[ There's a snort of laughter at that, and Sypha stirs. Trevor immediately claps both hands over his mouth while she turns over and returns to her rest. He's still chuckling when he withdraws them.
It's a relief. To just talk. Talk like normal people with terrible senses of humour. He's been able to do that with Sypha, every now and then, but Alucard is different. Too close and too distant all at once. He's known him his whole life, and yet they've never really spoken. But here they are, with terrible tree and dog jokes.
He leans back a little, not far enough that his weight is against Alucard but closer. ]
That's not all of it? Shit, I don't know why I go to the markets for vegetables. I just need to fall of a few more ditches and we'll be fed for a week.
[Alucard's own laugh is very soft. It hesitates, unsure and uncomfortable, but it feels nice. It's a break in the tension at least, and that counts for an awful lot.]
There's absolutely nothing edible in here, I assure you.
[Alucard tuts, but he manages to remove the very last leaf and then awkwardly pats the top of Trevor's head.]
Yeah, nothing worse than a couple bruises. And a lot of leaves.
[ He should probably. Stand up, shouldn’t he? Stop sitting on Alucard’s bed. He falls silent for a while before actually managing that, sitting down on his own with a tired huff. ]
Anything that needs doing around here, if I’m not leaving tomorrow? If not, I’ll check over the cottage again, see if I can figure out anything about what makes it so the castle can use it.
[It's a little sad, Trevor getting up. He's warm, warm and human, and his absence means nothing but cold. The castle is trying so hard to be warm right now, but it's a struggle.]
Let's just investigate the cottage. Go from there.
[ He almost gets into bed but then remembers something, standing and picking up he cloak. Not too damp. He tosses it on top of Sypha who, as always, immediately reacts in her sleep to cocoon herself in the thing.
It’s his new favourite part of the day, watching her do that, and worth giving up the extra warmth for.
He doesn’t sleep soundly, never does sober, jerking awake at every one of the castle’s creaks and groans. One hand at a knife before his eyes open properly. Eventually, as always, this happens close enough to morning that he decides fuck it, sleeping is over.
The castle doesn’t have running water, not yet, but Sypha heats water for them to do their respective morning rituals. Trevor’s doesn’t really involve the water so much, beyond splashing it onto his face. ]
[Alucard's a wolf before long, but he doesn't sleep either. He's slept for 400 years. He doesn't need anymore sleep.
Instead, he is still. Processing everything he can, quietly as possible. He knows Trevor doesn't sleep deeply. He's fine with that, because it means he's not alone in that particular failure.
He does wash in the morning. Face and hands. As much as Alucard wants real bath, he'll wait for the castle to be ready for that. So he stands quietly, waiting for the other two.]
[ The contents of the house are the same as before. Same bones, same bottles. The kitchen area looks to have been used for cooking as well as mixing poisons or medicines.
There’s an egg. A hollow one, its contents long escaped from the shell through a crack and desiccated, thankfully long beyond the point of stench. It’s not much different to the other remnants of daily life left here, at least until their searching knocks it aside. It rolls, revealing the other side of the empty eggshell. ]
The fuck.
[ There, bleached in white on the brown eggshell, is a simple phrase. ‘THE LORD WILL BRING YOU LOW’ ]
Alucard walks over towards it, his hands pointedly in his pockets so that he doesn't touch it. Or even think about touching it.]
Well, there's fortune telling techniques that rely upon cheese, you know. [He says this calmly. Matter-of-factly.] Maybe this is akin to the cheese technique?
Shit. Can’t even get a good breakfast without portents of doom.
[ He does pick up the egg. It’s gross in theory, but it’s dried out. ] Mm. Probably a stupid question, but I’m guessing your father had a fairly low opinion of my God?
Thought it might be people getting hurt in a building that made it so the castle could go there. That would have happened at the abbey, and it looks like it happened here. But- shit, I’m not so naive as to think that there’s a lack of houses that people’ve been killed in.
[ If that was all the castle needed, this would be easy. ]
But contempt for God? Someone really, truly believing themselves to be more powerful? That’s rarer. If that’s the key-
[ There’s a sound at the door. Wood scraping on wood. Someone’s barred it. Outside, there are voices. ]
The Austrian girl was right. The witch really is back. Listen to her moving around in there.
[ Then comes the smell of smoke, as the thatch of the roof begins to catch alight. ]
Perhaps. I mean, we could try simply asking the castle at this point, it may be the more straight forward way of getting information out of--
[Alucard goes ramrod straight. The word witch catches his ear, but oh that smell of smoke.
What happens next is a rush. Perhaps better characterized as a panic, because he first lunges for Trevor to try and grab him. He gets the Belmont by the waist, then barrels for the door. There's smoke. They're talking about witches and there's smoke, and Alucard is clear through the door. Never mind a bar. He's used himself as a barrier to break through.]
This is familiar. The smell of smoke, the crowd of people. The cold, dead body next to him as it all happens. There are more shouts. Jeers. Calls of 'that's her, with the frenchman' that send Trevor looking around for Sypha before he realises that there's just smoke in their eyes and it's Alucard they mean. ]
She's- shit, she's in the- [ He swallows, and the air is already thick enough with smoke that it burns. The thatch is damp, producing a horrible, choking amount of the stuff. He doesn't know what the fire will do to the castle. He doesn't know what will happen if it doesn't have a shell of a building to inhabit anymore.
He doesn't know what will happen to Sypha inside the castle if something happens to it. ]
Leave! [ He slams the door shit as he speaks, hoping that that'll be enough to indicate to the castle that he's talking to it and not to the people outside. Despite all appearances. God, he hopes that the castle understands his less-than-perfect English. ] Go somewhere else! [ And then, narrowing his eyes at the nearest man, the one holding the torch- ]
-We'll find you, wherever you go. When you think you're safe.
[ How to threaten a crowd and communicate an escape plan to a castle at the same time, a tutorial by Trevor Belmont. ]
Alucard's always looked like his mother. He used to take pride in it, but now? Oh. Oh, that's a horror to hear, and his instinct is to transform into a wolf. Tear out throats, because he isn't his mother. He'll defend himself, even if there's no point in life right now. He's...
Sypha. They still have to find Sypha.
Leave! and the ground beneath them both rumbles. The castle's replied, and oh, oh it's moving. It has Sypha in it and it will go.
But that seems to have solved the problem, and the smoke clears just enough for Alucard to skulk behind trevor. Gold eyes peering out of the dark. Saying nothing, because Trevor said not to.]
[ The problem with disguising your instructions to the castle as a weirdly worded threat, especially in the context of that threat being followed by the ground rumbling ominously, is that you're not going to get very far afterward trying to play nice. Which leaves one really awful, very regrettable, not very good option.
The crowd murmurs, reconsidering who the witch might be. Oh, they were expecting a woman. That's why just a little smoke in their eyes led to them mistaking Alucard for one. But Trevor is the one whose yelling made the earth actually shake.
The man with the torch backs away, so fast that he falls backward and scrambles on his and buttocks. ]
Right. Yes. I did the shaking. [ His English is so good okay. ] If you leave, now, I won't do it again. Otherwise-
[ He's interrupted by a shot, and a girl in too many skirts to effectively do anything is thrown back by the impact of using the gun she's carrying. Trevor is knocked back, too, by the force of it. He hisses out air through gritted teeth and grabs Alucard by the throat. There's the smell of blood on the air. It's hard to process where exactly he's been shot, hard to process anything other than the sudden pain. ] -shit, else you'll all disappear, just like her.
[ He can't communicate his plan any further than 'disappear'. Mist. Please tell him that you can do mist, Alucard. He really, really needs to convince these people that he can make people vanish if he wants to scare them off without getting shot at anymore. ]
[Everything is happening too fast. Alucard wants to scream or tear throats out, but Trevor? If he doesn't have a plan he at least has the sketch of one in his head, and Alucard has to trust him to take lead. There's no other way about it.
So even with the scent of blood in the air (fuck. Fuck, he's hungry) he lets Trevor keep going. Looks terrified, but then Trevor has him by the throat and--
--he can't do mist. The wolf is a risk. And so with a squeak, Alucard is a bat.
A bat flying away, but only so far as he needs to. The Belmont has to leave too. That's the rule. He'll do whatever's required to prevent another witch burning.]
[ Okay, so maybe dhampirs don't do mist. Good to know. But the air is full of smoke. Hopefully the bat is close enough to vanishing that there's no clear difference. He gestures at the empty space where Alucard was. ]
So. The lot of you fired one shot, and I got rid of one person. [ It hurts less if he breathes shallowly. He can keep this act up a little longer. ] The what the fuck do you think will happen if someone fires a second?
[ The woman with the gun stands again, taking aim once more, but a man near her pushes her arm down and snatches her pistol away. That's all he needed. He doesn't need to scare the shit out of all of them. Just enough of them that the group turns on each other. It's the same awful manipulation he hates others for doing, but it's survival. ]
Right. We don't need to find out, do we? You get away from here, now, and you only have to see me again in your nightmares.
[ Please make them go. Please make them go, before his legs give out. A few ran when the castle shook the earth. A few more gather around the woman now and leave under the pretense of 'getting the poor girl somewhere safer'. It's enough. The group disperses, and Trevor holds on until the last is a little way up the road before moving the the far side of the cottage and falling to lean against one of the chicken coops, clutching one side below his ribs, breath coming in and out in pained, shuddering bursts. ]
[The bat has simply hung onto one of the chicken coops, watching. Waiting to enter the fray if needed, but the crowd goes. It takes an eternity, but they go, muttering and defeated for now.
They have until nightfall to leave. A matter made more complicated by Trevor's injury, and at that, Alucard flies over. Flies over and becomes a man again, his nostrils flaring dangerously.]
Belmont?
[There's a hand on Trevor' shoulder and Alucard bends down, all cold confidence only because one of them has to be confident for the other's sake.]
[ That's it, the last of his bravado. None left. It takes him a few seconds to remove his hand from his side, but he does. The puncture is low enough, at least, that the lack of punctured-intestine-smell means that it's probably been polite enough to be survivable. No exit wound. Survivable or not, it's still a bullet hole, and that's not a pleasant thing to happen. ]
Hurts.
[ He says it as if it's useful medical information. ]
Didn't really think that one through, did I? No idea where it might have gone.
[ The horror of the whole mess is finally starting to sink in, but he rests his hand on top of Alucard's. He's not alone, this time. Nobody died, this time. The cottage is much more on fire than it probably ought to be, but he's not alone, and that makes everything different. It hurts, shit it hurts, and his voice is still weak, but he's not alone this time. ]
Can you- I don't know. Feel it, or something? I don't know how castles work.
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I can't beleaf you managed to get this dirty.
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It's a relief. To just talk. Talk like normal people with terrible senses of humour. He's been able to do that with Sypha, every now and then, but Alucard is different. Too close and too distant all at once. He's known him his whole life, and yet they've never really spoken. But here they are, with terrible tree and dog jokes.
He leans back a little, not far enough that his weight is against Alucard but closer. ]
That's not all of it? Shit, I don't know why I go to the markets for vegetables. I just need to fall of a few more ditches and we'll be fed for a week.
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There's absolutely nothing edible in here, I assure you.
[Alucard tuts, but he manages to remove the very last leaf and then awkwardly pats the top of Trevor's head.]
Take a look. Pile's on your right.
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[ He turns to look at the leaf pile and - wow. He managed to end up with so, so many leaves. ]
Shit, that’s more leaf than I have hair. [ And then, a little awkwardly. ] Thanks. It’d have been uncomfortable, sleeping on all that.
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[Alucard can feel the awkward settling in, and there it is. They're both terribly awkward without Sypha there, aren't they?]
You're welcome. You're otherwise unharmed?
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[ He should probably. Stand up, shouldn’t he? Stop sitting on Alucard’s bed. He falls silent for a while before actually managing that, sitting down on his own with a tired huff. ]
Anything that needs doing around here, if I’m not leaving tomorrow? If not, I’ll check over the cottage again, see if I can figure out anything about what makes it so the castle can use it.
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[It's a little sad, Trevor getting up. He's warm, warm and human, and his absence means nothing but cold. The castle is trying so hard to be warm right now, but it's a struggle.]
Let's just investigate the cottage. Go from there.
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[ He almost gets into bed but then remembers something, standing and picking up he cloak. Not too damp. He tosses it on top of Sypha who, as always, immediately reacts in her sleep to cocoon herself in the thing.
It’s his new favourite part of the day, watching her do that, and worth giving up the extra warmth for.
He doesn’t sleep soundly, never does sober, jerking awake at every one of the castle’s creaks and groans. One hand at a knife before his eyes open properly. Eventually, as always, this happens close enough to morning that he decides fuck it, sleeping is over.
The castle doesn’t have running water, not yet, but Sypha heats water for them to do their respective morning rituals. Trevor’s doesn’t really involve the water so much, beyond splashing it onto his face. ]
Ready to head back into the cottage?
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Instead, he is still. Processing everything he can, quietly as possible. He knows Trevor doesn't sleep deeply. He's fine with that, because it means he's not alone in that particular failure.
He does wash in the morning. Face and hands. As much as Alucard wants real bath, he'll wait for the castle to be ready for that. So he stands quietly, waiting for the other two.]
Yes, if you are.
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There’s an egg. A hollow one, its contents long escaped from the shell through a crack and desiccated, thankfully long beyond the point of stench. It’s not much different to the other remnants of daily life left here, at least until their searching knocks it aside. It rolls, revealing the other side of the empty eggshell. ]
The fuck.
[ There, bleached in white on the brown eggshell, is a simple phrase. ‘THE LORD WILL BRING YOU LOW’ ]
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What the fuck is the egg.
Alucard walks over towards it, his hands pointedly in his pockets so that he doesn't touch it. Or even think about touching it.]
Well, there's fortune telling techniques that rely upon cheese, you know. [He says this calmly. Matter-of-factly.] Maybe this is akin to the cheese technique?
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[ He does pick up the egg. It’s gross in theory, but it’s dried out. ] Mm. Probably a stupid question, but I’m guessing your father had a fairly low opinion of my God?
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[Alucard isn't terribly weirded out by the egg. He simply watches, curious.]
Why?
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[ If that was all the castle needed, this would be easy. ]
But contempt for God? Someone really, truly believing themselves to be more powerful? That’s rarer. If that’s the key-
[ There’s a sound at the door. Wood scraping on wood. Someone’s barred it. Outside, there are voices. ]
The Austrian girl was right. The witch really is back. Listen to her moving around in there.
[ Then comes the smell of smoke, as the thatch of the roof begins to catch alight. ]
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[Alucard goes ramrod straight. The word witch catches his ear, but oh that smell of smoke.
What happens next is a rush. Perhaps better characterized as a panic, because he first lunges for Trevor to try and grab him. He gets the Belmont by the waist, then barrels for the door. There's smoke. They're talking about witches and there's smoke, and Alucard is clear through the door. Never mind a bar. He's used himself as a barrier to break through.]
Belmont, where's Sypha?!
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This is familiar. The smell of smoke, the crowd of people. The cold, dead body next to him as it all happens. There are more shouts. Jeers. Calls of 'that's her, with the frenchman' that send Trevor looking around for Sypha before he realises that there's just smoke in their eyes and it's Alucard they mean. ]
She's- shit, she's in the- [ He swallows, and the air is already thick enough with smoke that it burns. The thatch is damp, producing a horrible, choking amount of the stuff. He doesn't know what the fire will do to the castle. He doesn't know what will happen if it doesn't have a shell of a building to inhabit anymore.
He doesn't know what will happen to Sypha inside the castle if something happens to it. ]
Leave! [ He slams the door shit as he speaks, hoping that that'll be enough to indicate to the castle that he's talking to it and not to the people outside. Despite all appearances. God, he hopes that the castle understands his less-than-perfect English. ] Go somewhere else! [ And then, narrowing his eyes at the nearest man, the one holding the torch- ]
-We'll find you, wherever you go. When you think you're safe.
[ How to threaten a crowd and communicate an escape plan to a castle at the same time, a tutorial by Trevor Belmont. ]
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Fuck.
Alucard's always looked like his mother. He used to take pride in it, but now? Oh. Oh, that's a horror to hear, and his instinct is to transform into a wolf. Tear out throats, because he isn't his mother. He'll defend himself, even if there's no point in life right now. He's...
Sypha. They still have to find Sypha.
Leave! and the ground beneath them both rumbles. The castle's replied, and oh, oh it's moving. It has Sypha in it and it will go.
But that seems to have solved the problem, and the smoke clears just enough for Alucard to skulk behind trevor. Gold eyes peering out of the dark. Saying nothing, because Trevor said not to.]
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The crowd murmurs, reconsidering who the witch might be. Oh, they were expecting a woman. That's why just a little smoke in their eyes led to them mistaking Alucard for one. But Trevor is the one whose yelling made the earth actually shake.
The man with the torch backs away, so fast that he falls backward and scrambles on his and buttocks. ]
Right. Yes. I did the shaking. [ His English is so good okay. ] If you leave, now, I won't do it again. Otherwise-
[ He's interrupted by a shot, and a girl in too many skirts to effectively do anything is thrown back by the impact of using the gun she's carrying. Trevor is knocked back, too, by the force of it. He hisses out air through gritted teeth and grabs Alucard by the throat. There's the smell of blood on the air. It's hard to process where exactly he's been shot, hard to process anything other than the sudden pain. ] -shit, else you'll all disappear, just like her.
[ He can't communicate his plan any further than 'disappear'. Mist. Please tell him that you can do mist, Alucard. He really, really needs to convince these people that he can make people vanish if he wants to scare them off without getting shot at anymore. ]
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So even with the scent of blood in the air (fuck. Fuck, he's hungry) he lets Trevor keep going. Looks terrified, but then Trevor has him by the throat and--
--he can't do mist. The wolf is a risk. And so with a squeak, Alucard is a bat.
A bat flying away, but only so far as he needs to. The Belmont has to leave too. That's the rule. He'll do whatever's required to prevent another witch burning.]
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So. The lot of you fired one shot, and I got rid of one person. [ It hurts less if he breathes shallowly. He can keep this act up a little longer. ] The what the fuck do you think will happen if someone fires a second?
[ The woman with the gun stands again, taking aim once more, but a man near her pushes her arm down and snatches her pistol away. That's all he needed. He doesn't need to scare the shit out of all of them. Just enough of them that the group turns on each other. It's the same awful manipulation he hates others for doing, but it's survival. ]
Right. We don't need to find out, do we? You get away from here, now, and you only have to see me again in your nightmares.
[ Please make them go. Please make them go, before his legs give out. A few ran when the castle shook the earth. A few more gather around the woman now and leave under the pretense of 'getting the poor girl somewhere safer'. It's enough. The group disperses, and Trevor holds on until the last is a little way up the road before moving the the far side of the cottage and falling to lean against one of the chicken coops, clutching one side below his ribs, breath coming in and out in pained, shuddering bursts. ]
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They have until nightfall to leave. A matter made more complicated by Trevor's injury, and at that, Alucard flies over. Flies over and becomes a man again, his nostrils flaring dangerously.]
Belmont?
[There's a hand on Trevor' shoulder and Alucard bends down, all cold confidence only because one of them has to be confident for the other's sake.]
Let me take a look.
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[ That's it, the last of his bravado. None left. It takes him a few seconds to remove his hand from his side, but he does. The puncture is low enough, at least, that the lack of punctured-intestine-smell means that it's probably been polite enough to be survivable. No exit wound. Survivable or not, it's still a bullet hole, and that's not a pleasant thing to happen. ]
Hurts.
[ He says it as if it's useful medical information. ]
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[Alucard moves his own hand to cover the wound. Applies pressure as carefully as he can.]
I'm going to carry you. You can't be walking on a wound like that.
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[ The horror of the whole mess is finally starting to sink in, but he rests his hand on top of Alucard's. He's not alone, this time. Nobody died, this time. The cottage is much more on fire than it probably ought to be, but he's not alone, and that makes everything different. It hurts, shit it hurts, and his voice is still weak, but he's not alone this time. ]
Can you- I don't know. Feel it, or something? I don't know how castles work.
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[It isn't fine. Alucard's mind is thinking of centuries ago, and it's a miracle he's managing sentences right now.
With Trevor's hand on his. Alucard leans over, and his face buries in Trevor's hair for a moment. He takes it, gathering himself. Deep breaths.]
No. Is there a field near by? It'll be easier to ask it to come to us, then have it carry all of us away.
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WAIT SHIT THIS ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRST
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