[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.
[All of it sits ill. No one has come to judge Alucard for what he's done, and to be in judgement and execution thereof smacks of hypocracy to the most extreme degree. He begins petting the hare again in the vain hope that it might distract him just a little.]
A small one, I think. If you have to have more than one horse, that means more feed to carry, then more supplies and -- [Alucard waves his free hand vaguely.]
I hope the path brings some kind of resolution for you. One that at least allows for easier living than what you've had of late.
[Well, unless Adrian proposes something different, that is what Hector will go with.]
I'll get by. [The people of Wallachia manage travel by wagon. He's sure he can figure out a way. If nothing else, a zombie horse that has no need to eat, though that would make it harder to travel unnoticed.]
I... [He knows he owes Adrian a great deal. He would never have defeated Isaac on his own, and Adrian has given him the opportunity to try to rebuild his life twice. He should ask for no more, but...]...I will be fine. Even with the wagon, though, some of my pets might not be suited for a life on the road.
[Deino, for one. He brought her with him because she would not have survived otherwise. She deserves somewhere she can rest until time undoes Hector's work.]
Some of them need a more stable home than I can provide. [He looks to Adrian, Deino settled happily in his lap.]
You'd know more about life on the road than I do. I'll take your word for it.
[There's no jealously in the tone. Just a statement of fact. Everyone in Alucard's life knows more about living on the road than the dhampir does.
Alucard's about to say something else, but then he realizes the gravity of Hector's words. The trust that's embedded in them, and with that, Alucard's eyes meet Hector's. There's gratitude in there, well aware that they've managed some level of trust. That's a lot, given the situation.]
[Hector breaks eye contact first. He doesn't want to leave any of his pets with someone else, but their needs outweigh his. The dogs will be able to handle travel- they find their stability in their master, not in their surroundings, but Deino needs peace, and his cat and hawk are both territorial creatures, better served to settle into a home rather than constantly roaming.]
It's only logical. There are very few people who would even accept them, and of those, less who even could see to their needs.
[And Hector knows Adrian will take care of them. He can turn into a wolf and tear a man to death, but to the little reanimated creatures, he'd be nothing but a stalwart protector.]
I assume you've room enough for a few strays in that castle of yours?
[He needs to respond to Hector's actual question. Alucard knows that. But the gratitude comes out first, voiced in a hushed tone of genuine surprise and contentment. He's never told anyone how the left behind creatures were the first that he voiced all the fall out of his father's death to, but...they were there all the same. They were friends and confidants, and they never judged.]
Yes. More than enough for whoever you wish to entrust to my care.
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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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Would you prefer parole? [If he's traveling, he supposes he could come by at times and check in, if that would be more palatable.]
Traveling can't make it worse. So long as my pets can make the journey. I may have to invest in a wagon to make it easier on them.
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[All of it sits ill. No one has come to judge Alucard for what he's done, and to be in judgement and execution thereof smacks of hypocracy to the most extreme degree. He begins petting the hare again in the vain hope that it might distract him just a little.]
A small one, I think. If you have to have more than one horse, that means more feed to carry, then more supplies and -- [Alucard waves his free hand vaguely.]
I hope the path brings some kind of resolution for you. One that at least allows for easier living than what you've had of late.
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I'll get by. [The people of Wallachia manage travel by wagon. He's sure he can figure out a way. If nothing else, a zombie horse that has no need to eat, though that would make it harder to travel unnoticed.]
I... [He knows he owes Adrian a great deal. He would never have defeated Isaac on his own, and Adrian has given him the opportunity to try to rebuild his life twice. He should ask for no more, but...]...I will be fine. Even with the wagon, though, some of my pets might not be suited for a life on the road.
[Deino, for one. He brought her with him because she would not have survived otherwise. She deserves somewhere she can rest until time undoes Hector's work.]
Some of them need a more stable home than I can provide. [He looks to Adrian, Deino settled happily in his lap.]
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[There's no jealously in the tone. Just a statement of fact. Everyone in Alucard's life knows more about living on the road than the dhampir does.
Alucard's about to say something else, but then he realizes the gravity of Hector's words. The trust that's embedded in them, and with that, Alucard's eyes meet Hector's. There's gratitude in there, well aware that they've managed some level of trust. That's a lot, given the situation.]
You're sure?
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It's only logical. There are very few people who would even accept them, and of those, less who even could see to their needs.
[And Hector knows Adrian will take care of them. He can turn into a wolf and tear a man to death, but to the little reanimated creatures, he'd be nothing but a stalwart protector.]
I assume you've room enough for a few strays in that castle of yours?
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[He needs to respond to Hector's actual question. Alucard knows that. But the gratitude comes out first, voiced in a hushed tone of genuine surprise and contentment. He's never told anyone how the left behind creatures were the first that he voiced all the fall out of his father's death to, but...they were there all the same. They were friends and confidants, and they never judged.]
Yes. More than enough for whoever you wish to entrust to my care.
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