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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

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?

[Alucard nods. Then an idea smacks into him, because he has language skills enough, and something about Sypha's heritage suggests that this can be done a little more subtly.

His next response is in French.]

I think you know that's very much an understatement.

[And up go her eyebrows, but his guess is a good one; she answers in French just as easily, and probably she shouldn't be surprised at how good his is considering where he lives, but still.

Quite frankly, his is a little more perfect than hers. His accent is natural, while hers is a near-perfect imitation, but still an imitation.]

What I also know is that when the Tower is reversed, it means you're resisting the changes that are happening to you. But it's come, whether you like it or not; there's no denying or hiding from it now.

[Her hand passes slowly over to the next card; she turns it over, revealing the Four of Wands, and the two people dancing amidst them.]

There's happiness for you on the other side of that change, monsieur.

[Sypha please. His father's a polymath, of course he has command of other languages.]

Mm. That seems a little too on the nose, all things considered.

[It is. He is also terribly annoyed at how on the nose it is, and at how vague the next card is. That one is for the present, is it not? Why wouldn't it promise some kind of resolution after everything that has happened to him?

Alucard nods.]

And the third?

Patience. That happiness is...

[She pauses. It's too soon to tell him what it really means: that the Four of Wands is about celebration, and joy, and family.]

...something you'll be longing for. Who knows? Maybe you'll find a wife to buy some pearls for, after all.

[What a picture this is shaping up into, though. She's censoring it, because of course she is, and naturally there's nothing really magical or predictive about a set of cards, but she can't help but find it a little curious that he'd managed to pick himself a past calamity followed by the joy of finding himself a new family.

But, well. Time to see what the future holds, and so she reaches to turn over the Ace of Pentacles, reversed.]

Might be good for you to hold on to that special someone. There's more changes coming for you in the future — perhaps a business opportunity you'll be second-guessing yourself on. Patience and clear thinking's the way to get through it, and that's the truth.

Hm.

[Absolutely too on the nose. Alucard trusts that after their discussion on the road, Sypha would not dare to try any tricks or slight of hand, so this is all genuine. But aren't all of these ways of predicting the future meant to be all too open? Easy to interpret any which way.

Alucard doesn't say anything for a few moments. He's lapsing into a terrible silence, the one that means he's thinking too much.]

There is a very long time ahead to see how these things play out, I suppose.

[He is long lived. These changes could well be in the next century for all Alucard knows.]

Well, you can come back anytime, and we can do this again.

[She sits back a little, looking at the cards he'd laid out with more than a little curious wonder. It's all just a game, of course, but she'd been curious to see what sort of story she could tell from the ones he'd picked for himself. Come to find it's one that's all too accurate — well, if you choose to read it that way.

That's the nice thing about archetypes. They're easily bent to tell almost any story, and fit almost any situation. These ones just happen to fit better than most.]

Now, about my pay...

[She glances at the way he's positioned his bags, then over to a cart with a vendor selling lemonades just a storefront or two down.]

Fancy that was worth a lemonade? I'll watch your bags for you, if you don't want to haul them.

That would require you being in this city, would it not?

[There's a long time ahead, and Alucard does not know if Speakers ever really return to the same place twice. Perhaps not in a generation, at any rate. It's a question he ought to have asked the other day on the road. Not here. Not while these cards seem to be throwing his situation in his face.]

That's fair. Our springs here are sometimes closer to summers for those that come from further north.

[Alucard rises slowly. He's certain that this means departure. She is working, so his time is not the only time that matters.]

Very well, then. Appreciate the patronage.

[As he gets up, her foot slowly moves to nudge the bags, drawing them closer in to herself, where she can easily grab them when the opportunity presents itself.]

...Be well, monsieur.

I am already on that path thanks to you.

[The lemonade does get delivered though, and then Alucard departs. In all of his considerations as he went about the work of finding Sypha again, he decided that for now, it would be better to stay in the townhouse his father held in the city itself rather then the castle. There were fewer memories there. Fewer ghosts. His father was less likely to return there and react to Alucard's presence.

So that is where he returns to so that he can continue to rest.

Within the blue fabric put into the bag, there is a note tucked into the folds. The handwriting is all too neat. Precise. Perfect.]

Miss Belnades,

Should you wish to check your handiwork before you and your people depart, you may find me at this address within the city. It is a townhouse that my family has used before.

[The address follows, and there are several fine bone needles that pin the note to the fabric.]

[Blue fabric, and supplies, and food. The latter are for her people, she knows, but the fabric must be solely for her; he'd wanted to replace her robes, she remembers, and they'd had blood and dirt on them, so she hadn't taken them back. Payment in kind, except that this fabric is thicker and softer than what hers used to be — more expensive, more luxurious. Never something she would splurge on for herself; she would never be able to justify it.

But this is hers, now. It's hers, and she lifts it out of its bag to rub her cheek against it, and that's when she spots the note attached to the fabric.

A townhouse.

Well, she'll have to get going if she's going to make the walk all the way back to camp and to the townhouse again before the afternoon is through. And it's not like she needs to hustle anymore, anyway, with these bags of supplies already at her disposal.

So she returns to the camp, hiding the food and supplies back amongst their proper places and dropping the majority of the money with the collectors of it, but she keeps the fabric for herself as she returns back into town, wandering until she finds the townhouse address.

Once there, she stops outside the gates, not yet entering the property outright, but getting the lay of the land from her vantage point near the street.]

[The house is...ordinary. The end unit, so there's more windows to it, but otherwise ordinary. Built some time at the tail end of the Victorian era, the detail is enough to prove it. There are three stories, but no real room for a garden. Just a few patches of grass and a dead hydrangea bush that will see new life come spring.

There are lights on though, Alucard's made it back. All he's doing at the moment is dozing on the sofa, the bulk of the day's actions having exhausted his reserves. Maybe he'll sleep for another full day, see if that helps speed things along.]

[Ah, good. Someone's home. That's a good enough sign that she double-checks the address on her note and heads up to the door, looking around for a bell to ring before pressing it to herald her arrival.]

[The doorbell, is, not omnious chimes. It's a rather cheerful noise, something Alucard's mother insisted on because she needed an actual address and she couldn't scare people off with an entire organ bellowing someone's arrival.

Alucard sits up slowly at the bell. He has to, up and down are the quickest way to see Sypha's work come undone. Once he's steady though, he goes to the door. No point in fussing about who it may be. Only one new person has this address, and that's why when Alucard opens the door, Sypha is given the greeting of:]

I didn't expect you so soon.

You said "before my people depart". It is before they depart; you just did not specify how long before.

[Naturally, the instant he lets her in, she'll be looking around in awestruck delight, taking in all the sights and furnishings of the townhouse.]

Besides, I wanted to see your home. Or one of them, at least: I assume you have more than one.

In fairness, I am ignorant of how long Speakers stay in a given place.

[He's...surprised at the quickness, but glad for it as well. Alucard closes the door behind them both, and lingers there as Sypha heads down the small hallway. The stairs are before her, living room to the right, kitchen in back. The space is compact, but it's much cozier for it.

Home decorating for this one had been his mother's domain. The only nods to greater wealth and his father's age are the pieces of art that hang on the walls. Impressionist sketches, and Alucard's still not sure how his father obtained them.]

You assume correctly. This one's...easier, right now.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject