[ The decision to put the alchemist into the pillory was calculated. Made to seem, on the surface of things, like a relief. Humiliation and scorn and discomfort instead of more pain. Church officials, even the inquisitor and his men, ignored him entirely when not forcing meager amounts of food and water into him. Even the justice enacted by the people was half-hearted, most of them afraid to approach the man. The occasional kick or strike or attempt to knock his legs out from under him to force his neck and arms to bear his weight. Mud and stones and offal and jeers.
And then night. And silence. And the true nature of it all. Long hours of late October frost and the alchemist alone there with his hair and clothes damp with rain and mud and the 'mistakes' the guards had made when giving him water. Left to freeze. Left to know that whatever devil he served wouldn't be coming to save him. For the first night, the inquisitor leaves him be. On the second, he pays a drunk to douse him with ice water in the small hours of the morning. It's all calculated. The first night awful but bearable. The second worse. All to being the sense of dread to a height on the eve of the third.
On the third, the guards free him from the pillory and bring him to a new cell. Nicer than the first one. Dry and free of vermin, with straw for a bed. A small table in one corner with two stools. The inquisitor sits on one. In front of him is a plate of hot food and a mug of wine, and the confession papers. ]
I think that perhaps you have suffered enough, my son.
[ His voice is soft. Pain, and then kindness, and then pain again. The Inquisitor has never failed to get a confession like this, where his peers who use pain alone struggle the second a witch turns stubborn.
The charges on the paper range from the wilful spread of disease to consorting and laying with devils to treason against one's fellow man. The first, the man has already confessed to verbally. Offering healthy people what he called a weakened form of the plague that has done such evil to nearby towns. A vaccine, he called it. ]
[It was going to always end like this. Alucard had known that for some time, because it was how his family usually died. Oh, a few generations could squeak by under the radar, but the desire to do good and educate the world always won out. Then the world kicked the shit out of them, because it still was not ready for the Tepes family's way of understanding.
Witches, heretics, whatever. Alucard grew up learning medicine and science and how to keep himself safe. A doctor shouldn't need to wield a sword, but his father had him learn all the same. It had saved Alucard's life so many times, but it did precious little when his parents burned. They told him to stay away from Targoviste, and Alucard had.
He traveled. An alchemist and doctor with no home, bartering services for food and shelter. Researching when h could.
It was now with the Ottomans on the horizon that he had made a decision: to go to Istanbul. To see if he could make it there, where the Arabic texts were so advanced, and maybe he could survive. Convert to a religion if needed. Whatever it took.
But the church had captured him, stopped en route because of a village about to face the plague. So it had gone. An endurance test. His immune system weakening from the water, the meager rations, and the cold, cold nighhts.
He's a mess when he's brought into the cell. But Alucard doesn't move beyond where he has been put. Only reaches for the papers, reads them, then places them where they were.]
It is a sin to lie. I will do no such thing.
[He did not grow up with faith, but Alucard understands the church all the same.]
You're going to kill me. Confessions are only a formality.
[ The inquisitor's face doesn't turn as Alucard puts the papers back down. Some of them are like this. It's a shame, how they do this to themselves. ]
We are going to save you. Scourge you of whatever devil is whispering these ideas into your ears. The process need not be so difficult. [ He reaches forward, stroking lumps of mud from Alucard's hair. ] It need not be fatal. Whatever poison has taken hold of you, you can purge it with the stroke of a pen. This will all be over.
[We are going to save you. Alucard wants to laugh, but his throat is far too dry and his situation without anything that could prompt humor from him. There's nothing to save.
He doesn't flinch when the inquistor's hand reaches out. The only expression on his face is that of exhausted resignation, of knowing where this means to end. There's only one way it could end, and the only mercy available to him is speeding this along to that inevitable conclusion.]
I know the arcs of my family members. It is always fatal.
[If a church grabs a Tepes, it only ever ends this way.]
Consign me to the flames and expedite the work, or else exile me from Wallachia. Either way places me among devils.
[ He raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head. The type who breaks too easily, then. The type that make his job difficult. The kind who think they've resigned themselves to the worst.
Slowly, methodically, he takes the candle from the table and stands, nodding to one of the guards. ]
His arm, hold it out. The left.
[ He still needs to be able to write, after all. The guard he motioned to grabs Alucard's wrist and pulls his arm outward in front of him, pulling the damp, stained sleeve of his coat back as far as the elbow. ]
True. But irrelevant. None of this is a punishment.
[ He pats the back of Alucard's hand almost sympathetically, and then moves the candle underneath it. Lets the flame of it lick at the pads of his fingers. ]
This is a lesson. I would have you understand what you are asking for.
[ He likes people to be afraid of the flames, thank you very much. ]
The same death as my parents. Death by smoke inhalation, with the flames meant to inflict pain and act as a precursor to hellfire.
[For all the exhausted resignation in Alucard's tone, his hand still reacts. Fingers curl, trying to escape the flame. He hisses at the burns as they start to form. There's finally something new on his face, all brought about by a living flame.]
[ Better. Perhaps another night without sleep would have produced a more satisfying response, but the third night is always a tricky one. Some people wear down further. Some adapt, get it into their heads that their masters might have given them the means to survive this. ]
Cleansing, not death. Cleansing of the devil's influence.
[ He moves the candle to the top of the palm and leaves it there at the fleshy part where the fingers begin. ]
You understand, yes? That this is the least of that.
[ He pulls the candle away. Not out of any sort of kindness, but because his job comes with a certain understanding of the human body. Too much damage, and it stops feeling. Too much pain at once and the mind decouples from it. His peers make mistakes like that, and so those under their care endure.
Periods of rest are needed, even if only short ones. Witches need space to dread. ]
The flames burn out. They end. This? This does not.
[Alucard's fingers flex out of instinct, but the rest of him flinches wildly. This is not good. Or it could be, if infection sets in and the church decides to keep him alive for a little while. Oh, it'll be a nasty way to go, but no worse than the other options available to him.
But still, the implications of that trap ring in Alucard's mind. He needs time to parse them out. Time and less burnt flesh smell in the room.
[ That's a lie. He wants that signature. He wants his perfect record to remain intact. He wants his authority recognised and respected by his lessers.
But perhaps that was intended as a question. What can he do, to make this stop. ]
You will sign. You will sign, and you will allow the Lord into your heart. Let him drive away the devils who have lied to you. Let him scourge the poison from you with fire. You will recognise that you decide none of this. You will recognise that all of this is in His hands, not your own. And if you wish to die? You will earn it by submitting to the will of his Chosen.
Then don't pretend to think I'm innocent and give me false hope.
[I know it's a trap.
For the rest, Alucard falls silent. Lets his feet out from under himself, so that the guard is forced to either take his weight entirely or drop him. (As if there's a lot of weight to take. Had the church not found Alucard when they did, he has assumed that the winter would finally claim him.
He'll earn nothing. Be a dead weight and force people to choose. Inaction, in and of itself, is a choice.]
[ The guards let Alucard fall. The inquisitor looks down at him for a few seconds before grinding his heel into the burned hand. ]
Feed him and return him to the pillory. Do not allow him to sleep. Have him whipped at dawn, if he tries.
[ It's two more frigid nights before Alucard encounters the Inquisitor again. The next two days consist of his orders, of course, but he doesn't oversee them. Short periods of intense pain followed by longer ones of discomfort and isolation or humiliation. No sleep.
On the second night, Alucard it returned to the Inquisitor. The same nicer cell. the same hot meal. A moth or two, flitting about the candle. ]
[He barely eats. Doesn't sleep because he isn't allowed. Takes very little water, because that'll help get all of this over.
The cell again. Alucard would groan if he had the effort. Such as it is, his legs tremble badly, and he doesn't know if he'll be permitted to sit in any form.
Let this be the end. Please.]
I will say my truths and you will do as you will.
[His voice is terrible and rough. Hoarse and barely audible.]
[ He gestures to the chair opposite his own, as if he's inviting Alucard to sit. It's not an invitation, and the guards immediately wrestle him into the chair.
The inquisitor smiles, pushing the papers to Alucard once again. ]
There's a moment's relief on Alucard's face for the luxury, but it fades within a moment. He ignores the papers. Forces himself to meet the inquisitor's eyes, and he holds that gaze.]
My name is Adrian Mathias Tepes. I am the last son of my family. Ten years ago, my mother and father, Lisa and Vlad, were likewise executed for the accusation of witchcraft.
They were doctors and alchemists. Our family's trade going back for four hundred years. A trade that requires some unorthodoxy to try and reveal the secrets of the world, so that we may better help people. We have done that, just as our family has done harm by accident. That is the rule of this trade: not all your patients will live. You will do everything you can but sometimes, not even that will work. You will perform experimental procedures that go wrong in pursuit of healing. Your job is to minimize their harm.
I have been alone for the past decade since my parents were killed. I have tried to do good, as they taught me to. Survived, because they would want me to. Healed those who would permit me. Experimented when I could. Bartered whatever I needed to in order to keep going. Myself when there was nothing else left.
[This won't be the confession the priest wants. He doesn't care.]
I've lived ten years on borrowed time. I've been rejected and chased out of places enough time to know that what I can offer the world is not wanted.
[ The Inquisitor gestures, and a guard places a clean sheet of paper into his hand. He sets it down and writes, and the scratching of the quill is the only sound for a few minutes.
The moth doesn't move away. It remains on Alucard's hand for a few seconds before walking up his arm. Insects just crawling over him, as if he's already dead.
He places the amended confession in front of Alucard, setting the quill next to it. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
believe it or not trevor has no icons appropriate for when I play characters who are not trevor
And then night. And silence. And the true nature of it all. Long hours of late October frost and the alchemist alone there with his hair and clothes damp with rain and mud and the 'mistakes' the guards had made when giving him water. Left to freeze. Left to know that whatever devil he served wouldn't be coming to save him. For the first night, the inquisitor leaves him be. On the second, he pays a drunk to douse him with ice water in the small hours of the morning. It's all calculated. The first night awful but bearable. The second worse. All to being the sense of dread to a height on the eve of the third.
On the third, the guards free him from the pillory and bring him to a new cell. Nicer than the first one. Dry and free of vermin, with straw for a bed. A small table in one corner with two stools. The inquisitor sits on one. In front of him is a plate of hot food and a mug of wine, and the confession papers. ]
I think that perhaps you have suffered enough, my son.
[ His voice is soft. Pain, and then kindness, and then pain again. The Inquisitor has never failed to get a confession like this, where his peers who use pain alone struggle the second a witch turns stubborn.
The charges on the paper range from the wilful spread of disease to consorting and laying with devils to treason against one's fellow man. The first, the man has already confessed to verbally. Offering healthy people what he called a weakened form of the plague that has done such evil to nearby towns. A vaccine, he called it. ]
Sign, and then we can eat.
no subject
Witches, heretics, whatever. Alucard grew up learning medicine and science and how to keep himself safe. A doctor shouldn't need to wield a sword, but his father had him learn all the same. It had saved Alucard's life so many times, but it did precious little when his parents burned. They told him to stay away from Targoviste, and Alucard had.
He traveled. An alchemist and doctor with no home, bartering services for food and shelter. Researching when h could.
It was now with the Ottomans on the horizon that he had made a decision: to go to Istanbul. To see if he could make it there, where the Arabic texts were so advanced, and maybe he could survive. Convert to a religion if needed. Whatever it took.
But the church had captured him, stopped en route because of a village about to face the plague. So it had gone. An endurance test. His immune system weakening from the water, the meager rations, and the cold, cold nighhts.
He's a mess when he's brought into the cell. But Alucard doesn't move beyond where he has been put. Only reaches for the papers, reads them, then places them where they were.]
It is a sin to lie. I will do no such thing.
[He did not grow up with faith, but Alucard understands the church all the same.]
You're going to kill me. Confessions are only a formality.
no subject
We are going to save you. Scourge you of whatever devil is whispering these ideas into your ears. The process need not be so difficult. [ He reaches forward, stroking lumps of mud from Alucard's hair. ] It need not be fatal. Whatever poison has taken hold of you, you can purge it with the stroke of a pen. This will all be over.
no subject
He doesn't flinch when the inquistor's hand reaches out. The only expression on his face is that of exhausted resignation, of knowing where this means to end. There's only one way it could end, and the only mercy available to him is speeding this along to that inevitable conclusion.]
I know the arcs of my family members. It is always fatal.
[If a church grabs a Tepes, it only ever ends this way.]
Consign me to the flames and expedite the work, or else exile me from Wallachia. Either way places me among devils.
no subject
[ He raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head. The type who breaks too easily, then. The type that make his job difficult. The kind who think they've resigned themselves to the worst.
Slowly, methodically, he takes the candle from the table and stands, nodding to one of the guards. ]
His arm, hold it out. The left.
[ He still needs to be able to write, after all. The guard he motioned to grabs Alucard's wrist and pulls his arm outward in front of him, pulling the damp, stained sleeve of his coat back as far as the elbow. ]
no subject
They'll burn the arm until he signs, because of course. The document is the only thing that matters.]
It isn't a lie to say I refused the opportunity to confess and that I refused to sign the papers.
[A quiet observation. Nothing more.]
no subject
[ He pats the back of Alucard's hand almost sympathetically, and then moves the candle underneath it. Lets the flame of it lick at the pads of his fingers. ]
This is a lesson. I would have you understand what you are asking for.
[ He likes people to be afraid of the flames, thank you very much. ]
no subject
[For all the exhausted resignation in Alucard's tone, his hand still reacts. Fingers curl, trying to escape the flame. He hisses at the burns as they start to form. There's finally something new on his face, all brought about by a living flame.]
no subject
Cleansing, not death. Cleansing of the devil's influence.
[ He moves the candle to the top of the palm and leaves it there at the fleshy part where the fingers begin. ]
You understand, yes? That this is the least of that.
no subject
[It hurts. Of course it hurts. Alucard can feel the flesh scald and blister and burst, and the sharp hiss does become a yelp. Finally.
But it changes nothing.]
Why does it matter?
[To you, he means.]
no subject
Because I do not consign innocent men to the flames. [ He pushes Alucard's hand downward. ]
Sign. If the flames are what you want, sign.
no subject
That's a trap and Alucard knows it. He's in pain, he wants to just die already, he should ignore the statement.
But no. That statement means so much. That the priest has been fucking with him for three days and why?
Alucard's arm finally begins to twist and try and pull away. There's the real threat of something catching now.
There's no survival instinct that's kicked in. There's only paralysis.]
no subject
Enough.
[ He pulls the candle away. Not out of any sort of kindness, but because his job comes with a certain understanding of the human body. Too much damage, and it stops feeling. Too much pain at once and the mind decouples from it. His peers make mistakes like that, and so those under their care endure.
Periods of rest are needed, even if only short ones. Witches need space to dread. ]
The flames burn out. They end. This? This does not.
no subject
But still, the implications of that trap ring in Alucard's mind. He needs time to parse them out. Time and less burnt flesh smell in the room.
He's not meeting the man's eyes. He hasn't been.]
You want something besides a confession.
[It's a guess. A good one.]
no subject
[ That's a lie. He wants that signature. He wants his perfect record to remain intact. He wants his authority recognised and respected by his lessers.
But perhaps that was intended as a question. What can he do, to make this stop. ]
You will sign. You will sign, and you will allow the Lord into your heart. Let him drive away the devils who have lied to you. Let him scourge the poison from you with fire. You will recognise that you decide none of this. You will recognise that all of this is in His hands, not your own. And if you wish to die? You will earn it by submitting to the will of his Chosen.
no subject
[I know it's a trap.
For the rest, Alucard falls silent. Lets his feet out from under himself, so that the guard is forced to either take his weight entirely or drop him. (As if there's a lot of weight to take. Had the church not found Alucard when they did, he has assumed that the winter would finally claim him.
He'll earn nothing. Be a dead weight and force people to choose. Inaction, in and of itself, is a choice.]
no subject
Feed him and return him to the pillory. Do not allow him to sleep. Have him whipped at dawn, if he tries.
[ It's two more frigid nights before Alucard encounters the Inquisitor again. The next two days consist of his orders, of course, but he doesn't oversee them. Short periods of intense pain followed by longer ones of discomfort and isolation or humiliation. No sleep.
On the second night, Alucard it returned to the Inquisitor. The same nicer cell. the same hot meal. A moth or two, flitting about the candle. ]
Are you ready to confess, now?
no subject
The cell again. Alucard would groan if he had the effort. Such as it is, his legs tremble badly, and he doesn't know if he'll be permitted to sit in any form.
Let this be the end. Please.]
I will say my truths and you will do as you will.
[His voice is terrible and rough. Hoarse and barely audible.]
no subject
[ He gestures to the chair opposite his own, as if he's inviting Alucard to sit. It's not an invitation, and the guards immediately wrestle him into the chair.
The inquisitor smiles, pushing the papers to Alucard once again. ]
Speak as you will.
no subject
There's a moment's relief on Alucard's face for the luxury, but it fades within a moment. He ignores the papers. Forces himself to meet the inquisitor's eyes, and he holds that gaze.]
My name is Adrian Mathias Tepes. I am the last son of my family. Ten years ago, my mother and father, Lisa and Vlad, were likewise executed for the accusation of witchcraft.
They were doctors and alchemists. Our family's trade going back for four hundred years. A trade that requires some unorthodoxy to try and reveal the secrets of the world, so that we may better help people. We have done that, just as our family has done harm by accident. That is the rule of this trade: not all your patients will live. You will do everything you can but sometimes, not even that will work. You will perform experimental procedures that go wrong in pursuit of healing. Your job is to minimize their harm.
I have been alone for the past decade since my parents were killed. I have tried to do good, as they taught me to. Survived, because they would want me to. Healed those who would permit me. Experimented when I could. Bartered whatever I needed to in order to keep going. Myself when there was nothing else left.
[This won't be the confession the priest wants. He doesn't care.]
I've lived ten years on borrowed time. I've been rejected and chased out of places enough time to know that what I can offer the world is not wanted.
That is all I have to confess.
no subject
It is sad, to be doomed by one's birth.
[ It's hard to say if that's genuine or not. Everything he's said so far has seemed genuine, and yet so little of it has been. ]
Sign, then, and I will bring this tragedy to an end.
no subject
[That's the only thing he'll argue.
The moth lands. Alucard curls his hand out of response, then flinches.]
no subject
[ The Inquisitor gestures, and a guard places a clean sheet of paper into his hand. He sets it down and writes, and the scratching of the quill is the only sound for a few minutes.
The moth doesn't move away. It remains on Alucard's hand for a few seconds before walking up his arm. Insects just crawling over him, as if he's already dead.
He places the amended confession in front of Alucard, setting the quill next to it. ]
no subject
...well it's the truth. So the rest of this can be done and dusted.
His name is signed on the paper in neat script. Then that hand falls away.]
When?
[How long until this is over?]
no subject
[ He looks over the paper, then smiles. The guards behind Alucard relax, and he pushes the plate of soup across the table. ]
Eat. You must be hungry.
[ His entire demeanor is different, with that. Alucard is being rewarded. ]
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AND THEN SHIT GETS WILD
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