cryptsleeper | With matercula

With matercula

Continued from here!

[The way back to the castle brought no surprises. No mobs. Nothing. There was only the road and there was only silence. For most of, Alucard slept, stirring only when there was a change in terrain or something felt off. His sleep wasn't deep. It was just enough to take the reins from his mother if he absolutely had to.

That never came to pass, and in the foothills of the Carpathians, familiar spires rose above the treeline. For any other travelers, the word to describe the spires would be loom. Alucard considered them welcoming. They were home, the horrors far, far behind them and any church hounds were equally distant.

Alucard sleeps for a solid week, having not bothered to eat before collapsing on his bed and only taking a cursory five minutes to try and remove all the blood from his person. (The tattered remains of his shirt and trousers were exchanged for sleep clothes, at least.) It's longer than he expected, the expanse of energy hadn't felt that intense at the time. But it was, and his body decided that those same abilities that had propelled Alucard ever forward needed that much time to reset.

When he wakes, there's an uncertainty that everything before wasn't a dream. It's only when he walks over to the mirror to look at himself, enough blood still there (his hair's a matted mess, it's not a good look) to remind him: yes. Everything transpired as you remember it.

The next part is routine. Cleaning all the blood off. Finding clean clothes. Changing the sheets on his bed not because of the few spots of dried blood, but because the stink of it is alarming at best. It helps keep his mind away from the next wave of emotion that he knows has to hit sooner or later. The emotional one, the one that's going to take more time to get through. Guilt, grief, anger, relief, all of it, a churning mess that will interact with two others and make those same feelings flare like wildfires. He ought to eat first.

But he doesn't. Alucard walks the halls of the castle instead. His parents should know he's awake.]

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It nobly carried us to our freedom. There was talk of ceding some choice lands to it. Perhaps a barony.

[Some choice words may also have been uttered about the various Wallachian territories and how a horse would be better suited to govern them than the fools currently in power. Absurdity occasionally flows freely throughout every member of this family, perhaps.]

...Because of this?

[She makes a soft hmmm noise under her breath, like she's mulling over how she feels about that.]

Out of concern for your own safety? Or because you don't want to be away from me?

As good as making the horse a boyar might be, I have to wonder who has been re-reading Suetonius.

[It goes without saying that maybe following after Caligula is a bad idea. In fact, it is a horrid idea, but at least everyone can agree on the fact.

But talking about horses as boyars is a much better conversation topic than this other one, and the honest truth of Alucard's answer.]

Yes.

[To all of them and a few unspoken parts too.]

[It's her nature, somewhat, to approach darkness with dry humor — a seed cultivated over her many years in Vlad's company, tempering his colder moods with brisk wit. In motherhood, that tendency had taken on a softer, lighter touch. Less of a rapier, more of a toy sword.]

There you have it. We'll call him Incitatus; a perfect fit.

[The brevity of his response piques her interest, however; Alucard has always been one to say one word when he means thousands of them. So, in that way that only a mother can, she nudges.]

...It would be good for you, to love someone other than me.

It will be at least fifty years before anyone else can appreciate that joke.

[This poor horse probably doesn't deserve the name, but there's a little bit of relief in being able to make light of something with so much darkness around the castle otherwise. But now the horse is left be, for a topic that feels a little too out of left field. But there's no scandalized teenager response to it, the groans of mother! and asking why the topic has pivoted in this direction.

There's something much calmer instead, practical even. Because between the two options, Alucard knows how he wants to sound. Even if the other response is lurking in the back of his mind.]

There will be time for it. Just not now. There's more important things.

It's not always something you're able to choose. It may well find you first, without being invited in.

[Discreetly, her previously faint smile widens just a touch. Just because he'd taken the smooth and rational response doesn't mean she isn't fully aware that the other was considered. Sometimes it's nice to make him squawk a little. An occasional flustering is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.]

But I mean it. It teaches you about people, and about yourself, and about...growing, in a way that you haven't before. If all you do is watch your parents, then all you'll know how to do is imitate your parents. You've always had my love, and you always will. But finding it, and struggling through learning to foster it...that's something very different.

[Without being invi...that gets a momentary squint, because Alucard had heard the story of how his parents first met time and again and that absolutely felt like a very bad joke.

And his mother's right. Of course she is, and there's a little slump in Alucard's shoulders that say it without the words ever leaving his mouth. This entire experience has been about the pull of both of his parents, the all too delicate balance of his dual nature, and the fact that while it was so easy to default to the human side because of his mother's influence, there was so much more to learn to control.

None of that erases the fact that he's not ready for this conversation yet. Never mind the notion of leaving the house for a while.]

I know you mean it. But this hasn't settled yet. [Not the fighting. He hasn't had a second to sit through his own emotions alone.]

[You know what doesn't come in without being invited? Vampires.

Regardless, she sits up a little when she feels him shift, turning to face him a little more properly.]

I know. You may have to just grin and bear a certain amount of mother-henning for the near future. I keep thinking of things I want to tell you. The important things that, a week and a day ago, I thought could've kept awhile.

[And then that quiet contentment had all changed so fast, and she'd come so close to missing out on the chance to ever tell him any of it at all.]

So just know that finding someone to love will make your mother happy. And that if love does find you before you go looking for it, that I expect you to give it a fair chance.

...I think I can live with that.

[He says it with an expression on his face that lets some of that teenaged embarrassment through, but he does understand the impulse now. It should have been obvious without his mother saying it, but that same embarrassment clouded the longer view. The more empathetic view, and that empathy is even more important now. He doesn't say that there will be a few more embarrassed faces out of it, that much goes without saying.

Not that Alucard would trade the world for it, he's proven that much already.]

To both parts. I--

[There is a noise from the pit of Alucard's stomach that just rumbles outward, threatening to shake the sofa. A very pink tinge colors Alucard's cheeks, his stomach's message clear. You haven't eaten in a week.]

...did not eat before you slept.

[Busted. Vlad probably heard that rumble all the way in whatever corner of the castle he's disappeared off to, much less Lisa, who's sitting right next to him.]

Would you like to go find something for yourself, or shall I come with you?

[The sofa moved. Alucard's sure of it, and he puts a hand to his forehead because really, sleep was just much more important at the time. He needed it way more than food or blood at the time.]

I think I can manage on my own for this much.

[It's a quiet acknowledgement that while he doesn't want to leave his mother's side, there's a need to sit on his own at least for a little while. There's a sense of guilt for that need, but it's pointless guilt. His mother's more likely to encourage him to take that hour to himself and recognize what it really is. The first part of processing his own actions in this.]

Give me a kiss, then, and go.

[She rolls her shoulders a little, stretching out a bit after what has proven to be a long stint of curling up with her family. And deep down, Alucard isn't the only one reluctant to separate; already, the notion crosses her mind of going to find Vlad again, drawn into the gravitational pull of simply wanting to be close to someone.

But it's an impulse that she's capable of examining, and appreciating, and moderating. It's also one that she knows she should mitigate if for no other reason than that her son will feel less guilty about the separation if she doesn't make it seem as though she'll be inconsolably lonely the minute he's gone.]

I think I'm going to go find some musical instrument or another to bang around on, in the meanwhile. The organ, perhaps. Anything to make a little pretty noise.

[That's the easiest request in the world to fulfill. Alucard shifts and kisses one of his mother's cheek, then the other for good measure. It's feather light, and now that will just be a part of every farewell, even if it's just to go to the next room over.

Some routines are all too easy to fall into.

Alucard rises to his feet, and at mention of the organ, just nods. The thing is horridly loud, there is no question about where she is in the castle. Of course, the thing does bring one minor concern to mind.]

So long as it doesn't cause an avalanche up here in the mountains. I've been convinced for years that he has it at maximum volume on purpose.

You can't convince him to play it anymore, either. We know him too well to be suitably thunderstruck by its impressive roar.

[It takes a rare and special sort of person to make fun of Actual Dracula and his over-the-top theatrical habits. If Vlad is eavesdropping on them, and there's probably at least a thirty percent chance that he is by now, he's probably huffing about it.]

...I expect he'll come to find me, too. So you ought to have a little time to yourself.

[Before the interrogation that is, inevitably, coming.]

Means we could turn the volume down. If we really wanted.

[In fairness, they are extremely over the drop and theatrical and it's probably to Alucard's detriment to be taken seriously that he's inherited the drama too. Which means that organ is never, ever getting turned down from the eleven that it's at.]

I think that should be enough time to make up for a week's worth of not eating.

[And it will be just enough extra time to brace for what is certain to be a new and unfun entry in the Who's the Ţepeş family member? debate. Among the many others. Alucard knows that this conversation has helped, mostly because it has been so level headed. Then again, had it really addressed the deeper parts of that horrible night? Not in any particular detail, beyond the bishop.

Those words see Alucard's departure, down to the kitchen. There's no particular thought process about what he wants to put in his stomach, he just goes along the shelves and picks whatever catches his eye. Some of this cheese, some of that smoked venison shank, more of that rye bread, and so on until there's a small market around him. There's probably a part of him that needs to drink as well, but that's less dire. He's gone for longer without.

There's an extra hour before the interrogation, as it turns out. Mostly because someone seems to have taken the drama jokes seriously for a short while. The only thing Alucard tries to manage is to ensure that there's some kind of physical barrier between himself and his father, just to ensure that any movements are slowed for just a second. It doesn't occur to him that even just having a coffee table between three triangulated armchairs is going to contribute to the drama instead.]

[If he weren't properly feared as the lord of the night with all of the denizens of hell at his disposal, it might almost be comical to observe the way Vlad has been quasi-drifting around the castle over the past week, in the times when he isn't attached to Lisa's side. He stays occupied, of course, and never gives off the impression of being at a loss, but sometimes he simply turns up in odd places as though out of a lack of anything better to do, and sometimes he skulks without properly making his presence known, as though trying to keep to himself while still keeping tabs on his family, too.

It's telling, perhaps, that he always favors Lisa. Even if it weren't for the natural possessiveness and protectiveness that has arisen out of the recent events in Târgoviște, he would still largely choose to seek out his wife over his son, given the choice. But perhaps that's a mixture of blessing and curse in a time like this, when Alucard needs his own space to process his thoughts, and certainly dreads the thought of being confronted with his father's presence with no warning.

The organ plays for around half of the hour that Lisa and Vlad are absent. For the other half, it's quiet, which is likewise a mixed blessing — no shouting, but no apparent indication of what they might be doing instead.

Eventually, though, the time comes to reunite, and it's Vlad who makes his appearance first, which means Lisa must not be far behind. Still, he's imposing as he enters, tall and broad and still with an air of brooding that burns like embers behind his eyes. His one concession to relaxing seems to be that Lisa has convinced him to take his cape off, but otherwise, he's every bit the vampire that terrified men whisper about in the shadows.

Son, he intones — his first direct acknowledgement of Alucard since he'd woken up and found them in the parlor. He'd been keeping hands-off up until now for the sake of preserving the peace and stillness among them, but it seems that time has come to an end.]

[Alucard has had a lifetime of his father's moods and dramatics. They have been uncommon (or at least he's been kept away from the worst of them), but not wholly alien. So while there has been some immunity built up to that presence, that immunity is not total. There are occasions where all the legends and truths within them are all too apparent. Like now.

For all the presence, for all that opening tone is a thing to be feared, Alucard's not about to shrink in his seat. He keeps himself upright, hands resting on the arms of the chair. There's a sense of not calm or even confidence, but of accepting that wherever this goes, it is well worth it.

That aura is likely to disappear in a moment or so, but for now, it lingers. Makes it so much easier to meet his father's eyes without flinching.]

Father.

[Cool. Collected. Ready to see where this ends, if only to get it over with.]

[For all his severity, there may be in Dracula's demeanor a discernible sliver of something akin to approval of the way that Alucard carries himself, faced with his father at his most authoritarian. It's a favorable start to the encounter, that Alucard holds his ground, calm but without overt challenge. A Ţepeş, after all, does not cower or snivel or hide behind his mother's skirts.

However, Vlad doesn't sit, at least not immediately. Staying on his feet renders him considerably taller than his son, whether it's a choice he's made consciously or not. Perhaps it's merely a sign that he refuses the comfort of sitting at rest just yet; there's a fair chance he'll give in to the urge to pace, in a minute or two.

You've rested and fed.

A question without asking a question. A preamble to something they both know is coming.

The time has come for you to speak, Vlad says bluntly, turning a gaze onto his son that, while calm, is still filled with scrutiny. Leave nothing out.]

[That wasn't how this was supposed to start. But there's no point in protesting that fact, it's too sharp of contrast to how Alucard is carrying himself at the moment. There's no allowance for vulnerability, and the guilt that's about to well up inside him has to be pushed aside. The only thing left to do is to tap into the more inhuman part of him that can lay out every inch of this with a detached clarity.

So he does. Begins with how he learned what had happened and then how he journeyed to Târgoviște. The decisions made on the way, such as that between destroying the bishop or rescuing his mother, the second one was much more important. That if there was a way to get his mother out that meant his own life, that was an acceptable risk. Damage would be minimized if at all possible because that would be his mother's expectation. Each step showing where there was a thoughtful choice or just Ţepeş logic. A 75-25 split, really.

It's easy to talk about until the death count begins. He's always known that it's too much for his mother, not enough for his father. He's matter-of-fact about what things happened, but there's little said about particular injuries or methods of death. Only that as he moved forward, there were moments of rage that meant more clean up for whoever found the body. The death wasn't the point, they were obstacles.

There's a curious lack of detail about the state Alucard found his mother in. Nothing about bindings, about the cell, anything except that he made it, and by that time was half painted in red. His father doesn't need those details, he just needs to know that bindings were seen to and that they got away.

From the cell onwards, it becomes easier again. Perhaps it's because Alucard assumes his mother has shared some of the details herself. Perhaps because it's so close to the end of the explanation. No matter what, it ends the same way. The horse, the castle, and now this discussion.

And with it all laid bare, Alucard braces himself.]

[The reasoning Alucard puts on display as he lays out his recitation proves to be a double-edged sword, both serving his cause and leaving his father to bristle at it. It helps in the clarity it lends, building a framework of narrative that the details then color in; it also helps, to some degree, by preempting targeted questions about the choices he'd made by showing in advance what he'd considered when he made them.

But the relative coldness of his reasoning lacks the fire of rage that clearly burns behind Dracula's eyes, and on some level it might truly have been better for him if he'd been able to admit to flying into a fury and succumbing to reckless anger, if only because it's a response that would have resonated better with his father's emotions.

As it is, it creates a terrible duality between them — one only made worse by the memory of the name Alucard. People call him the opposite of his father. In a moment like this, opposition breeds and warrants a certain level of contempt. There is, after all, a very slender difference between what his mother would want and what someone who loves her with such abandon might believe she deserves.

(For her sake, there should be peace. For her sake, there should be war.)

I find myself wondering, his father says in a slow and chilling way, whether my son could possibly be afraid of a town full of pitiful men and their pitiful arts. Do you think you lack power enough to challenge them?

(For little more than an insult, Dracula alone once slaughtered and impaled forty merchants. The near execution of a wife and mother — the magnitude of such a transgression is so much greater than a mere insult.)

Is my son so weak that fools and peasants pose such a difficulty to him?

Dracula's hand comes to rest on the back of the chair set to hold him, long nails curling in toward the wood of the frame supports in an unholy grip.

You are my son, Dracula says, with harsh emphasis on the last two words. Is it beyond you to preserve that which is yours and answer insult in kind, such that you are merely left to choose one or the other?]

[What Alucard hears in all of his father's questions is an invitation to have a fight about this from another perspective. He's not terribly shocked that there's no recognition of what he did do (all three of them are here he thinks, so is there any value to this?), but there is a note of iritation at it.

But he still doesn't flinch, even with his father towering over him. There's only calm, there's only a steady breath.]

I sound rational about all of this now because it is a week behind me. [This is in fact a lie. He sounds rational because he's hardly had time to think it over in full, tease out the implications of actions, and because he's trying to put off the inevitable fight.] And it was not picking one or the other. It was knowing that what you both would demand of me would be opposite from each other, and trying to respect both of those desires.

Beyond all of that, there was still only one point: getting out with the both of us alive. Or at least with her alive. [Shit. Shouldn't have said that, but at least it's clear how very willing Alucard was to put all parts of himself on the line.] Everything else can come after.

[But the first question, that still needs addressing. But the honest answer, I've never had to control my anger like that before, and could have made a mistake that cost us both our lives and where would you be? doesn't get said. It's a near thing though.]

Their arts didn't deserve my time until after we were out of the city.

[What's probably becoming quickly apparent, as the conversation unfolds, is the fact that Lisa's absence from the room almost certainly isn't the product of coincidence. Whatever discussion she and Vlad might've had in the hour preceding this one, it seems to have included the stipulation that he have the chance to speak to their son individually before they all come together again, and however apprehensive Lisa might've been about what discussion might take place during that father and son conversation, she evidently hadn't been able to prevent it.

But perhaps that's not such a bad thing, in her estimation. A hard thing, certainly, but perhaps she'd suspected that there would be a particular catharsis in it for Alucard — the space for all the things he can't bear to confess in front of his mother to come out.

They put their hands on your mother, Vlad says in a quiet voice that sounds like steel, and there's something very particular in the way he pronounces the phrase "your mother". It's not a term used interchangeably with her given name. It's specific and pointed and possessive, with all the implicit emphasis on yours.

Vlad's lip curls back beneath his mustache, and his fingers tighten again on the chair back. They touched her and you let them live. No, you act as though they pose a threat to you. Those insects!

His eyes are flashing now, sharp and red. What possible interest could you have in answering vermin like that with such a feeble response? You could have carved fire and blood into that town and emerged with the both of you unscathed.]

[This is a softer rage than Alucard expected to be greeted with. It isn't that he's unprepared for the questions being asked either, it's more a matter of the pitch and biting back the more flippant remarks that still try to surface.

It is also the first time that rage of this magnitude has been directed on him. All other things growing up, they were small infractions or just stupid choices that for what his father was, were met with fairly proporinate reactions. This boiled down to why didn't you murder everyone in the capital even though you've said it about five times already?

Gold eyes meet red ones. The first thing Alucard wants to reply with why should I care about responding to vermin in the first place? And why are you so interested in it yourself? should never, ever, ever be uttered.

His defense instead, such as it is, is no stronger. But there's a calmness to it, because it isn't a defense exactly. It's a statement of very simple fact.]

I am still half human. The threat does exist, and it might have cost my mother's life if I forgot that fact in all of this.

[The next part shouldn't be said, especially as there's more of an edge to it. Low simmering anger, but not his father's rage.]

Every time you have responded to insults, you have been able to take the time and plan down to details that most would never think to account for. I didn't even have twenty four hours. Beyond that, I have to consider the budget of energy I have available to me. If I had thrown myself wholly into it and then collapsed, what then? Neither one of us would be here.

[It's evident, then, that Alucard's characterization of his father's tendencies toward vengeance surprise Dracula; he straightens up a bit, head shifting back just slightly in his only outward sign of surprise. But it's a true point, cast in that light: where Dracula recalls those events mostly in terms of the actions taken and the emotion that prompted it, the lead-up to his instances of revenge tends to go mostly overlooked. Time is something that means so little to a creature like Dracula. Power, as well, sits strangely disproportionate in his eyes to the realities of others.

It's not enough to cool Dracula's rage; the wellsprings of guilt and anger and hurt that are fueling it run too deep for it to be extinguished so easily. But it's enough to knock the flow of the conversation sideways, set it off-course.

And now that you are here? Dracula says almost carefully. Here, where you have both time and power at your disposal. How do you intend to respond now?]

[It is very hard to contain the very real surprise Alucard feels that he point lands and makes his father take a step back in consideration. The most he expresses is a moment of real confusion in his eyes, but then it's back to keeping everything in check. Because he has only temporarily redirected this conversation. His father's courses of action, once planned, are never deterred so easily.]

The honest response is I don't know. [He has been asleep for a week, after all.] I've...been caught up on discussions. I don't disagree that the bishop needs to be removed. Destroying the cathedral is a bare minimum, but that is not within my ability to do so. Not in a way that would force something beyond fear and fear alone.

[As you say, I have had sufficient time to plan.

Now the pacing resumes, as Vlad's iron grip on the back of the chair eases enough for him to start moving around the room instead, less consumed with raw ire — though certainly not any less dangerous for it. Quite the contrary, without the inherent recklessness that comes with rage, his planning turns all the more deadly for its uncompromising calculation.

And I have decided to meet their transgressions with retribution in kind. They burned Lisa's house, so they shall see their houses burn. They subjected her to torture, so I shall send my denizens to torture them. They would see her tied to a stake, so I will adorn stakes with their bodies. I will take their wives. I will leave their sons to weep. And to they, who showed her no compassion, I shall have no compassion.]

With matercula

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