Integral and Alucard one shotness again. Nothing special, just a scene. Read and Review please.
Disclaimer: Hellsing is not mine.
A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, "Visor'd", Book XX, By the Roadside
Integra was masterful at masking her emotions. She sat on the lawn of the Hellsing Manor, masterfully concealing her displeasure for all things. She had a cigar in mouth and the end of it had a thin trail of smoke that drifted up, up, and disappeared into the night sky. She bit down on the cigar harder than necessary. What was this day? This day that she dreaded so much. Ten years now her father had been dead. The Vampire had been released and ten years that had passed as if in a dream. A decade. It all seemed so fleeting. Her hands were stained with blood for the first time. A decade ago.
"Musing, Master Integra?" his cold voice rung out and he appeared then, twirling a line of smoke from her cigar around his finger. He knew the answer because he had read her mind. He knew her thoughts.
"Yes, Alucard, now if you please," she whispered to him and looked away. Out toward the forest. The same forest that she had explored as a child. She wished she had spent those days in her father's arms instead. How she regretted ever moment that wasn't spent with him, Arthur.
Alucard did not leave. He took a seat next to her and looked out at the stars and the lawn. He too knew these forests all too well. He smirked at Integra. "You miss him."
She scoffed. A perfect mask. Even if he could read the thoughts she had. Lying was just easier.
"I am not unaware of emotion, Master," Alucard admitted to his master. "Shall you cry I will not be unable to deal with it. I shall do what mortal people do in such situations."
"And that is?"
He shrugged. "I suppose we shall hug or something and I'll send you off to your room with a kiss to your forehead. Is that what Arthur did when you went to him with nightmares and fright?"
Integra frowned because she could no longer remember. That worried her. She looked down at this thought and felt tears sting her eyes. Why couldn't she remember. Arthur Hellsing's face was fading from her memory and being replaced with so many others. She sighed.
Alucard's thin frame drifted closer to hers and his arm slithered around her shoulders. She shuddered under his cool body.
"I can no longer remember," she told the vampire and her shoulders heaved.
"Ah, Arthur will always be fresh in my mind," he told her and leaned into her, kissing her gently on the forehead. She felt a warm sensation and immediately saw her father's face in her mind's eye. He was there again, safe from all things in Integra's mind. She sighed. A happiness overtook her and she looked up at the smirking vampire. He nodded to her and stood then, walking into darkness and disappearing all together.
When he was gone she found her mask again, haphazardly discarded on the grass for one resembling her father.