Alucard dropped by Sypha's home once or twice after the snows, mostly to ensure she had food and fuel but otherwise leaving her be. Oh, yes, they had kissed and that had been nice, but she was still working. That work was more important than...whatever might come of spending more time together. At the moment they were in a very liminal space that the dhampir couldn't make heads nor tails of. He just knew better than topush.
She was a firebrand. Reminded him of Maria, of his mother, of all the best people he met who were headstrong and certain and wanted to fight authority. That air of the familiar counted for a lot, and it made him not immediately wish to retreat to the mountains and his father's castle.
When there's a knock onthe door, Alucard has a feeling about who is there. He tries not to run to the door, but his feet do move quickly. Quicker than he anticipated.
"Good afternoon to you as well," is the response. "Please define everything."
"The world you inhabit!" Sypha sweeps inside - a Speaker thing, caravan members breezing in and out of wagons with little consideration, because they're all part of the same greater whole. "The beings within it! How it overlaps with my world. What all of this-" a sweeping gesture that nearly takes out the umbrella stand, meant to encompass the seething activity of humanity at large "-looks like to someone with the perspective of centuries!"
She whirls around, skirts flaring, to seize him by the lapels of his shirtfront. "There are so many questions I won't even know to ask, because I don't know what I don't know! But you do!"
Her eyes blaze with excitement. Within one blink and the next, they dim slightly, banking into thoughtful consideration. Sypha grins, quicksilver, and steps up on her toes to peck a chaste kiss to his mouth. "Everything."
Oh but to start at the end. Never mind how Sypha grabs onto him and doesn't let go. It's the kiss that temporarily stuns Alucard into amazed and contented silence because of course Sypha would simply waltz in and ask to know the wisdom of ages. It's wonderful. It's mad. It's...it's just the person she is, and he is more than just a little in awe.
"Speakers often have magicians in their ranks," he begins, aware that Sypha still hasn't quite let go. What Sypha also hasn't clocked is that he is rather underdressed for the time of day, being in naught more but a shirt, waistcoat, and trousers. It'd be a scandal for just about anyone else.
"Or has that tradition become more of a guarded secret?"
He could say no. It's a ludicrous request, yet a balloon of inexplicable certainty fills Sypha's chest, buoys her up as she grins like a madwoman. His desire to say yes is as real as the attraction she feels for him, whatever that may mean.
But his first response throws her off a bit, an unexpected tangent and a deep dive through her own mental catalogue of Speaker knowledge. Sypha sinks back onto her heels, eyes flitting up and to the left as she flips through it.
"I've heard of them, but like so many other things the term 'magician' was thought to be a little metaphorical. Something the rooted folk made up for herbalists or wisewomen." Superstitious peasants mistaking an understanding of basic hygiene and astronomy for magic.
The implication does not take long to sink in. "Are you...are you suggesting they could wield real magic?" Her fingers tighten around his collar, accidentally exposing a generous slice of neck and chest. Her attention dips down for a moment, then fractures as she uncurls her grip and clears her throat.
"I'm suggesting nothing. I have witnessed it plenty of times."
Speakers used it to help people, when no one was around and looking. During the Ottoman takeover, it was incredibly useful for food and safe drinking water, but then? Then the west of Europe became terribly afraid of witches and magic, and they were lit on fire just as his mother had. Speakers used the talent less and less. Hid it away and---
--it isn't the first time Sypha's used the word metaphor to understand her people's knowledge. It's both interesting and alarming, that some stories are being understood that way. The alarm is enough to make Alucard gloss over how much of his skin she's exposed.
"How many other stories are understood to be metaphor? I think that's where we should begin."
Did I google when the term 'dinosaur' came into the lexicon for this? YEAH. FIGHT ME.
Her grip tightens back up. She either tugs him down or surges back up on her toes again, she can't be sure with the way her heart's suddenly pounding in her ears, but they are abruptly nose to nose.
"You've seen Speakers casting magic?!"
All her life her people have been spat upon as luddites and primitives. In some rural villages, locals still call them witches, cross themselves or make the sign of the evil eye at passing Speaker caravans. Could they have been right? Were there Speakers in the past who used magic to harm rather than help, even out of self defense in the face of bigotry? She needs to know more, everything, and yesterday.
"Do you have any accounts? I need to get in touch with my family, sit down with the ones who keep those stories. I focused more on political history and the sciences than folklore."
Sypha rocks back, jerks her hands through her hair in disbelief. "I think it's safe to say that anything a layperson considers 'folklore' is now thought of as more of a metaphorical teaching story," she admits. "Although the elders will insist there's a kernel of truth to all of them, they talk about those truths as though that era has passed. Like...like dinosaur fossils."
Alucard's certain that the number one priority right now is actually getting Sypha to sit down for a few seconds before she knocks them both over with enthusiasm. He doesn't mind being a landing pad, but it still makes a difference to not have to do that.
So very carefully, he guides her towards his sparse living room so that the conversation can continue. There's a good and squishy sofa, and that's the spot that he sinks down into. There is, however, no attempt to get Sypha to do the same. He has no doubt at all that Sypha will spring up and down for this entire discussion. It is her way.
"I have, yes. Speaker magicians were not exactly common in my youth, but they were unpresecendented either."
The matter of accounts? That gets a very sly smile. "That question really means am I rude enough to disrespect your people's preferences for not keeping a written record of activities and only having things in my own memory stores. The good news is that I do, but they're not here."
They, along with so many other things, are back at the castle. Alucard knows how long a journey it is, and that they aren't at a point to make it. The snows in the city are nothing compared to the mountains, and he is sure that there's nothing gained by trying to make it otherwise.
"Your elders are correct," he continues, settling back against the cushions. "I know that the Speakers began to use magic less and less the more the witch trials and the so-called Burning Times began to pick up steam. They had enough problems to contend with, and adding witchcraft accusations into the mix did them no favors."
True to his prediction, Sypha does not sit. Rather, she paces back and forth in front of the squashy sofa, occasionally taking a lap around the low table for variety. She lets out a fullbellied "Hah!" at his coy slight at Speaker tradition, turning on her heel for another pass.
"I don't know how some of the uncles and aunties can still stick to that doctrine when we've had printing presses for four hundred years," she throws her hands up. "But what I really mean is, I expect you have journals. All sorts of journals." Her eyes blow wide. She turns to the man seated on the couch. "...at least four hundred years' worth of journals, oh!"
Now there's a trove. Any scholar of humanity would offer up their firstborn for a peek at that kind of ethnography. Sypha has to pause and take a deep breath and wrestle herself back from what feels like a bottomless tangent.
She'd demanded everything, but even everything has to start somewhere. Speaker magic is a logical point at which to enter this unknown landscape, to borrow Adrian's maps and see how she finds them. Sypha sinks down onto the table's edge, fingers tapping at her knees as she traces the uptick in witchburnings against her mental timeline of human history.
"...you know, I mentioned the printing press just now, but that overlaps with the more widespread trials. It makes sense that, as other methods of sharing useful information became available, magical assistance would be phased out in the face of greater danger."
Alucard watches her pace. It's like a tennis match, and a highly entertaining one at that. Some of that entertainment does come from her movement, but the rest? It's in watching Sypha process all the information and draw so many conclusions.
"It isn't as if I personally recorded the actions of my life or the world every day," he points out. "That'd be...depressing."
And a little too much like still being a teenage boy. Alucard and journaling was a recipe for straight up depression, but there were some notebooks of important events. The rest? All in the dhampir's mind. Not something to share just yet though, not with Sypha so literally going through her paces.
"Also bear in mind that because of the Ottoman invasion and rule, Wallachia -- sorry, Romania -- had a different history with those events versus that of Western Europe." Some names still stuck to his tongue. "But yes. There should still be spells in your people's memory stores though, likely the caravans that have centralized in this part of the world and down into, hm. Greece, I suppose."
"Maybe you should start," she tosses out, "For the sake of future historians, and all the ridiculous theories they'll cook up to explain how one man could live so long. I'm putting my hypothetical money on the 'Adrian Tepes was a title, not a person' school of thought."
True, though, that his perspective is that of a single person, and one bound to be uniquely alien at that. Setting aside the immortality and the...parentage, he's also accustomed to a certain level of wealth and standing. But then Sypha supposes that's true of most surviving accounts of the ancient world. Little people haven't the time, energy, or anyone to look after their posthumous estates.
None of which helps her address the enormous gap in her understanding of her own people's history, or access that ancient knowledge right now. Sypha flings herself into the open end of the sofa, arms over her head in a posture of abject dismay and frustration. "It'll be weeks before I can get word back from any of the nearby caravans, with this weather," she bemoans, "And that's assuming any of the elders take my request seriously, or feel I can be trusted with what's probably considered apocrypha." She scrubs her hands over her face and fixes Adrian with a wry look. "I did mention they're not so pleased with the whole 'settle in a city semi permanently' decision, yes?"
Watching all of this, one truth becomes evident: Sypha is one of the most animated, expressive people that Alucard has ever encountered. It is neither a good nor a bad thing, just a simple truth that speaks to her passionate nature and how strong her opinions can be. And watching her? He...
...there's feelings, and he hasn't the time to reflect terribly long on them.
"I actually might like to read that argument," he admits with a terribly sly smile, before growing serious again. The matter of the Speakers is the real focus here, and how they have long contended with history.
With Sypha flinging herself into the awaiting end of the sofa, Alucard's focus shifts there. He doesn't reach out to offer comfort though, if only because it seems obvious that she'll be moving in a second and shrug his hand off.
"You alluded to it, yes," Alucard replies. "Although if you mention my name, there may be more of a response. Positive or negative though, I can't possibly say. I've long since lost track of where your people stand on me."
"You know," Sypha peeks slyly between her fingers, "There's a tacit Speaker tradition of disseminating misinformation when it suits the protection of delicate truths. If you want an alibi, we could start teasing that one out into the world."
Which, actually, ties to his suggestion of invoking him with the elders. Sypha twists her hands together, purses her lips, and then blurts: "I've been trying to figure out how to tell them about you. I wondered at first if they would even believe me, but now there's...this." The knowledge of Speaker magic, however brittle and threadbare. She taps her fingers to her mouth.
There are rituals to accessing knowledge. The Speaker aversion to written word has as much to do with its easy access as its easy destruction - in the wrong hands, information can cause as much devastation as innovation. And so there are steps, rote questions, call-and-response patterns that must be danced to get at the things a seeker might wish to know. Approach one of the elders asking about magic, and they'd assume she wanted to talk about the weather.
"I could start there," she muses, "Ask about you as a historical figure, work my way backward through the oral chronology. It's a way to test the current opinion on you, too. I confess, it's been a long time since I've taken a folklore refresher."
"If I need one, that would do quite nicely. Such as it is, I suspect the fact that you barely believed the matter of my father was real is more than enough."
It has been weird, watching that change and morph and be understood as more story than truth. Not bad...just strange. Humanity is a complicated thing, and the stories it tells itself even more so.
Far more wonderful is how Sypha's mind builds a plan. Watching it in real time is a joy, because each gear is visibly turning in her head. Processing, understanding, then putting step after step into place. He understands some of Speaker culture, but it's old and likely outdated knowledge. How to access even basic information in their histories? He's never learned.
"Given that I also don't know their current opinion of me, that's a good place to start. The last I heard it was very cautious."
For no reason other than how things unfolded as they did. Alucard then inches a little closer to Sypha on the sofa.
"What else would you like to know about the night world, since it will take a little time to contact and communicate with your people?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
She was a firebrand. Reminded him of Maria, of his mother, of all the best people he met who were headstrong and certain and wanted to fight authority. That air of the familiar counted for a lot, and it made him not immediately wish to retreat to the mountains and his father's castle.
When there's a knock onthe door, Alucard has a feeling about who is there. He tries not to run to the door, but his feet do move quickly. Quicker than he anticipated.
"Good afternoon to you as well," is the response. "Please define everything."
no subject
She whirls around, skirts flaring, to seize him by the lapels of his shirtfront. "There are so many questions I won't even know to ask, because I don't know what I don't know! But you do!"
Her eyes blaze with excitement. Within one blink and the next, they dim slightly, banking into thoughtful consideration. Sypha grins, quicksilver, and steps up on her toes to peck a chaste kiss to his mouth. "Everything."
no subject
"Speakers often have magicians in their ranks," he begins, aware that Sypha still hasn't quite let go. What Sypha also hasn't clocked is that he is rather underdressed for the time of day, being in naught more but a shirt, waistcoat, and trousers. It'd be a scandal for just about anyone else.
"Or has that tradition become more of a guarded secret?"
no subject
But his first response throws her off a bit, an unexpected tangent and a deep dive through her own mental catalogue of Speaker knowledge. Sypha sinks back onto her heels, eyes flitting up and to the left as she flips through it.
"I've heard of them, but like so many other things the term 'magician' was thought to be a little metaphorical. Something the rooted folk made up for herbalists or wisewomen." Superstitious peasants mistaking an understanding of basic hygiene and astronomy for magic.
The implication does not take long to sink in. "Are you...are you suggesting they could wield real magic?" Her fingers tighten around his collar, accidentally exposing a generous slice of neck and chest. Her attention dips down for a moment, then fractures as she uncurls her grip and clears her throat.
no subject
Speakers used it to help people, when no one was around and looking. During the Ottoman takeover, it was incredibly useful for food and safe drinking water, but then? Then the west of Europe became terribly afraid of witches and magic, and they were lit on fire just as his mother had. Speakers used the talent less and less. Hid it away and---
--it isn't the first time Sypha's used the word metaphor to understand her people's knowledge. It's both interesting and alarming, that some stories are being understood that way. The alarm is enough to make Alucard gloss over how much of his skin she's exposed.
"How many other stories are understood to be metaphor? I think that's where we should begin."
Did I google when the term 'dinosaur' came into the lexicon for this? YEAH. FIGHT ME.
"You've seen Speakers casting magic?!"
All her life her people have been spat upon as luddites and primitives. In some rural villages, locals still call them witches, cross themselves or make the sign of the evil eye at passing Speaker caravans. Could they have been right? Were there Speakers in the past who used magic to harm rather than help, even out of self defense in the face of bigotry? She needs to know more, everything, and yesterday.
"Do you have any accounts? I need to get in touch with my family, sit down with the ones who keep those stories. I focused more on political history and the sciences than folklore."
Sypha rocks back, jerks her hands through her hair in disbelief. "I think it's safe to say that anything a layperson considers 'folklore' is now thought of as more of a metaphorical teaching story," she admits. "Although the elders will insist there's a kernel of truth to all of them, they talk about those truths as though that era has passed. Like...like dinosaur fossils."
no subject
So very carefully, he guides her towards his sparse living room so that the conversation can continue. There's a good and squishy sofa, and that's the spot that he sinks down into. There is, however, no attempt to get Sypha to do the same. He has no doubt at all that Sypha will spring up and down for this entire discussion. It is her way.
"I have, yes. Speaker magicians were not exactly common in my youth, but they were unpresecendented either."
The matter of accounts? That gets a very sly smile. "That question really means am I rude enough to disrespect your people's preferences for not keeping a written record of activities and only having things in my own memory stores. The good news is that I do, but they're not here."
They, along with so many other things, are back at the castle. Alucard knows how long a journey it is, and that they aren't at a point to make it. The snows in the city are nothing compared to the mountains, and he is sure that there's nothing gained by trying to make it otherwise.
"Your elders are correct," he continues, settling back against the cushions. "I know that the Speakers began to use magic less and less the more the witch trials and the so-called Burning Times began to pick up steam. They had enough problems to contend with, and adding witchcraft accusations into the mix did them no favors."
no subject
"I don't know how some of the uncles and aunties can still stick to that doctrine when we've had printing presses for four hundred years," she throws her hands up. "But what I really mean is, I expect you have journals. All sorts of journals." Her eyes blow wide. She turns to the man seated on the couch. "...at least four hundred years' worth of journals, oh!"
Now there's a trove. Any scholar of humanity would offer up their firstborn for a peek at that kind of ethnography. Sypha has to pause and take a deep breath and wrestle herself back from what feels like a bottomless tangent.
She'd demanded everything, but even everything has to start somewhere. Speaker magic is a logical point at which to enter this unknown landscape, to borrow Adrian's maps and see how she finds them. Sypha sinks down onto the table's edge, fingers tapping at her knees as she traces the uptick in witchburnings against her mental timeline of human history.
"...you know, I mentioned the printing press just now, but that overlaps with the more widespread trials. It makes sense that, as other methods of sharing useful information became available, magical assistance would be phased out in the face of greater danger."
no subject
"It isn't as if I personally recorded the actions of my life or the world every day," he points out. "That'd be...depressing."
And a little too much like still being a teenage boy. Alucard and journaling was a recipe for straight up depression, but there were some notebooks of important events. The rest? All in the dhampir's mind. Not something to share just yet though, not with Sypha so literally going through her paces.
"Also bear in mind that because of the Ottoman invasion and rule, Wallachia -- sorry, Romania -- had a different history with those events versus that of Western Europe." Some names still stuck to his tongue. "But yes. There should still be spells in your people's memory stores though, likely the caravans that have centralized in this part of the world and down into, hm. Greece, I suppose."
no subject
True, though, that his perspective is that of a single person, and one bound to be uniquely alien at that. Setting aside the immortality and the...parentage, he's also accustomed to a certain level of wealth and standing. But then Sypha supposes that's true of most surviving accounts of the ancient world. Little people haven't the time, energy, or anyone to look after their posthumous estates.
None of which helps her address the enormous gap in her understanding of her own people's history, or access that ancient knowledge right now. Sypha flings herself into the open end of the sofa, arms over her head in a posture of abject dismay and frustration. "It'll be weeks before I can get word back from any of the nearby caravans, with this weather," she bemoans, "And that's assuming any of the elders take my request seriously, or feel I can be trusted with what's probably considered apocrypha." She scrubs her hands over her face and fixes Adrian with a wry look. "I did mention they're not so pleased with the whole 'settle in a city semi permanently' decision, yes?"
no subject
...there's feelings, and he hasn't the time to reflect terribly long on them.
"I actually might like to read that argument," he admits with a terribly sly smile, before growing serious again. The matter of the Speakers is the real focus here, and how they have long contended with history.
With Sypha flinging herself into the awaiting end of the sofa, Alucard's focus shifts there. He doesn't reach out to offer comfort though, if only because it seems obvious that she'll be moving in a second and shrug his hand off.
"You alluded to it, yes," Alucard replies. "Although if you mention my name, there may be more of a response. Positive or negative though, I can't possibly say. I've long since lost track of where your people stand on me."
no subject
Which, actually, ties to his suggestion of invoking him with the elders. Sypha twists her hands together, purses her lips, and then blurts: "I've been trying to figure out how to tell them about you. I wondered at first if they would even believe me, but now there's...this." The knowledge of Speaker magic, however brittle and threadbare. She taps her fingers to her mouth.
There are rituals to accessing knowledge. The Speaker aversion to written word has as much to do with its easy access as its easy destruction - in the wrong hands, information can cause as much devastation as innovation. And so there are steps, rote questions, call-and-response patterns that must be danced to get at the things a seeker might wish to know. Approach one of the elders asking about magic, and they'd assume she wanted to talk about the weather.
"I could start there," she muses, "Ask about you as a historical figure, work my way backward through the oral chronology. It's a way to test the current opinion on you, too. I confess, it's been a long time since I've taken a folklore refresher."
no subject
It has been weird, watching that change and morph and be understood as more story than truth. Not bad...just strange. Humanity is a complicated thing, and the stories it tells itself even more so.
Far more wonderful is how Sypha's mind builds a plan. Watching it in real time is a joy, because each gear is visibly turning in her head. Processing, understanding, then putting step after step into place. He understands some of Speaker culture, but it's old and likely outdated knowledge. How to access even basic information in their histories? He's never learned.
"Given that I also don't know their current opinion of me, that's a good place to start. The last I heard it was very cautious."
For no reason other than how things unfolded as they did. Alucard then inches a little closer to Sypha on the sofa.
"What else would you like to know about the night world, since it will take a little time to contact and communicate with your people?"