With the blood and corpses splattered over the floors, Integra was reluctant to move from the dusty corner of the cell. She clutched the pistol to her chest, lower lip trembling as she fixed her horrified scowl on her uncle's bloody face. He stared at her, with wide, gaping eyes and his hand outstretched towards her. How sad it was, to remember the summer days he would lift her into the air with those large hands, spin her around.
"My goodness, Integra; you're an air plane! Look at you fly!"
She swallowed heavily and squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the memories and the remembering, and the wet sound of an obscenely long tongue lapping up the red spilled over the stone floor. Alucard purred as he slurped up the blood from the bricks, from the surface and between the cracks, leaning down on all fours to reach the red nectar. The leather of his prison garb creaking with each vigorous movement, and the cracking of his long-stilled joints echoed in the dark dungeon. When a whimper reached his hearing, he finally peered over his shoulder at his new master, tongue still dangling from his lips.
She was huddled in the shadows, shaking and shivering – was she cold? - and hugging her knees to her chest. He gazed at her for a long moment, before retrieving his tongue within his mouth like a snake retreating underground. Carefully and quietly, he crawled on all fours towards her, but froze when she looked up at him with a terrified flinch, fingers tightening on the gun. She was frightened, not something a Hellsing leader ever should be, and he didn't like that. He scowled rearing up on his knees to look down at her.
It then struck him just how tiny his master was.
Long, silvery blonde hair and rock pool eyes, tanned skin. Beautiful, but so small. By God, how old was she? - Alucard couldn't tell just by looking at her, or hearing her voice – but she was obviously terribly young. He stared at this trembling child – this little girl clutching a smoking gun and dragging the weight of a family – and he suddenly felt something he hadn't in a while. A very long while.
Alucard felt ashamed. Children were delicate things, easily damaged, and even simpler to frighten. This little girl stared at him as if he was the monster hiding under her bed, reaching to grab her whenever she poked her foot out from under the covers. He gulped and licked his upper lip tensely, uncertainly. He then hunkered down again, lowering onto his hands and knees, into the most non-threatening position he could manage in such a state of disarray.
"What are my orders, my master?," He asked lowly, peering up at the child with imploring eyes. Integra was still shaking, but she took a hard gulp and looked around once more. The door to the cell was wide open, beams of light streaming in and being the only thing allowing her to see this thing in front of her, though not clearly. The stairs were painted in blood and sprinkled with organs and limbs, and Integra didn't like any of it. She didn't like looking at it, she certainly didn't want to touch it, and she wanted to stop seeing it right now.
With a heavy, shaking breath, she answered with, "Carry me up stairs."
Alucard was still for a moment, for a purpose Integra could not fathom – though in reality, he was considering how to hold her – before carefully shuffling forwards and sitting on his knees in front of her. His long, lanky arms then gradually slipped around her middle back and beneath her knees, and he pushed himself to stand with one leg, holding her firmly in his arms. Blood rushing in her head from the sudden movement, Integra's soft little hand reached and gripped at the front of his straight jacket, finger nails catching on the metal studs fastening it together. He looked at that soft little hand, and wondered if it had ever held a gun before this day. The vampire stood very still, waiting until she looked up and nodded for him to go on, head finally ceasing its incessant spinning. He slowly turned around, boots splashing and squelching across the stone floor, then ascending the silhouetted stairs, kicking the odd body part out of his way. He felt her quivering in his arms and bury her face in his neck, and he was at a loss as to what to do. He liked children, but hadn't a clue what to do with them.
So in an attempt to seem comforting, he clutched her against his chest a little tighter. It seemed to have the desired affect, as her shoulders relaxed marginally. He finally reached the hallway to the other sections in the lower levels of the Hellsing estate, the artificial light of the bulbs make him squint and hiss. She peered up at him, finally seeing his full profile in the clear gleam of electrical light, and found herself feeling sympathetic rather than horrified. As she'd determined from the width of his arms, he was intensely thin, malnourished even.
That's right, he'd said he hadn't eaten – or rather, drank – in twenty years, and Integra couldn't imagine going without fish and chips for more than a week.
"You look so ill...," She said out loud, reaching up that soft little hand and touching his sharp cheek bone. He looked down at this tiny... thing in his arms, and smiled lightly.
"I have fed already... I'll be looking much healthier very soon, I promise," She absorbed the image of this bony, pale grey, scary man holding her so easily, and nodded at the prospect. "Now, what to do with you, little master...?," He tilted his head dramatically, considering what options they had. He was tied to the bloodline as their slave – he could not leave her even if he wanted to – but taking care of a child was not a task best left to a vampire, he thought. A parent, a nanny, anything other than a blood sucking creature of the night, or a power hungry family member chasing after leadership ravenously. Integra looked down at her knees thoughtfully, and noticed how they were still knocking even as the creature held her, then returned her gaze upwards.
"Walter Dornez will be arriving tomorrow, he'll know what to do!," She spoke up. Alucard's eyes widened, and he let out a hearty laugh that shook through his chest, startling Integra.
"Walter?," He proclaimed. "The child is still kicking? My goodness, what a pleasure! I was hoping he'd still be alive when I next woke up!," He cackled, taking a dizzy step back as his laughter became some what overzealous.
"You know Walter?" She asked in surprise.
"Oh yes, we're old friends. Tell me, how old does the boy look now? The last time I saw him, I believe the women were swooning over him!," Alucard snickered, raising a questioning eyebrow. Integra's eyes widened, and she tried to imagine Walter as some handsome young man with gaggles of ladies swarming around him. The thought was so utterly ridiculous to her, and she couldn't contend it, so it just made her giggle at the prospect.
"Oh, I don't know! I've always known him to be old, and he always calls me a 'whipper-snapper'! It's our joke." She tittered cheerfully, clutching his leather attire a little tighter.
Alucard stared in awe at this smiling face, and decided that he liked it. He'd try to make her laugh often in the future.
"Well, if Walter is arriving soon – tomorrow, was it? Good – then all we really should do, need do, is wait."
Integra nodded in agreement, then gently closed her eyes, collecting herself. The lights helped clear her mind, and she began to recognise the situation. She was now the head of the Hellsing family, her uncle had attempted to kill her but she'd turned the tide with this weapon daddy had locked in the basement. She bit her lip, though not hard enough to pierce it, and took a deep breath.
"Is something wrong?" She opened her eyes, though they remained hooded, and looked up at this 'vampire'.
"... Uncle Richard won't be the only one who tries to kill me, will he?" Alucard shook his head, not wishing or able to lie to his master.
"But you needn't worry; I'll be here. I'll protect you." Without his knowledge, he'd let a soft, fond smile take his face, and Integra found that look of sudden compassion rather... endearing. She watched his lips for a while, wanting to remember what it was like to be looked at with such a kind expression, such as father had, then pulled herself out of the trance and leaned up, wrapping her arms around his neck and tossing the gun back down the stairs behind them. Alucard was startled by the embrace, unsure of how to reciprocate.
It dawned on him this was his first mistress, and his first child master. He had been present when Abraham's two sons were small, but had only become the eldest's servant when Arthur was thirty two years of age – having awoken him in much the same way as his daughter, here – but though a child of his master, Arthur was not a child.
"Will you really?," He peered down from his cloud of thought, at the quiet whisper mumbled into his shoulder. "You promise you'll look after me?"
In his arms, he held a frightened little girl with a strong spirit. He'd seen that soul burning in her eyes, but it had receded for now. And out of respect, he allowed her to be weak. For now. She was only small, after all.
"Yes, I promise," He replied. She clung a little tighter to him, but he still didn't know how to comfort her. In the end, he settled with awkwardly rubbing her back, eyes and head dotting around clumsily with a rather nervous expression on his face. "I won't let anybody harm you, master."
Gradually, she loosened her grip, and Alucard wondered if she'd fallen asleep on him. But a deep sigh and the clutching of her fist on his chest told him otherwise, and she looked up at him. "Take me upstairs. I'm hungry."
"Of course." So he carried her through the halls of the lower levels; Alucard and Integra.
.
Walter pushed open the front door to the estate, dutifully locking it behind him, and looked around. Memories rose in his mind, and he found himself mourning the loss of a dear friend.
Yet he dawdled, and that would not do. He marched on through the marble front hall and down the richly painted corridors, in search of the new head. "Integra?," He called, loudly but gently. "Integra, where are you, milady?"
No sign of her. His brow furrowed, and he hurried to her room, but was slightly unnerved in finding it empty. He began to run, sprint, through the mansion in search of her. Had Richard done something to her? Had he come too late? God help anyone who might dare hurt his master's daughter – his new master – and believed they could escape with their lives! He finally ran to the common room, bursting through the doors with the intensity of an angry rhino, and froze on the spot.
On the large, plump, velvet settee, lay curled his little mistress soundly asleep, covered in a drape-like lick of black, clinging feverishly to one Walter had only assumed he'd never live to see again. Alucard had one arm swooped around Integra, holding her to him in a possessive, protective fashion, some dark appendage bending from his back to cover her. They both breathed quietly, snoozing comfortably in each other's embrace, bandages wrapped around Integra's arm.
And Walter wondered, just where will this turn of events lead them?
Where indeed.
Hail to the princess, baby!