[And indeed, what only Alucard will immediately notice is that the handwriting on the looseleaf isn't his mother's neat, compact lettering, but letters with more of an elegant flourish — Vlad's.
The good news is, they seem to be on the right track.
The bad news is, the top sheet is definitely a love letter, with a few paragraphs along the top to serve as introduction for what appear to be a handful of short verses centered on the page below it.]
And then there's the fact that his father was the most over the top vampire to ever vampire, which means that the top sheet is handed to Sypha almost immediately because Alucard is not about to read that.]
Neither of you get to complain about anything I say or do romantically ever again.
[There's poetry. Real poetry. Too much poetry, really.
[His suffering is not in vain! The other sheets seem more promising at first glance, as these ones have diagrams painstakingly inscribed on them with little figures that look like gears — and then, jackpot, one of the twenty-sided figure that represents the control mechanism for the castle's movements.
Unfortunately, Sypha being Sypha, she's reading the letter.]
It's not all romantic. There are also some very strong opinions on peasants.
[Which is a basic fact of being around his father. Moreover and more to the point though are the pages he has now, and he spreads each out on top of the box carefully. Then nudges Sypha with an elbow, real excitement in his voice.]
These are the pages in questions. The gears were things I already understood, but the actual control mechanism has always been beyond me. This was meant for...[He turns one of the pages over.] Emergencies, and specifically for someone not used to doing magic, never mind controlling an entire castle.
"There, you see, Lisa, I have crafted my love into verses, as these peasant men do while they toil all day in their fields."
[She recites, just to belabor the point, before carefully setting the love letter aside onto the mattress and moving to look at the diagram pages with him, instead.]
...Could your mother do magic, to begin with? She loved science so much, it's hard to imagine her tolerating something like magic, and a spell will always fail if you don't first believe it can succeed...
[At least it's said with a groan and a laugh. Because it is funnier rather than anything else, and there's still so much weight of just being in here.]
Not to my knowledge. But she was stubborn and hardheaded, and if intent is the foundation for magic then I doubt that there would have been too great a struggle.
At any age, I would have wanted to help her move it.
[He never did, of course. He understood so many of the mechanics that went into the castle, what kept it running. Gresit was testament to that. But moving the castle was something else entirely and....
...and as good and as soft and as lovely as Sypha's hand is (and he leans into it so very much), there's a note that catches his eye in particular.]
I think I found the part that you broke the hardest.
But that's actually the point. The part of the engines that process intent are both the hardest to break and the hardest to repair. And this page [he taps it gently] talks about the particulars. Not in great depth, but it's more than just looking at the damage will do. The mechanics and magic of it are intertwined to function properly, see?
[He will be forgiven only long enough for her to read this very interesting manuscript, because it is very interesting and thus more worthy of her attention at the moment.]
So...if I am reading this correctly, the person who moves the castle...doesn't move the castle. They instruct, in such a way that the castle knows how to obey, and then it moves itself.
[She frowns slightly, eyes skimming over the page again.]
It's like a trained dog. The dog knows the command for "come", and will come for its master. But I put a leash around it and...well, dragged it.
[Alucard re-reads the page again, thoughtful. Considering. Then correcting, because there's something else at hand.]
But there is an element of guidance though. I think that the better comparison would be working with horses? They know what to do but you have to nudge them along the appropriate path.
A better question, I think, is — will we have to reteach the castle how to obey? Or only fix the mechanisms that allow it to move?
[It's a little bizarre to be referring to the castle like a living thing while physically inside the castle. Despite herself, she glances at one of the walls, like she's expecting it to be eavesdropping.]
I don't think we've made an extensive study of how it broke, exactly.
It's sort of a cute thought, though, isn't it? You and your castle, like childhood playmates!
[Says Sypha, whose knowledge of childhood playmates comes pretty much exclusively from hearing folktales and legends that include them as a narrative staple.]
Well. We will certainly have to release the locking spell, but that should not be too difficult. And I think you may have to focus on the mechanisms themselves; I'm not sure if I could even lift them, much less repair them.
Back to the matter at hand. Alucard hums thoughtfully, considering the plan.]
Let's observe the damage first, and link each part to what's presented on the page. I'll...need a notebook, first, but that means all the research and results we do shall be recorded in one place.
[They get to do science!! Together!]
Don't even release the locking spell, we need to account for that in our initial observations.
Mm, all right. Then shall we leave these things out, or put the room back the way we found it...?
[Either option has its merits. On one hand, restoring the room to the way Lisa must have left it. On the other...reclaiming it, in some capacity, from being a moment frozen in time, a monument to a dead woman.]
That cup's getting washed. Possibly thrown away because I have no idea how much is just stuck to it now.
[He eyes the thing on the nightstand with Great Suspicion and concern. There's new lifeforms in that thing, he knows it.
But as for the rest. The journals are put away carefully, and for now, the box goes back to under the bed. They've touched precious little else, really.]
I'll keep it as it was for now. We'll have to come back anyway, that gives me more time to think.
[She takes a minute when he's finished putting everything away, leaning into his side and letting her head come to rest on his shoulder.]
Your mother was a woman who was careless with her dishes. There are so many sides of her in this castle — the beautiful paintings, her writing in the journals, the things you remember of her — but it's...nice, to know that there are these things, too. She left her mugs out because she didn't feel like taking them down to the wash.
[She hesitates a moment.]
Or your father, full of scorn but still writing your mother poems the way that peasants did for their lovers. To the rest of us, they were like figures of legend. It's...nice, to be able to see them the way you knew them. Like people.
[Warm. Sypha's always warm, and to have her leaning on him like this is just a perfect little touch of warmth to compliment the room. It was always warm here, in all the strange little ways that no one would ever expect his father's bedroom to be. (Or for it to have a bed in the first place.) It's impossible not to wrap his arm around Sypha's middle, tugging her just that tiniest bit closer.]
It is always easier to build up a mythology when the little details are obscured.
[But Sypha knows that. She knows stories better than the other two, how they work, why they work. Because that's about intent too, isn't it? Just like magic.]
Mmhmm. "Ţepeş, Belnades, and Belmont". You get top billing because it doesn't have as nice of a ring to it any other way.
[How strange, these days, to think that she'd once described Alucard as a cold spot in the room. He is, still, in many ways. But his sadness isn't something bottomless and engulfing, not anymore. Maybe it's more like an ocean now, still vast and deep, but with islands he's made out of moments like this, for the people he loves.]
I'm going to make sure all the legends include the part about you putting your cold feet on me in the winter.
[But the surnames are what are easier to remember. For Trevor and himself, it is also redemption. Putting new deeds to old names, old names with too much baggage these days. He makes the suggestion anyway, because the person is the important part.]
If you didn't run warm, we wouldn't have this problem.
[It is said with such smug satisfaction that he probably has earned an elbow.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The good news is, they seem to be on the right track.
The bad news is, the top sheet is definitely a love letter, with a few paragraphs along the top to serve as introduction for what appear to be a handful of short verses centered on the page below it.]
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And then there's the fact that his father was the most over the top vampire to ever vampire, which means that the top sheet is handed to Sypha almost immediately because Alucard is not about to read that.]
Neither of you get to complain about anything I say or do romantically ever again.
[There's poetry. Real poetry. Too much poetry, really.
He's...going to keep looking.]
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Unfortunately, Sypha being Sypha, she's reading the letter.]
It's not all romantic. There are also some very strong opinions on peasants.
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[Which is a basic fact of being around his father. Moreover and more to the point though are the pages he has now, and he spreads each out on top of the box carefully. Then nudges Sypha with an elbow, real excitement in his voice.]
These are the pages in questions. The gears were things I already understood, but the actual control mechanism has always been beyond me. This was meant for...[He turns one of the pages over.] Emergencies, and specifically for someone not used to doing magic, never mind controlling an entire castle.
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[She recites, just to belabor the point, before carefully setting the love letter aside onto the mattress and moving to look at the diagram pages with him, instead.]
...Could your mother do magic, to begin with? She loved science so much, it's hard to imagine her tolerating something like magic, and a spell will always fail if you don't first believe it can succeed...
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[At least it's said with a groan and a laugh. Because it is funnier rather than anything else, and there's still so much weight of just being in here.]
Not to my knowledge. But she was stubborn and hardheaded, and if intent is the foundation for magic then I doubt that there would have been too great a struggle.
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[She hums a little, lifting a hand and resting it gently on Alucard's back, between his shoulder blades.]
If it were to protect you, I am sure she would have done anything. Even moved a castle with magic she had never used before.
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[He never did, of course. He understood so many of the mechanics that went into the castle, what kept it running. Gresit was testament to that. But moving the castle was something else entirely and....
...and as good and as soft and as lovely as Sypha's hand is (and he leans into it so very much), there's a note that catches his eye in particular.]
I think I found the part that you broke the hardest.
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[So much for that pleasant backrub he was about to get, because now it's a little slap instead. Cheeky!]
And it's the castle's fault, anyway, for fighting me so much!
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[Thank God he's a vampire and feels none of it.]
But that's actually the point. The part of the engines that process intent are both the hardest to break and the hardest to repair. And this page [he taps it gently] talks about the particulars. Not in great depth, but it's more than just looking at the damage will do. The mechanics and magic of it are intertwined to function properly, see?
[He hands her the page properly. Better to read.]
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[He will be forgiven only long enough for her to read this very interesting manuscript, because it is very interesting and thus more worthy of her attention at the moment.]
So...if I am reading this correctly, the person who moves the castle...doesn't move the castle. They instruct, in such a way that the castle knows how to obey, and then it moves itself.
[She frowns slightly, eyes skimming over the page again.]
It's like a trained dog. The dog knows the command for "come", and will come for its master. But I put a leash around it and...well, dragged it.
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[Alucard re-reads the page again, thoughtful. Considering. Then correcting, because there's something else at hand.]
But there is an element of guidance though. I think that the better comparison would be working with horses? They know what to do but you have to nudge them along the appropriate path.
[Either way....]
We'll have to rebuild the mechanism from scratch.
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[It's a little bizarre to be referring to the castle like a living thing while physically inside the castle. Despite herself, she glances at one of the walls, like she's expecting it to be eavesdropping.]
I don't think we've made an extensive study of how it broke, exactly.
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[Alucard catches that glance.]
It's not alive, don't worry. And so I think it will be closer to fixing mechanisms and enabling the magic again.
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[Says Sypha, whose knowledge of childhood playmates comes pretty much exclusively from hearing folktales and legends that include them as a narrative staple.]
Well. We will certainly have to release the locking spell, but that should not be too difficult. And I think you may have to focus on the mechanisms themselves; I'm not sure if I could even lift them, much less repair them.
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[S y p h a.
Back to the matter at hand. Alucard hums thoughtfully, considering the plan.]
Let's observe the damage first, and link each part to what's presented on the page. I'll...need a notebook, first, but that means all the research and results we do shall be recorded in one place.
[They get to do science!! Together!]
Don't even release the locking spell, we need to account for that in our initial observations.
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[Sometimes it seems like every time they open up a closet door there's another half-empty box of blank journals just waiting to be pillaged and used.]
Speaking of which, do you want to look at the ones that were in the box?
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[He looks at the pages, then to the journals.]
I'll want to put these pages back when I'm done with them. They belong here, after all.
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[Either option has its merits. On one hand, restoring the room to the way Lisa must have left it. On the other...reclaiming it, in some capacity, from being a moment frozen in time, a monument to a dead woman.]
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[He eyes the thing on the nightstand with Great Suspicion and concern. There's new lifeforms in that thing, he knows it.
But as for the rest. The journals are put away carefully, and for now, the box goes back to under the bed. They've touched precious little else, really.]
I'll keep it as it was for now. We'll have to come back anyway, that gives me more time to think.
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[She takes a minute when he's finished putting everything away, leaning into his side and letting her head come to rest on his shoulder.]
Your mother was a woman who was careless with her dishes. There are so many sides of her in this castle — the beautiful paintings, her writing in the journals, the things you remember of her — but it's...nice, to know that there are these things, too. She left her mugs out because she didn't feel like taking them down to the wash.
[She hesitates a moment.]
Or your father, full of scorn but still writing your mother poems the way that peasants did for their lovers. To the rest of us, they were like figures of legend. It's...nice, to be able to see them the way you knew them. Like people.
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It is always easier to build up a mythology when the little details are obscured.
[But Sypha knows that. She knows stories better than the other two, how they work, why they work. Because that's about intent too, isn't it? Just like magic.]
It'll be the same in a century for us.
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[How strange, these days, to think that she'd once described Alucard as a cold spot in the room. He is, still, in many ways. But his sadness isn't something bottomless and engulfing, not anymore. Maybe it's more like an ocean now, still vast and deep, but with islands he's made out of moments like this, for the people he loves.]
I'm going to make sure all the legends include the part about you putting your cold feet on me in the winter.
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[But the surnames are what are easier to remember. For Trevor and himself, it is also redemption. Putting new deeds to old names, old names with too much baggage these days. He makes the suggestion anyway, because the person is the important part.]
If you didn't run warm, we wouldn't have this problem.
[It is said with such smug satisfaction that he probably has earned an elbow.]
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[She's quiet a minute, tilting her head to watch his expression before offering up tentatively: ]
...still Alucard? Or...
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