With matercula

[cryptsleeper]

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.]

Comments

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard's in the corridor too quickly. His natural speed is to blame of course, and it takes effort real effort for him to slow down. It means nearly tripping over his own feet and the carpet below, and he'd do just that if he hadn't braced a palm on the wall to catch himself.

He turns to face his mother. The expression there is not the look of terror drenched in blood that greeted her in Târgoviște. It is a cousin of that look though, wild eyed and unsure of what it's just seen and where such a thing might end.]

He needs us to move the castle, emphasis on the word now. Said that...[He isn't talking in complete sentences. Alucard uses that moment of realization to center himself. Acting wildly is not helpful in this moment.] He said that you would have written instructions somewhere, and that it may be a two person job.

[None of that justifies the why of it.]

There were scant details he gave me, father only spoke of an old problem from France sweeping in. Have you ever seen him look alarmed?

[matercula]

...At least once.

[But this is no time to reminisce about the day she went into labor with Adrian. This is evidently an emergency, and one with no time to spare on idle pleasantries.]

It's upstairs, in our room. I haven't thought about those instructions in ages, but —

[She looks up the stairs, all ten billion of them, and at the path to her room which will almost assuredly take a good fifteen minutes to walk, because this castle is really bullshit sometimes.]

I won't exactly be getting there quickly.

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard's eyes follow that of his mother, and they rest on the stairs. The enemy so far as there is ever an enemy allowed in this house for any length of time. He has long understood the logic of the construction, making it harder for those that would do his father harm to find him, but it is the absolute worst thing in emergencies.

So there's only one thing to do.]

Get on my back then. Do you know the exact place where they are in your room?

[He's already closing the gap between them.]

[matercula]

Of course. In the room, in a box under the bed.

[Amid the LOVE POEMS and the other notions she hoards for safekeeping. But he moves, and she does too, and they converge on each other easily, until she's able to get around behind him and hop, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind in order to hang on.]

On loose sheets. Not in a journal.

[cryptsleeper]

I'll leave you to dig around under there. It'll waste time if I do it.

[He can't possibly know about the POETRY but Alucard understands that his mother knows exactly where to go. No flopping around, no squinting at pages to determine if this, that, or the other is the right one.]

Hold tight.

[Then it's full speed. The thing he didn't do with his mother back in Wallachia until they were further away. In their home there is the freedom to move quickly without having to be subtle, without sneaking around for fear of being discovered. Fear of being branded whatever new trendy term those who fear what Alucard and his father are, and what his mother might be of association. There's only speed, only Alucard sprinting up staircase after staircase.

It only takes two or three minutes to reach the bedroom. From bedroom to engine room, two more. Five minutes to gather everything is far better than functioning at normal speed.

Once Alucard is at that bedroom door, he stops. Crouches down so his mother can slide off with dignity, and he leaves her to look for the pages so that he can catch his breath.]

I'd be fool to think that you've been the primary mover of the castle at least once before, wouldn't I?