Catch All

[cryptsleeper]

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[miraclewhip]

[ From far away, hounds howl and snap. They are miles away, still, but his sister's dogs are always loudest at a distance, silent up close. The sun will set within the hour, and the hunt will begin

The eyes reappear as Alucard catches his breath, but this time there are two sets. The great yellow ones, close to the ground and each the diameter of a man's forearm, and ice-blue ones, about where one might expect eyes to be and reflecting the little light of the forest. The voice returns, suddenly speaking with less authority. ]

What are you>?

[ He knows how to deal with the things of the night. He knows how to deal with the things of the day. Alucard does not appear to be either, and that's a problem. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[His breathing is (more or less) back to normal by the time Trevor approaches. There are gold eyes that stare back at him, evaluating what it is he's looking at. Alucard's own education of night things has excluded the fae, in no small part due to the fact that they do not enter Wallachia or the lands near it. For obvious reasons, of course.

He stares back, figuring the blue ones are correct. The yellow ones are too strangely placed, even for a creature.]

I ought to ask you the same thing.

[Fourteen and a haughty thing, as most teenagers are. It's a good way to tamp down on the terror of only a few moments before.]

[miraclewhip]

[ The lower, larger eyes sink down and fade away, and Trevor steps forward. Fully visible, he's less intimidating, a boy still mentally growing into a body that's grown too fast for him to keep up with it. For all the world, he looks like he could be any boy from the village, save for the antlers. Save for the fact that his cloak doesn't move with the wind, and instead flicks nervously. Save for the fact that his eyes are that icy blue in thier entirety, with no pupil or white.

He doesn't answer, instead twisting his head about, testing the air with the antlers on his head as if they were an insect's antennae. ]

You don't smell human.

[cryptsleeper]

[Magic. That's the only scent that comes off this...whatever he is. Deer-moth-man. Alucard can tell that much, and that it ins't the kind his father uses either, which is controlled and precise and so very, very dark. There is an unsettling wildness to it, and that more than the eyes or the antlers puts the vampire on guard.

He's without his sword. There's still daylight in the sky. He's also very close to a tree, which means if he needs to scramble up and then leap through the canopy to get home, he can. Alucard knows that much.]

And you most certainly aren't.

[He gets to state the obvious just this once. His voice is far calmer than he feels, and his eyes remain locked on this strange thing.]

Nor are you of this land.

[miraclewhip]

[ He tilts his head at that, this time in curiousity ('this land' as a strange term, as if there were more than one sort of land). Then he remembers himself, and his face turns stony. ]

Tell me what you are. I don't know what to do with you, and the hunt will start soon.

[cryptsleeper]

I am someone who needs to end this conversation and return home.

[Alucard, even at this age knows that came off as too arrogant. But between that or revealing his true nature, the former is far preferrable. He pauses after, tone far more grateful.P

Thank you for scaring them off.

[miraclewhip]

[ The barks and howls grow quieter. All things grow quiet. There are no insects in the undergrowth, no birdsongs. The hounds are approaching. ]

Will you be there before sunset? [ He asks, ignoring the thanks and following, a sense of urgency in his voice now. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[The forest isn't usually this quiet. Alucard doesn't like it. Doesn't trust it one single inch, and there's no doubt that the urgency to the moth-man's question is a part of it.

Tension returns to him.]

Yes, but the longer we speak, the closer that answer becomes no.

[miraclewhip]

[ He sighs, breathing out a ‘fuck’. He still doesn’t know what to do with this thing that is not any sort of creature he recognises. ]

Very well. Bolt the door. Cover your ears. Do not look through the windows. Go.

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard squints. He doesn't trust instructions like those. Not an inch. That's close to vampire and other night things business, and there's a deep unsettled curiosity in him.

Along with something else. Far more important than that, because Alucard knows that vampires? Vampires are territorial. Things going through Wallachia at night, if they aren't human, oh that's bad.]

Does Dracula know that you're moving through here?

[It's Important. It's the only reason he isn't taking leave right this second.]

[miraclewhip]

[ His cloak shifts nervously again. Alucard is doing far too much asking questions and far too little running away for his liking. ]

He will before long, no doubt. He is not our quarry. Not this year.

[cryptsleeper]

[Not this year. Alucard's nostrils flare out of instinct, but the good news in all of it is that he does start to move. He knows where Lupu is from here, but there's a minor problem in all of this.]

Those five may tell others what they saw here. Do you have any way to ensure that won't happen?

[miraclewhip]

[ This does get a reaction out of him that isn't his awkward attempts at following a script he's learned in a situation that it doesn't apply to. Because he doesn't particularly care either way if someone knows what he is, but Alucard seems to. And he's been annoyingly cagey about his own nature. ]

Now what did they see, [ He asks with the beginnings of a grin. ] that they oughtn't tell others of? Our hunt is no secret.

[cryptsleeper]

[That grin is smug and annoying and Alucard hates it on principle. But he's starting to run back towards Lupu, barely maintaining human speed. It's a test, to see whatever the hell this man is can keep up.]

I need blood to supplement my diet. Vampire legends run wild in this part of the world. They thought I was among their number, in spite of it being daylight out.

[Not that daylight will remain for too much longer. Alucard knows that, and it's so tempting to turn into a wolf. But even that's a dangerous proposition.]

[miraclewhip]

[ All of a sudden, this has become fun. A hunt of his very own, almost. Human speed isn't a challenge, and he gives chase and waits for Alucard to finish speaking before he drops out of the sky into his path. His cloak is open now, revealing it to be a large pair of wings with those great eyes marked open them.

The grin has widened. ]

You would owe me, if I made them forget.

[cryptsleeper]

[So there's a few things going on right now. The first is that the cloak absolutely explains a few things, mostly in what eyes he thought he was looking at a few moments ago. They're moth wings, made to the size of a cloak. It's...actually, that's pretty cool, Alucard can admit that in all his fourteen year old boy-ness.

The rest though, the rest sets off klaxons in his head. There may have been no mention of fae from his father, but Alucard is well versed enough in dealing with night things to know better than to make deals where favors are involved.]

I'm not that big of a fool.

[Alucard snarls those words out.]

I pay now or not at all.

[miraclewhip]

Fair enough, not-vampire.

[ He's having such a good time right now. His first hunt as an adult (well. Sixteen. Close enough.) was always going to be an important day. And now, now he has a- a something. A something that needs something from him. A something that's just talked himself into paying only in what he can give here and now. ]

What are five memories worth to you? Be quick about it, my sisters will be here soon.

[cryptsleeper]

Absolutely not.

[He'll take the risk. Tell his father what he saw instead, because that? That's something he can trust to be effective. This thing, whatever it is, Alucard doesn't know how effective it will be then.

And as if to make the refusal absolute, he does hit vampiric speed now, wordlessly moving through the woods as only youth and vampire abilities can allow. Lupu may not be visible yet, but the smell of wood smoke from fireplaces fills the air, and that in and of itself is a sign of home.

Just fifteen minutes of light left. Maybe half an hour. He can manage.]

[miraclewhip]

[ He huffs, but he makes chase. It's for the sport of it, now. It's hard to keep up, with Alucard moving so fast, but he can stay close enough that he can track his scent. He never quite catches up, though, and by the time he lands by the small clinic Alucard is safely inside.

Night falls not long after, and the silence is broken as the sun dips below the horizon. Dogs barking and howling, singing and wailing, horns and pipes playing, the storming of hooves. At dawn, little seems different in Lupu itself. Lisa is called away at dawn to see to a man found dead in his bed, whose wife and children had often come to her clinic for injuries they couldn't explain.

There is a bottle by the clinic's door, containing five silvery masses suspended in a clear liquid. When Alucard runs into the hunters at market, they do not meet his eyes but nor do they seem to take any note of him. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[When Alucard runs into his own house like the hounds of hell are after him, his mother drops everything and runs to him. It isn't childish in his view to nearly collapse into her, nor is it wrong to tell her what's come to pass. He leaves out the moth man for her ears for now, the focus being only on the villages and what may come tomorrow morning.

She isn't happy, but something like this was bound to happen in the end. The true concern is Vlad's reaction, and to the shock of neither of them, he goes as still as the dead when he awakes and is told the news. He goes even more quiet when Alucard speaks of Trevor, and there is a single, tired word breathed out by Dracula when all is said and done. Fae.

So the night is spent in front of the fire, his parents discussing where to move the clinic versus the humans nearly had our boy for dead and you're content to risk his safety by staying outside of the castle? Alucard is a silent spectator to all of it, and he eventually falls asleep in front of the warmth of the hearth, safe and able to ignore all the noises of the Wild Hunt. He's too tired to pay them much mind.

He shows his father the bottle when Dracula awakens the next night. There is a very low, displeased noise, and Dracula takes it elsewhere. The explanation, it's to modify memories is all Alucard needs. No deal. Just help.

The years pass. The clinic moves deeper into Wallachia, always on the edge of wilderness. Alucard understands why, and it has never escaped his notice that his father has been traveling less over the years. Worry is not something that looks right on Dracula's face or in his actions, but it is plain to see.

He explains the particulars of the fae with some reluctance. It confirms that to have avoided a deal was a good thing, and that if they speak of a hunt ever again, be gone from them. Alucard nods, absorbs the information, and is otherwise so very quiet.

Today, Alucard travels as a man. There are books in the bag across his back, en route home with a treasure trove that was ordered from elsewhere in Europe. Printed books are a blessed rarity right now, but oh they are wild with what some of the humans thinks about the world. They're being purchased for the sake of creating a version of the printing press for the castle though, far more advanced than anything that can be made in some time. One of the books has illustrations of the workrooms for printers. Everything else is to throw men off the scent of Dracula's intent.

They're heavy books, and home is still a day or two away. He takes his break off the road itself, a little into the forest where there's a stump to serve as a seat.

Alucard tenses. He can hear movement behind him, deeper from the woods. There's no noise as he rises to his feet, only the sound of his sword being unsheathed.]

[miraclewhip]

[ Seven years have passed, and Trevor is no longer the least of his family. His nephews are in their fourteenth year now, just about old enough to be entrusted with riding through the day and sending men into their homes, and this means that the long day before the hunt is his own to do as he pleases with.

And what he pleases is trailing the not-vampire. It was sheer luck that he caught Alucard's scent a day or so ago, and that makes this, in his mind, a completely normal and not creepy thing to be doing. Never mind that he's been stalking the not-vampire for two days now. It's fun, seeing how long he can remain unnoticed as he tries to puzzle out what, precisely, Alucard is. And maybe- maybe he's a little concerned. He can't be close enough to home this time to make it before nightfall tonight.

A familiar pair of not-eyes stares out from the shadows of the trees. It's tempting to remain hidden, but Alucard's caught him, it's only fair. ]

How long have you known I was here?

[cryptsleeper]

[Him? Again?

Alucard doesn't stand down, nor does he lower his sword. He knows what Trevor is now, and he knows that he barely escaped making a bad deal last time. His father had made that very clear, and in that anger there was the tiniest bit of praise for keeping a cool head and not accepting the help of a fae.

Trevor's grown though. Wider, more muscled, it's a good look on him. Stalking? Not so much.]

Forests are harder to hide oneself in. Your movement's too different from what normally lives here.

[So that is to say only just now. Alucard would be ashamed to know that it's actually been two days.]

Better question. Why are you here?

[miraclewhip]

Followed you here.

[ There's no shame in it, because hunting is what he does. Why would he feel ashamed of following prey when he's been doing such a very good job of it? He lets his wings drop to wear them like a cloak again, looking at the sword in consideration before grinning. ]

Hunting.

[cryptsleeper]

To what end?

[He's far better at hiding fear these days. Those three words are asked with total confidence, the kind of thing a man who knows he can handle the fight he's about to pick asks.

Because a hunt only ever ends in a fight and a death. That much Alucard knows both as predator and prey when men are fools and he fails to watch himself.]

[miraclewhip]

I never learned what you are. I still want to know.

[ A fight would almost certainly be one way to get him closer to finding out, and so he doesn't really make any effort at deescalating. But he does, almost casually, add- ]

And I don't think you can make it home before sunset.