[Everyone in the Speaker camp knows that it's Dracula's son approaching.
The caravan had come to the city with a purpose, and they'd known the risks they were taking when they came. This area, this whole region, was Dracula's territory. Vampire territory. They knew it would be dangerous, when there were certain to be few allies among the humans and next to none among the supernatural, and no hospitality or goodwill to beg.
And yet they had come, because the elders understood that the story to be collected here was one of vital importance, one that needed to be remembered and handed down through the generations even at the greatest cost, because children of a newer day would need to know, and to remember. Such knowledge needed to be preserved for them.
So they had come, to salvage the story of Lisa Tepes — wife of Dracula, mother of a son.
They're good at traveling, the Speakers. They have the practice of arriving in a city down to nearly an art, or at least a science. Everyone has their own role, their own place; some maintain the camp, and some protect it. Some disguise themselves as average citizens so that the locals will sell them food and supplies. And some, like Sypha, go out to gather information and knowledge, and in her case, money to pay for the food and supplies whenever she has the chance to play a few tricks and earn a few dollars from passing citizens eager to be sold a story themselves.
It had been a good day. Telling fortunes and chatting up the locals had netted her a good turnout — enough that there are bubbling cookpots over campfires and tobacco for pipes and even the luxury of a few sweets, and she's sitting on a fallen log practicing tricks with her tarot cards and runestones when the intruder enters the camp.
It's astounding how all the chatter goes silent in an instant. How the old and the frail are hurried out of sight. How suddenly, abruptly, all eyes converge on the ragged, bloody man-shaped figure in their midst.
Vampire.
They know who it is. This is Dracula's son, the woman Lisa's son. And perhaps that's why it's only her grandfather who dares confront him, and speak.]
For what purpose you come among us, son of Dracula?
[Not challenging. Not aggressive. But unmistakably wary.]
no subject
The caravan had come to the city with a purpose, and they'd known the risks they were taking when they came. This area, this whole region, was Dracula's territory. Vampire territory. They knew it would be dangerous, when there were certain to be few allies among the humans and next to none among the supernatural, and no hospitality or goodwill to beg.
And yet they had come, because the elders understood that the story to be collected here was one of vital importance, one that needed to be remembered and handed down through the generations even at the greatest cost, because children of a newer day would need to know, and to remember. Such knowledge needed to be preserved for them.
So they had come, to salvage the story of Lisa Tepes — wife of Dracula, mother of a son.
They're good at traveling, the Speakers. They have the practice of arriving in a city down to nearly an art, or at least a science. Everyone has their own role, their own place; some maintain the camp, and some protect it. Some disguise themselves as average citizens so that the locals will sell them food and supplies. And some, like Sypha, go out to gather information and knowledge, and in her case, money to pay for the food and supplies whenever she has the chance to play a few tricks and earn a few dollars from passing citizens eager to be sold a story themselves.
It had been a good day. Telling fortunes and chatting up the locals had netted her a good turnout — enough that there are bubbling cookpots over campfires and tobacco for pipes and even the luxury of a few sweets, and she's sitting on a fallen log practicing tricks with her tarot cards and runestones when the intruder enters the camp.
It's astounding how all the chatter goes silent in an instant. How the old and the frail are hurried out of sight. How suddenly, abruptly, all eyes converge on the ragged, bloody man-shaped figure in their midst.
Vampire.
They know who it is. This is Dracula's son, the woman Lisa's son. And perhaps that's why it's only her grandfather who dares confront him, and speak.]
For what purpose you come among us, son of Dracula?
[Not challenging. Not aggressive. But unmistakably wary.]