"If you don't have your own story, you become part of someone else's."- The Captain, Season 3

Alucard's eyes snapped open, in the middle of night of all times as they often did. As a child, he'd learned to let his will lull him back to sleep.

Now his bare feet padded the halls of his father's castle like a ghost under slack and wa white tunic. It wasn't that far of an occurrence to encounter Sypha pacing from the double doors of her guest suite where Belmont snored away his recovery. She carried a far greater burden in her womb, yet she only met him in smiles and passive greetings when they met in the night.

That wasn't tonight.

Something of of specter of his mother ought to be conjured, pacing as bare and restless as he; replenishing books and staring with a contemplative look over the pages of an old text of his father's, one arm draped in a shawl and the other cradling a glass of red wine by the bowl of the cup in between thin fingers.

Belmont snored. Sypha sighed, and tossed the sheets of their bed between her knees.

Alucard walked.

"Everything here is for a purpose," Lisa explained, her golden crown like a reflection of the sunlight that hit it. He'd never seen blue eyes clear like hers among any human woman, and the mystique of it all let the ferocity of her death be all the more of a mystery to him.

"Everyone here is for a purpose."

The faint notes of music streamed from a cracked window. Alucard lifted his lead toward the noise, eyes unblinking in the dark as he pondered how the noise from outside was reaching him after a majority of the damage had been fixed over the last several months. His father's castle was indeed a masterpiece, but not without it's flaws.

He knew the source to be the villagers, and under former circumstances he might've indulged his more introverted tendencies and retired by himself, irritably listening to the restless sleepers he'd invited to share walls with him as their new home was built. (Sypha was with child. He refused to allow her to sleep outside.)

He walked to the corridor that led to the great hall where artificial light shone constantly, unlike the whimpering flicker of more familiar candle. It was the room where his mother had convinced his father to share his knowledge with her, and the site of his earliest memory: when he'd clumsily fallen from running, from what he wasn't sure. His mother ascended the stairs in alarming calmness, her hair falling over her shoulder as she called to him.

"Adrian!"

Alucard pushed open the double doors to the scene before him. The winds of autumn were still mild, and the distant strings being strummed by skilled hands was all too pleasant. Twin fires glowed before him, lit upon pyres of scrap and wood from beyond the treeline.

He walked several steps, them hesitated. A group of children ran by and he had half a mind to scold them for running about so late, but he halted- that was exactly the sort of thing his father would do when he was a boy. And he didn't earn his nickname for nothing, so he held his tongue instead to merely pause and watch them pass him by.

It was when he lifted his gaze towards the fire to his right again that he saw her. Dark hair the hung mid back, still damp from bath in a stream. He could have offered her a bath inside the castle as he had for Sypha and Trevor. He didn't.

Alucard inherited keen senses- he could hone in on a single human and hear the flutter of an accelerating heart, smell their emotions from their sweat with such intensity that he could taste it on his tongue. Vampires used these senses to hunt, but Alucard used them to read people. He recalled feeling Sypha fall for Trevor within the depths of the Belmont hold, well before she'd realized it herself. With every clumsy attempt at humor and wit her scent intensified, and he found it rather silly.

Greta's heart was slow and steady, and when she lifted her gaze from the man she was sharing a mug of ale with to see him, he felt a pang of guilt for listening. Now he had to approach the group, as human social ques deemed it so when one was caught watching.

Greta grabbed the mug by the handle to take another swig, swatting her neighbor's hand away when he protested. She lifted the mug to her lips and drank, and the damp hair swayed against her back. The music being played opposite the side of the bonfire from her changed tempo to something slow and rhythmic, and just nearly in the same tempo as her heart.

His mother once mused that musicians were burdened with an extra sense of people. In that moment, he wagered that she was correct. Through all the noise of jolly banter and laughter, a simple villager with a couple of strings could perform a melody that was Greta's heart.

Or... anyone's? That, or the musician was tired and drunk and merely moved his fingers slower.

Greta rose as he approached, and the two did their best to ignore the eyes of the mirthful villagers about them. The scent of sweet berries wafted through to his lungs.

"Alucard! I was starting to wonder if you'd had enough of us."

Alucard chuckled, giving her the smallest hint of a smile. "It was either I reside out here with all of you or inside the castle with Belmont." He crossed his arms, feigning a chill though in reality he wasn't cold at all.

Greta laughed, pulling Alucard's arm for him to sit by her before the fire, and the man beside her cursed something vulgar when she pulled his ale from him again to offer it to Alucard instead.

In the first parts of the story, the old contents of the building were scattered and cleared about. Isaac took part in this himself, as the men to be hired for such a task were scarce to be found in a city decimated by night creatures. Sifting through the wreckage allowed him the release of confronting his deeds without distraction or the cloudy mirror of denial.

Bodies, and what remained of them were excavated and brought to designated spots within the city for identification, if possible, and then sent to the appropriate place for burial. Isaac worked under the guise of a hooded cloak, having little to say to those who worked around him. The men available for work came gradually, trickling in from outlying lands as the hordes receded and safe travel was becoming a commonality again.

The second part of the story was one where the bones of the structure were cut, measured, and set. Timber was brought in from the outside treeline, and they already had the remaining foundation of stone to work with. Ropes were tethered to wood and Isaac began to speak more freely, if only to command instructions to those around him. The previous establishment had been an inn of sorts, now it would be something entirely different. They droves nails into the wood to set them erect and by the heat of the midday sun, Isaac removed his cloak, wiping the sweat from his brow with a cloth.

The third part was the most daunted. The flesh of the structure was filled in with more timber and stone, and the face that emerged from the side of the street was four windows over two stories, stacked two by two to border a door of oak. Sub floors were rearranged, where the remains of former inhabitants came only in little hints of their existence: a shoe, a tooth, a bead from a necklace.

The fourth part were the final touches, two adjacent classrooms with an adjoining doorway, the upstairs suitable for bunk beds, and a kitchen directly down below the dining hall. Desks and chairs were cut from craftsmen, and linens sewed by women one plagued by fear and nightly sleeping in bizarre spaces to avoid the hordes. That was no longer: the days were bustling and full of activity. The nights were quiet save for the chirp of insects and the opening and closing of the door by the crowds in taverns and the call of an owl.

There was no reanimated flesh; not literally. No screams of agony and ritualistic orders to be given.

Those came later.

"This is your home now," He told the scholar who hobbled with a wagon in tow, eyes widened in the surprise of being confronted by a stranger making such a proposition.

"A-All my records have been destroyed," The elderly man told Isaac with a heavy brow furrowed, "I've nothing to offer in a school."

"You may get other books, who knows?" Isaac cocked his head. "What is a text if there were no mind to write it?"

The elderly man fumbled with the reins of the steed her led, looking at the ground for a moment and then to Isaac, "You assume I would write."

"No," Isaac chuckled, "That would suggest you have enough time left to do so." Then, he quickly added, "But I will find you some. Or whatever you need. It is preferable to sleeping in a stable, no?"

The rest of the staff was recruited, and gifts of trinkets and texts filled the shelves of the new structure, filling it in like teeth on a jawline, or eyes in sockets.

The final part was the motivation for it all.

"I have a puzzle I need solved." He said to the muddy orphans huddled under a bridge. They gathered curiously, giving him a distant reflection of himself as a skinny child, knobbly knees and elbows with a curiosity that sent him on the journey that brought him here.

He reached into his pocket, grazing the hilt of his knife on his belt through the fabric. He clutched a small wooden toy and pulled it out. It was a a box with two chambers, and a red and blue bead opposite one another that could only be navigating through deep grooves in the wood that dipped below the surface and out again, so the pathway of the bead could only be detected by the vibrations in the wood against one's palm when they held it and tipped it this way and that.

"Two beads. One red, one blue. He pointed to the respective colors as the children gathered. "Get them in the same chamber at the same time and you win."

The first boy strode confidently, taking the box from him as if almost annoyed at this adult strangers audacity to approach them with such a silly game, and he was going to prove him wrong.

He failed. And he failed again. And again. The others gathered, some standing patiently, waiting their turn, and some squatting to the ground in fatigue, revealing trails of dirt over their knees and legs.

The next one tried, a sandy haired boy with blue eyes whose countenance was quieter and humble. Isaac had half a mind to accept him as the winner out of pity, but he held back, silently watching the child fail and eventually, in silent surrender, return the box to him.

"You've won." Isaac breathed with glee at the fourth child, and small girl barely over the age of five years, he'd guess. She'd beaten the others before her nearly over twice her age, and with such a swift succession of several flicks of her wrists to join the red and blue beads into the same chamber.

"You'll come with me." She did react to protest or question, but merely looked up at him with meek dark brown eyes that moved to her companions that had gathered around. The crowd was tense and silent only in the way that happened when a grown man took a little girl by the hand and led her away with little explanation.

Isaac tucked the box away into his pocket, stopped, and lifted her by the armpits to cradle her. She said nothing, her hair a tangled mess of wiry blonde strands made murky by filth. She was tiny and light as he shifted her to the hold of on arm as he reached into his pocket pulled a wrapped candy from it. He held it to her as he walked, and she accepted it cautiously from him, dark eyes flickering to his again as she took it and unwrapped it and hurriedly shoved it into her mouth.

Isaac chuckled. She'd certainly grown accustomed to scavenging for food with other children to compete with. "Would you like to go to school?" He asked her at last, when they found their way to the building. "You'd be the first pupil. Until I find others."

The girl straightened her knees as he lowered her to the ground, turning to face the structure where he'd taken her: stone and wood met in neat stacks to give way to an entirely new being than it had been before the destruction came.

She maintained her hold on his hand, looking up at him and only shrugging in response.

"We've got a teacher. A warm bed. Food."

The sound of the last word caused a brief flash of excitement in her eyes and she looked back at the school. Isaac laughed lightly, all too familiar with how the simplest of needs seemed most extravagant when they weren't met.

"Come on then. I'll show you."

And like that, the reincarnated structure gained a heartbeat.

Clara shut the binding, rocking her child in his cradle with the toe of her foot as she sat in the office. She was supposed to be impartial, but in truth being a new widow who was once highborn at birth, reduced to a mere Castle maid by the chaos of vampires and those who conspired with them.

'We want stability.'

'Stability, my ass.' She could've laughed at the thought. She held Hector's pages to her chest, it suddenly dawning on her that perhaps there was something in the context she was missing.

This was a story of broken people, but was there anything truly left unbroken in the world? Her husband was a marriage on convenience to her- a matter of security and procreation when she'd be stripped of her riches. And in a single night that he volunteered to patrol, he was reduced to a pulp of meat and bones with very little resembling a man at all.

Perhaps stability was a means for chaos, and vice versa?

She leaned to the table by the chair, readying a quill and inkwell to write yet another note in the margin.

Sometimes, just like that, Sypha woke from her dreams in a panic. Children were hunted. Children were exploited. And she often feared that even if that weren't the case they'd be swallowed whole by all the bitterness in the the world.

Bright red images of loud memories on the back of her eyelids immediately fell to silence in the moment she opened them.

The world was quiet, aside from the morning birds that chattered outside the windowsill by the bed. But even in the peaceful stillness of the early day she found herself squirming in discomfort- the pressure she'd felt on her chest and stomach and the side of her ribs, and the warm limb pinning hers beneath it hadn't merely been a part of the dream at all. Her child moved and squirmed within her, pressing her from her insides and Trevor wrapped around her in a vice-like state, oblivious to her altogether.

Oh she needed to piss.

She wriggled in a vain attempt to disentangle herself. The baby she could do little about at the moment, but Trevor was a different matter altogether, no matter how tightly he held onto her.

"Trevor." Sypha hissed harshly, shaking him without the caution that normally came from startling Trevor: he had a tendency to awake violently if startled, but the sharp urgency of her bladder didn't allow her the luxury of being cautious.

Trevor tensed, then grunted, then rolled over anticlimactically. Sypha released a sigh in relief, sliding off the bed opposite of him. The rough floorboards meeting her feet like the welcoming release from her prison. The sudden pull of gravity further urged her bladder, causing her to bite her lower lip and curse herself inwardly for not being able to cross her legs properly to prevent any leakage.

Too late. Well, at least it was too late for anyone to notice.

Sypha opened the door, minding the creek of it's hinges as she had so many times before as of late. The cabin they were building was more rustic than she'd imagined when envisioned a permanent home, and the chamber in which they currently slept, offered by Alucard was every ounce of luxury the modern world could afford but it was admittedly temporary as they were granted one of the first structures erected until their real home was finished. Thier new home was still entirely stilts and framework. Two floors: more bedrooms than current people to live in it, even if they accounted for her unborn child. But still a far cry from what Trevor has been born into.

Sypha cradled the lower portion of her abdomen at the thought- more out of necessity to keep herself from pissing herself prematurely than anything else. 'I can only vaguely remember a time when I could walk without waddling.' She thought to herself, chuckling only as she knew Trevor would had he heard her say the words aloud.

She wandered to her usual spot in the woodline, unceremonious and careless as she squatted compared to when she came out here during the day.

Two broken branches against the wooded floor. The soft exhale of a man caught by surprise. Sypha stiffened and ceased her pissing mid stream, bolting upright with her bright eyes wide when a darkly complexioned man emerged from the shadows.

Her fingers moved erratically out of instinct, and she intended to conjure something to her defense, but the softness of his voice below dark eyes put her at ease with his palms raised to her in submission.

"I mean you no harm. I've only come to see Belmont."

Sypha thought for a moment, cursing the closeness of her labor for the muddling of her thoughts. She rather liked clarity. "The place or the man?" She asked the stranger, positioning her thumbs with fingers and raising them as if in a threat.

"The man?" The stranger's dark eyes were wide. "I never would've placed him for a survivor. But yet again, here am I."

"Here you are." Sypha repeated back to him menacingly. The shadows that revealed him showed dark skin, dark robes, a bald head, though not from age.

"I came to see the place. I've no interest in the man anymore."

He dropped his hands to his side and Sypha followed suit. Her eyes wandered over his weather torn cloak to the oddly shaped handle of the dagger at his side. He was every bit a threat by definition, reeking of magic and darkness, yet something in his demeanor was lighter that whatever she retained in her own heart, so she remained defensive while resisting whatever urge within her existed to attack.

Her right hand moved back to her belly. "You cannot stay with me tonight, he will kill you on the spot," She told the stranger, not naming her subject but knowing her guest would understand all the same, "But I can show you to where some spare lodgings may be."

The stranger nodded. "That is kind of you."

Sypha motioned with the twirl of her index finger pointed at the ground. "Turn around, first. You interrupted me."

A dark brow raised under a shaven head. "Interrupted..."

"I came out here to piss."

The stranger appeared shocked for a moment, then his features relaxed. He brought the knuckles of a hand to his mouth. "I will find the lodgings on my own then."

Sypha watched him walk on his own towards the clearing, pulling her nightgown back over her knees and resuming her squatting only when she was sure he was far enough. She watched for him the entire time, and when she cradled her stomach the entire way back to the cabin where Trevor slept, entirely oblivious to their visitor, she looked for the distinctive stream of smoke from the spare cabin in town. There was none.

She never saw him the village, and felt no need to make mention of it. The peculiarity of it all was enough to make her hold her tongue, particularly in the presence of Trevor would would seemably have the nerve to cut down anything that would be a potential cause of the bizarre situation.

"Strange things happen in these woods." Greta nodded to the wood line. The flames from the bonfire flickered against her face, make olive skin shine like something golden.

Alucard sipped from her stolen beverage and raised a brow at her when he passed it over to her. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes." Greta accepted the ale from him. "My men have told me at night the shadows from the trees and the moon take on eerie actions. Unnatural. One particular branch made a motion like a men does to signify something particularly vulgar that a man does to a woman."

Though she was speaking in good humor Alucard couldn't help but to feel a tinge of irritation. "Your people faced horrors. Literal beasts in the flesh that wanted nothing more than to devour them. And now that threat is gone, so they must invent tales of horny tree shadows to fill that void."

Greta blinked up at him, dark lashes lining brown eyes and full lips. But, he told himself he didn't notice. Her expression was hard for a moment, and he only looked back at her in a puzzled, flat way like he did was he couldn't identify what her heart rare, breath, or scent was telling him. It was settling.

Her facade broke, and she fell into a fit of laughter, mimicking the jovial mood of those that shared space around the fire with them. Her companion that she'd stolen the mug of ale from had since gone and found his own.

"I'm sorry, I'm just..." She laughed again, covering the left side of her face with a hand.

Alucard couldn't help but chuckle with her. Not that he found his own wit that humorous, but the image she'd described to his was just that absurd. The laughter spilled from her chest and her heart accelerated. It was happy and carefree, not like the fits of combat they'd engaged in together several months prior.

"I'm just realizing how silly it is now that you've put it that way."

Alucard drank from the mug again. "Happy to help you find that sense of clarity."

"Clarity?" Greta took the mug from him as she had her other companion earlier. "You are an unlikely source, Alucard, as you are the least clear man I've ever met." The tempo of the music picked up again and the villagers about the fire cheered the musician on. Then he noticed it- Greta was dressed in just a plain white blouse and slacks, and the autumn's cool water had left goosebumps across her flesh.

"I never claimed to be such a thing."

Greta laughed again, and her hand fell from her face to take his hand and squeeze it. "We've known each other... how long now?"

"Seven months." Alucard replied without waiting a beat.

"Seven months," Greta repeated back to him, "And you've only now sat before my fire with me."

"And I only came because the music was so loud I couldn't sleep." Alucard teased her.

Greta feigned shock, her lips parting agape and her brown eyes wide. "Perhaps it wouldn't be so loud to you if you didn't keep a sleep schedule with a pregnant woman and a sleepy Belmont? We keep a perfectly respectful volume here in the village of Belmont."

He considered her words for a moment, still smiling. Greta was warmth, from the fluttering steady pulse that he now felt from it's vibrations against his thumb now that his hand was enclosed in hers.

"And the fire is hot."

Greta turned to the flames for a moment, then looked back at him. "The flames are hot when you're half-undead perhaps."

"Perhaps." Alucard answered without missing a beat again.

"But you know... humans also like being inside."

Alucard blinked, as if clarifying for himself her meaning.

"Inside?"

"Inside, yes, you see, it's this thing where all four walls cover you." Greta released his hand and brought her palms together for emphasis.

Alucard swiftly grasped her hand in his, pulling it from the opposite palm. The firelight emphasized the pallor of his flesh against the warm color of hers.

"If you're looking for an invitation, you have it." Alucard told her quietly.

Her expression fell. Her hand relaxed into his, fingers curling over his knuckles as her eyes lifted to the roofs of the castle behind him.

"I am looking." Greta murmured.

Alucard rose, pulling her up with him, managing to gather her mug of ale as she was urged upwards. The villagers about them surprisingly took little notice as he led her towards the castle. She was slightly nervous, he could tell.

So was he.

Lisa gasped, the waves crashing against rock outside the window over their bed. Her toes curled with so much force that her entire foot cramped the way it always did until Vlad's hand captured it, the pad of his thumb running firmly up the ball of her foot to the middle.

He was still inside of her, but she threw her head back and exhaled in relief merely from the pressure of his thumb against her foot.

'Damn it' She had more pressing matters to skewer him about, but his forehead rested upon hers and she clung to him instead. Her eyes opened wide.

Everyone is here for a purpose.