usir | ( closed ) | watch it grow, child of war

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( closed ) | watch it grow, child of war

Character(s): Lauralae and Alucard
Status: Closed
Location(s): Forests outside Krimnos
Date(s) A few days after Memento Mori ressurection
About: Dragon egg and also cool new powers
Warnings: N/A yet

Lauralae is not the kind of creature prone to pacing, but she feels the urge to do it now, a twitch in her leg as she sits under a tree.

Rav'ahm is perched high in the branches, taking advantage of his new ability to communicate with her silently; sometimes it is as though he is singing, soft noises in the back of her mind, the kind that had her wanting to scratch her ears off at first. The voice in her mind had not been her own and after experiences with the ritual, with the dragon, with all of it, she was sure she was losing herself to madness. It was only the quiet, careful calm and the familiarity with her that led to her realising it was him - her companion.

She doesn't yet consider him a friend. It is too strange and unusual for her to think like this.

Reaching careful hands, covered again with gloves, she strokes against the bag at her side, feeling the weight of the egg she has carried with her since she woke up on the shore. Sometimes she thinks it is warmer than it used to be, that it is growing, that it might hatch, and at other times she thinks she is foolish herself with her own hopes and desires. She wants to see it, wants to watch it come forth and see her, to consider what she might do with it - feed it, care for it, raise it, something of the sort. Something that Myr would be proud of her for.

Breathing out, she tilts her head back and frowns, waiting. Alucard will be here soon: he promised.

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It takes the dhampir a few hours to move from the city proper to the meeting place. Some of it is wrangling horses (because he has to find a horse that'll let a wolf ride in it). Some of it is from making his reasons to the Krimnos recovery effort (that avalanche shall be a problem for a while yet) for his absence. The rest is guilt from leaving the Belmont alone for any amount of time at all after what's happened. (Back by nightfall. You've my word.)

His mind is a careful blank in the hours Alucard spends traveling. It never used to be that way, a careful curation of nothing at all. He'd be thinking of current and past work, or else he was preparing to murder his father. Now any extended silence means returning to that Pit, and he'd rather not at the moment.

Alucard's arrival is announced by the steady hoof beats of a dark brown horse. Thick, sturdy, built for the mountains and the snows of Krimnos. There is a precariously balanced wolf on Alucard's lap, and she can't exactly scurry down before the dhampir does.

"What is it that's of interest to her?"

Alucard asks it as he dismounts the horse, then levels his forearms up so the wolf can just roll into them. They've practiced this whole thing, and even gotten good at it.

There's a small part of Lauralae that longs to go with him, to chase him back to wherever he has made his home and try and find a place there, but she knows she can't. Whatever connection she feels to Alucard, whatever the companionship they share, she is not a part of his life and he is not part of hers. Decades of isolation never made her lonely; she did not need anyone else at her side and did not demand it either. Alucard is a friend, an ally, but she can see him when she ventures out of the woods and back towards people - nothing more than that is necessary.

Rav'ahm mutters in her mind and she tunes him out.

She hears the horse long before she sees him and her immediate reaction is to move and duck behind the tree, back on her shoulder, intense and ready. It's when she recognises him that she moves forward, stepping out once more and motioning for Rav'ahm to settle in the tree above her rather than a little way away - a lookout of sorts, to protect her and protect her bag, to make sure nothing happens to either of them. Two - three - deaths must be enough for now, especially in such a short space of time.

Immediately, Lauralae reaches out to offer her hands to Ellie, to stroke over her ears and greet her properly before she turns back to her friend. There's no touch there, no hug, no affection, just a nod before she breathes out.

"This first." And, stepping back, she reshapes herself into the body of a black wolf.

To the surprise of no one, Ellis bounds right over to Lauralae the minute Alucard sets her down on the ground. There's control, she doesn't leap but it nearly happens. Her tail is curled up, her ears are alert, and there's utter joy radiating off of the wolf.

It makes Alucard's reaction look even more sedated. There's a thin smile as he watches as the ridiculous wolf bounds over the snow to say hello to her friend, and he follows after her very slowly. Tall boots crunch over the snow, but he's barely slept since coming back from the dead and he's working himself ragged in hopes that when sleep does come, it'll be dreamless for a few nights. Riding is probably not the best idea, but...well, he asked for two days with reason.

At the transformation, there's a look of surprise on both dhampir and wolf faces. Alucard's is far more obvious, whereas Ellis just backs up and is clearly restraining herself from running over and sni-- oh to hell with it, she's absolutely on top of Lauralae, excitement and curiousity showing in equal measure as she sniffs at the new wolf form.

"That's new," Alucard murmurs, watching exactly how ridiculous his wolf is.

Lauralae's immediate response to being bowled over is to join in the game; it's not quite as natural to her as it is to Ellis, of course, but she tries. Her body wiggles with it and she huffs and yips, little sounds that might mimic laughter if she was a person again - her delight is obvious, brimming with a kind of glee that comes from feeling at home, feeling comfortable and seeing a friend again.

They roll together for a moment, sniffing as Lauralae presses into her and makes those same noises, over and over again, before she has to twist herself away and adjust herself, transforming back to her familiar small, elven features. Her hands reach for Ellis again however, immediately stroking over her fur and her snout and her ears, gleeful and actually almost laughing.

"I thought you might like the surprise. I cannot do it for very long, but I will get better. One day we can hunt together."

Turning her attention back to Alucard, she hesitates. What has happened to the both of them could not have been easy for them to manage, something that makes her pause, her fingers flexing absently. It's only when she forces herself to stand up that she thinks about what she has to show him, careful and sure as she steps through the snow, back around to her tree and her bag, stroking her fingers over the soft fabric.

"I found something. In the pit."

It's good to see someone happy. Alucard stands there with his arms across his chest, quietly observing all of it. Ellis' understanding of people is far, far better than his own. She's an asshole 99% of the time, but in moments like this she moves beyond it. Becomes endearing for it, endearing just as this whole scene is. Ellis can't really befriend other real wolves, so this? This feels right.

When Lauralae is Lauralae again, she is given a big wolfy nuzzle for all of this. She's going to get shed on too, but that's because again, Ellis is a buttface. She nearly collapses on the dhampir, but too late. Lauralae is up and moving, and Ellis collapses on the snowy ground.

All it takes is the word pit for both of their demeanors to change. Ellis trots right back over to Alucard, tense, and Alucard's eyes narrow out of concern. Found something she says, and Alucard can't even begin to imagine what she may be referring to.

"Did you?"

He tries to keep his tone neutral and interested. Alucard can't trust himself on how he may react, depending on what the item is.

Lauralae would be more than content to spend all her time with Ellis if she was allowed. She loves Rav'ahm, deeply, and appreciates the fact that he can understand her, but she feels a kinship with the wolf that she doesn't think she'll be able to find anywhere else. She was fond of Ellie's wolf, fond of some other animals, but Ellis was the first creature she had truly started to befriend. She doesn't want to lose that and hopes that her transformation will aid it.

She will go back to Ellis soon. Perhaps they can play in the snow for a while before Alucard has to take her away, back to his house, wherever that is. It depends on if she has to flee or not.

Slowly, she unwraps the bag in her hands and reaches inside, extremely gentle with what she brings out. The egg is not large and had turned from blue to orange before it settled on green. Her fingers are gentle as she strokes over it, holding it close against her chest, protective, gentle, almost maternal before she looks up at Alucard.

"It is mine now."

There's an immediate change over both Alucard and Ellis. The wolf is in front of the dhampir now, her dhampir, and her fur is on end. Teeth on display. She actually looks like a wolf instead of the stupid cuddly dog-wolf thing she is 99.9% of the time. There's a low growl at the egg, like it's going to attack at any moment.

Alucard's face goes from a moment of sheer bugfuck terror to a low but very present anger. Not at her. Just at the egg. At what will come out of that egg in time. The world doesn't need more dragons. If Alucard is to be brutal, he also doubts that the dhampir in front of him can remotely care for one either.

"You need to destroy it," he says, and it's in the tone of someone who's used to being listened to when he makes a recommendation with too much urgency in his voice. "Those things cannot be."

"No." Lauralae's response is immediate, intense, her own teeth bared. She does not like to see Ellis turned on her - her mind cannot connect anger towards the egg as a focus on the egg rather than her own choice - and she tilts her head up, drawing the fragile thing closer to her chest, holding it gently, carefully, stroking her fingers over the leathery edge of it. She shifts, awkward on her knees, making herself a little more comfortable in the cold of the snow.

She chose this. She kept the dragon when she took it from the depths of the pit, had died to take it into her arms and escape to the forest with it. Any one of the guards on the shoreline might have caught her, have captured her, had killed her for it - but she had escaped. So much risk for such a small, impossible thing, a dragon that would be hers, that she would raise and care for, that she would cherish. It would be hers.

"It is mine. You cannot command me to do anything that I do not want to do." No matter what respect she has for Alucard, no matter what fondness she has for Ellis, for the two of them together. Her eyes are narrowed, now, drawing in on herself. "I will keep it."

"Those things," he nearly spits, but Alucard catches himself. Lauralae was not of the world when she was alive. She wouldn't understand, not in the way others might. (Trevor. He has to tell Trevor about this. Dragons are Belmont business like nothing else. It'll make a miserable situation worse, but he needs to know.) Alucard tries to calm himself, put as much of his anger aside as he can.

"What you do with that egg is not just about you," Alucard settles on, even if Ellis is still tense and furious. "It is about the world. Those things are giants. It will not listen to you for terribly long. It will outgrow you and the world will not be braced for such a thing's return."

The world. This is about the world. No one should suffer more dragons. "Do you know what it was well and truly like, living in the world with them a century ago? What that war was like when it erupted and turned everyone upon each other for the greed and envy of three dragons?"

"It is mine. I kept it safe, I brought it from the pit, I saved it. What happens to this egg is for me to choose, not you. You have no right to make any demand of me, no right to command me to do anything." He is not her father, not that she ever had one to make a sure comparison. He is a friend, an ally, but she will not wilt under the pressure of his word, even if it makes her uncomfortable to be against him rather than with him.

She trusted him. She trusted a kinsman, and the quiet voice in her mind - her own, not Rav'ahm's, who shifts awkwardly in the trees - reminds her what a terrible mistake such trust is. First Aramas and now Alucard; she had made too many mistakes. Her instinct is to flee, immediately, to find a new place, another forest, not the one he had guided her to. Anything to protect herself.

"Do you know what it was like to be held a prisoner by people just as guilty of envy and greed?" She hisses it, teeth bared, wolflike, animalistic. "I was killed by people, not dragons. They have done nothing to me, and this being has not been born yet. It is mine, and I would sooner die than let you take it from me."

"You do not get to be selfish in this moment." The angrier Alucard gets the more deadly calm his voice becomes. "By virtue of taking that egg into your custody, you have forfeitted that right. Whatever you do, you must consider how it impacts the world around you, because mark my words, it will."

They are too big. Too unruly. Too terrible to be let loose.

"For the will of dragons my mother was murdered," he continues, that deadly calm intensifying. Ellis is the one matching wolf to wolf in this moment, the pair of them just two sides of the same straight up fury coin. "She was a doctor and she treated anyone who needed it, regardless of their affiliation or alligence, and she was turned upon others for that care. It is an action that would not have come to pass if selfishness and greed of those things did not rule the land."

He leaves out his father. The grief, the madness, his insanity and the patricide. Those are private matters.

"Do you have any idea of what dragons do with their blood? How if they are clever and cruel they will put their blood into the veins of others and there is such kinship and madness in equal measure?" Alucard's trying to be careful with his words.

"I've no intention of trying to take that cursed thing from you, but you need to think beyond just yourself. That is all I will ask of you. This isn't about you. You are bound to cities and the realm of society more than you can ever know if you continue down this path."

"I have never been selfish!"

It's a violent outburst, brilliant as her anger, sharp as she shouts it. Her hands hold onto the egg, green and large compared to the slight, pale shape of her hands, everything about her screaming frustration, hurt, anger. She does not know how to reign herself in when it comes to this, does not know how to settle herself, and she reaches, careful, placing the egg in the bag. A sharp noise has Rav'ahm coming down, nestling on the top of it, protective. He will do as she asks.

"I have done all that this world had asked of me and I was given nothing but punishment, nothing but torment and anger."

It gives Lauralae enough time to rise to her feet, hand resting against the tree as she steadies herself. She knows how small she appears, how weak she is, but she has a strength that no one else might ever be able to estimate. Aramas had not, even when he had discovered who she was; if he lived still she would rip his throat out, show him the truth of what she had chosen to become. What she had chosen to be.

"For the will of humans my mother was murdered." Her voice counters his, still sharp, but quieter. It's not something she has spoken of often, and she can feel the knots and nausea in her stomach, the way that she wants to curl up inside herself, how she might fall to pieces now. "A man slipped into her room and slit her throat, left her there, pushed poison in her skin so that she could not recover. A man took her from me, just as the dragons took yours from you. Should I be hateful to every man that walks this earth?"

She is, she knows that, but it is more than because of the death of Myr; it is more than that. It is fear, and anger, and pain, thrumming through her even as she stares at Alucard.

"I will not destroy this egg. I will not kill it when I spent so much saving it." A tremble in her voice now, tears in her eyes. "It is mine. This is what I have chosen. It is mine to keep, to love. I will be bound to it and it will be bound to me. This is the path I have chosen, the first I have picked for myself."

You're being selfish right now.

It's the only thought that Alucard doesn't voice as they fling their damage into each other's faces, justifying lines being drawn. Such a divide is inevitable with dragons, Alucard supposes. He doesn't care for it, but he can accept it. Trying to fight too hard against it is tiring.

"I would not blame you if you chose to do so," he manages with more sympathy than anything else he has said so far. "Those actions are cruel beyond measure."

I would not blame is his father's thinking. His father who transmuted grief into rage at the world around him and promised to burn it all down before anyone else could. Alucard can only imagine his father's reaction to such a death. Cruel and senseless and revealing the world's rotten core.

"The world is going to continue to dole out torment and anger then." It's a horrible thing to say, but weighty truths always are. "We are at an impasse and we gain nothing from throwing agonies at each other," he continues. "You've my word that I will not harm that egg or yourself, but I beg that you think about how such a thing will grow and how you will live alongside it."

It's clear that there's a level of desperation about her, something intense. She has been so desperate for her to find something to give her a reason, a purpose after being restored to life three times - she had chosen this. When society had failed her, had left her to rot and die in a cage or a pit, she had chosen a path. Rav'ahm was one path and now this dragon would be another, something for her to cling to when the world was too much, left her feeling so pained.

She's breathing hard, her eyes wide and wild as she stares at him. The small, childish part of her is desperate to find some way to repair this rift between them, some way to find herself beside him once more, settled, with Ellis under her fingertips. There's a part of her that longs for the softness of what he had offered her before, but she cannot. She cannot give up her egg.

"Cruel, but I learned to accept them. My mother was taken from me and I did not seek out every man that might have harmed her. I did not kill all men. I could, but I did not. She would not have wanted that for me, would not have wanted me to become as cruel as they did."

Tears in her eyes, hands shaking, trying to rationalise herself. She presses a hand against her stomach, forces herself to breathe, feeling the weight of her past and her future baring down on her. She blinks, gazing up at him, wondering what she ought to do or say but not knowing what to do. She has never been in this position before, never wanted forgiveness as much as she so venomously wished to deny herself the chance.

"The world will always give torment and anger and pain. That is the nature of the world." Removing the dragons did not make such a great change, not as far as she can see. Look how much death there had been already, in a world where there were no dragons. "I will take care of it and I will grow with it. If..." A hiccup in her voice, something tense, something that makes her close her eyes, tears falling. "If it becomes as you say then I will allow it to be killed. But only then."

"Men are not dragons. They do not live so long, they do not infect others with their blood and their curse, closer to vampirs than any other creature I can think of." It isn't a dig at either of their heritages, but a cold and plain fact. Both things played and relied upon blood in ways other creatures did not. The results were never well recieved.

It is hard, watching that desperation. It is cruel to force her into this position, but the decision has already been made clear. The egg. The egg for all the good and ill that shall come with it, and maybe this argument will only make sense in retrospect. Alucard knows that the only thing that will shock him is if he is proven so very wrong.

Ellis is the first to turn around, trotting over to where the horse is. Her tail is in the air, her fur still on end. She is tense and she is very done with all of the dhampir's emotions, the both of them. Too much death, too much grief, too much dealing with 1 Whole Emotion with the Belmont, and now this.

"Be careful not to be blinded by whatever positive qualities you imbue upon it." It's as much as a vote of confidence of changing the thing's nature as he can remotely manage. Alucard knows that the smart thing to do right now is to withdraw. They know where they stand. It is a mark of greater maturity to walk away and not make things worse.

"This world has come so very far without the dragons. There is greater technology and harmony for it, with all I've observed. Beyond my personal grievances, my opposition remains as such for that reason."

He turns then, the first goal being helping Ellis up onto the horse. If circumstances weren't what they were, watching four wolf paws flail and struggle to find purchase would probably be the height of comedy.

Lauralae watches as Ellis turns from her, as Alucard turns to go with the wolf. She is reminded, sharply, that for all that Ellis is her friend she is Alucard's first and foremost - whatever kinship they shared is compromised. Foolishness, failure, all of it rising up and making her feel small and weak, desperate as she squeezes her hand around the strap of her bag, desperately holding on to it and not wanting to let go.

She had made a mistake. She had trusted and she had been mistaken to do it; all the warnings in her own mind had been ignored and she is now paying the price for it. She can feel it in her gut, a panicked, feverish feeling that makes her slip down against the tree, curling in on herself, breathing out sharply as she tries to monitor herself. It is not good enough to feel that she has won this argument - because she has not.

She had lost, completely, and in more than one way.

"I have never been blinded by affection. I do not intend to start now." She knows that she might raise the dragon well, that she might train it, teach it, guide it, but she has also seen the face of evil. She knows that if anyone else - those people that had taken them, watched them, ritualised them - finds out about her dragon she will have to fight for it, but she will. She will fight until there is nothing left inside her, because she has nothing else to fight for.

Afraid, Lauralae wipes the tears from her eyes, staring at Alucard.

She wants to ask if they might remain friends, if they might call one another that, or if this is the end, but she does not have the words for it. Instead, she breathes out and bows her head, causing Rav'ahm to leap up and nudge at her jaw, a soft caw coming as she breathes, shaky. She cannot watch Ellis and Alucard walk away from her.

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( closed ) | watch it grow, child of war

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