why wouldn't he put the worst of the work on his own door?
(There is something else here, that his father expected both Belmont and Tepes, but that is too weighty and horrible to consider. It is such a different side to the man, one that doesn't sit right. Even with his mother, Dracula was not like this.)
The door opens without a noise. Alucard collapses in the threshold.
The pressure is gone.]
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He gulps down air, shaking Sypha's shoulders until she shudders and coughs and finally breathes in, fingertips digging into the cloth of her robes. ]
Fucking hate shit messing with my head.
[ He pushes himself into a sitting position, careful not to roll Sypha off him by doing so, and brings his hand up to that old bite scar at his collar out of habit. Nothing there, of course.
Light flows out from the now- open door. Beyond it is a pair of rooms. The first looks to be a clinic. Bottles and books line every surface. Pages have been torn out of some of them, pinned to walls or shelves and covered with annotations in handwriting that seems to have started careful and artful and grown wild and desperate. Bloodstained cloths and bandages are scattered around the floor and over a bed with bloodied linens.
Attached to the clinic is what appears to be its owners quarters, and it is so immaculate as to seem completely unused. The bed certainly hadn't been used in a long time even before this place fell under its spell.
And there is the dog. The tiny, yappy sort, the kind that might have been useful for ratting if this particular one was not very clearly extremely spoiled. Lying on the blood-covered bed in the clinic, whining sadly but unharmed. It gives a yip of welcome and bounds over to Alucard, sniffing at him and yipping again. ]
no subject
If you start to feel woozy, you need to tell me immediately.
[That's an order, given his tone. But then the three of them are back on their feet and pushing into the part of the house that resisted them at every step. Alucard moves slowest. He is treading into something truly unknown.
There's...there's something familiar in the clinic. The torn pages, the handwriting, the organization apparently hasn't changed in 400 years. There's a patina of desperation to it in a way much of his father's work never has, but...it echoes those horrible moments between his father's appearance at Targoviste and sending Alucard into a year long recovery. That aches.
The dog is new. And very tiny. He looks down at it, deeply baffled, then over to Trevor.]
I really hope this isn't the origin of your family's dog thing.
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[ It doesn't take a genius to piece together the story here, so Trevor's not too slow to catch on. This is where Mathias must have been trying to tend to Sara. That's why it was so well defended. That's why nothing short of his own blood could open the way in. He crouches down to get a better look at the tiny dog, steadying himself against the doorframe because he's not quite sure he trusts himself to not fall over again. It yips again, licking at his hand when he reaches it out.]
Hey, we're not the only family with a dog thing.
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Sit, at least. I'm not about to rush forth from this place after all the effort we had to put into breaking that barrier.
[He wants out of this place so bad. Everything feels just that littlest bit wrong, looking at the world through the bottom of a glass. Everything is familiar but not, and he is intruding on something he was never even supposed to know about.
The dog, at least, seems to like Trevor. So that's a point in their favor, and they may yet need this little thing to help.]
And while that may be true, I have a certain feeling about this...
[That dog has a nicer collar than some of Alucard's hairties.]
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We could say it's Sara's. It was allowed in here with her.
[ He picks up bottles that can be reached from where he's sat, looking over them. All are labelled, but only a few have the good manners to be labelled in french. Most are in one of those languages that Alucard and Sypha like to talk about from either side of his chest while he tries to sleep. A couple are in what he suspects to be latin, but not words he ever learned. ]
I'm going to take a wild guess that these are all medicine.
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[If the dog is a ratter though, then it might have gotten more than just rats. Alucard remembers the details about the Belmont's dogs, and...oh, it's so very possible. But the thing didn't react to half-vampire blood, so the theory is easy to put aside for now.
Alucard moves down the display of bottle after bottle slowly, eyes on the labels but never daring to touch anything. His arms are folded across his chest. The look he gives each and every bottle is the same as he gave the strawberries. He trusts nothing.]
Yes. But not as developed as it is back home.
[400 years out of date. God, the handwriting hasn't changed at all.]
And most of it looks as if it was dwindling, or else ordered in small quantity to begin with. That's...[he was experimenting and needed to try everything.] sobering.
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[ All the wrong choices, made for all the right reasons. She'd been dear to him, so much so that he'd been willing to leave for the crusades at her word. To lose her so soon to injury when he'd spent his whole life training to save people from the same- ]
He was desperate. He did it because he was desperate.
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[That came out tenser and snappier than it should have. Alucard catches himself for it, arms unfolding and hanging at his side. This isn't about him.]
Sorry.
[He gives up at glaring at every single bottle and walks back over to where Trevor is. Better to let Sypha go through this right now.]
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[ The dog whines at the raised voice. He sighs through gritted teeth, because snapping back at Alucard isn't helpful. He looks completely defeated as is. ]
Spell's broken now. We can search without you, just let you know what we find. Fuck off.
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Maybe space is best right now.]
I'll be in the kitchen then, making sure our food is separate from what's here.
[There are other things to unpack too, like the mirror, but that can wait now. Alucard's gone before Sypha can protest that splitting up is not a good idea at all, his boots echoing through the main hall.]
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It's a little while before Trevor and Sypha finally emerge from the room, a thin book in Trevor's hand. He presses his other hand up against the wall as he walks to steady himself while the dog does its absolute best to trip Sypha, rushing around her feet as she walks. ]
You done being an asshole?
[ It's still a little more confrontational than is right, and certainly far too confrontational for Sypha's tastes. There's a brief squabble. He means are you feeling better? and No, I mean is he done being an asshole. ]
Here. [ He holds out the book as he crumples on the three stone steps that lead from the kitchen into the rest of the house, sitting on them and keeping a hand on the doorframe. ] Most relevant shit we could find. His notes on that fucking stone.
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There's a fire in the hearth when the two return, a black cast iron pot sitting beside the fire with something boiling in it. On the big counter, there's a few parsnips, and Alucard is using a normal sized knife to cut through it all instead of being extra by using his sword to do it.
The asshole comment gets ignored.]
Let me wash my hands off before I touch it.
[....Shit there's no sink with running water here. There's a deeply annoyed noise from Alucard as he's forced to wipe the dirt from the parsnips onto his trousers instead, then walks over to take the book.
Fuck the book. He frowns, and grabs Trevor's wrist instead.]
Sit down.
[The kitchen table here is just a long table meant for servants with a bench on either side, but it'll have to do.]
That fall was much worse than you've had before.
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[ He grumbles a little at being moved around. He was sitting down already! Uncomfortably and in a precarious position and liable to slide ungracefully down the steps, but sitting down. ]
'm fine. [ There's a slight slur to his speech there, but he frowns and corrects it. This is too much like drunkenness for comfort. ] I'm fine. I'll just have a bastard of a headache tomorrow. Are you- [ he can feel Sypha's glare on him. ] -feeling less shit?
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[That had not been a good noise. But Trevor's sitting at least, and Alucard's going to take that victory for what it is. The sudden slur, however, gets pursed lips and a very uneasy noise. Fuck. Fuck, and in a place where they need to be alert.]
We may be best off staying in the kitchen tonight. If that dizziness hasn't lifted, I don't like the idea of going deeper into this place and dealing with something happening in the middle of the night with no easy escape route.
[This he can focus on. Everything else is just. It's fine.]
Yes.
[He's about as less shit as it can be.]
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[ He says this, but he's making his arms into a makeshift pillow and resting his head against them to keep the room in the right order. ]
If you must fuss, at least sit with me for it.
[ So that he can fuss back. It's only fair. ]
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This isn't fussing.
[But Alucard does sit, and he puts his arm over Trevor's to prevent the man from putting his head there.]
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[ He puts his head on Alucard's arm instead. This is, in fact, becoming a problem. In the immediate aftermath, fueled by adrenaline as he was, it had just been a little dizziness, but on the walk back from Mathias' study he could barely keep himself upright. ]
We don't have to go back in there, now we know what it is.
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[Well, Sypha's found it. A concussion, which makes total sense and brings a wearier look to Alucard's face than there already is. He sighs, the talk of going back into anywhere no longer as important as looking after this is.]
We're sticking in here for the rest of the day. You're staying seated and alert until we give the say so, because the damage is harder to assess since it's an internal matter.