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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I would not go quite that far, describing yours. But I have certainly seen worse.

[That genuinely wasn't a setup, it was more automatic than anything else.]

I do not know. I think —

[Hesitates.]

...I'm not sure if I can tell you the particulars of our motivations. Or what would prompt us to go or to stay. I think it will be a while, from what I have seen and gathered.

...Excuse me?

[Sorry, that was a surprise. Alucard's done flirting before! But never during these kinds of discussions!!!]

A while then. I think that shall do. [So long as he isn't dead upon returning home.]

I'd ask if you want the list of places that will serve you written down, but that's rather stupid, isn't it?

...Oh. You meant the stars and the moon.

[MOVING RIGHT ALONG THEN if only she had her robes to burrow into, but alas she does not, and thus her vague faint flush is regrettably visible.]

I'm more concerned with how to pass this information along to my people without having to answer questions about where it came from.

[...]

It was not that they did not want to help you. Please, do not think that about them. Especially not about our elder. He is a kind man, who believes in good works. It...he was asked to make a hard choice. I do not know if it was the right one. But I think he made it because he believes we must not attract the attention of...the people with investment in you.

Yes?

[....Oh.]

You can account for your missing time as exploring another part of the city that might be more friendly to you and yours.

[But now they're...at this. Alucard would rather not dwell on last night, so Sypha's explanation feels unneeded.]

I understand the decision and don't fault it. You didn't even have to account for the choice made. I knew I was gambling before I even approached for the exact reason you said.

That will do. Someone might wonder why I chose to do that instead of simply going about my business telling fortunes, but I am one of the more headstrong of our number, so no one will think much of it, past that initial wondering.

[She stares down at her feet, though, as they continue, and doesn't say anything for a few steps until eventually she gathers her thoughts together.]

If I had not helped you...what would you have done?

It's also a city with smaller histories that don't circulate beyond their wards. Either way, you have more than enough cover.

[Alucard doesn't mind the silence. It's...after last night, silence is nice. Not a comfort, but it means he isn't screaming with his father in the middle of the night right in front of his mother's grave. It means he isn't throwing himself on the will of others.

When Sypha breaks the silence, he only shakes his head.]

Ended up in the same place, I suppose, trying to do this myself. A hospital would not be safe due to the nature of my blood.

...I see.

[She slows to a stop, still looking at the tips of her toes, and listens to see if he'll stop as well.]

There is...one thing, that I did not do when I was assisting you last night. I would like to this morning, before we have to part ways at town. But I will have to touch you to do it. Will you allow that?

[Alucard's moving a few more steps ahead before he realizes Sypha isn't in step with him anymore. He turns around, head tilted just a little.]

What is it?

[He's not refusing, but he'd like to know.]

[Whether he meant it or not, that's permission enough for her — or at least, that's what she hears it as. So, quietly, she closes the few steps of distance left between them and carefully wraps her arms around his middle, angling her embrace so that it's mostly pressed against his side instead of his chest, to avoid putting any undue pressure on his wound and his stitches.

It doesn't last long — just a few seconds, without even a hint of squeezing. But for a few seconds, she has her arms around him, and he is dirty and rumpled and still an absolute mess, and the fact that those things don't matter to her is just as important as the hug itself.]

[There's a lot to unpack here.

Alucard's deadly still as Sypha's arms go around his middle. The first is for a practical reason - he doesn't want to aggravate the wound slashed across his chest. The second is every last hug he has received lately has been because of what's happened. This feels slightly different, but not different enough.

Third, and worst of it, the last one to touch him period was his father. The results of that are clear.

So he's afraid at first, which is the stupidest reaction he could ever have to something like this. He doesn't relax much more after those fears pass, he seems more at peace. Then Sypha isn't there at all, and it feels strange. She burns much warmer than most humans.]

...I have never seen anyone look so sad as you did when you came to our camp yesterday. Not even my grandfather, when he lost his only daughter.

[She backs up a little when she's done, giving him his space. But curiously, she's done with averting her eyes, now. She's looking at him directly, chin raised just a touch, gaze steady. Whatever hesitation had been in her before, it's not present for this.]

So I meant it, when I wished you to be safe and be well. And what I did not say was that it was going to be all right, because it was not something I could promise. But I am glad you were not left to do this alone. I hope that it brought you some comfort, this past night, that you weren't.

[Sad? Well, that's...accurate. To say the least. Alucard cannot say how he must have looked to others, but he can believe Sypha's observation. Everything around him is in shambles. Pieces of glass too finely broken to be glued back together. So..yes. Sad is right.

But it goes beyond that. The little bit of loss she shares, it's sobering. The way she's able to speak of it too that...it's not hope. It isn't reassuring. But it is a sign that it is possible to weather this horrible hurricane.]

You are...prudent in your word choices. [She's a Speaker. Of course she is.] Your hope held through.

[As almost an afterthought, he murmurs:] Your will burns very brightly.

Oh.

[Prudent in her word choices, he says, and then goes and says something like that. He's the prince of vampires, he surely must know enough of magic to know the implications of what he's just told her. To say such a thing, to a Speaker and a magician —

Because she's never going to forget that, is she. The way he looked, the way his voice sounded, the way his mouth shaped the words. Your will burns very brightly, and that's a part of her now, a story for two, safeguarded by one.]

...Thank you.

[Perhaps he'll remember it, too, for his own reasons: a Speaker, speechless, from his own prudent word choices.]

[Alucard's simply a skilled observer, it has nothing to do with being prince of anything. This feels like the right point to keep walking, one foot steadily after the other. Sypha's made no comment of the fact he has been using her bloodied cloak as a cape around his own body, trying to hide the bandages from the eyes of the world. He's glad for it.]

How long have you been practicing that art?

[Anything to make this less awkward. Talking about magic? That's pretty normal in his books. Rendering a speaker incapable of words is...he's not of the right mind to realize that for the accomplishment it is.]

I practice several arts.

[Yes, good, there we go. The topic has shifted back to something safe and familiar, something she could talk about at length in her sleep. (Little does she know she actually does talk in her sleep. It's not as though she's ever been awake to hear it.)

But off they go again, trotting along at Alucard's pace, drawing ever closer to their destination as they make their way down the secluded path toward town.]

Speakers dress their girls to look like boys, to protect them as they travel. I learned from this practice and do something similar with my magic. People see what they wish to see, and what they expect to. So I practice magic, and I also practice tricks. When people see you as a stage magician first, they assume that the real magic they witness is...just a trick too clever to be explained. I've been doing both since I was young.

[She pauses.]

Since...I was old enough to understand the importance of pulling my own weight. There are always people who will pay money to be told stories they wish to be told. I am very good at giving them what they want. And so, I help.

So your magic is practiced in layers, with nods to the concepts used by those who rely on more traditional ways of fooling the senses.

[He's impressed. It shows in his tone, in the way he considers everything Sypha has explained before drawing his conclusions. Her acts are no small feats, they're carefully woven...narratives. Because to think of Speakers is to think of stories, and it is the easiest way to interpret everything that Sypha has said so far.]

It's finely honed. I'm certain that honing will become refinement approaching perfection before too terribly long.

[They're approaching where they have to part ways. So Alucard returns to business, lists every part of the city that will see Speakers as no more than other visitors to the city and give no side-eye to their needs. (Don't practice your arts where you intend to purchase he advises.) And so at the outskirts, Alucard inclines his head west.]

This is where our paths must fork again, Miss Belnades. I'll find you when I can.

Mm. Then I wish you again, Adrian: be well, and be safe.

[And off she goes, in the opposite direction as his own path, to find a well-trafficked street corner with just a little bit of shade and something pleasant-smelling nearby — usually either a flower-seller or a restaurant, so long as the aroma is palatable to the senses. People relax more easily in such an environment; they give more away, and they feel more comfortable with their generosity — especially if they happen to be leaving said restaurant with change still in their hand, and can be caught by the whimsy of spending it on a quick fortune.

She has a fair run of luck with it, too. The usual types pass through — girls looking for the faces of their future husbands, gamblers looking for a turn of their luck, wealthy men preoccupied with this business deal or that proposition. It's never difficult to convince them to try her, and one by one she plies them with a smile and a story, giving them what they want to hear and sending them away satisfied.

When she's earned enough for the morning, she takes a short break and darts into the restaurant to buy herself a small portion of jambalaya, and once she has it she packs up her things and walks the streets eating while she ferrets out her afternoon's location — this one designed to catch workers on their way home from a day's trade, where in the morning she was seeking to hook shoppers and idle vagabonds.]

[Alucard returns home to an empty castle. It is at that point where he eats and drinks what he must, then collapses in his bed. Damn if his father's still home and could destroy him in his sleep. If Alucard dies, he makes this house harder for his father to live in.

He sleeps for three very long days. When he rises, the castle is still empty. Wherever it is his father has fled so that he might mourn, it is not home. Alucard cannot blame him. This place now is as much a tomb as his mother's actual final resting place. Quiet. Still. All life robbed of it, because the central force that kept it so full of life is now gone for eternity.

The thought hits him like a truck. Renders him into tears, until the pain from sobbing is literally painful. A reminder to check his bandages, which Alucard does. Undoing the wrappings take time and effort, and for it he's rewarded with skin that is only slightly healed. He hisses at it, then forces himself to enter his mother's lab to take supplies.

(It still smells of her. All a careful mix of her perfume, medical supplies, and faintest hint of soap.)

Bandaging it all takes time. Time in an empty and horrible house, and Alucard wants out of it. He...he's not sure what that means, but he owes Miss Belnades a new robe. So to the fabric store first, and then to one of the parts of town where there's some new fortune teller that's come in.

When Alucard approaches Sypha's set up, it is carrying several bags. A man who's doing the shopping for someone, perhaps, for he looks like no one's son anymore. He's too old and weary for that mistake now.]

[She sees him coming, of course, because she watches everyone who passes by when she's out like this; she's got a few seconds before he's close enough to be called out to, and she spends them on examining how his appearance has changed in the few days that have passed since she's last seen him. He's cleaned himself up; there's a little more color to his skin, and he's walking better. It's smart of him to come laden down with bags; regardless of how heavy they are, no one will question a man walking slower than usual if he's also one with a full load of bags to carry with him.

When he draws close enough to be within earshot — a man's earshot, not a vampire's, because she knows the latter all too well but she doubts he wants to be seen as that in the daylight — she calls out cheerily: ]

Bonjour, monsieur! Fortune for a penny?

[Plenty of people smile and move on, from her solicitations. He won't seem any different if he does the same. But now, at least, he knows she's here, and the invitation has been extended just the same.]

Do you accept trades instead?

[Because there is a bag that is specifically hers and he indicates that one first. It is on his right, and there is a little bit of blue fabric poking out of it.

This is her work, so he must respect that. The intent is to only let her know that all is healing and to do as she asked as far as repayment went. Nothing else.]

That depends on the trade, doesn't it? I couldn't say no to a string of pearls — well, unless they're your wife's!

[It's all just idle chatter, meaningless prattle — or so it seems. He's getting the same treatment that anyone else would if they drew near, and it's always good to test the men with a reference to the missus. See if they smile or frown, if they look nervous or disgusted or delighted. A man who looks worried might well have a mistress. A man who looks especially worried might have a husband, instead.

She picks up her cards, idly playing with them and shuffling them as she lets him see the way she glances at the bag. That's a shade of blue she'd recognize anywhere; she wonders what lengths he must've gone to, trying to match it precisely.]

[All of the bags get set down. There's food in there, replaced medical supplies, but the fabric is for Sypha and Sypha alone. He's yet to destroy the robes, but at the moment, he doesn't need to. He's the only one home, and now there is no danger of his blood being a problem for anyone else in the house.

(In later years, Sypha will find it folded at the bottom of a trunk alongside other precious things. Some of his mother's favorite clothes. The first pair of shoes Sypha wore through from dancing too hard at one of the parties. Important ephemeral things with too much meaning.)

There is a blank look at the comment though, because he knows he's patter, but all the same. Timing. He sits in front of her set up all the same, because for this to be a supply drop, a covert one, there must be some acting on his part.]

I'll leave it to your good senses to evaluate what's fair.

Let's see how well you like your fortune, then, and we'll set a price after.

[Which under ordinary circumstances would be a very stupid protocol to follow, but. It's not like the passerby are going to be judging how effective a performer she actually is, just that she's keeping up the performance at all.

Deftly, she fans out her cards and offers them to him, facedown and evenly spread.]

Pick three, if you please. Whichever three you like. Left, right, center, set them down in front of you, but don't turn them over! Can't rush the future, you know; you have to wait and let it come to you.

As you insist.

[He's sure that there will be no haggling. Everything there is fair. If anything, he's underpaying her for her and her people's help.

Alucard's certain that fortune will be a sour and bitter thing. Assuming that Sypha hasn't rigged this to be more of a comfort than he needs right now, because even if she doesn't know the circumstances of his injury, she knows what has taken place over the past week and change.

He takes three at random. All from different places in the deck. Each card is then placed between them, spacing careful and even. When Alucard is done, he gestures at her briefly.]

Your hand flips them over, correct?

Just so. Let me do all the work; you are my guest, after all.

[She smiles, setting the deck down and folding her hands over it before reaching for the card to Alucard's left and turning it over to show him the Tower, reversed.

It's to her credit that she keeps her expression from changing; there's no visible reaction, and the cheery, chatty demeanor doesn't change. But her Tower is one of those cards that can be fairly well interpreted just from the image on it alone — not unlike the backstabbed man on the Ten of Swords, there isn't much about a lightning-struck tower that leaves much to ambiguity.]

Ah, monsieur. Been having a bad time of it lately, haven't you?

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