I...don't expect to leave much before mid-morning. If that effects anything.
[They can't take all the time Hector may need. But Alucard knows that this is still tearing a man from his home. It's cruel, even if it is to try and provide improvement and make it harder to return to old ways. The weight of it hurts his shoulders, just as the weight of parental expectations do.
There's no standing in the way of Hector. Alucard instead goes to rouse Sypha from slumber and to manage all preparations to depart. They'll probably burn the remaining zombie bits, and maybe that will spread to the rest of the island.
Another part of someone's life up in smoke. That's what it always comes back to, isn't it? Fire and destruction and being forced to emerge from it again and again and again.]
[Hector pauses at the well when he exits the house, scrubbing his face and hands clean with the chilly water. So he hasn't lied about what he's doing. Once he's done, he wanders his old haunts, steering clear of the dock. Adrian and Sypha would likely not be happy to find him where they left his weapon and the discarded zombie pieces.
The little footpaths he'd worn in these woods years ago have since grown over, but he knows his way without them. He's got no particular destination in mind. It just feels...not good, but less tiresome...to be alone with his thoughts.
He's not saying goodbye to a place so much as a time, and he tries to keep it brief. If he's being compelled to sail with Adrian and his speaker, they might as well get started so they can reach a safe stopping place before dark.
...he is still himself, though, so when he finally returns to the ruins of the house, he has a small bundle of fur tucked into the crook of his elbow. A hare, mottled brown with eyes that glow a faint, milky blue. She has no visible pieces missing, but when she peeks out to look around, her neck is able to turn at an unnatural angle. Hector had suspected an aborted attack from a bird of prey, when he'd revived her years ago.]
I'm bringing her. She's gone blind. She won't survive on her own. [He says, maybe unnecessarily defensive as he reemerges. If the fire from the zombies spread, the other creatures can flee; this one would not be so lucky. He thinks he needs to save this one helpless creature.
Adrian said he needed a foundation. Maybe this is the first stone.]
[As Hector walks the island, Alucard goes about rousing Sypha and trying to make sure that they have all they need. It's Sypha that goes and inspects the boat to ensure that it's seaworthy, just as it's Alucard who packs up whatever rations he can find. (So like, two tiny things of dried meat and an additional water skin that gets filled up.)
The two then deal with the zombie parts. They're piled into one space, and Sypha's flame does it's work with the same efficiency as before. The wind is blowing off the island entirely, and so the smoke is sent in that direction. A small mercy. The blaze is left to take care of the bones and render them into ashes, but it is with rocks around it to keep the thing at bay. (In theory.)
Through all the work, they quietly debate what to do next. How to keep an eye on Hector without making him feel a prisoner. Where he might go, and what the two of them can do to help. Trevor's still of his own strong opinions, but they're best left ignored right now.
Sypha's the one who stands when Hector walks in. The bundle has her attention, and when it's revealed to be a hare well. It's still cute, reanimated and all.
[Hector's arms tighten protectively around the animal, and his jaw takes on a stubborn set.]
No. [He has no idea. He's hoping not. The species bounds around without an issue, so he's hoping the motion of the ship won't bother this particular specimen.]
She won't be any trouble. I will see to her. [While Adrian and Sypha have seen to the supplies to satisfy their human(ish) needs, Hector has tucked away little bundles of grass and bark into his tunic to feed to the this fourth passenger.
As long as she isn't turned away, Hector will do as Adrian wishes on their journey.]
[Alucard and Sypha aren't going to talk Hector out of it, and if the most they need to get Hector out of here is a cute, if reforged, bunny then that's the price of it.]
If there's nothing else you need out of here, then we best get going.
[Hector shakes his head again. He's said his goodbyes. There's no more reason to linger.
During the major journeys he's taken, he's booked passage on a vessel and left the sailing up to the professionals. He's picked up enough to lend a hand, though, and his familiarity with the area will surely come in handy. With only the three of them on this ship, he doesn't have the luxury of sitting back and twiddling his thumbs.]
Unless you two are more experienced sailors than I, we should keep near to the coast. It'll add a little time, but it's the safer option. [If they end up running into trouble, Hector could reconstruct the bodies of his de-materialized devils, but he's keeping that in his back-most pocket for now.]
[At least Aucard has the grace to look embarrassed about that fact. And it is a sad and embarrassing thing, how for all his father traveled and saw the world, he's barely left Wallachia. Oh there are good reasons for it, but none of those reasons make it better, just as none of those reasons are ones Lisa would approve of.]
My people have some skill, but it's mostly navigation rather than the practical. I can help manipulate the water in our favor, but you're the one who knows the area best.
[Congrats, Captain Hector is what that all really means.]
The responsibility is a blessing that doesn’t consciously register to Hector. It keeps his hands and his thoughts occupied. There is too much to do to dwell on the bleak shape of his future.
Hector calls on his fairy to act as compass, and keeps the shore in sight whenever possible. He knows which ports won’t ask questions and which to steer clear of to avoid unnecessary complications. When he’s not manning the steering of the ship, he fishes off the side of the boat and tends to the hare. She is old and snoozes for long stretches of the day.
Hector isn’t good with normal conversation, so he’s mostly quiet during their travels. He points out interesting birds and fish when he spots them and gives his acerbic commentary on some of port town taverns they pass by. So if nothing else, Adrian will get to experience that on his rare trip beyond Wallachia’s borders.]
Alucard is the most useless of the three. Sypha can guide the ship through rougher waters, or suddenly fill in shallow areas where the bottom of the boat might scrape against a reef, Hector clearly knows how to boat, and Alucard is...
...he has decent eyes and can pull three times everyone's weight when they need it, but in everything else, he's truly without purpose. That in and of itself is a novelty, just as the mode of travel is.
Vaguely, when he sits on the deck with Sypha napping against him, or when he's checking on the hare and her good health, Alucard wonders if his father felt the same way on such trips. Perhaps. Perhaps not, as he would have traveled in these ways before, whenever it was that he was alive.
Then there is night. He and Sypha argue about constellations and their meanings, Sypha ever with a story, Alucard sniffing that No, that's a star going supernova and the discussion about how a thing can be two things unfolds in some capacity.
Sypha's already asleep tonight. There's one day left of all of this, and there's been room for Hector to think. Alucard walks over to where he's camped out on the boat, and his cough is as polite as possible.]
Hector looks up at the dhampir. He's been waving a handful of grass in front of the hare's nose, trying to bait her into following it as he moves.]
She's well. I worry she's not getting enough exercise. She'll get fat if she keeps sleeping all day.
[She was alarmingly skinny when he found her, the way wild creatures are when they've lost the ability to fend for themselves and are waiting for the end. Hector wouldn't mind seeing her grow round again, but still. She should stretch her muscles from time to time.]
I think I've come up with a name for her. Meet Deino.
[One of the three Gray Witches, the blind sisters of myth who shared a single eye between them. Deino the hare twitches her nose, then takes a few lazy hops toward Hector's hand and snags a blade of grass to chew.]
Admittedly, there isn't much space to explore that any of us would consider safe.
[Alucard's not sure if he can sit down and be welcomed. He'll settle for standing awkwardly, eyes resting on the hare rather than Hector. That seems easiest, as any real moments of connection he has managed with Hector has been through the reforged animals.]
That's...a pointed name choice.
[Wait. Cezar's no less pointed.]
Your name choices tend to skew towards the ancient histories, don't they?
[As if Alucard wouldn't live that full Pirate King lifestyle if he had the choice.]
She's no silly leveret to go jumping over the railings.
[Yes, their space is limited, but Hector has at least a little faith in his pet to not take a dive, if only because she's too lazy to jump high enough to clear the side of the ship.]
You're looming. Sit. [Hector's not going to crane his neck to look up at him. It's late, and Adrian's too tall.]
It feels too odd to name a reanimated creature 'Flopsy' or 'Mittens'. So I err toward the side of the dramatic.
[Dhampirs who live in glass castles can't throw stones.]
Alucard sits, mostly because Hector's right. He's looming, and that's never a good look. He's across from Hector, mostly in case a certain hare wants a little exercise and a different lap.]
I suppose that it makes sense, given your own name as well. Still, hers in particular feels...weightier, in it's way.
[You're naming a rabit after one of the Fates, Hector. It's impossible for him to not comment, glass castles and all.]
Deino raises her head and twitches her nose, smelling what she cannot see. She hops over and bumps her head against Adrian's leg, begging for a treat without having to work for it. Hector huffs at her.]
My name isn't my fault. And there's no deeper meaning behind her name, other than a classical reference. A macabre sense of humor is a prerequisite for necromancers.
[IT ISN'T i'm just saying it as a value neutral thing
Deino gets a scratch behind her ears first, Alucard being very careful with the pads of his fingers as to make sure the hare is comforted. His other hand stretches out to Hector, asking for grass or some other food that she clearly needs as a reward for just saying hello.]
I don't think it's limited to necromancers. This...night work, I suppose you can call it, for lack of anything else, makes it a prerequisite.
[a neutral thing that probably needs to happen after this thread wraps y/n?
Hector rolls his eyes, but hands over some little seeds he's been saving to give to her. Deino's a shameless beggar, and he can't blame Adrian for falling right into her little paws.]
Yes, when you're surrounded by death, it's gallows humor or none at all.
[He's attached to the hare now, even knowing she can't have much longer in her second life. He can fix a variety of hurts, but the damage done by time, he has no remedy for. Maybe there is a wish there, giving her the name of an immortal, but it is a wish made in vain.]
She's the first non-predator I've taken in in a long while. I worry how my other pets will react to her.
[It's been one of the thoughts that has preyed on him lately. Where will he go with his little menagerie, and how will he keep them all safe?]
Look, everyone wins Hector! She gets fed, Alucard gets to pretend to be good at making friends, you get to watch her be cute. Victory!
Alucard takes the seeds though, careful not to drop a single one. Once they're in hand, he makes sure that his hand is close to Deino's nose, so she can get a full whiff of the food.]
Mmmm, I suppose. I think I'm the only person that has limits on it.
[Trevor makes jokes that get sour dhampir faces, but usually it's because the gallows humor is about Trevor dying. It rattles Alucard, even now.]
Perhaps introducing her to some of the smaller dogs who are more companions than hunting breeds would be appropriate?
Deino flops into Alucard's lap, the traitor, even though she's supposed to be working for her treats. Hector can try to play at being stern, but he has no more control over her than he has in any other aspect of his life.]
Cesar won't be a problem, of course. She's larger than he is, and I don't think it's ever even occurred to him that he's a descendant of wolves and could do another creature harm. The others, though, I'll have to keep separate, at least at first. They get along with one another well enough, but having a prey animal in front of them could reawaken some of the instincts they've forgotten in captivity.
[He watches Deino, not Adrian. She's the crutch both of them lean on when they talk to one another.]
I will be permitted to retrieve them, whatever else happens, will I not? [They haven't actually talked about what Adrian and Sypha plan to do with him. He got on their boat, but the rest is uncertain.]
[gonna hope that sleeping gets good ideas flowing tonight
She is a very charming and fluffy traitor. One that's getting pets with Alucard's other hand, to encourage her to eat at the very least.]
They're both lap creatures more than anything else, so we might live in hope that the two will get along. [As for the rest, well, Hector isn't wrong.] The introductions will have to be gradual. That's all.
[It's fine, having a bunny buffer. Whatever makes it easiest to talk.]
I think it'd be cruel to keep you apart from them for any longer. And vice versa, if I'm to be perfectly honest.
[Cesar and the hare will rule side by side and none shall resist their combined demands for petting.]
Their only flaw, perhaps- they are fond of me. [They're the best things left in his life, and the only thing he can really think to do is to try to come as close to deserving that as he can.
He looks out over the water, away from Deino and Alucard.]
Thank you. [That is the main difference that Hector has seen between Adrian and his father. Dracula, for all the echoes of good Hector had seen in him, was cruel. Adrian is not.]
[That gets a very soft laugh from Alucard. It's not at Hector's expense, just from his words.]
They know the best parts of you, I think. [And that's as much a compliment as Alucard can ever pay. Wherever it is that his mind is, Alucard doesn't follow. His eyes remain on the hare.]
We don't know what to do. I think it's in part because you don't know either, but we...[Alucard pauses, his hand stilling from pets.] Our feelings are complicated, but we don't want to take lives when we don't have to. All of us have seen too much death in our lives, Hector.
[His pets are, at least, the reason Hector hasn’t given up completely now that his revenge has been had.]
There’s always going to be death. It’s a part of life. [Death is the medium for his work, and he intimately knows its inevitability.] But to your point, we need not hasten it.
[He understands that Adrian and his hunters serve humanity, and cannot suffer a threat to it. Theirs is the side Rosaly supported.]
I’ll submit to whatever judgment you settle on. If you need me to pledge to never again take a life, or live under house arrest, or allow you to scry to monitor my actions, so be it.
[Alucard wouldn't call whatever it is that they're trying to balance mercy. It certaintly isn't justice. Closer to grace, maybe, and it probably doesn't matter what they term it. Making it happen is far more important, no matter what term ends up being used.
But judgement. That word hangs heavy in the air, and Alucard's shoulders slump just a little from that weight. Who are the two of them to pass it? A heretic and a patricide, that's who.]
I...feel as if the last one is the easiest. Pledges mean little, even if we found a way to made it binding, and it would be against many personal mandates to force house arrest.
[Hector shrugs. He trusts Adrian's judgment above his own in this matter. He is the dumbass that trusted vampires. Alucard and his friends were the ones who stood up to oppose the slaughter whenever everyone else has resigned themselves to it.]
Then that shall be our course of action. Do you need anything to locate me? I may travel, and you said before that it was easier if you knew where to look.
I think that's a question Sypha's better equipped to answer than I am. Typically it requires some sort of personal connection, as I understand it, with locks of hair being quite common.
[Alucard still doesn't like it, having to act as a perpetual eye over a single man. But it's for a much greater good and preservation of life, so he can't argue it. Not really.]
I hope that traveling helps, honestly. Staying still is likely to let things fester right now.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[They can't take all the time Hector may need. But Alucard knows that this is still tearing a man from his home. It's cruel, even if it is to try and provide improvement and make it harder to return to old ways. The weight of it hurts his shoulders, just as the weight of parental expectations do.
There's no standing in the way of Hector. Alucard instead goes to rouse Sypha from slumber and to manage all preparations to depart. They'll probably burn the remaining zombie bits, and maybe that will spread to the rest of the island.
Another part of someone's life up in smoke. That's what it always comes back to, isn't it? Fire and destruction and being forced to emerge from it again and again and again.]
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The little footpaths he'd worn in these woods years ago have since grown over, but he knows his way without them. He's got no particular destination in mind. It just feels...not good, but less tiresome...to be alone with his thoughts.
He's not saying goodbye to a place so much as a time, and he tries to keep it brief. If he's being compelled to sail with Adrian and his speaker, they might as well get started so they can reach a safe stopping place before dark.
...he is still himself, though, so when he finally returns to the ruins of the house, he has a small bundle of fur tucked into the crook of his elbow. A hare, mottled brown with eyes that glow a faint, milky blue. She has no visible pieces missing, but when she peeks out to look around, her neck is able to turn at an unnatural angle. Hector had suspected an aborted attack from a bird of prey, when he'd revived her years ago.]
I'm bringing her. She's gone blind. She won't survive on her own. [He says, maybe unnecessarily defensive as he reemerges. If the fire from the zombies spread, the other creatures can flee; this one would not be so lucky. He thinks he needs to save this one helpless creature.
Adrian said he needed a foundation. Maybe this is the first stone.]
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The two then deal with the zombie parts. They're piled into one space, and Sypha's flame does it's work with the same efficiency as before. The wind is blowing off the island entirely, and so the smoke is sent in that direction. A small mercy. The blaze is left to take care of the bones and render them into ashes, but it is with rocks around it to keep the thing at bay. (In theory.)
Through all the work, they quietly debate what to do next. How to keep an eye on Hector without making him feel a prisoner. Where he might go, and what the two of them can do to help. Trevor's still of his own strong opinions, but they're best left ignored right now.
Sypha's the one who stands when Hector walks in. The bundle has her attention, and when it's revealed to be a hare well. It's still cute, reanimated and all.
Alucard's not going to argue this one.]
She won't be seasick, will she?
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No. [He has no idea. He's hoping not. The species bounds around without an issue, so he's hoping the motion of the ship won't bother this particular specimen.]
She won't be any trouble. I will see to her. [While Adrian and Sypha have seen to the supplies to satisfy their human(ish) needs, Hector has tucked away little bundles of grass and bark into his tunic to feed to the this fourth passenger.
As long as she isn't turned away, Hector will do as Adrian wishes on their journey.]
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[Alucard and Sypha aren't going to talk Hector out of it, and if the most they need to get Hector out of here is a cute, if reforged, bunny then that's the price of it.]
If there's nothing else you need out of here, then we best get going.
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During the major journeys he's taken, he's booked passage on a vessel and left the sailing up to the professionals. He's picked up enough to lend a hand, though, and his familiarity with the area will surely come in handy. With only the three of them on this ship, he doesn't have the luxury of sitting back and twiddling his thumbs.]
Unless you two are more experienced sailors than I, we should keep near to the coast. It'll add a little time, but it's the safer option. [If they end up running into trouble, Hector could reconstruct the bodies of his de-materialized devils, but he's keeping that in his back-most pocket for now.]
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[At least Aucard has the grace to look embarrassed about that fact. And it is a sad and embarrassing thing, how for all his father traveled and saw the world, he's barely left Wallachia. Oh there are good reasons for it, but none of those reasons make it better, just as none of those reasons are ones Lisa would approve of.]
My people have some skill, but it's mostly navigation rather than the practical. I can help manipulate the water in our favor, but you're the one who knows the area best.
[Congrats, Captain Hector is what that all really means.]
I'm fine with safer but longer. Lead on.
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Captain Hector. God save their souls.The responsibility is a blessing that doesn’t consciously register to Hector. It keeps his hands and his thoughts occupied. There is too much to do to dwell on the bleak shape of his future.
Hector calls on his fairy to act as compass, and keeps the shore in sight whenever possible. He knows which ports won’t ask questions and which to steer clear of to avoid unnecessary complications. When he’s not manning the steering of the ship, he fishes off the side of the boat and tends to the hare. She is old and snoozes for long stretches of the day.
Hector isn’t good with normal conversation, so he’s mostly quiet during their travels. He points out interesting birds and fish when he spots them and gives his acerbic commentary on some of port town taverns they pass by. So if nothing else, Adrian will get to experience that on his rare trip beyond Wallachia’s borders.]
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Hector would look great in a tricorn though.Alucard is the most useless of the three. Sypha can guide the ship through rougher waters, or suddenly fill in shallow areas where the bottom of the boat might scrape against a reef, Hector clearly knows how to boat, and Alucard is...
...he has decent eyes and can pull three times everyone's weight when they need it, but in everything else, he's truly without purpose. That in and of itself is a novelty, just as the mode of travel is.
Vaguely, when he sits on the deck with Sypha napping against him, or when he's checking on the hare and her good health, Alucard wonders if his father felt the same way on such trips. Perhaps. Perhaps not, as he would have traveled in these ways before, whenever it was that he was alive.
Then there is night. He and Sypha argue about constellations and their meanings, Sypha ever with a story, Alucard sniffing that No, that's a star going supernova and the discussion about how a thing can be two things unfolds in some capacity.
Sypha's already asleep tonight. There's one day left of all of this, and there's been room for Hector to think. Alucard walks over to where he's camped out on the boat, and his cough is as polite as possible.]
How is she faring this evening?
[The hare. Obviously.]
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It's a solid look.Hector looks up at the dhampir. He's been waving a handful of grass in front of the hare's nose, trying to bait her into following it as he moves.]
She's well. I worry she's not getting enough exercise. She'll get fat if she keeps sleeping all day.
[She was alarmingly skinny when he found her, the way wild creatures are when they've lost the ability to fend for themselves and are waiting for the end. Hector wouldn't mind seeing her grow round again, but still. She should stretch her muscles from time to time.]
I think I've come up with a name for her. Meet Deino.
[One of the three Gray Witches, the blind sisters of myth who shared a single eye between them. Deino the hare twitches her nose, then takes a few lazy hops toward Hector's hand and snags a blade of grass to chew.]
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Clearly he's just gotta go that route now]Admittedly, there isn't much space to explore that any of us would consider safe.
[Alucard's not sure if he can sit down and be welcomed. He'll settle for standing awkwardly, eyes resting on the hare rather than Hector. That seems easiest, as any real moments of connection he has managed with Hector has been through the reforged animals.]
That's...a pointed name choice.
[Wait. Cezar's no less pointed.]
Your name choices tend to skew towards the ancient histories, don't they?
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As if Alucard wouldn't live that full Pirate King lifestyle if he had the choice.]She's no silly leveret to go jumping over the railings.
[Yes, their space is limited, but Hector has at least a little faith in his pet to not take a dive, if only because she's too lazy to jump high enough to clear the side of the ship.]
You're looming. Sit. [Hector's not going to crane his neck to look up at him. It's late, and Adrian's too tall.]
It feels too odd to name a reanimated creature 'Flopsy' or 'Mittens'. So I err toward the side of the dramatic.
[Dhampirs who live in glass castles can't throw stones.]
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careful that's how aus startAlucard sits, mostly because Hector's right. He's looming, and that's never a good look. He's across from Hector, mostly in case a certain hare wants a little exercise and a different lap.]
I suppose that it makes sense, given your own name as well. Still, hers in particular feels...weightier, in it's way.
[You're naming a rabit after one of the Fates, Hector. It's impossible for him to not comment, glass castles and all.]
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you say that like its a bad thingDeino raises her head and twitches her nose, smelling what she cannot see. She hops over and bumps her head against Adrian's leg, begging for a treat without having to work for it. Hector huffs at her.]
My name isn't my fault. And there's no deeper meaning behind her name, other than a classical reference. A macabre sense of humor is a prerequisite for necromancers.
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IT ISN'T i'm just saying it as a value neutral thingDeino gets a scratch behind her ears first, Alucard being very careful with the pads of his fingers as to make sure the hare is comforted. His other hand stretches out to Hector, asking for grass or some other food that she clearly needs as a reward for just saying hello.]
I don't think it's limited to necromancers. This...night work, I suppose you can call it, for lack of anything else, makes it a prerequisite.
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a neutral thing that probably needs to happen after this thread wraps y/n?Hector rolls his eyes, but hands over some little seeds he's been saving to give to her. Deino's a shameless beggar, and he can't blame Adrian for falling right into her little paws.]
Yes, when you're surrounded by death, it's gallows humor or none at all.
[He's attached to the hare now, even knowing she can't have much longer in her second life. He can fix a variety of hurts, but the damage done by time, he has no remedy for. Maybe there is a wish there, giving her the name of an immortal, but it is a wish made in vain.]
She's the first non-predator I've taken in in a long while. I worry how my other pets will react to her.
[It's been one of the thoughts that has preyed on him lately. Where will he go with his little menagerie, and how will he keep them all safe?]
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hell fucking yes it doesLook, everyone wins Hector! She gets fed, Alucard gets to pretend to be good at making friends, you get to watch her be cute. Victory!
Alucard takes the seeds though, careful not to drop a single one. Once they're in hand, he makes sure that his hand is close to Deino's nose, so she can get a full whiff of the food.]
Mmmm, I suppose. I think I'm the only person that has limits on it.
[Trevor makes jokes that get sour dhampir faces, but usually it's because the gallows humor is about Trevor dying. It rattles Alucard, even now.]
Perhaps introducing her to some of the smaller dogs who are more companions than hunting breeds would be appropriate?
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\o/Deino flops into Alucard's lap, the traitor, even though she's supposed to be working for her treats. Hector can try to play at being stern, but he has no more control over her than he has in any other aspect of his life.]
Cesar won't be a problem, of course. She's larger than he is, and I don't think it's ever even occurred to him that he's a descendant of wolves and could do another creature harm. The others, though, I'll have to keep separate, at least at first. They get along with one another well enough, but having a prey animal in front of them could reawaken some of the instincts they've forgotten in captivity.
[He watches Deino, not Adrian. She's the crutch both of them lean on when they talk to one another.]
I will be permitted to retrieve them, whatever else happens, will I not? [They haven't actually talked about what Adrian and Sypha plan to do with him. He got on their boat, but the rest is uncertain.]
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gonna hope that sleeping gets good ideas flowing tonightShe is a very charming and fluffy traitor. One that's getting pets with Alucard's other hand, to encourage her to eat at the very least.]
They're both lap creatures more than anything else, so we might live in hope that the two will get along. [As for the rest, well, Hector isn't wrong.] The introductions will have to be gradual. That's all.
[It's fine, having a bunny buffer. Whatever makes it easiest to talk.]
I think it'd be cruel to keep you apart from them for any longer. And vice versa, if I'm to be perfectly honest.
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Their only flaw, perhaps- they are fond of me. [They're the best things left in his life, and the only thing he can really think to do is to try to come as close to deserving that as he can.
He looks out over the water, away from Deino and Alucard.]
Thank you. [That is the main difference that Hector has seen between Adrian and his father. Dracula, for all the echoes of good Hector had seen in him, was cruel. Adrian is not.]
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They know the best parts of you, I think. [And that's as much a compliment as Alucard can ever pay. Wherever it is that his mind is, Alucard doesn't follow. His eyes remain on the hare.]
We don't know what to do. I think it's in part because you don't know either, but we...[Alucard pauses, his hand stilling from pets.] Our feelings are complicated, but we don't want to take lives when we don't have to. All of us have seen too much death in our lives, Hector.
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There’s always going to be death. It’s a part of life. [Death is the medium for his work, and he intimately knows its inevitability.] But to your point, we need not hasten it.
[He understands that Adrian and his hunters serve humanity, and cannot suffer a threat to it. Theirs is the side Rosaly supported.]
I’ll submit to whatever judgment you settle on. If you need me to pledge to never again take a life, or live under house arrest, or allow you to scry to monitor my actions, so be it.
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But judgement. That word hangs heavy in the air, and Alucard's shoulders slump just a little from that weight. Who are the two of them to pass it? A heretic and a patricide, that's who.]
I...feel as if the last one is the easiest. Pledges mean little, even if we found a way to made it binding, and it would be against many personal mandates to force house arrest.
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Then that shall be our course of action. Do you need anything to locate me? I may travel, and you said before that it was easier if you knew where to look.
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[Alucard still doesn't like it, having to act as a perpetual eye over a single man. But it's for a much greater good and preservation of life, so he can't argue it. Not really.]
I hope that traveling helps, honestly. Staying still is likely to let things fester right now.
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