C Minor Specialty
Noona
The door of the parlor creaked open as Integra reeled back in the opposite direction. A ray of fresh sunlight of dusk escaped through the open threshold, free-floating dust seen in its light. Sir Hellsing coughed rather irately but pressed on into the unused den. On the far end of the corridor sat a Baldwin grand piano, its onyx, clawed feet digging into the Victorian rug (impression marks she knew would be impossible to smooth out). She crossed the parlor, past the chaise lounge and the tea time chairs that hadn't been sat upon in years, until she stood before the enormous instrument. Its moth-eaten cover blanketed the dull finish beneath it; the piano that existed now was only a fading picture of the magnificence it had once been. With hesitance she pulled out the bench and sat down. Her breath took in the faint taste of nostalgia and crumpets and a lingering fragrance of scented candles.
She sat there for a moment simply staring at the aged wood paneling. The wallpaper above it was slightly peeling at the edges and the paint on the oak was flaking like petals. Then her attention returned to the piano she was seated at and the yellowed cover feebly protecting the surface. Her hands reached out and grasped at it and flung it from the massive thing with one movement. The blanket was freed from her grip. It collapsed to her side as she regained proper posture on the bench. She imagined the figure of her mother to lie on the hood of the piano's great, curving cavity as she slept in the dappled glow of daylight. And she wondered what her mother was like – whether she was as much of a woman of power as her daughter or this sleeping trophy her father kept for prideful reasons.
What became of her mother was beyond Sir Hellsing and was a condition that rarely, rarely, crossed her mind. But it was a question none-the-less that would obviously present itself from time to time. The busy life of an aristocrat child preoccupied her for the most part of her upbringing. When it came to stop and think of what she was, it was too late to ask a father that wasn't there.
The piano could barely reflect the image of the room in its black glaze dulled by time. Integra exhaled through her nose and ran a troubled hand through the ends of her hair. Not one for sentimental musings, she quickly let go of such ponderings and directed herself to the now exposed keys. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them aside like the coverlet. Bare. She massaged the palms with the other's thumb, directing them in small, rough circles. Then the fingertips were placed atop the keys and there they rested. What to play? Could she play anything, remember anything, any music? She doubted that she could even play a measure to any song taught to her by her tutors in the past. So instead her eyes wandered about the room in mild interest to see if perhaps any of the old sheet music was still sitting around. And as luck would have it, there were in fact some pieces stacked on an end table by the chaise lounge. She proceeded to stand up from the bench and approach the stack of sheet music, gingerly picking through the papers like they were to fall apart with a heavier touch. None of their titles really stood out until her fingers came upon one reverie. And it was accurately titled so – Prelude and Fugue in c minor from Bach's "The Well Tempered Clavier".
She bit down on her bottom lip a moment as she studied the bouncing notes along lines of the staff. It was a mid-intermediate piece she had learned – but not without its share of difficulty. Back then her young and untamed hands would stumble through these measures much to the displeasure of her teacher. Thus she would be instructed to practice the song in question until it flew beneath her fingers like silk on silk. When it was in this stipulation it was a beautiful composition full of varying intonations and volumes that could whisper the faintest note or roar the oncoming of an approaching stanza. It was beautiful, incredible even, as she remembered the melody of it all.
The bench creaked slightly as her weight returned to its support and shifted as she sat the music on the ornate bolster above the keys. It was minutes more of staring and studying the placement of her hands before she tentatively pressed down on the polished wood. A flowing line of sound was emitted – let loose – from the belly of the piano in that instant. One, two, three four, and one, two, three, four and… She stumbled. Her hands fell from the keys and sat in her lap. Scowling to herself she returned them to their positions and began again. A measure longer. A measure farther. It was a clumsy imitation of what she could once play in her younger days. She could once have played it to its proper tempo and dynamic, but now, here she sat, slowly going through the first page with unsteady performing. Though determined to once again play this piece to its fullest in one sitting, Integra could not help but be irked that she had to completely relearn something.
The watch hidden beneath her sleeve gently ticked away the hour and by the end of its predecessor, Integra's mind had begun to trigger the habit of going through the very song with flowing wrists. She smiled proudly at herself as her fingertips danced atop the keys. The feeling of silk on silk had returned and the prelude and fugue sang from deep within the bellows of the cavity. Serenity encompassed her in its embrace and she completely forgot to light an oil lamp in the fall of sundown. For the umpteenth time she finished the piece with murmuring, pianissimo tones. She opened her eyes to discover the darkness that dovetailed with the stars outside the window. The piano seemed to breath with her as she sat there allowing the rise and fall of her chest be the only thing to move. Utter, utter silence. A day wasted, the stress to come with this realization would not be found until later.
It was then that Alucard appeared in the chaise lounge, stretched out like a cat gratifying itself. Integra looked across the piano's top at him. The figure of him was hardly detectable in the dim glow of nighttime. She left the bench and lit herself an oil lamp to get a better look at him. As soon as the flame washed away the dark he began to speak, more so whisper things, from his place on the couch.
"What?" Integra asked simply in relaxed manner. Her servant took off his hat which had previously been hiding his eyes. They were reflecting the glimmer from behind the glass that she held in her hands.
"Your mother neither had stature nor was she confined all day," he stated just has cleanly, "I knew her only briefly. Maybe a few years, maybe more, before your father decided I was too much of a monster for her to be in the presence of."
Integra had since seated herself in one of the fine chairs near the lounge to listen to him, though her vision was directed to reading the spines of the many books on the shelves. "Hn. I don't blame him, God rest his soul. Sometimes I wonder why I don't do the same to you myself."
Disregarding that last comment, he went on: "He let her wander around as she pleased, within the confines of the organization of course, lest she be assassinated and sent back to him in an oak box."
"Don't mock her," Integra said a bit more sharply, rounding her sight towards him. Her hair settled around her face to frame it – a face contorted in defensiveness. He merely looked at her with a smile that lacked a show of teeth or a show of animalistic gestures. His eyes so dark and deep watched her abruptly stand and approach the bench, the clicking of her heels momentarily sounding on the wood floor as it gapped between rugs. She spared him one glance of her stern disposition before rounding the chair and then seating herself upon it. The soundboard that made up the belly of the great thing – its curving wood the skeleton and the legs its limbs and the keys it's tongue, the strings the vocal chords, the top a large and closed mouth – all of them moaned in anticipation as she played one melodic chord on the instrument. The rustle of clothes in the shadows of the room signaled that she had gotten up and walked to its side. Polish on the oak squeaked against itself as she opened the top and supported it with the prop stick. There. She played the same melody again and the sound was ten times as grand and as rich.
Smiling to herself in the dark she continued to play the song she had toiled over through the course of the evening. The pale of the moon entered through the window as it escaped from the cover of clouds. Its beam pierced the blackness and washed over herself and Alucard in one diagonal cut. He was seen with his arms draped over the arm of the lounge and lay there on his stomach, lower face burrowed into his sleeves. The picture of him was like a brooding child; the child that was sick of his studies or bored or just tired.
"Why are you sulking?" Integra whispered. Though droned out by the measures of the tune that she played, she knew the vampire would hear her well enough. In response he rolled over onto his back and laced his fingers over his breast. His face was indescribable. He now stared at the ceiling as though he pretended not to hear or to pretend that he wasn't even there at all. And sometimes, Integra thought, he might as well be everywhere. She neared the end of the piece. The last note was played and a whirlwind of things happened at once.
Much to her horror, anger, and astonishment, he was almost instantly on top of her. Alucard pinned her down to the bench, turning her so that her head fell hard at one end and her knees bent over the other. He sat on her thighs and held her hands together with both of his. Shivering. Quaking with fury she yelled at him.
"What the hell are you doing to me?! You know well enough never, ever to touch me like this!" She cried in her rage, struggling and kicking and writhing in such a hold. He muttered. He whispered. He held her fingertips to his lips but did not kiss. Just pressed them there.
"Your mother wandered this place day after day in her stupid English dresses and petticoats. You also know as well as I know that she was not an English woman," he said deep in his throat, "She had that ethnicity in her that gave her that black hair and that coffee skin. I don't know where he found her or why he wed or why she even stayed in a country that was different from hers." He let go of her hands and stood up, backing away silently and pulling up one of the parlor chairs. "Forgive the sudden intrusion of space Master. I am merely…upset."
She huffed out an irate sort of sigh and sat up. "Inconsiderate bastard. That was overstepping bounds and you bloody know it. What in Hell are you so "upset" about?"
That wide smirk was back on his face. Right where it belonged. There was a sentimental air to his tone as he continued. "Mrs. Hellsing was a nervous woman who knew little English and was almost regretful to even be here. Apparently she loved your father enough to make certain cultural sacrifices and gave into the dresses, manners, and what not. She had these maids that followed her everywhere and made sure she never had a hair out of place and her stockings were always up. They made her read classical literature and be tutored for various things: ballroom dancing, horseback, piano, and violin. Always occupying her. But she wasn't the wound up china doll her "nannies" wanted her to be. She always flitted about the mansion running from them to either escape to her garden or lock herself in this parlor.
"The first time I formally introduced her to myself she was positively terrified. She pulled a revolver on me that I didn't think she couldn't possibly handle properly," he accounted crossly.
"If you made some lurid comment about her garters to her, so help me I'll-," she pulled out the handy Beretta and began to take aim. The servant held up a hand in mild defense.
"Of course I didn't. Please, let me go on. As I was saying…" he grinned at her and popped his knuckles, "She must've fired a whole round and all but one shot lodged themselves in my thighs. That was probably the last time I ever – directly – teased your mother. But I was always watching her. As my duty to you Hellsings. And that's exactly why your father locked me up."
Integra slid her tongue along her upper lip. "I come from a long line of tyrants, Alucard. You, off all creatures..." she paused and brushed her hair behind her ears, "should know that."
"I'm proud of you, Integral," he responded, "but that doesn't mean I won't try to kill you anyway."
His master smiled and put away her handgun. It was a queer gesture, that is to say, it was odd how she spared him her bullets and offered him an expression of the face instead. An unusual expression at that. In an unusual situation. With unusual circumstances.
"I want to hurt you very badly," she said candidly. Her tone was devoid of sarcasm but light; it was a feminine voice.
"I know you do. And I know, that you know, that I want to make you one of my own in the most painful, murderous way possible," he cooed. Nothing was ever unsure between the two.
She smiled, showing her teeth, and chuckled as she redirected herself to the keys. "Poor thing," the laughing was cruel and dark and cold and self-gratifying, "too bad you can't." There was dangerous silence as she sat there smiling in the stygian eventide; her head was tilted downwards to stare into her lap where two hands sat clasped. The light from the oil lamp had been swallowed whole and extinguished by Alucard's great many shadows.
He approached the bench and urged her to scoot over. So she did and he sat down to her right. The beast removed his gloves and began to play something loud, something flowing. His arms and fingers and wrists churned across the keyboard in a storm of sound that Integra seemed to drink deep through all her pores, ears, eyes, and mouth. It was Elysian treatment to the senses that enveloped her in solitude and peace. She was grateful. The lack of energy crept through her body, from her toes to her breastbone when her eyes gave way to sleep.
When she awoke a mere thirty minutes later, Integral was curled up upon the chaise lounge. Alucard had drawn the heavy curtains to make sure not a wisp of anything other than darkness disturb his Master's slumber. She reached out and felt her shoes, socks, and blazer were neatly arranged on the seat of a tea chair.
"This whole charade was unprofessional of me," she sighed, "imagine: the paperwork, Integra. Look what you did to yourself."
She slid off the lounge and walked to the door; her belongings would be sent for in the morning (or later this morning, to be technical). Honey fingers found the brass doorknob and turned it. But no release. They stumbled around the keyhole but found no key, no release, no key.
"Bastard," she cursed, "get me into a soft spot, you will, and then try and trick me. Hard-headed bastard."
She stumbled through the dark to the tea chair and tore through her blazer. The Beretta was not where it should be. A loud, angry, mounting shriek. "God damn you, He will!"
In the darkness of the room she could see nothing. Not her feet nor hands nor piano or window. Before she could turn for the curtains an opposing force hiked up the back of her blouse. His thumbs pushed into the small of her back and his fingers held her low on her hip bones.
"Why Integral, master of mine, it seems to be that we find ourselves locked in this parlor," he whispered, lips pressed behind her right ear. His boot lifted and then descended again, crushing something of old minerals and metal beneath the toe. "I can't seem to find the key."
Crush, tear, turn. Pull. Closer, closer, closer. In their years of doing business together Alucard had never been able to sufficiently scare her - until now. Her breathing caught in her human throat and yet. All the while she continued to hold that wonderful demeanor of superiority. He nuzzled at her collarbone with his nose and lips.
"Is it my breakfast time yet, oh Master...my Master?"
"You're mad at what my family has done to you, aren't you?"
"Oh," he cooed, "I expect my blood lost to be paid in full with blood. I'm intoxicated with fury."
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Reviews and mature, well-thought out criticisms are more than just welcome. This was something of just a musing and a test at horrific imagination. Who knows if I'll take this any farther (the current status is "highly unlikely"). If reader feedback is positive and demands enough of it, I may take into consideration a second part. I'm not even sure if I liked how this came out. What I was aiming for was a breath of fresh air amidst all the unrealistic or out-of-character shipping/pairing/whatever you call it madness and the general population of those damn "original characters". (Yes, I am well aware my last "fic" had an original character in it. I was a dumbass, personally, but I tried my hardest to make something new out of an old fanfiction element.)
Grammatically: Fragment sentences tossed here and there are simply apart of my element style. Don't have a cow, you zany Grammar Gurus!
View this as Alucard x Integral if you do so desire. I suppose that's what I was aiming for, even if Alucard's interactions with her got something more than overboard. Yep, I need criticism concerning that as well. Help me here! I haven't done something decent in weeks! Enough of this rambling, not like anyone reads it anyway.
P.S. How do you format paragraph indentations for ?