[ He does watch carefully as Sypha checks Alucard over. It’s necessary, but seeing it does make his throat burn in a nasty, envious sort of way that he’s not quite sure he understands. ]
Not at all. But she’s-
[ They want to keep the girls here from learning to read!, Sypha complains, sitting down between Alucard and Trevor and returning to the task of heating water for tea - the burning won’t be until tomorrow, and there’s little more they can do tonight without undue risk. They may as well get a few hours rest. She complains. A lot. She’s just about finished and getting her breath back when Trevor starts to pour the tea, and she gently pulls the water pot from his hands. Just because she’s willing to trust him not to give her fairy foos doesn’t mean she expects Alucard to. ]
-the burning is dawn tomorrow. It’s safe to rest a little while.
They're idiots afraid of people gaining more understanding and the ability to interpret the world around them without guidance.
[Alucard's own tone is disdainful. Low key furious, and this is such a personal thing to him. His shoulders rise, hinting at the anger that bubbles underneath, and it's easy to ignore the thoughts of tea or of food or of anything else.]
What is our plan then, at dawn? [They need one.] The kind of thing that stamps out ideologies like this demands that the disapproval not be the work of others voicing a different opinion, but their God Himself.
I've never tried. [ Sypha admits, putting down the kettle, outstretching a hand and focusing. Nothing, not at first. She frowns, trying to visualise lightning. ]
It's air striking other air. Like a flint and steel.
[ Trevor's explanation isn't the most scientifically robust, but it's enough. Wind, Sypha can do. Fire, she understands. She can use that as a starting point, and soon enough sparks of lightning dance in her hand. Trevor is grinning again, proud of her. ]
Goad the man into saying that if he's wrong, may God strike him. Dead would be ideal, although I realize harming a man is against all the Speakers stand for.
[Alucard pauses, tucking a few strands of hair that have wandered behind his ear.]
Nothing less will convince him and the people here he's wrong, I suspect.
[ Sypha curls in on herself a little at that. Using her magic to hurt someone, even someone who is doing so much harm, if it's not in her own defense is- a lot to ask. ]
Is there another way? Something else that might convince them- a storm, or a plague of-
[ ...Trevor no. He looks suddenly very interested at that last one. ]
It's locusts traditionally, anyway. [ Sypha adds, because everyone hates Trevor's idea and nobody will let him go around being too many insects.
But she purses her lips at that, because she's not had dealings with Dracula personally, but she's seen what Dracula's magic did to Trevor even in his absence. It's doubtful he'd show any more mercy to people burning his wife's writings and calling for the head of their author. Experimentally, she makes a few more spares dance over her palm, trying to gauge if she has enough control over them to avoid killing. ]
I'll do it. But one of you needs to be the one to goad him into saying it. Else it'll be obvious that it was my doing.
[Alucard's features all crease, his mouth quirking downward into a concerned frown. He understands what this really means for Sypha, and it's...it feels wrong, demanding this from her.]
[ Sypha sighs, taking the pot of water and leaves and pouring Alucard's tea herself rather than letting Trevor do it. ]
I picked the leaves. [ She says. She conjured and boiled the water, too, and the pot is her own. She's trying to take Alucard's wariness into account. No part of it is fairy food. She settles against Trevor, letting him pour tea for the both of them. He likes moments like this, even if they're all of them tired and even if Sypha and he have been living in a dingy little hideout for the last week in the middle of a city that would at least try to see them all killed. ]
[Alucard’s a wolf before the tea is even done being poured. It’s easier sometimes, being a wolf. Less complicated in terms of thought processes, and situations make their solutions more apparent too. He’s content, curled up and quiet. Warm, if not safe.
His gaze lingers on the two of them for a moment longer. They’re….they’re sweet like this, Sypha moreso. Content. And that’s what they both ought to have, with none of the complications that Alucard’s mere existence brings to it all. It’s always the best to be on the outside, isn’t it?
[ Sypha sighs again, smiling ruefully. She tried. She’s done as much ‘everyone be friends’-ing as she can stand, for now, and if Alucard doesn’t want to be around them any more than necessary, she can’t force him. The two of them sit in silence, staring at the cooling cup, until she retreats to the sole bedroll and Trevor retreats into being moths, sending one of them out through the keyhole to keep watch while the rest of them settle into the corner furthest from Alucard.
Trevor wakes about an hour before sunrise and wakes Sypha, who tears a chunk of bread from their loaf and offers it and a peice of dried meat to him. They don’t offer Alucard breakfast, this time. ]
Work’s starting. [ He says in between bites. Both of his eyes are that milky white, right now, and Sypha keeps having to nudge his arm slightly so the food actually goes in his mouth rather than missing it. His eye-moths are out scouting. ] They’re carrying books out from the church.
[Alucard sleeps for most of the night, curled up as small as this form allows for. He's not sure if he's offended Sypha with the refusal, but he knows that truth in the morning when there's no food offered to him.
He doesn't mind, nor does he question it. He simply stands, going from wolf to man in one fell swoop and the whole of him begins to walk towards the door.]
I'll head out first then. Find where people are going to be coming in from, and walk in among their number.
[He's probably best keeping his distance, at any rate.]
We’ll be there soon. We’ll wait for people to gather, so that they all see.
[ Sypha sets about packing what things they have, it’s unlikely they’ll have the chance to return here once this is done. Once the door is closed, not accounting for vampire hearing, she speaks to Trevor alone. ]
You can’t expect him to trust you, just because you tried. Sometimes people won’t. Even ones you havn’t gone around scaring like you did him. You have to accept that.
[ Trevor’s own voice is low and mumbled, hard to make out, and Sypha’s response is softer, sympathetic. ]
I know it hurts. It’ll stop soon. But you can’t just force someone to forgive you. That’s just part of people having their own will. Yoiu hurt him, and he has the right to not want you near him. [ She pauses. ] I shouldn’t have sent you to the clinic. It probably scared him, that you knew where he was. I’m sorry.
[Alucard closes the door behind him, and as he starts to walk away, he hears the beginning of the conversation. It is rude to eavesdrop, because of course it is. This conversation isn't meant for his ears.
But he lingers anyway, listening and considering everything Sypha's saying. She's not wrong in much of it, especially the point about fear. He only trusted Trevor because he was clearly enamored of the speaker now, he knew that. The point about not sending Trevor to the clinic though that's...
...maybe she's right, but none of them would be better off for it. There'd be a dead woman, a bishop let loose, and then what? His father would be even worse if he was taken by surprise from a visiting priest.
Alucard moves on. He lingers on the outskirts of Gresit, and when the crowds start to move towards the city center, he moves with them. Too much of a noble to blend in, there are wary eyes cast at him, but he holds himself apart even then. Walks to the square with them all, and he's so still faced as he watches more books added to the pile. His mother's work and so many other's.
There's a small pulpit not far from the pile. The bishop stands there, and dawn begins to peak over horizon, he begins. My brothers and sisters in God, and then he truly builds. Spits and hisses that these books, what information they have within, it is not from learned and approved minds of the Church. Anyone can print false information now, and no one will check to ensure that it is truth. He knows it isn't, and there's where Alucard cuts in.]
How do you know that it is all lies? Much of the advice in these books are things I have heard said through Wallachia and are proven true - both in my own noble household and among those lesser than I.
[It picks an argument. An argument about the truth of God, and if it is a crime to print known truths. To share and to give people longer lives to spend dedicating to Christian principles, and then Alucard roars:]
Then do this, and see if either of us receive judgement of the heavens!
[ Trevor and Sypha finish their conversation. It’s awkward, and difficult, and maybe not the best thing to be discussing immediately before doing something like this, but here they are. She sends Trevor to take their things out to the edge of town, so that they can collect them if they need to make a hasty exit, and heads out herself.
By the time Alucard makes his declaration, both of them are there. Sypha in one of the buildings overlooking the town square (the lightning has to come from above, and she’s not yet got the hang of not making it come from her own hands, and so she has to be above) and Trevor hovering around the square in many tiny bodies, keeping an eye on everything from every angle. The bishop demands that the books be put to the torch, and lightning strikes. The man tumbles from the pulpit to the ground and the crowd just watches in stunned silence. After a moment, the bishop groans out something about witchcraft. Only about a third of the guards, and less of the crowd, edges toward Alucard. The rest stand still, terrified after having seen a ‘miracle’. ]
(It hits and even Alucard jumps because it truly has been so close. With the bishop on the ground, with him muttering of witchcraft, Alucard takes a few steps towards the man, perhaps too boldm)
Witchcraft? That you survived at all seems closer to the mercy of God.
[ The crowd murmurs. The guards who were approaching Alucard stop. It seems that nobody, really, knows what to do. The Tension is useful, though, giving Sypha time to leave the building and get a head start on leaving. Once she's a little way away, one of the moths flies by Alucard's ear. Trevor doesn't have a way to speak to him, like this, and so he has to just hope that Alucard understands the message. She's safe.
The crowd doesn't disperse, but nor does anyone move toward Alucard anymore. Even the bishop has fallen mostly silent, as someone runs into the square with a local apothecary in tow. ]
[Alucard does note the moth as it goes by, and he doesn’t know how to signal to it properly. All he can do is maintain his presence in the situation.
There’s a risk to it, that much he is aware of. But there’s the apothecary. There’s a murmur of faint heartbeat and then there is a correction. He’s dead.
Dead by an act of God. Alucard draws himself up to his fullest, his most quasi-arrogant state, and his finger lands on the man who looks as if he is the second in charge, if the man’s spot on the little scaffold is anything to go by.]
Do better by your flock than encouraging only fear.
[It’s a risk, leaving now. Departing with his back to the crowd, striding towards the city gates. If they all fall upon him, then there will be worse consequences. To bank on shock, it isn’t wise, but it’s the only card Alucard can play.]
[ They don't. A few follow him, try to speak with him, but even those disperse before too long. Sypha waits beyond the town's walls, sitting with the things they brought with them and Trevor's moth box. She's shaken, hands clenching and unclenching around handfuls of her robes.
Trevor reforms just as Alucard arrives, speaking before he can. ]
The medicine man was seeing to him, when we left.
[ Was covering his body, would be the full truth. Lies are difficult for his kind, but leaving out information is not. She nods, staring at her sandals. ]
Medicine is far more advanced than many expect. We may live in hope that such judgement would come with a deep re-evaluation in one's life and choices.
[Alucard only nods in agreement with Trevor.]
We need to take care with our own departure. I cannot be seen with a Speaker that I was supposedly chasing not several hours before.
[His eyes go to the woods, and then he settles on an area that looks particularly deep.]
Regroup in two hours then. You'll be safe, that much has become apparent to me.
[The fae's protective. That's stating the obvious, and Alucard has to fall behind. Go west, find a place to change.
Dawn arrives in full, and with it, there is a bat retreating to the forest.]
[ The forest is better suited to Trevor than the city is, and he is a little more comfortable there. A little, because his speaker is still shaking and the vampire doesn't seem to trust her because of her association with him.
She gives in to exhaustion, after a while, physical and mental and emotional, and lets him carry her along with their things. When he stops, in the deepest part of the woods, he props her against a tree. They're still there when Alucard arrives, Trevor back to one eye watching over a slumbering Sypha. ]
[Alucard has been a bat for a few hours now. Of all his forms, it's the one that goes unnoticed. As a wolf, he's big and fluffy and dangerous. As a man, he's a little too striking. Like this, he's tiny and unobstrusive and that'll have to be that.
He approaches the two as a person though, having taken a little bit of time to pull his hair back and up off his neck. The forest's thickness means that there are tree branches that snap and snag in his hair, and that is also a gold mine for someone that knows how to track.
There's a clearing of his throat when he enters the space they've carved out for themselves. This feels close to intruding on something more intimate.]
Will you be able to meet up with her caravan from here?
They've moved on. It'd take us more than a week to catch up with them. We'll go a few towns on, rest until these are ready.
[ He motions to the box of bugs. Soon, he'll have his wings back. Then he'll be able to take Sypha to her people, no matter where they are. To anywhere she wants to go. It'll take as long to wait for the moths to finish changing as it will to catch up the normal, human way.
As he speaks, he doesn't look at Alucard. Only at Sypha, exhausted by all of this. The next is- it would be accusatory if it were less awkward. ]
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Not at all. But she’s-
[ They want to keep the girls here from learning to read!, Sypha complains, sitting down between Alucard and Trevor and returning to the task of heating water for tea - the burning won’t be until tomorrow, and there’s little more they can do tonight without undue risk. They may as well get a few hours rest. She complains. A lot. She’s just about finished and getting her breath back when Trevor starts to pour the tea, and she gently pulls the water pot from his hands. Just because she’s willing to trust him not to give her fairy foos doesn’t mean she expects Alucard to. ]
-the burning is dawn tomorrow. It’s safe to rest a little while.
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[Alucard's own tone is disdainful. Low key furious, and this is such a personal thing to him. His shoulders rise, hinting at the anger that bubbles underneath, and it's easy to ignore the thoughts of tea or of food or of anything else.]
What is our plan then, at dawn? [They need one.] The kind of thing that stamps out ideologies like this demands that the disapproval not be the work of others voicing a different opinion, but their God Himself.
[He pauses, then considers this.]
Can either of you make lightning?
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It's air striking other air. Like a flint and steel.
[ Trevor's explanation isn't the most scientifically robust, but it's enough. Wind, Sypha can do. Fire, she understands. She can use that as a starting point, and soon enough sparks of lightning dance in her hand. Trevor is grinning again, proud of her. ]
What is your plan? Will this work?
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[Alucard pauses, tucking a few strands of hair that have wandered behind his ear.]
Nothing less will convince him and the people here he's wrong, I suspect.
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Is there another way? Something else that might convince them- a storm, or a plague of-
[ ...Trevor no. He looks suddenly very interested at that last one. ]
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[If anything, Dracula would be a little too excited. Alucard's eyes go to Trevor, and he sees that excitement over the p-word.]
No, no plague.
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But she purses her lips at that, because she's not had dealings with Dracula personally, but she's seen what Dracula's magic did to Trevor even in his absence. It's doubtful he'd show any more mercy to people burning his wife's writings and calling for the head of their author. Experimentally, she makes a few more spares dance over her palm, trying to gauge if she has enough control over them to avoid killing. ]
I'll do it. But one of you needs to be the one to goad him into saying it. Else it'll be obvious that it was my doing.
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[Alucard's features all crease, his mouth quirking downward into a concerned frown. He understands what this really means for Sypha, and it's...it feels wrong, demanding this from her.]
I'll take care of the crowd work.
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[ She'd really rather not have Dracula here. Trevor nods. ]
I'll just- be there. In case anything goes wrong.
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[And he does. Alucard has never had any illusions about his father and what he really is.
With that, the vampire sighs.]
We should rest until an hour before dawn
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I picked the leaves. [ She says. She conjured and boiled the water, too, and the pot is her own. She's trying to take Alucard's wariness into account. No part of it is fairy food. She settles against Trevor, letting him pour tea for the both of them. He likes moments like this, even if they're all of them tired and even if Sypha and he have been living in a dingy little hideout for the last week in the middle of a city that would at least try to see them all killed. ]
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His gaze lingers on the two of them for a moment longer. They’re….they’re sweet like this, Sypha moreso. Content. And that’s what they both ought to have, with none of the complications that Alucard’s mere existence brings to it all. It’s always the best to be on the outside, isn’t it?
He closes his eyes and lets the tea grow cold.]
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Trevor wakes about an hour before sunrise and wakes Sypha, who tears a chunk of bread from their loaf and offers it and a peice of dried meat to him. They don’t offer Alucard breakfast, this time. ]
Work’s starting. [ He says in between bites. Both of his eyes are that milky white, right now, and Sypha keeps having to nudge his arm slightly so the food actually goes in his mouth rather than missing it. His eye-moths are out scouting. ] They’re carrying books out from the church.
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He doesn't mind, nor does he question it. He simply stands, going from wolf to man in one fell swoop and the whole of him begins to walk towards the door.]
I'll head out first then. Find where people are going to be coming in from, and walk in among their number.
[He's probably best keeping his distance, at any rate.]
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[ Sypha sets about packing what things they have, it’s unlikely they’ll have the chance to return here once this is done. Once the door is closed, not accounting for vampire hearing, she speaks to Trevor alone. ]
You can’t expect him to trust you, just because you tried. Sometimes people won’t. Even ones you havn’t gone around scaring like you did him. You have to accept that.
[ Trevor’s own voice is low and mumbled, hard to make out, and Sypha’s response is softer, sympathetic. ]
I know it hurts. It’ll stop soon. But you can’t just force someone to forgive you. That’s just part of people having their own will. Yoiu hurt him, and he has the right to not want you near him. [ She pauses. ] I shouldn’t have sent you to the clinic. It probably scared him, that you knew where he was. I’m sorry.
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But he lingers anyway, listening and considering everything Sypha's saying. She's not wrong in much of it, especially the point about fear. He only trusted Trevor because he was clearly enamored of the speaker now, he knew that. The point about not sending Trevor to the clinic though that's...
...maybe she's right, but none of them would be better off for it. There'd be a dead woman, a bishop let loose, and then what? His father would be even worse if he was taken by surprise from a visiting priest.
Alucard moves on. He lingers on the outskirts of Gresit, and when the crowds start to move towards the city center, he moves with them. Too much of a noble to blend in, there are wary eyes cast at him, but he holds himself apart even then. Walks to the square with them all, and he's so still faced as he watches more books added to the pile. His mother's work and so many other's.
There's a small pulpit not far from the pile. The bishop stands there, and dawn begins to peak over horizon, he begins. My brothers and sisters in God, and then he truly builds. Spits and hisses that these books, what information they have within, it is not from learned and approved minds of the Church. Anyone can print false information now, and no one will check to ensure that it is truth. He knows it isn't, and there's where Alucard cuts in.]
How do you know that it is all lies? Much of the advice in these books are things I have heard said through Wallachia and are proven true - both in my own noble household and among those lesser than I.
[It picks an argument. An argument about the truth of God, and if it is a crime to print known truths. To share and to give people longer lives to spend dedicating to Christian principles, and then Alucard roars:]
Then do this, and see if either of us receive judgement of the heavens!
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By the time Alucard makes his declaration, both of them are there. Sypha in one of the buildings overlooking the town square (the lightning has to come from above, and she’s not yet got the hang of not making it come from her own hands, and so she has to be above) and Trevor hovering around the square in many tiny bodies, keeping an eye on everything from every angle. The bishop demands that the books be put to the torch, and lightning strikes. The man tumbles from the pulpit to the ground and the crowd just watches in stunned silence. After a moment, the bishop groans out something about witchcraft. Only about a third of the guards, and less of the crowd, edges toward Alucard. The rest stand still, terrified after having seen a ‘miracle’. ]
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Witchcraft? That you survived at all seems closer to the mercy of God.
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The crowd doesn't disperse, but nor does anyone move toward Alucard anymore. Even the bishop has fallen mostly silent, as someone runs into the square with a local apothecary in tow. ]
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There’s a risk to it, that much he is aware of. But there’s the apothecary. There’s a murmur of faint heartbeat and then there is a correction. He’s dead.
Dead by an act of God. Alucard draws himself up to his fullest, his most quasi-arrogant state, and his finger lands on the man who looks as if he is the second in charge, if the man’s spot on the little scaffold is anything to go by.]
Do better by your flock than encouraging only fear.
[It’s a risk, leaving now. Departing with his back to the crowd, striding towards the city gates. If they all fall upon him, then there will be worse consequences. To bank on shock, it isn’t wise, but it’s the only card Alucard can play.]
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Trevor reforms just as Alucard arrives, speaking before he can. ]
The medicine man was seeing to him, when we left.
[ Was covering his body, would be the full truth. Lies are difficult for his kind, but leaving out information is not. She nods, staring at her sandals. ]
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[Alucard only nods in agreement with Trevor.]
We need to take care with our own departure. I cannot be seen with a Speaker that I was supposedly chasing not several hours before.
[His eyes go to the woods, and then he settles on an area that looks particularly deep.]
Regroup in two hours then. You'll be safe, that much has become apparent to me.
[The fae's protective. That's stating the obvious, and Alucard has to fall behind. Go west, find a place to change.
Dawn arrives in full, and with it, there is a bat retreating to the forest.]
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She gives in to exhaustion, after a while, physical and mental and emotional, and lets him carry her along with their things. When he stops, in the deepest part of the woods, he props her against a tree. They're still there when Alucard arrives, Trevor back to one eye watching over a slumbering Sypha. ]
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He approaches the two as a person though, having taken a little bit of time to pull his hair back and up off his neck. The forest's thickness means that there are tree branches that snap and snag in his hair, and that is also a gold mine for someone that knows how to track.
There's a clearing of his throat when he enters the space they've carved out for themselves. This feels close to intruding on something more intimate.]
Will you be able to meet up with her caravan from here?
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They've moved on. It'd take us more than a week to catch up with them. We'll go a few towns on, rest until these are ready.
[ He motions to the box of bugs. Soon, he'll have his wings back. Then he'll be able to take Sypha to her people, no matter where they are. To anywhere she wants to go. It'll take as long to wait for the moths to finish changing as it will to catch up the normal, human way.
As he speaks, he doesn't look at Alucard. Only at Sypha, exhausted by all of this. The next is- it would be accusatory if it were less awkward. ]
Why don't you trust her?
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