cryptsleeper | 20s AU Post

20s AU Post

Current Carmilla plot outline
--Post-fire, Carmilla and Mr. Peanut team up mostly to use each other. Carmilla's spent the past several months (since November, it is now February 1925) networking, and it's clear to her that Alucard's not suited for the position and that the other two are the obvious weakness. Mr Peanut needs something back, so this is perfect on her end. Mr Peanut can only imagine the joys of vampire blood in his work, and he'd like an army of vampires for his own ends.
--Shit stirring from Mr Peanut (all of March?)
--Mr Peanut also begins to sell mis Miracle Serum, which has vampire blood in it.
--Gang is very much trying to murder Mr Peanut during this.
--Start of April, vampire gets a call from one of the blood bank contacts that 3 patients have come in and are displaying some bizarre signs. Investigation yields the fact that they're in process of turning, and they've all taken the same serum.
--Additional investigation reveals O FUCK IT MR PEANUT
--Meanwhile Carmilla's been made aware of a familiar she didn't sire, so she knows something's up. Big fight with Mr. Peanut and thus Mr. Peanut is left depowered
--Gang commits a murder
--Carmilla's well sured up on her contacts now, and it's time for open rebellion (mid-April)
--In a more subtle attempt to let Alucard just step aside, she cuts the breaks on demon car and shows up to gloat/suggest he not pull a dad and go to deal with his grief quietly while she runs the city. The how he wants to do it is up to him (black widow joke goes here.) Treffy and Sypha walk in.
--1 week of straight up rebellion; feedings, no help from allies, need to do damage control instead of fight carmilla, every dracula rule is
--MEANWHILE IN GRAVITY FALLS, triangle shows Vlad what's up to try and psyche him out, somehow this finalyl snaps Vlad out of his depression and he heads home
--Just in time for Alucard and Carmilla to be tearing each other to bits in one of the bayous, it's not going well
--Vlad coming in means the king of vampires is accosted by a belmont with a pair of blessed knitting needles and a speaker with a fucking gun and he's just like what the shit happened to the world while i was gone
--Wards around the fight means that only demon car can break the wards, everyone has to pile in.
--Carmilla gets her ass kicked AND SENT TO THE JUSTICE DIMENSION

THEN THERE WERE FAERIES.
--Prior to all of this the vampire and Sypha have done a shit ton of research on how to get their Belmont back
--Sypha has also been practicing debating with dad, which leaves everyone Very Tired.
--When Trevor is actually snatched up (1 year after marriage, it takes fae effort. Taking Arn's shape fails, so it's a lot more kidnapping by force), Sypha and Alucard go into Faerie
--But they're playing this as politics, not as heroes rescuing their damsel, so that means the faeries are just "wait what now excuse u?"
--There are 3 gates and 3 trials (the particulars we're still bullshitting.) Each is asked to sacrifice 3 things. (Alucard: voice, his titles as bestowed upon by his father and his people, i forget the third; Sypha: her human form (she's a birb), fuck what were the other two)
--They enter the court at the end of the third trial. After LITERALLY ALL THE TITLES Sypha declares she Speaks for Trevor Belmont
--Claim debate over Trevor, turns out that the rules are in Sypha's favor.
--But that means debating to leave Fae without giving up what they've chosen.
--Sypha lawyers it all out, Alucard is a safety deposit and hangs out with Fae!Trevor
--In the end, safe passage out of Faerie consists of Sypha giving up her memory of the necromancer (billed as a great mage she studied under), the vampire gives up his immortality, and Trevor is replaced with Carmilla (dad was aware of this option and OK with it), but Trevor has his ability to swear taken. He now soundslike a rubber ducky when he tries
--Everyone gets home okay, except for the AU of this AU where the gang fails, but Trevor's on their doorstep like a bat out of Hell because time doesn't work right and he's been in Hell for a WHILE.

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Yes. Well — perhaps former Speaker, now. To hear vampire society tell it, I am Alucard's witch. I suppose it all depends on which version you hear. Try taking a step, carefully, and see if those braces wobble at all.

[She sits back, dusting her hands on her knees, but stays crouched in case she needs to adjust it again.]

Which is also why I am still here helping you regardless of whether you deserve it, Belmont.

Of course it is. And so I know you'll keep helping no matter how shitty I am, so that's nice.

[ Not that he was exactly holding back. He takes a step. The whole thing is stable, though he doesn't take his hand from the wall to risk falling. ]

For example - you're as shitty a speaker as he is a vampire if you think there's no story worth remembering here.

Perhaps the next time I will simply gag you before I start my work, then, and spare myself such treatment.

[Good. The design holds up; that should improve matters. Not that making the Belmont more mobile is actually that great of an idea objectively, but he's going to be mobile whether they like it or not, so. Here they are.]

Did I say I thought there was no story to remember here?

Neither of you have actually tried asking me to shut up, you know.

[ He takes his hand from the wall this time, taking another step. He's unsteady, but the thing on his leg holds up. And so he sits down, leaning forward to talk. ]

Said you abandoned your calling. Isn't that the same thing?

I don't want you to shut up, I want you to stop being awful. If you are not capable of that, then yes, I want you to shut up. Next is the wrist; I have an apparatus for that, too.

[It was, perhaps, strategic that she decided to work on his ankle first. She has a suspicion that the wrist will be a harder sell, somehow, for a man who does his work with his hands. Hopefully the success of the ankle will make him more amenable to having a good portion of his arm immobilized.]

Whether there is a story here or not, I didn't stay for the purpose of collecting it. My intent matters. It was not to be a Speaker, that I stayed.

Mm-hmm.

[ Someone finally gave him fucking instructions, thank you. So he falls silent while he tries to figure out how to not be awful, holding out his arm without much fanfare at all.

It takes him a few moments to figure out something not awful to say. ]

Knew speakers, back home. The traditionalists. Constant fucking struggle with my family, we've always been fond of writing shit down and they've always been- not fond of that.

[...did that

did that actually work because that is a surprisingly benign thing to come out of the Belmont's mouth and — what the fuck.]

...Yes. I've heard that's how it is in the old country. Europe is a place of history, stuck in its old ways, and so the Speakers there had little reason to adapt their own ways. Only oral stories, always.

[She blows on her fingers again, and when they wrap gently around his wrist, again they're cool without being painfully cold.]

Here we focus more on how to preserve the stories as living things. We retell them in words, but we also know them as dances, as songs, as theater. I could dance for you the story of the raven that stole the sun.

You could. Dance it.

[ Yeah he doesn't sound convinced. Sorry, not a patron of the arts. If that wasn't obvious. ]

They did good work. Came to the front lines as medics, but they did- anything that didn't mean taking up a gun, just about. Took messages from side to side, to try to make everyone see each other as people. Took last words from people, figured out how to get them home. Even started delivering letters and photographs, though I can't imagine they were happy about that one.

Stories can be danced. Some of them are all the more beautiful for it.

[She keeps her eyes on the swelling on his wrist, even as her thoughts turn back to that long blue coat.]

You were on the front lines? In the war.

Yeah.

[ There's an element of 'of course????' to that, that he's trying to bit back. Because she told him to not be awful. It never really occured to him that there are people who weren't. ]

They tried to keep the Speakers out for the longest time, everyone thought they were everyone else's spies. But they kept people alive.

Mm. They would not have cared about sides. Their only side would have been against the war, and against all the lives it claimed.

[There. That's ice enough; now for the brace.]

Is it true there was a truce, on Christmas? I don't know if you were near there, wherever it was. But we heard that they had managed it, for just one day. The newspapers didn't report that it was because of the Speakers, but we learned of that part of it on our own.

They knew it was coming. That's how my family knew them. They knew there would be a great disaster, but not how it would come about. They had us hunting for a supernatural cause, and all along it was just- a lot of individual stupid things, becoming a big stupid thing.

[ The swelling's gone down. He'd be glad to have his movement back, but that's not going to last. At least it hurts less once it's cooled. ]

There was. Only the first year. I wasn't there for it, few months before my time there. Wouldn't surprise me if they were involved. Good at getting people to listen, and all.

Yes, and at knowing their audience. Christmas would not have meant much to us at all, any more than any other day. But invoking it would have the power to sway a lot of people. Especially ones who would not be able to be with their families for it, because of the war. Hold your hand still now, please.

[Not that he hadn't been before, but she's used to having to do something similar while dealing with Alucard — short declarative sentences that are as much to give him warning about what she's doing as to actually assist her in doing them. Much like with the ankle, the wrist brace gets fitted in pieces, more carefully than the other because the damage is so much worse, and comparatively more delicate to address.]

Is that snug, or is it pressing uncomfortably anywhere?

The years that followed, they took precautions to keep it from happening again. Christmas Eve was always the worst night, after that.

[ A lot of Speakers died in the attempts, more than likely. He does hold still. Extremely still, actually. ]

Not uncomfortable. Feels a little tighter than the ankle.

The swelling is worse here, and it needs to fit more rigidly, so a little tighter is likely a good thing. If it grows uncomfortable, you will find me and tell me at once.

[That's not a brick joke just waiting to happen, oh, no. Soon she will figure out that phrasing is vital when it comes to Trevor, but it is not this day.]

Did you ever send letters through them? Get photographs from...someone?

Understood.

[ Sypha WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. He nods. ]

No letters. Not for us, we've squabbled with them over the written word too much to force them to carry it. But my sister- the one that stayed at home. She sent us all photographs of dogs. Constantly. I have so many dog photographs. [ And he laughs at that, because it's nice. It's also ridiculous, that he has about twenty photographs of his family's dogs and none of his actual family. But that's how the Belmonts operate. ]

[That's weird, she thinks fleetingly, to say something like "understood" in average, idle conversation. But the Belmont is sort of weird, anyway, so maybe it's just a Belmont Thing.]

You could show them to me sometime, perhaps. I would like to see the dogs.

[Also maybe it will assist in 1) tempering the Belmont and 2) continuing to get him to sit still for five whole seconds.]

I never had one — too hard to travel with, given the sort of traveling that we do. I had a bird, though, for a little while. That was years ago.

We had- about eight of them when I left. Scenthounds, most of them. To sniff out the risk of turning before it happened.

[ Also because Belmonts Like Dogs, but they like to pretend they have a good reason for it. ]

Pictures should be in my coat, if they survived Damien. I'll look for them once I can.

I'll be finished in a minute.

[Just finishing up with getting the fastenings together and secured, aaaaand — there.]

There! That ought to hold you. When you sit, try to keep your ankle elevated, and don't scratch up the floors if you're still using that curtain rod to hobble around.

It's a good curtain rod.

[ That's slightly defensive. He likes the curtain rod. He loved it before he met the crutches that Alucard supplied. But he will try, because he's been instructed to. ]

Why are you here? [ Genuine question, this time, not being confrontational about coddling Alucard. He's trying not to be awful. ] If he does what he has to be to be happy, it's going to be a dangerous place to be. If it's safe, everyone in these walls is going to be miserable. You can't win.

And so it would be better if I were safe and happy, and the only way to do that is to not be here at all. Safe, happy, and here — pick only two. Is that how it goes?

[She shrugs, off to go find a sink to wash her hands, but soon enough she's back.]

This is my home. I have never had a home before, with walls and a roof and a room that is all mine. I have never been myself before, either — not just one of many, a part of a whole, but myself, all my own. I've never had someone look at me like he looks at me.

[Is this defending herself, or a confession, or an explanation? She isn't sure. Regardless, it leaves her looking for something to do with her hands, never quite looking at the Belmont outright.]

I'm here because it feels right to be. And because if I were somewhere else, I think I would wake up wishing I were here. But when I wake up here, I don't wish I were anywhere else.

[ He listens. And he refrains from saying anything unpleasant, even if he doesn't have a whole lot to say in response. ]

Because you chose to be here, then.

[ And that's something he can't quite understand. Choosing. But it's good to hear from her own mouth that she's here because she wants to be. ]

That's hard to believe, is it?

[At least she doesn't sound affronted. Mostly because Trevor didn't sound accusatory, so perhaps we're actually discussing this civilly instead of irritably.]

You chose to be here too, though. Didn't you? Or at least to come here. He gave you the chance to leave, too, I think, and you didn't.

Honestly, when vampires are involved? Yes. But I'm pretty sure you can't compel someone to say shit like that. Too sentimental.

[ He shrugs. ]

The chance to leave. That's a polite way of saying he doesn't want me here, isn't it? [ Not that he's offended. Or that Alucard can be blamed for that. ] I'm needed here. The Belmonts have to choose someone to support, and he's as good a candidate as any. And the one least likely to be violently tossed out by Dracula for taking over in his absence.

My point is, you had the opportunity to go. It wasn't as though you blundered in here, realized you had made a terrible mistake, and found yourself trapped. You were given safe passage to leave, and you came back.

[...Although. Hmm.]

You know a lot about vampire politics, don't you?

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