reposing | reincarnation vampire lord

reincarnation vampire lord | miraclewhip

Ultimately, what ends up being the most logical choice is the one he hates the most, but there have been many people vying for the power vacuum that Dracula had left. The greedy, the pompous, self-righteous -- too many have tried to claim the empty throne in his father's castle, and all have fallen. But the courts will never be happy to leave it vacant, and he's tired of the fighting.

So he takes it himself, crushing anyone that tries to overthrow him. Otherwise, he prefers to be merciful and benevolent, even if he loathes the politics and having to outright police the rest of the creatures of the night.

It isn't the most ideal. He sees Trevor and Sypha less than he'd prefer, wanting instead to be with them, watch their children grow, to love them. And he does, but just not as much as he'd like.

"They will die one day, my lord," one of the other vampires warn. "Would you fall into the same cycle as your father before you?"

It is a thought. Alucard knows what the intention is: to turn them into vampires like him. But he could never throw them into his world, a world of night and never having daylight. To survive as does. To truly force a Belmont into what they've hunted after all this time? Unacceptable. So he lets them live as they are, human and wonderful, until their last dying day.

And it is on that day that Alucard locks himself away from the rest of the world, deep in the earth with the crypt of his mother and father. To sleep, now that there is nothing else waiting for him alive.

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Wow rude, he might need to rethink his choices of stupid crush.

Distracting Sophie with the knowledge that there’s a viewing mirror here, like the one she admired so much in the Belmont Hold (they snuck away to look at it, one winter, and she focused it on far away places where it was summer in december and on birds with brightly coloured feathers) hasn’t worked, and so he instead sighs in defeat.

“It was only for a little while!” He insists, and he’s not quite sure who he’s angry at for embarassing him in from of who. “I just got a little careless. It won’t happen again, and you don’t need to cauterise anything this time. It’s fine.”

(He said that last time, too, except for the cauterising part.)

"I don't believe you," Sophie retorts, and whether that's an actual response or just a verbalization of exasperation is anyone's guess. Alas poor Katalin, the distraction was a valiant try, and in nearly any other circumstance it almost certainly would've worked. Probably it still will, once there's a little more equilibrium and a little less worry to the moment.

But she's thoughtful a minute, as she regards Adrian, because there's one thing he hasn't actually said in the midst of all of this that seems pertinent to ask, and it turns out she's just impulsive enough to do it.

"But what do you think, about it?" she ventures at last. "You said we look like them. And that the vampire lord who took Treffy — took Katalin —"

(Oops. His proper name always feels so strange on her tongue, from how rarely she bothers to use it.)

"— thought that we are them. So. Do you think that, too?"

Cauterize anything this time what.

Before he can actually tackle that, Sophie proceeds with the question he'd been dodging for himself. Adrian glances down before he meets her gaze again.

And he can't help but the twitch of amusement from his lips, hearing it. Treffy.

"There are similarities," Adrian says softly. "Glimpses that I have seen when Katalin, things I know Trevor would have said. Your voices, your faces -- it is almost identical. But there are differences as well. Not that they bother me."

He frowns to himself. "And I would not act as if there was the expectation that either of you owe me anything, that you owe me to be them. You have your own lives. Your own bonds. You should live them."

It's a bit roundabout of an answer. As he does, when he's not really wanting to be too forthcoming. But it's not a lie, either.

Why. Why is she using that nickname. Why is everyone here conspiring to humiliating him in front of each other? How is any of this fair? He’s regretting a lot of his choices right now.

“I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.” He provides, oh so helpfully. “Something, something, excommunication. Something, something, unbaptised. Something, something, second chances.”

But he does owe Adrian, doesn’t he? He can’t leave. He made a promise. Best not to tell Sophie about that until he’s out of the first round of trouble. She always hates it when he makes promises to random monsters. Something about words having power. Something about being careful. As if he’d ever make a promise he didn’t intend to keep.

“That’s assuming he was telling the truth, of course. He also told me that he wanted me to rescue his daughter from the castle. I’m not even sure he had a daughter.”

"You would probably know more if you didn't get hit in the head so often," says Sophie, who is apparently utterly unable to resist a fairly steady stream of color commentary on Katalin's contributions. It comes of having grown up with him; there's a rhythm to the banter that's practically instinctive by now.

(They are probably making a great impression on the half-vampire soldier of legend, Adrian Fahrenheit Ţepeş. Utterly fantastic, the both of them. Though he seems to have taken care of Katalin before they'd moved the castle here, so perhaps he's at least a little more used to Katalin's...everything, by now.)

"...So that is it. You're just...bringing him back. And you would let me take him, and leave, and that would be that?"

"Who can say? Why else would Trevisan have gone through such trouble, if he was so certain? I can't claim that he was right, just that he was an idiot who thought he could use you against me. Whatever God's rules are have no bearing on me. He hardly spares any love for vampires, half or full."

The idea does... make his heart heavy. But he had given his word, to stay awake. Even if he never saw Katalin again, he would hold onto that agreement, at least until his human life was done.

"If that is what you both want, then I would not stop you," Adrian says softly.

“It was only once. And I was well enough the next day.”

He does bristle at the way that word leaves Adrian’s mouth, just a little. He only has so many ties to his first family, and that is one of them. Not half as much as he bristled at the accusation of being an excommunicant, in this life or any other.

(‘I still fucking care.’ Trevor had admitted once, drunk, in a tone that suggested that he considered still fucking caring a terrible thing, agonizing over the decision of whether to piss on the wall of the chuirch ‘Even after everything, it still fucking matters. Still fucking hurts’)

“I want to show Sophie the mirror. And the engine.” She’d always clasped her hands around empty air when she recited that part, as if there was something she were trying to grab. “Everything.”

It's good that Katalin changes the subject when he does (...again), because this time it takes. More importantly, the fact that it works as a distraction is what keeps Sophie from opening her mouth, when she's already looking fairly hard at Adrian, as though he's a puzzle she's trying to solve in realtime.

You're wrong. You do want something with us, is what she almost says. He's not willing to act on it, perhaps; he's keeping himself carefully restrained, unthreatening, even noble. But there was something about him, she could tell, that didn't like the thought of what she'd said about taking Treffy and going. Not out of malice or greed — perhaps just out of melancholy.

It's a long look. A searching look. It probably leaves little to no ambiguity about what's running through her head; her expression loses some of that guarded nature in favor of just working through the problem in front of her.

But she doesn't say it, because Katalin wants to see the mirror, and the engine, and everything. No — he wants her to see it. That means it really must be worth looking at.

And anyway, that will give her more time to watch their sleeping soldier, besides.

"Someone should tell the caravan that they're not in any danger," she reminds Katalin, even as she absently remembers she's still holding a knife and fits it back into its sheath on her belt. "...What mirror and engine?"

That is no different, her calculating gaze. For however poorly Trevor and Adrian were at communicating deeply emotional, Sypha was always so free with her emotions, understanding them better than they would understand themselves sometimes. Here it is similar, her thoughtful gaze. At least, until her curiosity seems to get the better of her.

Much to Adrian's relief.

"Inform your people they are safe, and welcome inside if they need," Adrian tells her. "I imagine Treffy would like to show you the castle's engine, as well as the mirror I possess. It can technically transport matter, but I prefer to use it purely for viewing, as needed."

He holds out his hand. "Go. I will be here when they are calm." Pointedly, he looks at Katalin, his voice gentle, "I won't be going anywhere."

“You had better not.” He grumbles, focussed more on that than he is on the use of that nickname (that! nickname!). “I’ll-“ -and he can’t come up with a threat that’s a match for how very offended he feels by the idea of Adrian returning to his slumber. “-you promised. No sleeping. Unless- unless it’s the normal sort.”

And he moves closer to Sophie, ruffling her fluffy hair with a rough hand and grinning.

“If he starts sulking and goes to sleep when we get back, you’re allowed to get mad, okay? He promised none of that shit.”

"If he tries to go back to sleep we will find his coffin and push it over so he falls out," Sophie says, or attempts to, except that the last bit gets somewhat truncated by an indignant yelp as Katalin starts messing up her hair, like he always does, like he knows she hates, and then she has to occupy herself with slapping at his hands to try to get him to stop, which probably altogether ruins any hope they might've had of actually coming off a a viable threat to anyone.

Just like old times, really.

It's probably for the best that they do go and calm the Speakers, though she's not altogether sure how well they would take the idea of a foray into this particular castle. Still —

"We have food and supplies in the camp that we can spare, if you need them," she offers to Adrian tentatively (they don't, not really, but they're Speakers. They can always spare, no matter the hardship it brings on themselves to do it). But then she glances at Katalin's neck, and can't quite hold herself back from adding, "...But if you require...something other than food. Then you must take it from me, and not him."

"I'm not going to sleep. I just said--" Adrian huffs slightly. And these two are like children, but really that's no surprise. They're young, so much younger than him. And they close, because of course they would be, but he'd never begrudge it. He could never dare to be so selfish.

"I need no supplies, but perhaps Katalin will. For me, I will be fine, nor will I drink from either of you." Adrian turns away.

"Animals are fine. I am no stranger to supplementing where I must."

For his part, Katalin seems delighted by Sophie's threat as well as by her indignant response to his messing with her hair. It's only when she mentions blood, demanding that she be the one taken from, that he bristles again. Bristles because that's wrong. No. And also because he was stupid and maybe forgot that even pleasant vampires still need to do that sort of thing. It's only when Adrian confirms that she won't be hurt that he relaxes.

"I- oughtn't need anything, I don't think. Lost my weapons, so I'll be spared that lecture for once. But it's not as if you can replace those." And there might be a little bit of a roll of his eyes at that, because protect yourselves, for fuck's sake. "But we ought to go explain things before you're missed too much."

"Then it should be quick, if we need not do much but explain ourselves." Which, speaking of explaining oneself, Katalin is absolutely going to have to do on the way from the castle's doors to the heart of the camp, because there's quite a bit that understandably can't be detailed right in front of the person it's being detailed about, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to know it anyway.

Almost instinctively, she gravitates a little closer to Katalin's side, as though she's already forgotten that just seconds before she was mad at him for going after her hair, and lightly rests the tips of her fingers on his arm, near his elbow. "And then we will be back? To see the mirror, and the engines."

Quietly, he watches how they are, the closeness, how she goes to his side, how he knows that Katalin is so intensely fond of her, so clearly in love with her. It's charming, but it is also an old ache. No, there is nothing that he would ask of them. It would be selfish to assume anything.

"Of course. I will arrange some equipment for Katalin while you are gone."

When they do leave, Adrian lets out an uneasy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can't afford to dwell, so he tries not to, leaving to head further into the castle for a brief time if only to reach his personal collection. Some of Trevor's old items, kept in suspension, locked away from the rest of the world.

Morningstar is not here, left to the Belmont family, but he does fetch Vampire Killer, scowling as it burns his fingertips, but nothing he won't heal from. A pair of daggers, and a sword that Adrian himself had made for Trevor.

It's difficult to see the equipment again, but if Katalin were to take it, he doesn't think he'd regret it. And what waste it would be if a hunter was not using them, in any case?

Adrian returns, placing the equipment down to the floor, sighing as his hands start to mend from the contact, silver and consecrated items not exactly agreeing with him. He settles into the throne with some reluctance, wrinkling his nose at the pile of dust that was once Trevisan.

"Fuck you," he mutters at the dust, blowing it away.

He's grateful. He's so very grateful. But he also- is going to have a lot of awkward explaining to do to speakers. It's not every day one shows up in front of one's not-girlfriend's family in Dracula's Fucking Demon Castle.

...it's not a wording he's ever used for the place before (he's never had reason to think about the castle, not until he found himself trapped there) but it seems correct.

"I think he's out of earshot." He says once they've walked just a little way, though it's always hard to tell what 'within earshot' is when one is talking about a vampire. "You can tell me exactly how much trouble I'm in now."

"Oh, you knew that was what I was waiting for, did you," Sophie retorts, casting him a sidelong look as they walk, like she half expects him to up and disappear again if she dares take her eyes off of him.

Still, what simmering exasperation she's been holding inside her is also the sort that's quick to burn out, and after a minute her shoulders slump as indignation is quickly replaced by softer concern. "You were trying hard to make me like him. And for him to like me. Why? Because he got rid of the vampire who took you? Or because you think there is something to this business of — of us being people he remembers from centuries ago?"

It's a thought that leaves her broody, and she can't precisely explain why. "You know he's not telling the truth, when he says he wants nothing from us."

"I don't know how to make people not-sad." He admits, sighing.

"He said he was going to go to sleep, once this was done. Forever, if he was allowed. And- I hate it. I fucking hate it so, so much." And he still can't quite place his finger on why, other than the obvious. "It's not fair. He woke up just because I needed him, and then he's going away again. And I can't do anything about it. I don't understand enough about this shit to believe it or doubt it, but I know that you're- good at making people want to be alive. I thought you could help, even if I can't."

"...You...want me to make him want to be alive," she repeats slowly, like she's testing every word, because it's such a Treffy thing to say. To meet someone, and immediately care so much about them (if not individually, then at least about their position, their circumstances — he cares so much about the Speakers even when they're taken as a whole instead of individuals), and to want to help them so badly...

No, it's not as though it comes as any surprise. It's one of the things that's endearing about him, frankly. Endearing, and a little stupid. But mostly endearing.

It's likewise a very Treffy thing, to realize his limitations and clumsily but earnestly grasp for a workaround to them. It's far from the first time he's done this in particular (how many times had she heard that, when they were younger? I can't, but you can! Please, Sophie?), and she's...far from immune to it. He makes himself a bridge like this, the go-between, and that makes it easy. She doesn't have to have feelings about saving the half-vampire Adrian so long as Treffy does; she doesn't even have to worry about wanting it one way or another, because Treffy can just want it enough for the both of them.

It's what she thinks about, the whole walk down to the Speaker camp, through all of the explanations and excuses and apologies. It's what she thinks about as she finds Treffy a change of clothes regardless of whether he thinks he needs them, and some dried plums for the both of them. It's what she thinks about as she chews on her snack and sucks the flavor off her fingers as they make their way back up to the castle, and by the time they've made it the whole way, she's —

Well. She's the Speaker magician of the two of them, but that doesn't mean Treffy doesn't have a certain magic of his own, that he never seems to fail at working over her.

When they arrive back, she knocks on the door for good measure, whether Adrian already has it open in anticipation of them or not. It just seems like the right thing to do, knocking. And either way, it'll let him know they're back.

"Come in," Adrian's voice calls out, soft and sure. "You know you are welcome, both of you. It is your house as much as it is mine."

At his seat, Adrian has not moved, watching the two familiar figures at the door. It reminds him of one of the times Sypha and Trevor had returned to him. Immediately bickering with Trevor fondly, Sypha throwing herself into his arms--

But it is but a memory. One of many that makes him yearn to bury himself into his coffin and let the world go by, but he had promised. He will live, for as long as they do. He is fond of Katalin and he likes how fierce Sophie is. He can manage a few decades, probably.

"I've left out equipment for you, Katalin. It is yours." A tired smile. "Try not to lose it."

In many ways, this is how it has always been, vampire castle or no. He was only with the speakers for a few weeks before it became clear that he would never be one of their. But if anything stuck there, it was that Speakers go where they are needed. He can't abide by the nonviolence. He doesn't care either way how information is preserved as long as it is. Talk of prophecy and stories from the future is entirely lost on him. But he can be where he is needed. That he understands.

(The speakers were there for him, when they pulled a filthy, screaming child from the ruins of his home and fed and clothed and tended to him even in a harsh winter when they could ill afford another mouth to feed. And they won't let him be there for them, and so he has to be there for everyone else instead.)

He finds good that needs to be done in the world. And he does his best. And when his best isn't what's needed he goes to find Sophie and she does things properly. It's the way things have always been. Probably the way they always will be, as long as he doesn't get himself kidnapped by any more vampires.

He's wearing a borrowed speaker robe when he returns (even though he really did not need to. He only just changed into those too-big clothes this morning! He's half convinced that it was just a trick to allow the speakers to check him over for injury.), carrying the clothes that Adrian gave to him in his arms. He's about to apologetically return the clothes when-

-oh. Weapons.

"Shit, it's made the old way and everything."

They all braid their own Vampire Killers, once they're old enough. Leather around a core of silver, a message to a Sara burned into the leather on the inside of the handle. Comfort and thanks and an introduction from a new hunter to their protector. This Vampire Killer is a little different. Demon leather, rather than cow hide. Gives it more weight. The messages to Sara burned into the braided strands and somewhat visible, rather than hidden on the back side of the leather wrapped around the whip's handle. The language of it latin rather than old french.

"Look, look!" He yells, pushing the whip into Sophie's face. "They stopped making them this way after the household fell. It's heavier than mine, and-"

Okay yes there are other things to care about here but also IT'S A REALLY GOOD WHIP AND HE WANTS TO BE EXCITED ABOUT IT.

"Please do not shove it into my face," Sophie protests, as Katalin proceeds to do precisely that. But a hint of a cloud passes over her features as she takes in the sight of it in Katalin's hand, the length of it, the grip, the three of them in the room all together. It leaves her with an uneasy feeling, somehow, for a reason she can't seem to put her finger on. This whole time, she's been the one skeptical of Adrian, and Katalin has been the one endeared to him, and yet the sight of him with the whip in his hand leaves her with the nebulous, pervasive feeling that the two of them are about to start fighting.

It makes no sense. There's no reason to think that. Yet no amount of telling herself that seems to shake the feeling in the slightest.

Frowning, and somehow compelled to try to shake that feeling, she turns her attention to the interior of the castle and gives it an actual proper look this time, which comes with the added benefit of looking as though she's pointedly ignoring Katalin and his antics.

"You were, I think, going to show us around?" she directs toward Adrian, a careful question as she continues looking around with a furrow to her brow. "Once Treffy is done playing with his toys, that is."

A soft chuckle escapes Adrian as he watches how thrilled Katalin is with his new equipment. It is better for them to see use, and no matter what the truth is keeping them contained will do nothing. Katalin remains terribly endearing. Frankly, he's almost impressed with how the vampires were heartless enough to capture such a delightful boy.

Adrian gestures for them.

"Of course," he says, grinning. "When you're both prepared, we can go to the lab, then stop by the engine room. We have a library as well, if it interests you."

"They're not toys." He pouts, disappointed that Sophie doesn't understand how amazing the whip is. He gets enthusiastic over her weird plant things! It's only fair! "They're treasures. Even in the Belmont house, I never saw a real old-style Vampire Killer."

And they're his. His. And that feels correct somehow. Not just because they're things that he wants, not just because having a whip in his hands feels more natural than not. But because it feels like they've always been his. His birthright, in a way that nothing in the Belmont house ever was. The daggers are weighted differently than the ones he used before in a way that feels more correct in his hands, short things with more of the weight in the handles than in the blades. The sword is-

-the sword is difficult to look at, in truth.

There's a language to it, sure as any that Sophie knows. The pommel looks to be unusually heavy, so to act as a counterweight to the blade. Best for fighting in close quarters, to keep the weapon as controlled as possible at the cost of the power behind wide, sweeping slashes. A weapon that wasn't expected to be used at mid-range. A small portion of unsharpened metal near the guard, to allow both hands to be safely used for a one-handed sword, almost certainly made that way to account for the danger of fighting enemies physically stronger than oneself. The length of the blade, the depth and width of the fuller, both speak of a user exactly his height and built (or, at least, what his build had been a few months ago).

So many fairly unusual choices in its make, all suited perfectly for a user who would have looked and fought exactly as he did.

He looks away from it. He'll. Ask. Later, probably.

"I'm ready. I want her to see everything."

"I want to see the engine," Sophie adds almost immediately, even though it's a deviation from the order of events laid out by their host, which is probably rude, but. It's a castle that moves, a massive sedentary structure thousands of times bigger than a covered wagon; of course she's interested in seeing how someone could ever make such a grotesque thing go from place to place in the blink of an eye.

(...Grotesque? That's an odd way of putting it. Where did that come from?)

It also doesn't go unnoticed the way that Adrian's smile had changed, seeing Katalin's enthusiasm over his treasures. He'd looked sad before, and tired, as though his humor was a faintly-glowing ember trying to stay alive on a cold day. But watching them — watching Katalin, at least — has fanned those flames back into something meaningful. Something more alive.

He looks better when he smiles like that. More...something. Natural. Less cold. Less suffocating.

"Or...whatever makes the most sense first, I suppose," she amends, a little sheepishly.

reincarnation vampire lord | miraclewhip

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