Warning(s]: Gore mentions, some physical abuse
The hunt had been intended to be commenced and sustained alone; as he normally would, as it should be. But the night dragged on and in its usual thick of a lightless sky save for the overbearing and perpetual moon, it wasn't alone. Even though Chera and Samel, his usual shadows, had been alienated from him, it was the compassionate Father and the distant yet mistrustful accompaniment of Henryk who wasn't exactly eager to fight in close camaraderie with the vampire who'd hypnotized him not too long ago. Even if he had saved his hunting partner in the process.
"Father!" Alucard called out the priest's name as though it were practiced, as though they were partners themselves. Gascoigne turned towards it, the swiping paw of a large lycanthorpe lunging for his blindfolded face that he saw in a split second filling that view. Raising the shaft of his axe to parry it, claws clanged upon it before the large man pushed it roughly back. Henryk's saw cleaver met with the base of its neck and sawed through to sever it by the spine, blood spurting intensely as the lycan yowled in feral pain and in a counteract did it rake the man's side. His mustard-shade trenchcoat become soaked with human blood, Henryk staggered for a moment.
While the Frenchman dashed to his partner's side to offer him blood vials, Alucard honed Casull where Henryk had struck so fatally and delivered a final blow. This sundered it with finality, the vampire surveying the quieting vicinity in their wake. And how bleak it was. Tonight was cooled by the moonlight, city aglow in jagged blues, edifices seeming especially silhouetted by a sky still meekly alighted. In his days as Count, this might have been a beautiful night. But where the moon became as bright as day, it felt hollow.
For the smallest hamlet in the Carpathians felt more imbibed with life than this entire city. Maybe that was because life was different in the world outside.
Alucard was pulled from his thoughtful rapture, rare considering the volumes of Beasts, from a comically exaggerated yelp of pain from Henryk. It wasn't hard to tell, given his habit of wearing that stupidly high brown collar, but he watched on all the same with an enigmatic and unreadable expression. Gascoigne seemed to take notice and grinned at the vampire, beckoning him closer. "Oh, you're not dead yet, Henryk. But maybe our new friend might be able to tell, eh?" This received a fierce glower from the old hunter, Henryk standing straight and howling some weird shriek.
Brows furrowed together, Alucard damnably and involuntarily smiled back. "And what seems to be the problem here?" he asked with an amused stare at the men, Gascoigne shoving aside his partner playfully.
"We had a bet between the old fart of a Father an' me who'd finish off the last Beast in the area. Didn't think ya'd be the one to do it!" Henryk responded loudly, staggering before he collected himself in a brief scramble of steps. "Between he and I. But, looks like you won it, lad." This earned a bemused but no less amused look from the vampire, he taking it as a recalcitrant invitation to dare a closer proximity.
"And? What was the gamble?" he asked with a skeptical tone of voice, incredulous that they'd consider him at all.
"These." Gascoigne was the one to speak, voice softened as two small silver bells suspended on silver chains dangled from his large grasp. Alucard silently marveled at them, superior vision following the intricate designs upon them belied by distance. The Father seemed oddly content to see Alucard piqued by them, the vampire nearing closer until until only a meter distanced them. "I'll admit, I didn't really mean for it to be a serious bet, you see, but these bells are truly special. I thought, maybe give it to Henryk here and maybe he might use it for he and some lady love. I have one, myself," Gascoigne indicated to the one around his neck, "but there's a tradition behind them. They're made for lovers, you see. It's an old Yharnam tradition that two hunters or one who is a hunter wear one, and the object of their affections, the other. Keep one or both safe, the energy of their love protecting them. The Church Hunters add in that its the Old Gods, but that ain't always true. But the story remains the same. Each pair is different, but between the lovers, they're the same. Like two hearts joined together even if they're apart. Viola has the other one that matches my own, though they're a little tarnished since we've been married for so long now," he explained softly but proudly, smiling sheepishly. Henryk nodded and his own eyes seemed to quiet.
Alucard stared at them for a long while, Gascoigne proffering them whilst the vampire made a quick study of their contrast to the priest's worn one. Something in his heart stirred oddly, but he took both bells without second thought, distantly wondering how they might look against a breast cloaked in black—
"Can they be used in courtship?" Gascoigne chortled huskily to himself, nodding. "Mm, I see. I can't imagine that I'll be using them anytime soon if ever. Pretty to look at all the same," Alucard backpedaled, slightly annoyed by the man's clear smugness. Something about a lonely life that was suddenly pitiable? Hardly lonely; simply unused to and not ready for company of any kind that fell outside of absolute necessity.
But Alucard's own question haunted him. While Gascoigne and Henryk were engaged in small talk, something strayed. Clearly, he was gaining a small group of people to consider affinities of him. Yet, it was the Crow maiden that was coming to the forefront of his mind, and not simply as a passing thought. Did she really make that much of an impression so soon? Her being a woman suddenly didn't make her appealing to him, not all. Not when his interests in such matters were almost nonexistent if described fairly.
This city isn't the place for this, he countered darkly in his own thoughts even as the bells glinted in such newness and promise. Unblemished, compared to this city. Unlike the mission that would bring great despair if its true motive was made known. Convincing himself to push that matter aside, he pocketed them safely in his lapel pocket. While he wouldn't exactly eager to discard them, that didn't mean he needed to use them at all or ever. A grim souvenir was what they'd likely ever end up being.
He hadn't forgotten it. Even with this odd and dysfunctional bevy of people he'd come to be associated with, that wouldn't change. Alucard was a king coming into the kingdom he'd inherit once his mission was fulfilled. That was what he wanted...wasn't it?
Through even the garb he wore, the slight chill felt by sensitive skin of autumn-cooled metal pressed with countering insistence. As though divines and forces refuted it.
Night had finally passed. Through the stories of the Hunter's lodge, into the basement he could hear activity that kept him awake. Kept him feeling guilty. That annoyance, that pressing sentiment that resonated throughout his chest. That very thing that couldn't be sustained for much longer. Alucard found himself staring into the empty confinement of his coffin lid, the lacquered blackness and white, plush satin encompassing him. Breathing in the scents of the earlier extermination and all the pollution of the city that was becoming too well-acquainted to his skin. The blood that perpetually dyed him was different this time, bestial, inhuman. Alucard shuddered in revulsion for reasons he couldn't say. But whatever they were, he wasn't certain if it was responsible for his sleeplessness.
Impatience got the better of him and he lifted and shoved the lid noisily aside, on his feet in an instant as he strode purposefully forward and ascended into the human activity above. Light spilled through the darkness and swallowed him, coming into the first floor corridor where many dorms were, the chestnut halls warmly lit with ensconced lamps, Alucard blinking in admitted surprise at who he narrowly ran into.
Samel Way stared blankly at him for a second too long before his gaze bowed away and he set to skirt around the immortal, waves of a bristling cold emanating from him that was clearly palpable. The thorniness that hadn't been strange to Alucard who put forth them in his own fronts far too often. "Samel, wait—" Alucard stopped him, in the form of a hand on the boy's soldier, all before Samel reeled with a cornered and angry look and wrenched his shoulder brusquely away.
"Don't touch me," Samel's breath shuddered angrily, shaking as he trembled with anger. Mustering it especially in the face of a monster.
However, Alucard retorted with a snarl and seized Samel by his collar and slammed him into a wall, the male's eyes bulging fearfully as his body thumped loudly against the wood. He ground the hunter's body back forcefully, nearly fully suspended from the vampire's prodigious strength. Looming in that savage silhouette Samel remembered from their first meeting, his face blanched considerably. But, their confrontation hadn't gone unchecked or unnoticed. Several doors opened, eyes blinking owlishly before they widened at what was transpiring.
"YOU NEED TO CEASE THIS IDIOCY AND TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!" Alucard roared fiercely, Samel's body clapping against the wall again from the enunciated force of it. Eyes ranging fearfully, they matched unfortunately with Chera's, the girl's bubbling with tears as she shrieked and tried to stop him before Viola caught the girl on time, cradling her close whilst she watched the proceeding with equal amounts of fear and guilt from her non-involvement. But as a mother with a family, she couldn't afford to lose her life.
Alucard became dimly aware of the audience that had gathered, resentfully lowering Samel but not allowing him leave. Samel swallowed again, a religious terror taking to him before he stuttered out his answer: "I-I had my reasons! Mr. Alucard, sir...m' father died that way. Acceptin' a challenge like that, disappearing, then...dyin'. That's how he died, that's why...I got so angry. 'm sorry, really, I am." Samel burbled this out, and though it felt too short to suffice for a story, given the circumstances it had to do.
The Nosferatu weathered a long and exhaustive sigh, that enough to help quell dispel most of those present. All save for Viola and Chera, both women gradually relaxing but still highly guarded. Chera, however, burst from Viola's embrace and tore towards Samel and seized him away from anywhere too close to the vampire, flashing him fearful looks. Alucard looked on distantly, the revelation having hit home. So, it really was inevitable at this point, wasn't it? What he was to them both. Lifting his gaze wearily, he didn't move from where he was in the middle of the hall. But something needed to be said to dispel the pregnant silence.
"...And you couldn't have told me this before? How utterly moronic. A damned grown man holding grudges with the tenacity of a child. Almost pathetic," he said finally, loftily, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against a wall as the chestnut paneling suddenly became a fascinating study. "What do you expect from me? You knew why I left, Samel Way. Eileen the Crow needed saving, and I did. I don't owe you an apology to speak of, but I hope you might take better action in the future. I don't have time for adults who insist on acting like children, after all."
It wasn't the kindest thing to hear, this chastisement of him. But it brightened Samel's countenance if only a little, this a familiar thing once between both hunters. A return to some modicum of familiarity. The younger hunter looked hopefully but subdued at the vampire, Alucard quirking a laconic smirk. "Now, if you're ready to be one, you may as well prepare for tonight's hunt. None of this foolish drama if it can be helped." It was enough of an apology for all it mattered.
"Oh, Mr. Alucard, jus' thought I'd also say, but a letter arrived. It's from the professor," Samel replied with a changed subject. A codename? Hardly, but anyone could be a professor. Obvious yet enigmatic enough of a moniker.
"Well, hand it over," Alucard urged, holding out an open and expectant hand. A lightly crinkled letter was set on it, and Alucard closed it in a careless fist as he opened it and the contents to read. Eyes skimmed the lines, then re-read through them. When he was finally finished, he lifted his head and seemed disturbed from the previous atmosphere.
Things were finally going to be put into motion. His master was growing weary of waiting and knew that remaining on the surface would spell out nothing but stagnancy. They needed a leg up into the higher echelons were anything to be completed at all. For this first leg of it, it meant the Healing Church. Van Helsing had stated Vicar Amelia by name whom Alucard learned was its present Vicar by word of mouth. The highest position in the Choir, or one of them—whichever one, she was a powerful woman all the same, and he was an abomination, infamous or not. Yharnam thought he was merely an enigmatic and garishly dressed foreign gunman, not the horror of a vampire he would really be. Except to a select few, that was.
"I'm afraid I won't be joining you for tonight's hunt," Alucard stated simply, gaining a crestfallen look from Samel and one similarly mirrored in Chera. Viola had left to work as barkeep as she usually tended to, the vampire just remembering the gleam of the bell he hadn't noticed before situated at her collar. Again, only a distant observance of no importance, nothing more. "I have business to attend to in the Cathedral Ward, and it's of the utmost importance." Alucard's lips thinned pensively, wondering: would the church of a pagan god still be enough, in its veneration, to dissuade him from entering? Even if Van Helsing had bastardized his physiology in years of experimenting, all the same.
"We'll see you tomorrow then, right, sir?" Chera broached, Alucard regarding her aloofly before nodding. Though his reply unsettled her, she had right to be. Chewing on her lower lip, she silently waited for his reply.
"I can't make any promises," he replied honestly, modulation lowered as he considered the day ahead. Alucard had a foreboding feeling he couldn't place a name to, even if his vague idea of it might be enough somehow.
Soon enough, they both turned to leave, the future now truly set in motion.
Twilight passed into an early night, still so young, stars oddly shining where they were normally consumed. It didn't feel like the night before, for it was quiet. Even as Alucard trekked through the city, his way there was relatively unobstructed, Beasts in terrifically low frequency and leaving for a journey that was almost too easy. Several Church hunters garbed in white and black prowled the vicinity, all stairs and soaring heights of cathedrals that sailed Gothic into the very sky. However, something was completely off. Alucard's gaze was transfixed on what appeared to be an enormous Amygdala perched like a spider on the flank of the cathedral, but no one seemed to take notice of it, and if anything Alucard was the one receiving odd looks before the white hunters continued elsewhere on their patrol. The being seemed ignorant to his presence, or simply uncaring. Was this the god they worshiped, or one them? Nothing about them felt ethereal or divine, but unearthly was a certainty. Unease weighed him now, but it seemed a definite confirmation that he needn't yet worry about divine providence keeping him from his goal.
"You can see somethin', can't you?"
He almost forgot the amygdala was there at all. Alucard perked to sound of her voice, an undeniably jubilant grin bursting to his features as he eagerly followed from where it came, seeing a wan lantern nearby burning incense that highlighted the contours of her mask more readily than times previous. Alucard's expression schooled itself to one slightly more neutral when he came close enough, Eileen's arms remaining folded even as he did, but regarding him all the same. Where the last was primed with acerbity and some degree of unpleasantness, he wasn't sensing that now. Maybe Eileen wasn't as prickly a woman as he'd initially thought.
"Beautiful night, isn't it? Perhaps I was admiring the moon...among other things." His voice lingered on her whilst his gaze did, Eileen chortling to herself and he felt a rush of elation from that alone. It was a lovely sound, he had to admit, and he wouldn't mind hearing it again in the least. "You get the picture, I'm sure. However it is painted, do you know what it is or am I simply going mad?" The latter was hardly impossible if not already a reality, frankly.
Eileen straightened and looked out across the Ward, the terraced vicinity having elevated their vantage point considerably. A Crow, perched and sentinel upon a high point where she could swoop down and strike prey at any point she desired. Though a romantic thought, it didn't seem that farfetched. She looked thoughtful, but not without words to say. "I can't really say wha' it is people see. Some people can't, others can. As for me, well...whatever it is ya see is somethin' I can't. All I can tell you." Her head—beak—angled towards him, Alucard now the one to look out unto the city as she did.
"Then it's of no consequence, then," Alucard finished, but not with their conversation, certainly not. "Might I ask how you've been since that night, Eileen? It's been a week at least. I pray you've recovered since then."
Eileen hummed thoughtfully, Alucard's eyes flashing with a boyish hope that was thankfully absent from his features, but that hardly escaped the notice of the woman. Being old didn't mean she was blind...yet, at least. "I'm up and walkin', aren't I?" This she said with a sport of dry humor, hearing the laugh in her voice before she sobered. "I might thank you, though. Wouldn' have walked away otherwise, I don't think."
He couldn't stop thinking of the bells. She canted her head as his gaze lowered to stare thoughtlessly, the sure sign of a preoccupied mind. Then, Alucard grinned at her teasingly. "Is it often that you get into situations like that?" he asked, earning an anticlimactic snort from the woman. He imagined she'd rolled her eyes as well. Slimming that grin into a mild smirk, he pressed on. "No Beckoning Bell, no partner to work with?" Her droll and unamused silence surely meant she was waiting for him to get to the point.
Ah, the moment of truth. Pensively, a concentrated look stealing to his features, a gloved hand began to fish into that lapel pocket where the bells still miraculously were. Availing one in the same way Gascoigne did, he let Eileen take the sight of the beautifully delicate object, tingling from a faint breeze that encouraged it to do so. The woman held a skeptical air, taken aback and confused, but...it wasn't negative. More like...even he wasn't sure what she was experiencing. "I have hearing that is far, far superior to humans and maybe more so than beasts. The slightest sound from that and I could be by your side like in that last fight. But, it's far less...inclusive than a Beckoning Bell. Ring that little thing and you'd be quite fine with me by your side."
Eileen stared at it for a long moment, not incredulous, but more bemused and inclined towards amused disbelief. "That isn't jus' a little bell to ring, Alucard. Do you know what it is, bein' a foreigner, or do you know and are trying to trick me into ignorance?"
Alucard lifted his chin, leaning against the rail with the bell back in his hand, wanting to hear it from her. "Alright, enlighten me; pretend I wasn't told the tradition behind it. Do tell, draga."
Eileen can only utter a throaty chortle, dark and avian in quality. This was no blushing maid, no flushing woman who would sooner hide behind a fan. There was darkness present in it, almost seductive without intending, and it thrilled him. He smiled just as darkly in turn, leaning into her, a hand daring to caress along the side of her cheek, only ghosting and not impinging too greatly. "Lovers wear these bells. It's supposed t' protect them, keep them connected. No two pairs are alike, to keep them distinct. But we're not lovers to speak of—how unfortunate."
They both seemed to calm in a lieu of a pause that Alucard didn't fill immediately, leaning again upon the balustrades and seeming...serene. The way Eileen seemed to eternally be. "I find myself liking you, Eileen. It's too simple to remand it to something as obnoxiously obtuse as partners. I'd like to court you if I can. In fact, I mean to."
She hadn't expected this. Eileen grew honestly silent for a long moment, heart fluttering in her chest. Consciously, she drew herself back, as she couldn't remember the last time if ever a man had come to her with something so honestly ludicrous. Maybe as a much younger woman, but she wasn't young. Almost fifty years old, she wasn't the sort of woman seemingly a young man so openly desired. Even if many doubted his humanity, it didn't matter. Oh, how cold she could become, something thinking this was an elaborate ruse to what would culminate as some cruel tease. Eileen looked away like how he'd found her, a cold sentinel staring out into the inflamed night, shrugging her shoulders but steeling herself. For it wasn't worth getting her subconscious hopes up over, no matter how moronic it was.
"No competition, no one to stop you...to think, with the hunter of hunters of all people. Hmph, it's enough that I'm old. You're playing a fool's game, Alucard. Well, I certainly hope you don't intend upon idiocy with me. For your sake, I'd pray you don't." Beneath her mask, she was cold to it and a threat laced her words, but that didn't stop her heart from beating as strongly as it did—that Alucard certainly noticed.
He neared her, quietly took a hand that she watched intently as he extricated it from her fold. Skin beneath flushed at how close they were, Eileen still mentally reeling at something like this, but she kept her walls high all the same. With all the grace of a gentleman, he planted a sincere kiss upon her knuckles, then withdrawing and releasing it. ...She swore she almost forgot to breathe.
"I don't intend to treat this like a game, Eileen. In fact, I mean not to. Not unless you want me to. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to."
Eileen watched on his back retreated, stopping where she could see him as he removed the fedora and purposefully put on the bell and adjusted it into place before proceeding on again. At the balustrades, its mate was simply resting there, waiting for her. She stared at for a long moment, picking it up and holding it in an open cusp and letting herself process what had just happened, wondering if it had been real at all. Her shoulders sagged and she sighed tiredly, smiling mirthlessly beneath her mask. Even if this encounter made her feel a warmth for what felt like the very first time, she was too intelligent and wise to let it get to her.
"I'm getting far too old for this..." she murmured desolately, eyes still transfixed on such a small and innocuously inconsequential thing, wondering if she shouldn't leave and let a night of the Hunt better preoccupy her mind instead.
Last Thoughts: Another new chapter, but if anything, this one defines the game changer. Where we finally see the reality behind the rising action as well as some old conflicts finally finding closure. To begin, with Alucard's treatment of Samel, he's really not one for peaceful resolutions, is he? Alucard tends towards being physical when someone tries to be aloof when he's very straight to the point, no subterfuge wanted. He runs hot and doesn't do well with the cold. But it's good to see that finally wrapped up, right? And, of course, my favorite: the camaraderie with the hunters in their little group. Especially Gascoigne and Henryk. It was a shame we didn't get to see any of that in the game, but at least we can theorize what it might've been like, right?
And the crux of this story: the blooming romance between Eileen and Alucard. Honestly, Eileen is too cynical a woman to really seem like the type to take romance outside of harmless and playful flirting. This is what some friends and I agree upon, anyways. But I don't think she's that unfazed and aloof to really be that detached. In fact, I think she's so accustomed to being without it that the sudden introduction of it made her a little flustered. And from an old Casanova like Alucard? It's probably far more potent that it might've been otherwise. And, being the Old World charmer that he is, he strikes me as someone very upfront with his sentiments. Oh, and the bell inclusion? Yup, shameless romantic headcanon right there. Who says a tragedy like Bloodborne has to be without it?
Anyway, until next time!
~Peace, G.