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It you insist. This is- improper, but then so is everything about this. I will leave him in the care of his sisters and send a messenger with it on the first night of winter. Have her gone from this place by then, unless you wish the messenger to come to your door.

[ A few months, yet. It's still late summer. ]

I will not be offering apologies to your father, but you have my sincerest apologies for all of this. I shall see that the laws are not broken again.

[ ...which does mean that if this situation happened again, Sypha would die. So not ideal. ]

That much I can do.

[Sypha won't want to be here for that long. She probably won't want to be here at all, once she wakes and is told what has happened.

Alucard brings his hand off of the castle wall finally, and he rubs the bridge of his nose.]

Do your laws allow for nuance and interpretation?

Oh, plenty. Just very rarely by those who mean well. There is a reason that your father demands audience with me, and not with my queen. Any of this could be made right and proper through some loophole or another, or some exchange of insults and compensation.

[ He just sighs. He has had four centuries to get used to this bullshit, and the only way he has ever truly found is to accept it and do what good he can. ]

You may tell me what you intend, but I fear your intentions may be too good for our laws to bend around.

[Alucard sighs, and murmurs something that is definitely exact words.]

Don't hurt anyone who is only involved by association, even if that harm is the easiest and even the most legal solution.

[He means Sypha. Because she doesn't deserve any of this.]

[ He shakes his head. ]

There will always be people involved by association. Even in saving this woman, we have given up our hunt. Many will die, who could have been saved. Were we to make such a vow, we would be both able to do nothing and bound to do all things.

We will strive to bring the most good we can, to leave the fewest people harmed, and this is all I can offer.

It doesn't have to be a vow. That's what I meant about nuance. Are the words I'll keep it in mind binding?

[He's genuinely asking. And maybe being a shit.]

Perhaps it's time to find new ways to express that hunt.

We will try. And if the decision is between breaking our laws to prevent harm, and keeping to them but allowing it, sometimes- [ He turns the box over in his hands, sighing. ] - it is our way to break them, and to accept punishment for it.

You may offer suggestions.

The aim is justice, yes? The...stranger things you hunt, like plague, that requires more magic than simple legal actions. But for the rest...

[Alucard shakes his head, as if aware of how dumb this sounds.]

Persecute within the existing systems by being among them day in and out then. Prevent a so-called witch's death by looking at the legal dispute over land first and arguing in front of magistrates. Then the act of justice is a daily occurrence for most. That saves more lives.

My children are- perhaps uniquely unsuited to such a task. These are not legal arguments, before all else. They are emotional ones, and I think that you are well qualified to speak on their failings at making humans comfortable.

[ Look the one with the MOST people skills other than Leon 'will disappear if a cloud goes overhead' Belmont is the rabbit fairy. And she doesn't understand why humans don't stand on top of each other to maximise efficient use of space inside churches. The cleverest of them doesn't even care that much for fairy laws unless she absolutely has to, let alone human ones. The most justice-minded is prone to just eating the unjust. And then there's Trevor. ]

But perhaps we might bring aid and succor to those who can fight that battle. Our laws are shockingly lax on helping humans with their own hunts.

If you think that suits the times better then and will help avoid our current situation.

(In many ways, what Alucard says is an echo of his father's demand to know why any if thus has come to pass. The difference lies in the fact his response is more compassionate than Dracula could ever bem)

These are new times. I cannot begin to know what might suit them, and I fear they will grow darker long before they will grow brighter. Your father chose a strange age to bring a child into the world.

Is there aught else you would ask of me, son of Dracula?

(They are strange times indeed. Alucard frowns thinly, because the comment about himself feels both true and a little to...there is an undercurrent and he doesn't understand it.)

Modernity heralds a great many changes

(That is a truth. As for Leon's other question, well...)

Nothing that is within my right to ask.

All things are within your right to ask. You need not fear that I will say yes without first telling you the cost, you have my word.

[ He doesn't make a very good fairy, really. ]

The good castle is leading me to the doors, I think. You may walk with me and make your request if it pleases you. If not, then it was an honour to meet you, son of Dracula.

This is less about cost and more about offense.

[Alucard knows that what he wants to ask makes him sound like a dick. But as it is, the idea of walking to the doors, Alucard shakes his head no.]

Castle won't allow it. It'd split us up immediately, I know that.

[The castle is an extension of his father's will in many ways. Protecting all of them from the fae? That's job #1 right now. Alucard shakes his head.]

All I wonder is this: you're....very much human, in so far as I can determine. Have your generations successively become closer to the fae? Behavior being learned and both inherited, I suppose.

Ah- not quite. I cannot-

[ You know what? He's maybe not going to talk to his ex's son about the difficulties of successfully reproducing in the human way when your body parts vanish if in a place without light. He tries a different tactic. ]

-'Generations' is- a complex term, for my kind. Or perhaps just too simple of one, compared to humans. Our kind's behaviour is learned in its entirety. I recall a time when I was human. They do not.

Then the question of how helpful it is to spend extended time in this world is answered.

[...Yeah the less anyone thinks about the particulars of that, the better off absolutely everyone is. Alucard does not want to be thinking about a fae's dick, and he doesn't even know that's dad's ex.]

I've nothing else that would impede on your time then.

Live well then, son of Dracula, that we may meet again under happier circumstances.

[ He bows deeply and then turns to the wall. ]

My deepest thanks for your patience, good Castle. [ Yes, he is literally talking to a wall. ] I know it must have been difficult. Guide me out to the sunlight, that I might trouble you no further.

[Alucard has to stare for a moment, because the man he just watched murder his own kin is talking to the castle like this. To call it a contrast would be a great and horrible understatement, and the castle itself is very quick to separate the two now.

Leon is indeed lead down the spire, along corridor after corridor (all have windows), and to the entrance where the doors are already open and ready to kick him out. Dracula isn't sleeping, not until Leon is gone, and there's a thick air of tension along Leon's path.

For his own part, Alucard brings the water into Sypha's room, then collapses onto the floor in his wolf form. That was a conversation he never wanted to have ever, and he doesn't want to be near the man again. The two extremes are worse than his father's, frankly. (They aren't. He's just grown up with precious little illusion about what his father is, and his mother has always been present to temper it all.)

Easiest to be a wolf right now. Better to pick the floor, as to not be untowards to Sypha who will doubtlessly have too much to deal with emotionally when she wakes.]

[ When Sypha leaves the castle the rabbit is there, a tiny creature sitting soft and vulnerable in the grass. Daring birds of prey to fall upon it. None take the bait. She bows low to both of them and manages to refrain from making any comments about whether Sypha was worth this. Glad for her health, she says, they all are.

She smiles, but it's anemic.

Be patient with our brother, when he returns. It is an incomplete rebirth, but even those are difficult. She says as she delicately ties the box's leather cord at the back of her neck. She does not elaborate, and Sypha is not so devastated by events that she refrains from commenting on how much patience Trevor requires normally.

Sypha opens the box once, as she travels with Alucard. Inside, the moth is perfectly still. If the two of them weren't so sensitive to magic, he'd have seemed dead, rather than in hibernation.

It's four months before Trevor begins to return to them, and Sypha wakes up one morning with five moths crawling on her robes. She accidentally crushes one and spends the next few days in paranoia about having hurt him until it becomes clear that the swarm of them is expanding. Once there are enough for a small cloud, he tries to take a humanoid form and- nobody wants him to do that again until he has enough moths at least for all the necessary internal organs. Nobody was happy about the half-skeletal thing making strange noises because it had a windpipe but no lungs.

Sypha is asleep for his next attempt. Alucard is- probably asleep (no, he's not). He probably won't scare anyone if he gets it wrong. And so a little thought (it's hard, when his mind is spread between so many bodies, and) - there he is.

Mostly, anyway. He's a little more complete than he was after the he was caught in the wards. And he is very, very naked. He draws his knees up to his chest, staring into the fire's dying embers. ]

Good. Soon.

[Alucard travels with Sypha, but there are a great number of particulars he takes care of as he does so. First and most important is finding a way to balance between her and not leaving his mother alone during daylight hours. The speakers are good allies to have, as taking care to note the spread of witch trials is impossible without them. Alucard is terrified of such accusations reaching their doorstep, and so is his father. To travel with Sypha almost feels like a betrayal, but there is a schedule and there is Lisa's demand that if her husband is to take a break from traveling, then her son should do so instead.

Then there is the question of shape. As a wolf, Alucard is imposing, but he might look more akin to a witch's familiar than a large dog, so the form is used carefully. At best, he's a wolf by night when on watch, capable of sussing out real threats and taking most of them down in that shape. In daylight, he is always a man, just an oddly matched one for traveling with a Speaker.

The wolf form is easier. There is no need to fill in the hours with discussion as human form demands, and for a while it is awkward. Alucard wants to be distant, because the moment that Trevor returns is the moment he must be gone. Every time he opens his mouth around Sypha, every actual conversation he has with her, he can feel the growth of emotions towards her, and that is wrong on every level. She has a love and it is the mark of a lowlife to even accidentally move in when Trevor is absent but not.

And isn't that the real problem? Sypha's infinitely warm. So easy to love. They talk magic theory into the night, and then about her travels by day, and it goes on and on and it hurts to think of leaving it behind. Even if it's for everyone's best.

Trevor's attempts at reformation have been fascinating, albeit gross in turn. He did sort of want the weird skeleton to stick around for a little, mostly because Lisa Tepes would be fascinated.

Alucard is very much not asleep when Trevor reforms again. He only has his eyes closed. It means that the minute Trevor is there, Alucard snaps upright from his reclined position in front of the fire, and--

--oh fuck him, he's eye level with Trevor's cock. Of course he is.]

Trousers!

[He hisses as not to wake Sypha, but still.]

Is that my name?

[ It’s a genuine question. And also, probably not one that Alucard can conclusively answer (it’s probably not his name). He considers it and then opens and closes a two-fingered hand. ]

I have nearly all of my body, now.

[ YES. ALUCARD CAN SEE THAT. ]

You never told me your name, fae.

[There's. Too much. Dick. In Alucard's line of view. So he does the only thing he can do at this moment, which is fling one of the fur blankets over at Trevor and groan.]

Wrap this around your groin. Now.

Something like that. It’s something like that.

[ He picks up the blanket, holding it in front of him for a moment. ]

My dick isn’t cold.

[ But he does, at least, rest the blanket over his lap. ]

Cold is not the issue at hand.

[Alucard shakes his head, and there's a sigh of relief once Trevor has the blanket over his lap. The vampire isn't moving either, but this is...both better and worse, isn't it?]

How much longer until it is done then, do you suppose?

Another two sennights, if enough of them want to join me.

[ Not all moths want to become part of something bigger than themselves, feel the calling to follow Sypha and that little jewelled box she wears around. Maybe just under half. Even by fairy understanding it’s a lot to ask for them to give up themselves as individuals to be part of a larger whole, especially when that larger whole is still forming. They get a life longer than a month or so, the ability to do and comprehend things that they could never have done alone. But they lose themselves. ]

Then I’ll wake up, and I’ll be able to tell me what I am. I’m- excited for that, I think.

[ He’s still a lot of combined moth brains trying to put things together based on an understanding of the world mostly gleaned from overhearing snippets of Alucard and Sypha’s conversations. He isn’t entirely sure what ‘excited’ is, but it sounds right. ]

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cryptsleeper - 2019-05-07 11:53 (UTC) - Expand