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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"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.

The abrupt insistence from Sophie earns a cock of Adrian's head, but he cracks a wry smile at her. "If you are that excited to see it, I would not deny you," he says, assuring. "Follow me."

As he moves through the castle, he keeps an even pace to ensure they are not left behind, and also to allow Sophie to properly look at the interior. Not much of it has changed, not unless he willed it -- and Adrian had never desired to really make many adjustments from his father's original creation.

"I admit, I don't know how precisely the story has been passed down for the Speakers," Adrian says. "But I could never forget. In the Belmont hold, there was a viewing mirror that we were able to use in order to track my father, and Sypha-- brilliant, powerful Sypha found a spell to take control of the castle. While we worked, Trevor Belmont held off some of the night horde sent to invade us."

They pass by many of the gears that help generate power for the engine, and Adrian remarks with amusement, "I recall the aftermath of her struggle with the engine. It destroyed it, along with melting the gears. It took quite a bit of time to fix the entire thing, but that was also a testament to her abilities. To overcome the intent of the castle following my father's will is no small feat."

And hovering in the engine room is the engine itself, the familiar twenty sided device, powered by science and magic alike. Recreating that, too, was difficult, but Sypha-- Sypha had been willing to help. It would have taken so many years to do it himself, but Sypha cut that time.

"I know about the viewing mirror." He pipes up, because there are so very few things that he knows about that he has to take pride in the ones that he does. "We've used it before. For looking at- they're called 'parrots', I think?"

Brightly coloured birds that imitate what they hear, anyway. And other things, as well, all the wonderful faraway things that Sophie knows of, but those are the ones he remembers best. Animals that speak like people, but without being the night creatures.

Everything else is familiar only from stories and from old, burning aches. He remembers the Speaker's stories, how Trevor Belmont barricaded the hold with only a single plank of wood. (And that phrase, more than anything, is an indication of the correctness of the Speakers saying that paper is a dead thing. On paper, that seems like an impressive feat. With the addition of tone of voice, it sounds very, very different).

He recognizes the engine again though, now, and he points it out to Sophie, the kind of pride in his voice that makes it seem like finding it for her was an achievement rather than a sequence of unfortunate coincidences that somehow ended well for him.

"That's it. The engine!"

"There is a part of the story that was very emphatic," Sophie muses aloud as they walk, growing more and more taken with the sight of the castle's workings the deeper in that they go. "I always wondered a little bit about it — we care very much about the accuracy of all stories, of course, but stories as important as that one must be preserved exactly as they are told, however they are first told. So, we have to preserve it the way it was given. No matter how it was given."

Despite herself, her cheeks go a little pink, beneath the freckles. "So, when we tell the story, we recite that Sypha Belnades dragged the castle to rest atop the Belmont Hold. And...also that it held still, but not because she broke it."

Editorializing? From my Speaker of origin? Whoever would have thought.

Her skepticism of earlier is melting away with every step, however — not because anything in the castle is necessarily convincing her otherwise, but because she's gradually forgetting to be skeptical in the face of the wonder of the castle's interior. It's as though she can almost see the now-mended gears melting beneath tongues of blue flame, how they must have twisted and warped from trying to fight against the intent imposed upon them. She can imagine the devastation that such a thing must have caused. She can imagine the birds pausing to perch inside before fluttering back out the open doors.

(Which is a strange thing to imagine. But she can imagine it.)

But what really pushes all other thoughts out of her mind is the sight of the twenty-sided control hovering in the engine room, waiting for them, and even before Katalin points it out to her she knows what it is, and even before anyone says anything, she knows what it does. Knows how to move her hands, to wrap around it. Knows what awful force it would take to make it behave, and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it can be made to behave.

Her hands are up in the air before she even realizes she's moved, shoulder-width apart and angled to open her palms, like using a trick of perspective to pretend to pinch the moon between two fingers, like she could push and turn and spin that device if she really wanted to try.

"This is how it moves," she says under her breath, and it's hard to tell if that's meant for the boys or for herself.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she omitted that," Adrian says with amusement, chuckling. "She denied that she even broke it. Sypha... did not like being wrong. Which I suppose when you're often right about things, it can be hard to learn from mistakes when you'd like to just ignore them."

All too quickly, Adrian goes silent, watching how Sophie moves her hands. Maybe it is just part of the Speaker tale, but it reminds him of that dreadful, important evening, how Sypha wrenched control of the castle, fought against it, but ultimately succeeded. Because Sypha was such a wonder, an unstoppable force.

Perhaps the story is just that accurate, but he swears-- he sees it, in Sophie's hands, how she moves.

It makes Adrian go silent, his brows knitted and his eyes curious. Eventually, he does have to look away. It would be too easy to believe that maybe there is something to it, to reborn souls of the two people he loved most, but he doesn't think he could manage to swallow down the horrific disappointment of being wrong too.

"Yes," he says eventually. "Like that."

The movement of Sophie's hands is familiar to Katalin. He's seen it before, when she tells the story, those strange gestures, miming in a way that never seemed to match up to the events of the story.

Except it did. Because the engine in the story was never the collection of metal and pumps and coal and water that he'd imagined, but this thing. And the means to control it was never levers and chains like those machines, but the motions that Sophie always made. It finally, finally clicks, now that he's not overwhelmed by the first touch of daylight on him in months, that that was how Adrian moved his hands before, when moving the castle.

(Naturally, he attempts to imitate Sophie's movements. And then thinks better of it. Not that he could move the castle accidentally, but it's still best not to risk such a thing.)

"It's strange, when it moves." He adds. That, at least, he can speak on with some authority. "The first time, I thought it must have been an earthquake, everything shook around so much. Coming here was much smoother."

"Yes. It...turns over," she says softly, because she hasn't taken her eyes off of the twenty-sided figure, and maybe it's just because that's the only way she can possibly imagine an apparatus like that working, in terms of driving a castle anywhere, but then again, maybe it isn't.

(She doesn't remember, actually, if those movements were a part of the story she'd learned. They've just been a part of it for as long as she can remember, because that's how the story goes.)

What Katalin says is curious, though, too, because she can just imagine what the castle must've looked like, shaking around the way he implies. Fighting, she thinks idly. Fighting. Struggle. Sometimes the castle wants to do things, and sometimes it doesn't. What a strange thought, that.

"The intent of the castle, you said," she remarks to Adrian, almost offhandedly. "Does the castle itself have its own will, then? Separate from yours?"

"In a way," Adrian answers. "When Katalin felt it move the first time, it's because I summoned it from afar. Currently, I am the castle's master, and there has only ever been one other. The closer I am to the castle, the less strain on both of us."

He looks at Sophie. "When Sypha was taking control of it, she remarked how it was fighting against her. The castle only adheres to one master at a time. Dracula's will was so deeply ingrained to the castle that, on occasion, the interior would shift as he wished it. Every few centuries he could change the interior's structure and behavior. Parts of it as alive as any creature.

"For me, I had no real desire to make any changes. It is... mostly unchanged as to what it was 300 years ago."

Well, that and Adrian has been sleep for the past few centuries, but he doesn't think he'd have shifted much.

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reincarnation vampire lord | miraclewhip

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