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?
I would ask him his terms myself, but he does like to tear the tongues out of our messengers, and I do rather like myself as I am, whole and unscarred. I shall let my sire bear his wrath, once he wakes. It is what he is fondest of doing.
[ The rabbit-fairy nods. ]
Our brother, yes. Out hunt is small. Four in number, I think, so far as we are ever any number at all. Myself, my sisters and our brother. The cathedral should hold many, many hundreds of humans were they to hold their breath and stand very still on top of one another. But humans tend not to do such things, so I imagine there should be less than a hundred. It would be an insignificant number, were we not concerned with keeping the girl alive.
Mm, sounds like him. [SORRY DAD.] Wait. Has this been approved?
[Does Leon know about this at all?!]
They might expect some kind of rescue effort. Not from fae, but from Sypha's own people. Whatever's done, be careful. It could bring reprisals upon them.
[Alucard sighs.]
It'd be easiest if you could get a message in the building to her first. Tell her the plan, and then focus on removing her from the situation. Maybe...
[No.]
And be careful that it doesn't reek of magic. They'll call her a witch and try to burn her for it.
Oh, not at all. Our sire will dislike this immensely. There is a human saying about begging forgiveness and asking permission that I believe to be relevant, though I do not know that we intended on doing either.
[ ALL DADS WILL BE MAD. ]
You are invested in our success, son of Dracula. Despite his own anger.
Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. [He says that much automatically, and at least Leon's also going to be furious. It gives the Dads something to be mad about together.
Alucard huffs.]
She is my mother's friend. I...care.
[Moreover.] I've demanded too much of your time that you should be reserving for this problem. We won't be here by daylight. I'm sure your patriarch will find us.
[ The rabbit fairy gives this some thought as she calls her steed - a one-horned horse - over. ]
You may ride with me, if you wish. It would perhaps be best that there be someone there to protect the girl by morning. We will be called away, no doubt. And our brother will be unable.
[ The unicorn stomps a hoof into the ground to mark the spot, so that they can find it again if they need, and the fairy climbs atop it. ]
I will leave a trail for you.
[ And with that she is gone, leaving in her wake a trail of hoofprints and long iridescent hairs from the unicorn's mane.
Just before dawn, at the end of the trail, there is the smell of blood. The rabbit fairy uses a delicate lace handkerchief to wipe blood from the mouth of another woman with great feathered wings and golden paws poking out from under her skirts. Another woman draped in a long cowl fusses over a collection of dogs as they squabble over very human bones. And Trevor is there, surrounded by his sisters, holding a slumbering Sypha in his arms. She seems unhurt, for the most part.
Soon, the griffon woman says. He is waking. He will be here soon.
The fae leaves, and Alucard returns to the clinic in the manner all vampires do. Dracula and Lisa are still arguing when he returns, and before Dracula can manage you left the house?! Alucard explains the particulars of the situation.
Which unsurprisingly launches a new argument of what to do and how best to help Sypha, and it eventually ends with fine, go at dawn but return to the castle, and Alucard having to promise (and lie) about bringing his cold iron with him.
He does arrive at dawn. It is as a bat, a bat whose ears are ringing from a near full night of arguments, and preparation for the fact well now I have to let Leon into the castle to figure out what the appropriate response is. (Dracula's tone sounded more pained about that than anything else.)
The bat is a man, and Alucard stands in front of all of them. He looks as awkward as he feels, standing ramrod straight and feeling more than a little cowed.]
Your patriarch is to have words with my father on this. I want to warn you all of that fact.
[ The griffin growls, the woman with the dogs looks up only briefly before looking away. Trevor doesn't stir at first, clinging to Sypha, but eventually looks up at Alucard. ]
We know.
[ It's the rabbit fairy who speaks first, and she finishes making her oldest sister presentable for their patriarch's arrival. She smiles to Alucard, sadly. Trevor stands unsteadily, stumbling over to Alucard and holding Sypha out for him to take. He feels numb. He doesn't know what happens next, but he knows that it's going to be unpleasant. And he knows that he isn't going to be here to take care of her. ]
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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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[ The rabbit-fairy nods. ]
Our brother, yes. Out hunt is small. Four in number, I think, so far as we are ever any number at all. Myself, my sisters and our brother. The cathedral should hold many, many hundreds of humans were they to hold their breath and stand very still on top of one another. But humans tend not to do such things, so I imagine there should be less than a hundred. It would be an insignificant number, were we not concerned with keeping the girl alive.
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[Does Leon know about this at all?!]
They might expect some kind of rescue effort. Not from fae, but from Sypha's own people. Whatever's done, be careful. It could bring reprisals upon them.
[Alucard sighs.]
It'd be easiest if you could get a message in the building to her first. Tell her the plan, and then focus on removing her from the situation. Maybe...
[No.]
And be careful that it doesn't reek of magic. They'll call her a witch and try to burn her for it.
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[ ALL DADS WILL BE MAD. ]
You are invested in our success, son of Dracula. Despite his own anger.
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Alucard huffs.]
She is my mother's friend. I...care.
[Moreover.] I've demanded too much of your time that you should be reserving for this problem. We won't be here by daylight. I'm sure your patriarch will find us.
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You may ride with me, if you wish. It would perhaps be best that there be someone there to protect the girl by morning. We will be called away, no doubt. And our brother will be unable.
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[Dad would freak the fuck out right now.]
I will travel as my kind does to be there at dawn. If not, spirit her here in that same timeframe.
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[ The unicorn stomps a hoof into the ground to mark the spot, so that they can find it again if they need, and the fairy climbs atop it. ]
I will leave a trail for you.
[ And with that she is gone, leaving in her wake a trail of hoofprints and long iridescent hairs from the unicorn's mane.
Just before dawn, at the end of the trail, there is the smell of blood. The rabbit fairy uses a delicate lace handkerchief to wipe blood from the mouth of another woman with great feathered wings and golden paws poking out from under her skirts. Another woman draped in a long cowl fusses over a collection of dogs as they squabble over very human bones. And Trevor is there, surrounded by his sisters, holding a slumbering Sypha in his arms. She seems unhurt, for the most part.
Soon, the griffon woman says. He is waking. He will be here soon.
Trevor nods solemnly. ]
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Okay, that's a choice.
The fae leaves, and Alucard returns to the clinic in the manner all vampires do. Dracula and Lisa are still arguing when he returns, and before Dracula can manage you left the house?! Alucard explains the particulars of the situation.
Which unsurprisingly launches a new argument of what to do and how best to help Sypha, and it eventually ends with fine, go at dawn but return to the castle, and Alucard having to promise (and lie) about bringing his cold iron with him.
He does arrive at dawn. It is as a bat, a bat whose ears are ringing from a near full night of arguments, and preparation for the fact well now I have to let Leon into the castle to figure out what the appropriate response is. (Dracula's tone sounded more pained about that than anything else.)
The bat is a man, and Alucard stands in front of all of them. He looks as awkward as he feels, standing ramrod straight and feeling more than a little cowed.]
Your patriarch is to have words with my father on this. I want to warn you all of that fact.
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We know.
[ It's the rabbit fairy who speaks first, and she finishes making her oldest sister presentable for their patriarch's arrival. She smiles to Alucard, sadly. Trevor stands unsteadily, stumbling over to Alucard and holding Sypha out for him to take. He feels numb. He doesn't know what happens next, but he knows that it's going to be unpleasant. And he knows that he isn't going to be here to take care of her. ]
Please. Take her somewhere safe?
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