[It's after her initial whirl with Trevor that the two of them split off, Trevor ostensibly to go win pocketfuls of other people's money from some round of betting or another, and Sypha to draw attention from the usual crowd of scholars and self-styled warlocks eager to impress her with their supposedly vaunted knowledge. She accepts dances every time they're solicited, and in the midst of the fun, she hears things, too. One of the crafters she dances with is just bursting with pride in a secret he's been sworn not to tell, but he's too eager to keep it entirely under wraps, either — and so she learns that he's received an overture for a contract of some form or another, something that will put his name on the map, for having worked it.
Curious.
Another, an older vampire who she's been acquainted with a handful of times and who teases her about seeking a bite to drink every time they cross paths, takes a moment to advise her solemnly that the climate is changing, for humans, though in what way, he refuses to say. He mentions in passing that if she finds herself in need of shelter, that he'll accept her under his wing, and it's a remark with a darker implication to it than the usual attempts at stealing her away from Alucard, and she wonders.
Eventually, though, she reunites with Trevor, and this time when they dance she can feel Alucard watching; after awhile, she inclines her head at him, silently inviting him to come and cut in, if he's got a moment to spare and the interest in being seen joining their fun.]
[He catches that gesture. It's...it's probably a good idea, but there's at least one other required discussion he has to have before the rest of the night can be thrown to abandon, and that's when he prefers to be on the dance floor with the two. Besides, there's precious room to move around right now, and this still about being seen. The three can't be the center of attention at the moment.
So he responds with the come over here gesture instead. Tugging his head back twice, letting the two catch just a hint of exhaustion in his eyes. The glass of champagne he picked up about an hour and a half ago is still in hand, barely touched.
[That's a look she definitely recognizes, yes. There's still the matter of finishing out the song, of course, but once it's through Sypha is quick to go click-clacking over to where Alucard is waiting, her every movement a veritable symphony of rhythm to all of the vampires and their supernatural hearing, between the rattle of beads and the swish of fabric and the clip of her heels on the floor.]
Mm, is this for me?
[She says, playfully taking hold of his drink and bringing it up so that she can steal a sip from it.]
And a kiss too, please.
[She tilts her chin, turning her head to the side to give him easy access to the apple of her cheek.]
[Trevor's right behind her. Thank goodness, because it looks like he's starting to get as Sick of This as Alucard is. The three of them, they need a break it seems, and Alucard takes careful note of it.]
All yours.
[He's so happy to let her take the glass. The kiss on Sypha's cheek is given with the first real show of enthusiasm of the night, and Trevor gets one too for the sake of completeness.]
Mm. It's quieter in the house right now.
[Meaning that they have just enough room for a breather.]
[Trevor, unsurprisingly, grumbles at the smooch he is given like the ungrateful thing he is; Sypha does not, because she knows what she wants and how to get it.]
I have heard a few things.
[She remarks, as she raises the glass to her lips, which serves the double purpose of disguising the fact that she's talking.]
We'll have much to talk about when we are home, I think.
[Trevor gives an affirmative nod after Sypha speaks. Because he's heard plenty of things, and that's why this party has been labeled as work instead of just a more normal social outing. Alucard does his very best not to look weary about those words, and he tugs at Sypha's hip gently.]
I know. But I also imagine your feet need a break, and there's comfier seating inside.
[He wants five minutes with just them. That's all this is.]
Mm, I certainly won't say no to getting off my feet. Or being swept off of them.
[She cocks her hip, bumping it playfully against Alucard's hand, but nods and casts around for a flat surface upon which to deposit his former drink. It's never a bad thing to have one in hand while talking in public, for various reasons, but there are still hours left before this party will start to break up, and she doesn't want to consume any more than is strictly necessary.]
[Hand in hand, rather than arm and arm. He wants that warm weight in his palm, and it's easy to slip into their host's house. Midnight is the height of revels, and while the house itself is not without guests, the change in density is noticeable.
There is a drawing room that has no one else at all in it, full of the overly plush sort of sofas that were fashionable a decade ago. Perfect, and Alucard does not sit until the other two do. Sypha needs room to take off her shoes, Trevor's already stretched out, and so Alcard's in the corner until Sypha settles on where she wants to be.
The doors aren't closed, but there is such a blessed softness to the noise. Gentle conversation drifting in. Music muted. And for a glorious moment, just the three of them.]
[They are, in fact, incredibly stupid shoes. Beautiful to look at, finely made, a perfect match for her dress — and she's so utterly glad to be free of them, bending down to unbuckle the straps before nudging her feet free of them one by one. Though it's tempting to just kick them off and leave them anywhere, this is a stranger's house and not their own, so she puts them together neatly and leaves them in front of an end table where she can find them later.
Decisions, decisions. She flexes her feet from the ankles and picks her seat opposite Trevor, so that the natural space for Alucard to join them is in the middle, where she suspects he'll most want to be.]
[There are many other ways to sit with the other two that Alucard prefers. Both of them on either side of Trevor, using his chest as a pillow. Sypha stretched across both their laps, tired and content, himself and Trevor trapped until either Sypha has the sense to get up and move to bed or one of them picks her up and does the job for her. Alucard in wolf form fitting the whole of himself on Trevor, because sometimes Trevor would rather be around a big dog than a person. Being at home between them both is lovely, and he usually melts into it.
In public, he can't, not really. Between them both is the pertinent way to sit, it encourages the fewest rumors, but it doesn't let Alucard melt in their arms. The most he can do is just have them close, arms around both their waists, his head resting on Trevor's shoulder and the certainty Sypha is going to snug up close to them in a way where she might as well just be seated on Alucard's lap.
Better than nothing at all.
He sighs, the noise ambigious. It could be content. It could be weary.
Then he nudges Sypha.]
I believe you could just go without the shoes for the rest of the night. I doubt anyone would care.
You don't think anyone would notice when I am two inches shorter all of a sudden?
[He's not wrong in the slightest, either, about Sypha's plans; she leans into him almost as soon as he's seated, reaching a hand behind his back to try to get even just a slight fold of Trevor's shirt caught in the curl of her fingertips.
Their poor Alucard. He's being worn so thin by this, and yet as close as they are to being through with the evening, it's still not close enough yet. There are still at least two more hours of mingling and posturing to be done, on top of all the efforts he's put in already, and even after that they still need to get home.
Yet again, as she has so many times before in the past few days, she thinks of his father and feels a flare of anger simmering in the pit of her stomach. Abandoning him to this —]
I'll have to stand on the tops of your shoes, if we dance. So my feet won't get bumped or stepped on.
[She rests her cheek against his shoulder, closing her eyes and melting against him.
It lasts all of about five minutes, before a shout goes up from outside.]
This crowd? No. It'll be magic or they'll be to drunk to notice.
[They're both such warm comforts. Trevor far rougher and only barely tolerating any of this, and Alucard always wishes he could display the same contempt. With Sypha, he can let out the rest of his feelings, and the three of them can pile here for stolen minutes. Grabbing onto whatever comfort they can find.
Alucard's practically a puddle when Sypha leans against him as she does. Trevor lets out a low laugh because he can't have two puddles of goo on the sofa and then....
...then they're all on their feet. Trevor declaring that the go bag is in the car and leaping over the sofa to go get it. Alucard grabbing Sypha's hand and hanging on tightly, barely restraining himself from tapping into his vampiric heritage to speed outside.
What he finds is mist. Mist creeping in from the north, mist staying too high afloat. Head leave. There's a moment's sniff, and before Alucard can say anything else, someone at the back of the venue lets out a pained screech of holy water!
Alucard hisses, low and vampiric, and looks around. Improvised weapon time.]
[At first glance, the plot — if it can really be called a plot, she isn't sure — makes an evil sort of sense. A mist of holy water in the air, cast over a gathering of supernatural creatures where anyone who's anyone would be reveling. Of course they made for an easy target, they'd all gotten together into the same place to do it.
It's only afterward that things start making less sense from there. If it is a plot, who gains from it? Why this, why now? And furthermore, how did they get their hands on this much holy water, to even have wrought this at all?
Later. That's a question for later; for now, there's a problem in the air — quite literally — and Trevor is off and running, and Alucard needs her.]
I — yes. At least I can try — I can get most of it, if not all.
[She's not usually so unconfident about her own skills; it's not a facet of a lack of belief in herself, but rather just a sign of how distracted she is, trying to track the mist and how it's flowing.
She's just lifting her hands and starting to focus when something occurs to her.]
I can't freeze it — with the way it's passing over us, it'll get too heavy and fall down right on top of us.
[Which is worse: holy water mist, or holy water ICICLE KNIVES FALLING FROM THE SKY.]
It'll have to be wind. Alucard, I can blow it away, but it will have to go somewhere...
Wind. Blow it to the east, there's nothing on the next lot, no one will be exiting that way, all the cars are parked to the west.
[It's a snap decision. One made with all barely constrained rage because this is a boldness never attempted before. (It would not be tempted if his father was here.)]
I'm going beyond the property line. Do whatever you need, and anyone stupid enough to question you answers to me.
[The only thing Alucard does before launching off into the night is to take a pole that holds up a string of lights and snap it in two over his knee. Improvised weapon. It'll have to do, and even as the mist hovers over the festivities, Alucard cuts his way through it. His is a wolf, low enough to be clear of the mist, the pole in his mouth because that's the only way to carry anything as a wolf.
He is swift. He is certain. And by the time he is at the farthest edge of the party, Trevor is there too. Vampire Killer is in his hand. Trevor is yelling something, using his last name as currency, and they are both off into the treeline.]
[He's already long gone by the time she says it, perhaps even past the range of a wolf's hearing. But still, there's no time for sentimentality, not when she has a party to defend, and lives to preserve.
Step one does prove to be ice, after all, but not of the fog itself. Instead, to the north, she raises a high wall of ice, hoping to barricade off the fog from wherever it's coming from, forcing it to run into the frozen expanse and hopefully condense into liquid again before it has a chance to blow past it.
The rest of it is more difficult, and requires her full and deliberate focus. She spreads her hands wide, eyes focused on the fog, then brings them together with flat hands angled vertically. In the air around them, the fog collapses inward, growing denser and denser albeit in a much smaller area as she compacts it together, trying to shape as much of it as she can into a cube.
It's somewhere around here, as the skies begin to clear, that the denizens of the party start returning, chattering in wonder at their salvation overhead. A few are foolish enough to approach her, babbling some nonsense she can't afford to focus on right now; even so, her control slips slightly from the distraction, and some of the mist escapes, leaving her to curse under her breath and refocus to corral it again.
(She kicks that one in the shins. It's a shame she's not wearing her shoes, she thinks; it would've hurt more.)
But soon enough, she's got as much of it together as she can, and slowly she starts to push it to the east, a swirling cloudy mass of a thing in cube form that leaves her gritting her teeth from the concentration of holding it together, trying to get it far enough away that she can release it without risking it scattering and coming back.]
[Vampire Killer is not quite as effective on humans as it is on vampires, and using it in a forest is a difficult thing, even with the full moon hanging high above the trees. That's fine, because there's only 5 hunters, and the red hot second they see a flash of the Belmont crest is the second that all of them stop.
(There is a mage in their number. He is further back, swearing a storm up as he encounters Sypha's icewall and cannot find a way around it. Alucard drags him over to the other four, so that they can be addressed as a group. There's a tremble in the man's step (not a man, he's maybe sixteen.)
No need for the improvised weapon then. Alucard throws it aside.]
By rights, and by expectation, I ought to destroy all five of you. My father would not give you even this much of his time.
[Alucard knows that Trevor does not like talk of Dracula. It's a different kind of family pain fron Alucard's, and it comes out when Dracula is mentioned not as Alucard's father, but as a vampire power that has survived the centuries in spite of the Belmonts' best effort. He will apologize for it later. For now, he has to use the word as a weapon, because these five, they are here not because of their own skill. They're not local either, because they didn't know that there's a Belmont in the city.
Curious.
But he lets Trevor do the questions for the first few minutes. Listens. Then takes over himself, because the threat of Belmont does nothing to get the information they really need. Son of Dracula though? That tends to loosen lips.
"A...we got a letter, a copy of the invitation, left on our door..."
[Back at the party, now that the immediate threat of burning by holy mist has been alleviated, the vampires are quickly growing restless. It's a powder keg of immortals just waiting to be ignited by one rabblerouser's careless words, and even as exhausted as she is by the effort she's just expended, Sypha can see immediately that if she allows this to go unchecked, it won't be long before the party turns into a mob.
Even now, there are rumblings. Shouted questions of who could be behind such a thing, murmurs of holy water and blessed things that eventually coalesce into the natural conclusion: hunters. Humans.
It doesn't escape Sypha's notice, either, that she is a human among the vampires, herself.
And yet oddly, she's not afraid. If anything, she's affronted — not just the thought of them behaving like this, but at the trouble it would make for Alucard if they were to get out of hand, and how tired he would be if he had to bring them all to heel and remind them to stay in line and behave —
Oh, no. Not on her watch.]
No one leaves!
[Each word comes sharp and biting.]
No one is leaving. You will stay, all of you, until this has been sorted out.
[Oy, and what if we don't care to stay? one of the younger, upstart vampires sneers. You can't keep us here! Just what do you think you can do about it, anyway?]
If it is trouble you want, then try it, and find out.
[Their host, a woman who moved far south from New England back when the word of the day was witchcraft mixed with endless land disputes and who herself goes only by the name of Theodora, picks the exact moment that someone is fool enough to question Sypha's own authority in order to supplement it. She was a witch once, a vampire now, she threatens to be a ghost if someone gets lucky enough to kill her.
Anyone who steps foot off property when we're ignorant of particulars is well and dead to this house and my kin. She has brood, they live not only in the city but further on west. Hospitality is their greatest trait, and for those who need to travel, such blessings can be life or death. The Speaker's words are that of sense. Wait.
The last word is nearly a dip into vampiric compulsion. Enough to make it clear how serious she is. And with that she walks past Sypha with head held high, and a softer I'll see what's about because unless the hunters are actually Belmont level, they have been caught now.
(It is not unremarked upon by most that Alucard's ethics are very different from that of his father. In so much that he has them at all. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to think that some delay is happening because of those very ethics.)
But no. The delay is based in questions, and Alucard's shoulders are heavy by the time his host actually makes her way out to the new party in the woods. The hunters are well and truly unnerved because of Alucard's calmness, his ability to coax answers from them, and with Theodora now there, he says the worst words of all.]
They interrupted your party. I won't have death, but warn the world as you see fit.
[The hunters are aware, perhaps, that the arrival of yet another vampire is in no way a change for the better, for them. It also becomes immediately clear when Alucard speaks that they would have been much, much better off to have the son of Dracula adjudicating their fates than this, and in that moment anxiety breaks into abject terror — for one of them, at least.
It's the mage, the boy not yet even a man. He's nowhere close to prepared to look danger in the eye, not at this age (not when his last name isn't Belmont). Like a fool, he's already trying to run before he's even managed to push himself to his feet, stumbling and scrabbling as he heaves himself up and tries to make a break for the deeper cover of the trees.]
[Alucard sighs. He and Trevor offer Theodora the twin tired glance of let that one go. Not out of hope of mercy, but because Trevor has some Opinions on doing much more than what is required, and Alucard can't imagine that what their host has in mind can be any worse than what that boy just dreamed up in is head.
Of course, darling.
Because that's what she calls everyone. And because she is a witch, she is much more creative than any vampire might be with the right kind of response for this is. Any vampire might just shred and claw and mark. Witches can curse and doom and make life far more difficult than a vampire can.
(Trevor is still fucking uncomfortable with it. He doesn't say it until they're out of hearing range, and Alucard nods in exhausted agreement. It's a too complicated web they weave of alliances. Makes it look like Belmonts turning on other hunters. Big problem.)
And when they meet the ice wall, Alucard knocks on it twice. Polite as can be.]
[Really, she has half a mind to turn the whole thing to water and flood out all the restless guests, but that would also involve flooding Theodora's house and there are some courtesies one does not unwisely spit on.
It's actually rather beautiful how the wall falls away; she's been practicing, clearly, and it goes from a solid figure at first to one fractured and etched like cut glass, before eventually shattering softly in key structural places that make it tumble to the ground like a chandelier falling, contained shards of crystal that make a beautiful noise when they crash down in cascade yet never once stray from the boundary lines she's set for them.]
Yes, of course.
[And there in the yard, she stands, a tiny barefoot thing amidst a crowd of cowed vampires, regent of her small and ephemeral kingdom.]
[It's a very beautiful sight indeed. Alucard's smiling by the time all of the water has fallen away to allow himself and Trevor (and Theodora, she's got a good hustle) to re-enter the property and the party. A real smile, the kind he reserves for when he sees something wonderful and new and inspiring - so the kind that Sypha's magic so often pulls from him.
They're a strange sight on the other side of the ice. Alucard in the middle, his hair windswept but suit otherwise fine. Trevor (The Belmont) still looking just barely presentable, Vampire Killer in hand. Theodora with no blood on her or her all too beautiful dark purple dress, satisfaction on her face. They pass into the party proper, and Alucard doesn't stop until he's at Sypha's side.
It is so magnificent just seeing here there, barefooted and having just prevented a riot of sorts, and when they're home he'll confide all these things. For now, there is business.]
As it stands, we have dealt with the problem. Five hunters from well beyond the city limits who had one of the invitations here slipped under their door. They were unaware of the city's current balance, and thought their attack wise.
[He's calm and cool, speaking with authority.]
They've been seen to. But this combined with what I have heard from many of you confirms that there are those beyond our norms who seek us harm. It is being looked into, and that threat shall be stamped out with no mercy given.
You all know how to get in touch with me, and my doors are open.
[And with that, Theodora decides that tonight is perhaps best concluded. There's no relief on Alucard's face, but inside he nearly collapses with it.]
[She gravitates backwards just a fraction when Alucard starts to speak, just enough to subtly put him at the forefront of the picture they make while she settles back in support, like ceding the imaginary podium to him while the partygoers look on. The explanation of what had happened is as much news to her as it is to the vampires, and she can't help but cast a surreptitious glance at Trevor in quiet astonishment.
That the hunters encroached on the city isn't the bizarre part. It's not even the part about how they somehow missed that there was a Belmont already here. It's the fact that they were invited to come and raid by someone taking a covert hand in this attack, and while they may have caught the instrument of chaos in the form of the hunters, they've missed the influence that spurred them on to do it in the first place.
Still, things wrap up quickly. The festivities are over, and Sypha is half tempted to just abandon her shoes to the parlor and retrieve them later, except that it occurs to her that she'll need them to drive, so she has to go back and get them. When she returns, she's tugging them on one by one, making a little face as they start to press uncomfortably on her sore feet again.]
I will drive us home, unless you think that driving would settle your nerves.
[So she says, quietly enough that even in a room full of vampires, it's for Alucard's ears only.]
[It is not good news to deliver. Alucard already knows what will be thought. "No one would do this if Dracula was still here." "If whoever's responsible is a vampire, maybe we're better off." "God, he didn't kill them, did he?"
He can sit with those thoughts later. There are farewells to take care of first, and apologies to their host to deliver who takes it all with grace. (Darling, Godbrand showed up with a land boat back in 1809 in Quebec, please don't worry about bad party endings.) Alucard's glad that she takes it so easily, but no one else has such a mood.
There are only a few others left by the time Sypha finds them again. Alucard's surveying the damage.]
[She says, as she links her arm through his, which is and always will be her right even if right now it's as much about comfort as it is about status. The only time she'll let go, and even then only for a moment, is to pay her own respects to their host on the way out — no sense in not being polite, after all.]
Come, then. Let's go home.
[And when they get to the car, she'll curl up with Trevor, letting Alucard have his space to drive and get himself sorted as he needs, so that he'll be ready to talk by the time they get home, if not sooner.]
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Curious.
Another, an older vampire who she's been acquainted with a handful of times and who teases her about seeking a bite to drink every time they cross paths, takes a moment to advise her solemnly that the climate is changing, for humans, though in what way, he refuses to say. He mentions in passing that if she finds herself in need of shelter, that he'll accept her under his wing, and it's a remark with a darker implication to it than the usual attempts at stealing her away from Alucard, and she wonders.
Eventually, though, she reunites with Trevor, and this time when they dance she can feel Alucard watching; after awhile, she inclines her head at him, silently inviting him to come and cut in, if he's got a moment to spare and the interest in being seen joining their fun.]
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So he responds with the come over here gesture instead. Tugging his head back twice, letting the two catch just a hint of exhaustion in his eyes. The glass of champagne he picked up about an hour and a half ago is still in hand, barely touched.
It has been a Very Long Night.]
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Mm, is this for me?
[She says, playfully taking hold of his drink and bringing it up so that she can steal a sip from it.]
And a kiss too, please.
[She tilts her chin, turning her head to the side to give him easy access to the apple of her cheek.]
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All yours.
[He's so happy to let her take the glass. The kiss on Sypha's cheek is given with the first real show of enthusiasm of the night, and Trevor gets one too for the sake of completeness.]
Mm. It's quieter in the house right now.
[Meaning that they have just enough room for a breather.]
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I have heard a few things.
[She remarks, as she raises the glass to her lips, which serves the double purpose of disguising the fact that she's talking.]
We'll have much to talk about when we are home, I think.
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I know. But I also imagine your feet need a break, and there's comfier seating inside.
[He wants five minutes with just them. That's all this is.]
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[She cocks her hip, bumping it playfully against Alucard's hand, but nods and casts around for a flat surface upon which to deposit his former drink. It's never a bad thing to have one in hand while talking in public, for various reasons, but there are still hours left before this party will start to break up, and she doesn't want to consume any more than is strictly necessary.]
Lead the way?
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There is a drawing room that has no one else at all in it, full of the overly plush sort of sofas that were fashionable a decade ago. Perfect, and Alucard does not sit until the other two do. Sypha needs room to take off her shoes, Trevor's already stretched out, and so Alcard's in the corner until Sypha settles on where she wants to be.
The doors aren't closed, but there is such a blessed softness to the noise. Gentle conversation drifting in. Music muted. And for a glorious moment, just the three of them.]
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Decisions, decisions. She flexes her feet from the ankles and picks her seat opposite Trevor, so that the natural space for Alucard to join them is in the middle, where she suspects he'll most want to be.]
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In public, he can't, not really. Between them both is the pertinent way to sit, it encourages the fewest rumors, but it doesn't let Alucard melt in their arms. The most he can do is just have them close, arms around both their waists, his head resting on Trevor's shoulder and the certainty Sypha is going to snug up close to them in a way where she might as well just be seated on Alucard's lap.
Better than nothing at all.
He sighs, the noise ambigious. It could be content. It could be weary.
Then he nudges Sypha.]
I believe you could just go without the shoes for the rest of the night. I doubt anyone would care.
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[He's not wrong in the slightest, either, about Sypha's plans; she leans into him almost as soon as he's seated, reaching a hand behind his back to try to get even just a slight fold of Trevor's shirt caught in the curl of her fingertips.
Their poor Alucard. He's being worn so thin by this, and yet as close as they are to being through with the evening, it's still not close enough yet. There are still at least two more hours of mingling and posturing to be done, on top of all the efforts he's put in already, and even after that they still need to get home.
Yet again, as she has so many times before in the past few days, she thinks of his father and feels a flare of anger simmering in the pit of her stomach. Abandoning him to this —]
I'll have to stand on the tops of your shoes, if we dance. So my feet won't get bumped or stepped on.
[She rests her cheek against his shoulder, closing her eyes and melting against him.
It lasts all of about five minutes, before a shout goes up from outside.]
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[They're both such warm comforts. Trevor far rougher and only barely tolerating any of this, and Alucard always wishes he could display the same contempt. With Sypha, he can let out the rest of his feelings, and the three of them can pile here for stolen minutes. Grabbing onto whatever comfort they can find.
Alucard's practically a puddle when Sypha leans against him as she does. Trevor lets out a low laugh because he can't have two puddles of goo on the sofa and then....
...then they're all on their feet. Trevor declaring that the go bag is in the car and leaping over the sofa to go get it. Alucard grabbing Sypha's hand and hanging on tightly, barely restraining himself from tapping into his vampiric heritage to speed outside.
What he finds is mist. Mist creeping in from the north, mist staying too high afloat. Head leave. There's a moment's sniff, and before Alucard can say anything else, someone at the back of the venue lets out a pained screech of holy water!
Alucard hisses, low and vampiric, and looks around. Improvised weapon time.]
Sypha, can you turn all of that away!?
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It's only afterward that things start making less sense from there. If it is a plot, who gains from it? Why this, why now? And furthermore, how did they get their hands on this much holy water, to even have wrought this at all?
Later. That's a question for later; for now, there's a problem in the air — quite literally — and Trevor is off and running, and Alucard needs her.]
I — yes. At least I can try — I can get most of it, if not all.
[She's not usually so unconfident about her own skills; it's not a facet of a lack of belief in herself, but rather just a sign of how distracted she is, trying to track the mist and how it's flowing.
She's just lifting her hands and starting to focus when something occurs to her.]
I can't freeze it — with the way it's passing over us, it'll get too heavy and fall down right on top of us.
[Which is worse: holy water mist, or holy water ICICLE KNIVES FALLING FROM THE SKY.]
It'll have to be wind. Alucard, I can blow it away, but it will have to go somewhere...
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[It's a snap decision. One made with all barely constrained rage because this is a boldness never attempted before. (It would not be tempted if his father was here.)]
I'm going beyond the property line. Do whatever you need, and anyone stupid enough to question you answers to me.
[The only thing Alucard does before launching off into the night is to take a pole that holds up a string of lights and snap it in two over his knee. Improvised weapon. It'll have to do, and even as the mist hovers over the festivities, Alucard cuts his way through it. His is a wolf, low enough to be clear of the mist, the pole in his mouth because that's the only way to carry anything as a wolf.
He is swift. He is certain. And by the time he is at the farthest edge of the party, Trevor is there too. Vampire Killer is in his hand. Trevor is yelling something, using his last name as currency, and they are both off into the treeline.]
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[He's already long gone by the time she says it, perhaps even past the range of a wolf's hearing. But still, there's no time for sentimentality, not when she has a party to defend, and lives to preserve.
Step one does prove to be ice, after all, but not of the fog itself. Instead, to the north, she raises a high wall of ice, hoping to barricade off the fog from wherever it's coming from, forcing it to run into the frozen expanse and hopefully condense into liquid again before it has a chance to blow past it.
The rest of it is more difficult, and requires her full and deliberate focus. She spreads her hands wide, eyes focused on the fog, then brings them together with flat hands angled vertically. In the air around them, the fog collapses inward, growing denser and denser albeit in a much smaller area as she compacts it together, trying to shape as much of it as she can into a cube.
It's somewhere around here, as the skies begin to clear, that the denizens of the party start returning, chattering in wonder at their salvation overhead. A few are foolish enough to approach her, babbling some nonsense she can't afford to focus on right now; even so, her control slips slightly from the distraction, and some of the mist escapes, leaving her to curse under her breath and refocus to corral it again.
(She kicks that one in the shins. It's a shame she's not wearing her shoes, she thinks; it would've hurt more.)
But soon enough, she's got as much of it together as she can, and slowly she starts to push it to the east, a swirling cloudy mass of a thing in cube form that leaves her gritting her teeth from the concentration of holding it together, trying to get it far enough away that she can release it without risking it scattering and coming back.]
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(There is a mage in their number. He is further back, swearing a storm up as he encounters Sypha's icewall and cannot find a way around it. Alucard drags him over to the other four, so that they can be addressed as a group. There's a tremble in the man's step (not a man, he's maybe sixteen.)
No need for the improvised weapon then. Alucard throws it aside.]
By rights, and by expectation, I ought to destroy all five of you. My father would not give you even this much of his time.
[Alucard knows that Trevor does not like talk of Dracula. It's a different kind of family pain fron Alucard's, and it comes out when Dracula is mentioned not as Alucard's father, but as a vampire power that has survived the centuries in spite of the Belmonts' best effort. He will apologize for it later. For now, he has to use the word as a weapon, because these five, they are here not because of their own skill. They're not local either, because they didn't know that there's a Belmont in the city.
Curious.
But he lets Trevor do the questions for the first few minutes. Listens. Then takes over himself, because the threat of Belmont does nothing to get the information they really need. Son of Dracula though? That tends to loosen lips.
"A...we got a letter, a copy of the invitation, left on our door..."
Interference.
Alucard hisses at that.]
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Even now, there are rumblings. Shouted questions of who could be behind such a thing, murmurs of holy water and blessed things that eventually coalesce into the natural conclusion: hunters. Humans.
It doesn't escape Sypha's notice, either, that she is a human among the vampires, herself.
And yet oddly, she's not afraid. If anything, she's affronted — not just the thought of them behaving like this, but at the trouble it would make for Alucard if they were to get out of hand, and how tired he would be if he had to bring them all to heel and remind them to stay in line and behave —
Oh, no. Not on her watch.]
No one leaves!
[Each word comes sharp and biting.]
No one is leaving. You will stay, all of you, until this has been sorted out.
[Oy, and what if we don't care to stay? one of the younger, upstart vampires sneers. You can't keep us here! Just what do you think you can do about it, anyway?]
If it is trouble you want, then try it, and find out.
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Anyone who steps foot off property when we're ignorant of particulars is well and dead to this house and my kin. She has brood, they live not only in the city but further on west. Hospitality is their greatest trait, and for those who need to travel, such blessings can be life or death. The Speaker's words are that of sense. Wait.
The last word is nearly a dip into vampiric compulsion. Enough to make it clear how serious she is. And with that she walks past Sypha with head held high, and a softer I'll see what's about because unless the hunters are actually Belmont level, they have been caught now.
(It is not unremarked upon by most that Alucard's ethics are very different from that of his father. In so much that he has them at all. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to think that some delay is happening because of those very ethics.)
But no. The delay is based in questions, and Alucard's shoulders are heavy by the time his host actually makes her way out to the new party in the woods. The hunters are well and truly unnerved because of Alucard's calmness, his ability to coax answers from them, and with Theodora now there, he says the worst words of all.]
They interrupted your party. I won't have death, but warn the world as you see fit.
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It's the mage, the boy not yet even a man. He's nowhere close to prepared to look danger in the eye, not at this age (not when his last name isn't Belmont). Like a fool, he's already trying to run before he's even managed to push himself to his feet, stumbling and scrabbling as he heaves himself up and tries to make a break for the deeper cover of the trees.]
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Of course, darling.
Because that's what she calls everyone. And because she is a witch, she is much more creative than any vampire might be with the right kind of response for this is. Any vampire might just shred and claw and mark. Witches can curse and doom and make life far more difficult than a vampire can.
(Trevor is still fucking uncomfortable with it. He doesn't say it until they're out of hearing range, and Alucard nods in exhausted agreement. It's a too complicated web they weave of alliances. Makes it look like Belmonts turning on other hunters. Big problem.)
And when they meet the ice wall, Alucard knocks on it twice. Polite as can be.]
The matter's seen to. Sypha, if you could?
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It's actually rather beautiful how the wall falls away; she's been practicing, clearly, and it goes from a solid figure at first to one fractured and etched like cut glass, before eventually shattering softly in key structural places that make it tumble to the ground like a chandelier falling, contained shards of crystal that make a beautiful noise when they crash down in cascade yet never once stray from the boundary lines she's set for them.]
Yes, of course.
[And there in the yard, she stands, a tiny barefoot thing amidst a crowd of cowed vampires, regent of her small and ephemeral kingdom.]
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They're a strange sight on the other side of the ice. Alucard in the middle, his hair windswept but suit otherwise fine. Trevor (The Belmont) still looking just barely presentable, Vampire Killer in hand. Theodora with no blood on her or her all too beautiful dark purple dress, satisfaction on her face. They pass into the party proper, and Alucard doesn't stop until he's at Sypha's side.
It is so magnificent just seeing here there, barefooted and having just prevented a riot of sorts, and when they're home he'll confide all these things. For now, there is business.]
As it stands, we have dealt with the problem. Five hunters from well beyond the city limits who had one of the invitations here slipped under their door. They were unaware of the city's current balance, and thought their attack wise.
[He's calm and cool, speaking with authority.]
They've been seen to. But this combined with what I have heard from many of you confirms that there are those beyond our norms who seek us harm. It is being looked into, and that threat shall be stamped out with no mercy given.
You all know how to get in touch with me, and my doors are open.
[And with that, Theodora decides that tonight is perhaps best concluded. There's no relief on Alucard's face, but inside he nearly collapses with it.]
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That the hunters encroached on the city isn't the bizarre part. It's not even the part about how they somehow missed that there was a Belmont already here. It's the fact that they were invited to come and raid by someone taking a covert hand in this attack, and while they may have caught the instrument of chaos in the form of the hunters, they've missed the influence that spurred them on to do it in the first place.
Still, things wrap up quickly. The festivities are over, and Sypha is half tempted to just abandon her shoes to the parlor and retrieve them later, except that it occurs to her that she'll need them to drive, so she has to go back and get them. When she returns, she's tugging them on one by one, making a little face as they start to press uncomfortably on her sore feet again.]
I will drive us home, unless you think that driving would settle your nerves.
[So she says, quietly enough that even in a room full of vampires, it's for Alucard's ears only.]
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He can sit with those thoughts later. There are farewells to take care of first, and apologies to their host to deliver who takes it all with grace. (Darling, Godbrand showed up with a land boat back in 1809 in Quebec, please don't worry about bad party endings.) Alucard's glad that she takes it so easily, but no one else has such a mood.
There are only a few others left by the time Sypha finds them again. Alucard's surveying the damage.]
I'll see us home.
[The drive will help.]
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[She says, as she links her arm through his, which is and always will be her right even if right now it's as much about comfort as it is about status. The only time she'll let go, and even then only for a moment, is to pay her own respects to their host on the way out — no sense in not being polite, after all.]
Come, then. Let's go home.
[And when they get to the car, she'll curl up with Trevor, letting Alucard have his space to drive and get himself sorted as he needs, so that he'll be ready to talk by the time they get home, if not sooner.]
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