[I can't, she thinks bitterly, holding on so tight to the spell in her hands that her vision is swimming, that the world is going dark around the corners. I can't, it's too much, it's above and beyond staying alert and surviving and her body doesn't even feel like her own anymore, from how empty and ragged she is. I can't, she almost says, and aches for the snap of Trevor's whip, the shriek of Alucard's sword, but there's none of that here; it's only the two of them.
Except that then the noise registers. The sound that escapes Alucard's throat, the one she heard without processing because everything seems to be on a five-second delay through the quagmire of her perception. It hits her, and like a flashbulb she's back seated on a log in the camp with her family, playing with tarot cards and runestones and watching, quietly, as the son of Dracula had staggered in to ask for help —
(strings in her hands, needle and thread. You can put a spell into my hand? The noises he makes, her hands on his chest. Sypha...! The wreckage of the bathroom, the claw marks in the walls. Sypha! Her Alucard, her Adrian, you mustn't touch my blood, ripped open and pale, his father's fault, his father, she would protect him from anything she would protect him from him she will never never never let anything take her Adrian away)
— she doesn't know where she finds the strength. Maybe it's something woven into her very soul, something deeper even than conscious intent. Trevor's faith. Alucard's determination.
Her resilience and resolve, to be what her loved ones need her to be.
Her fingers fly out; down through those invisible strings courses white-hot magic, blue magic, her magic, and this time the chain reaction goes in reverse, one that erupts with explosions like firecrackers along a chain, racing the walls and shattering the spells that had animated the shadows at their very source, until nothing is left but scarred, warped brown paint in a dull, dark hue.]
no subject
Except that then the noise registers. The sound that escapes Alucard's throat, the one she heard without processing because everything seems to be on a five-second delay through the quagmire of her perception. It hits her, and like a flashbulb she's back seated on a log in the camp with her family, playing with tarot cards and runestones and watching, quietly, as the son of Dracula had staggered in to ask for help —
(strings in her hands, needle and thread. You can put a spell into my hand? The noises he makes, her hands on his chest. Sypha...! The wreckage of the bathroom, the claw marks in the walls. Sypha! Her Alucard, her Adrian, you mustn't touch my blood, ripped open and pale, his father's fault, his father, she would protect him from anything she would protect him from him she will never never never let anything take her Adrian away)
— she doesn't know where she finds the strength. Maybe it's something woven into her very soul, something deeper even than conscious intent. Trevor's faith. Alucard's determination.
Her resilience and resolve, to be what her loved ones need her to be.
Her fingers fly out; down through those invisible strings courses white-hot magic, blue magic, her magic, and this time the chain reaction goes in reverse, one that erupts with explosions like firecrackers along a chain, racing the walls and shattering the spells that had animated the shadows at their very source, until nothing is left but scarred, warped brown paint in a dull, dark hue.]