That wasn't my inte...(the vampire trails off, and his face is one of true embarrasment for his behavior.) I suppose my intent doesn't matter if that is how it is being read. All I thought I was doing was holding myself apart so that you two did not have to concern yourselves with me any more than needed.
[Alucard's tone is firm enough to not invite contradictions. His arms are folded across his chest, and he considers everything carefully for a moment.]
She's...unique, even from what I know of the Speakers. How you came to meet is no where as important as the fact that you both seem happy in each other's presence. I'm glad for you both. Such meetings are always miracles.
[He's be lying if he said that there wasn't a touch of his own parent's story in that. It would be an outright lie to say he wasn't relieved for it as well. Finally, Alucard's eyes settle on Trevor.]
If, in the course of our work over the past few days, I have hurt you further, I am in fact very sorry. I did not intend it, and to have caused it regardless brings me shame. If you'd rather me write an apology to her, so that you're without my presence from here on...
[ He's trying to word something, and it's difficult. ]
-when we meet people, they're either hurting people or being hurt. And the ones who are hurting people, we hunt. And the ones that are hurting, they want to be safe. More than anything else. I didn't know-
[ He's only ever met monsters and their victims before. People who need to die and people desperate for safety. ]
-the speakers don't want to be safe, even when they're being hurt. And they don't want the people hurting them hunted. That's- the same as you?
[Alucard is quiet, and he considers what Trevor's really saying here.]
Your interaction with this world has been so focused on justice and suffering that you miss the little in between moments. And that hurting and being hurt are not the defining parts of being human - only a facet. Speakers are selfless in a way that a great number of people aren't but. [There's something else here too.]
You and Sypha don't always speak of such things, do you? Do you just talk, or enjoy the quiet together?
I didn't know there were humans who didn't need to be safe. [ And then, awkwardly- ] I am sorry. I won't take you away anywhere.
[ He looks up at that, finally meeting Alucard's eyes for the first time since before coming to the clinic. He doesn't understand the significance of the question, but he understands that there is a significance. ]
She likes to tell me stories about humans. She says I need to know them.
[Alucard opens his mouth to respond to that very first part, but oh, that's never the point. He nods.] Thank you for saying as such. I know that words are bonds for your kind. Forgive me if accepting it is....difficult, please.
[It will never be accepted by Dracula. Alucard's own eyes are apprehensive, but there's understanding in them too. That Trevor apologized is a massive thing. That he said those words, that's even bigger.]
She doesn't like that I hurt you. She is- scared that you are still hurt. And she worries it must be lonely, to be the only one of something. And she thinks you are very handsome. And she worries that she might have hurt you, as well, by staying with me.
[ ...okay one of those might have been unnecessary but Sypha did you really expect a fairy to keep secrets. ]
Six more years. The deal was that I stay with her and her people until the next hunt.
[He says the words softly, and there's a lot of things going on in that statement. There's fondness, there's a hint of embarrassment, there's still the confusion over why any of it matters at all to Sypha when she has far more important things to focus on.
Six yeahs, huh?]
And would you want to stay with her even after the deal is done?
I don't have a reason to stay with her anymore, and I would miss home and my sisters and their humans. But I think- I would want to stay where she is anyway. To be hers.
[ Trevor if you turn this into wanting Sypha to put you in a cage then everyone's gonna kinkshame you. ]
I suspect she will. Let you, I mean. Stay and go between places when you need to.
[Oh this is 200% kink shaming the Belmont.
But in all of this, it's very clear that Alucard doesn't fit with this configuration. As it should be, he thinks. No awkward feelings, no threat of his father.]
If you want to rest as well, go ahead. I'll stay for a while more.
Stay until she wakes up, at least? She'd want to hear it from you, that you're not upset with her. She wouldn't believe me.
[ Because he can't lie, but he's perfectly capable of being wrong about things, and she knows that. But with that he's moths again, some fluttering to rest in Sypha's hair and collar but most settling on the tree above her. Naptime. ]
Alucard sighs, and he settles on top of a tree stump that's a few feet over from Sypha. She's asleep. Trevor's asleep. He isn't, and he's going to fix that when he returns home. (Being stuck inside for much of the winter, he took a great many long naps.)
This is being on the outside looking in. That much the vampire knows because he has done it all of his life. But there's a new element in it, the part where there were feelings involved not towards the fae, but for the Speaker.
Doesn't matter now, does it? And that's for the better. It's safer for everyone involved too, because Dracula isn't going to react to Alucard coming home after a job well done and no other strings attached.
Unless this nightmare keeps up, he likely won't see either of them again. Also safer for everyone involved.]
[ They talk, and Trevor doesn't know what about. When he returns with fish and firewood to cook them over, Alucard is gone. They don't meet again for a little over two years.
Alucard sees Sypha in that time, though. Words, ones that aren't written down, cannot be burned, and through her, Lisa can use the speakers to whisper her understanding of medicine into the ears of a people who wouldn't trust the words of a book even if they could read. Proper science can be disguised as folk knowledge - it's amazing what people will accept if told that Sypha heard it from a friend's grandmother.
'Grandmother sounds more trustworthy', she tells Lisa, who only pretends to be offended.
Trevor doesn't attend these meetings. Every few months, Sypha stays at Lisa's clinic for the better part of a week. She brings advice that people have shared with her in exchange for Lisa's wisdom and asks her to check the veracity of it. She continues in her ongoing quest to become closer to Alucard. And she mentions Trevor only once, when she arrives with yet another of those bottles, one almost entirely full, and says that 'he' asks her to take its contents to Dracula and to leave, soon. They do. The woman that they rescued is moved, as well, but to a different place.
Sypha is late, when Dracula himself falls upon the clinic, demanding that Lisa and Alucard finish their work with this patient and then leave for the castle immediately. She ought to have arrived almost a fortnight ago. That isn't why Dracula is concerned.
There is a hunt stirring. The Belmonts are breaking their own laws, their oath to only hunt on the night of all hallows every seventh year, and he doesn't know which other laws they intend to violate. ]
[Alucard spends the next two years quietly passing the time by publishing what books of science he can and traveling not as men do, but as the walking dead can. There are cities in Europe that accept the books he prints, and in turn Alucard brings home books of faux science to plant in his mother's clinic, so that if the authorities ever dare to accuse her of witchcraft, she can only ever look like someone reading what is said in the day and generally unchallenged.
There are places he likes. Prague in particular, for no other reason than there's a little spirit about it that seems right for Alucard's soul. Italy he hates, for the church is so strong there and there's Too Much Garlic.
He keeps himself aloof when Sypha is there for only a night or two. His mother chided him at first for being rude, but then he explained the complications. Lisa's face softened at that, and she noted that truly only her son could enter such a complicated set of circumstances.
When Sypha's there for longer, Alucard defrosts as best he can. He listens mostly, aware that his father is doing the same from the next room over. (He is only ever a wolf when Sypha is present.) But Sypha and his mother are friends at this point, so Alucard doesn't do much more.
It is that friendship that makes Lisa worried when Sypha's next visit is delayed. When Dracula returns, Alucard's suddenly paler than he's ever been.]
I think I know why.
[Alucard's eyes meet that of his mother's, and they both know. Something's come of Sypha's safety, and for that the Belmonts have called a hunt. The silent communication is something that Lisa takes a scant moment to explain to her husband, and Alucard takes that time to dart outside in the hope that passing moths might be lingering near the gate to tell him the truth of things.]
[ There are no moths. There is nothing at all, in fact. The air is perfectly, deathly still. It's only after a few minutes that there's the slightest of rustles in the grass. A rabbit emerges, a small one with dark, curled fur and ice blue eyes and two bony growths upon its head.
It looks at Alucard, twitches its nose in what may or may not be acknowledgement of his presence, and runs. ]
[Alucard's eyes are everywhere, so of course he sees the rabbit. He casts a glance back to his own home, and there's guilt as he steps through the gate. His parents are fighting. Furious. Worried for different reasons, and Dracula panicking is never good.
He follows the thing's path. When he speaks, he doesn't know if he's heard.]
[ It's a woman who responds to him. Short, with dark bushy hair, long ears and small nubs for antlers. ]
She is in a cathedral, and she has not come out. She claimed sanctuary. For the moment, it has been respected, but we do not know when the men will change their minds, and they will not permit her to leave alive.
I come seeking the vampire Dracula to tell him of our hunt, as our sire has long demanded of us. [ Her long ears flick. ] It would seem he knows.
Not just because that isnt the Belmont he's used to, but because of what's happened. Sypha's done the smart thing in the short term, but she's put herself in a space where neither Trevor nor himself can dare to go.
Alucard's mouth thins, turning into a frown.]
He knows and he's furious.
[Paranoid is more correct, but Alucard knows better than to ever say such a thing.]
Oh. Good. I had been wondering how I would speak to him with the building warded so.
[ Only a Belmont would respond to 'Dracula is SO MAD' with 'good'. ] Are you able to speak with him? One of his own ran with us on our last hunt, imitating our own kind to violate your people's laws. We would have him know that our only quarry is the Cathedral of Arges, so that he might know the traitor for herself should she do so again.
That is my messages heard, then. Save for that he will be welcome to his anger on the day that he would not do the same. But that part seemed unnecessarily combative.
[ Local bunny gives 0 shits about Dracula's anger, but would rather not be rude for no reason. ]
I do not know, yet. If the girl is touched, sanctuary is broken, and we enter the building and do what we must. If she is not, we take the cathedral apart brick by brick, until either she is returned to us or we can enter. I suppose we shall see whether we hunt stone and wood or meaty, bony things tonight. The choice is with the meaty, bony things.
As a rule, Dracula is generally combative. Your patriarch will likely need to put new negotiations in place to deal with whatever the fallout of this is. He's...the reaction is strong tonight.
[Look, Alucard's exhausted but he can't NOT dunk on dad.]
The fae that normally travels with her, he's...I assume the one calling this hunt?
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I owe you both apologies then.
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[ He sits, looking over at her. ]
I- [ He scrunches his face, looking for the words. ] -we don't run into humans like her often. Or like you.
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[Alucard's tone is firm enough to not invite contradictions. His arms are folded across his chest, and he considers everything carefully for a moment.]
She's...unique, even from what I know of the Speakers. How you came to meet is no where as important as the fact that you both seem happy in each other's presence. I'm glad for you both. Such meetings are always miracles.
[He's be lying if he said that there wasn't a touch of his own parent's story in that. It would be an outright lie to say he wasn't relieved for it as well. Finally, Alucard's eyes settle on Trevor.]
If, in the course of our work over the past few days, I have hurt you further, I am in fact very sorry. I did not intend it, and to have caused it regardless brings me shame. If you'd rather me write an apology to her, so that you're without my presence from here on...
[Melodramatic fuck.]
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[ He's trying to word something, and it's difficult. ]
-when we meet people, they're either hurting people or being hurt. And the ones who are hurting people, we hunt. And the ones that are hurting, they want to be safe. More than anything else. I didn't know-
[ He's only ever met monsters and their victims before. People who need to die and people desperate for safety. ]
-the speakers don't want to be safe, even when they're being hurt. And they don't want the people hurting them hunted. That's- the same as you?
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[Alucard is quiet, and he considers what Trevor's really saying here.]
Your interaction with this world has been so focused on justice and suffering that you miss the little in between moments. And that hurting and being hurt are not the defining parts of being human - only a facet. Speakers are selfless in a way that a great number of people aren't but. [There's something else here too.]
You and Sypha don't always speak of such things, do you? Do you just talk, or enjoy the quiet together?
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[ He looks up at that, finally meeting Alucard's eyes for the first time since before coming to the clinic. He doesn't understand the significance of the question, but he understands that there is a significance. ]
She likes to tell me stories about humans. She says I need to know them.
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[It will never be accepted by Dracula. Alucard's own eyes are apprehensive, but there's understanding in them too. That Trevor apologized is a massive thing. That he said those words, that's even bigger.]
She's right. And you're happy, listening?
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-she cares about you. Worries about you. I didn’t want for you not to trust her, just because i am here.
[ And the answer to that question comes immediately. ]
Happier than anything.
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[The vampire goes still for a second. He doesn't know why the next words come out of his mouth.]
Why....?
[Why does she care at all.
Easier to focus on Trevor.]
Good. I am sure it will remain that way for a long time to come.
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[ ...okay one of those might have been unnecessary but Sypha did you really expect a fairy to keep secrets. ]
Six more years. The deal was that I stay with her and her people until the next hunt.
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[He says the words softly, and there's a lot of things going on in that statement. There's fondness, there's a hint of embarrassment, there's still the confusion over why any of it matters at all to Sypha when she has far more important things to focus on.
Six yeahs, huh?]
And would you want to stay with her even after the deal is done?
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I don't have a reason to stay with her anymore, and I would miss home and my sisters and their humans. But I think- I would want to stay where she is anyway. To be hers.
[ Trevor if you turn this into wanting Sypha to put you in a cage then everyone's gonna kinkshame you. ]
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[Oh this is 200% kink shaming the Belmont.
But in all of this, it's very clear that Alucard doesn't fit with this configuration. As it should be, he thinks. No awkward feelings, no threat of his father.]
If you want to rest as well, go ahead. I'll stay for a while more.
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[ Because he can't lie, but he's perfectly capable of being wrong about things, and she knows that. But with that he's moths again, some fluttering to rest in Sypha's hair and collar but most settling on the tree above her. Naptime. ]
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Alucard sighs, and he settles on top of a tree stump that's a few feet over from Sypha. She's asleep. Trevor's asleep. He isn't, and he's going to fix that when he returns home. (Being stuck inside for much of the winter, he took a great many long naps.)
This is being on the outside looking in. That much the vampire knows because he has done it all of his life. But there's a new element in it, the part where there were feelings involved not towards the fae, but for the Speaker.
Doesn't matter now, does it? And that's for the better. It's safer for everyone involved too, because Dracula isn't going to react to Alucard coming home after a job well done and no other strings attached.
Unless this nightmare keeps up, he likely won't see either of them again. Also safer for everyone involved.]
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Alucard sees Sypha in that time, though. Words, ones that aren't written down, cannot be burned, and through her, Lisa can use the speakers to whisper her understanding of medicine into the ears of a people who wouldn't trust the words of a book even if they could read. Proper science can be disguised as folk knowledge - it's amazing what people will accept if told that Sypha heard it from a friend's grandmother.
'Grandmother sounds more trustworthy', she tells Lisa, who only pretends to be offended.
Trevor doesn't attend these meetings. Every few months, Sypha stays at Lisa's clinic for the better part of a week. She brings advice that people have shared with her in exchange for Lisa's wisdom and asks her to check the veracity of it. She continues in her ongoing quest to become closer to Alucard. And she mentions Trevor only once, when she arrives with yet another of those bottles, one almost entirely full, and says that 'he' asks her to take its contents to Dracula and to leave, soon. They do. The woman that they rescued is moved, as well, but to a different place.
Sypha is late, when Dracula himself falls upon the clinic, demanding that Lisa and Alucard finish their work with this patient and then leave for the castle immediately. She ought to have arrived almost a fortnight ago. That isn't why Dracula is concerned.
There is a hunt stirring. The Belmonts are breaking their own laws, their oath to only hunt on the night of all hallows every seventh year, and he doesn't know which other laws they intend to violate. ]
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There are places he likes. Prague in particular, for no other reason than there's a little spirit about it that seems right for Alucard's soul. Italy he hates, for the church is so strong there and there's Too Much Garlic.
He keeps himself aloof when Sypha is there for only a night or two. His mother chided him at first for being rude, but then he explained the complications. Lisa's face softened at that, and she noted that truly only her son could enter such a complicated set of circumstances.
When Sypha's there for longer, Alucard defrosts as best he can. He listens mostly, aware that his father is doing the same from the next room over. (He is only ever a wolf when Sypha is present.) But Sypha and his mother are friends at this point, so Alucard doesn't do much more.
It is that friendship that makes Lisa worried when Sypha's next visit is delayed. When Dracula returns, Alucard's suddenly paler than he's ever been.]
I think I know why.
[Alucard's eyes meet that of his mother's, and they both know. Something's come of Sypha's safety, and for that the Belmonts have called a hunt. The silent communication is something that Lisa takes a scant moment to explain to her husband, and Alucard takes that time to dart outside in the hope that passing moths might be lingering near the gate to tell him the truth of things.]
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It looks at Alucard, twitches its nose in what may or may not be acknowledgement of his presence, and runs. ]
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He follows the thing's path. When he speaks, he doesn't know if he's heard.]
What's happened to Sypha?
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[ It's a woman who responds to him. Short, with dark bushy hair, long ears and small nubs for antlers. ]
She is in a cathedral, and she has not come out. She claimed sanctuary. For the moment, it has been respected, but we do not know when the men will change their minds, and they will not permit her to leave alive.
I come seeking the vampire Dracula to tell him of our hunt, as our sire has long demanded of us. [ Her long ears flick. ] It would seem he knows.
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Not just because that isnt the Belmont he's used to, but because of what's happened. Sypha's done the smart thing in the short term, but she's put herself in a space where neither Trevor nor himself can dare to go.
Alucard's mouth thins, turning into a frown.]
He knows and he's furious.
[Paranoid is more correct, but Alucard knows better than to ever say such a thing.]
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[ Only a Belmont would respond to 'Dracula is SO MAD' with 'good'. ] Are you able to speak with him? One of his own ran with us on our last hunt, imitating our own kind to violate your people's laws. We would have him know that our only quarry is the Cathedral of Arges, so that he might know the traitor for herself should she do so again.
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[DON'T MAKE THE VAMPIRE MAD COME ON rule 1 Belmonts.
Alucard pauses at that though. It's why his father's gone after Carmilla so hard, isn't it? She hid herself in the hunt.
He breathes out. Shit.]
I'll inform him, but i think he knows the traitor. What will come of the cathedral?
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[ Local bunny gives 0 shits about Dracula's anger, but would rather not be rude for no reason. ]
I do not know, yet. If the girl is touched, sanctuary is broken, and we enter the building and do what we must. If she is not, we take the cathedral apart brick by brick, until either she is returned to us or we can enter. I suppose we shall see whether we hunt stone and wood or meaty, bony things tonight. The choice is with the meaty, bony things.
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[Look, Alucard's exhausted but he can't NOT dunk on dad.]
The fae that normally travels with her, he's...I assume the one calling this hunt?
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