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.]
[He just laughs at that. He can't not, the elbow is earned, as is the sentiment. For the rest of it, there is only quiet contentment, because this is now how Alucard expected this to go at all.
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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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[Now he's getting that elbow he deserves.]
And I'll bet she would say the same thing.
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He's never been happier for defied expectations.]
Thank you.