Removing his hands from her face he rolled flawlessly off of her and flipped himself around to lie on his side, as if he'd been there the entire time. Seras stared at him and blinked.
"Master should be a gymnast..." One could tell she was definitely out of her sense, but then again, that was an expert-type roll.
She flopped backwards onto the bed, as much as that HURT her, she didn't seem to care; she stared up at the coffin lid. His eyes shone dark red with amusement.
"Me in spandex tights, hm? Not even I would want to see that."
Seras snorted and rolled to her side, facing away from him as she almost rolled off the bed, laughing again; she clutched her stomach in rude pain. In between her words, one could hear a 'no' and 'I didn't mean THAT, master,' but were almost incoherent. He held her from behind.
"Better?"
She calmed herself down for the second time and stayed lying on her side, facing away from him; his arms hooked in the middle of her stomach.
"Y-yes master..." She sputtered out as she stopped laughing, and she closed her eyes. He, himself, was exhausted to no end, and immediately fell asleep at almost the same time as each other.
As usual, Alucard was the first to wake.
He felt so calm for once, like a weight had been lifted off of him; he was not worried about them, his master, and about Seras' growing strength. Although, he didn't feel like getting up just yet, as he knew well that the rookie vampire he was holding had a habit of sleeping in a few extra minutes as she could.
So he brought her closer, and allowed his head to rest on her neck and shoulder. In the back of her head, she felt her master nudging her, not purposely to wake her...but still, it was working in that sense anyway.
She opened her eyes slowly and sleepily, rubbing one of them with her left hand, and started mumbling almost incoherently, confused and dazed at the moment.
"What...? Master?" She rubbed her other eye with the same hand to wake herself up; but to disadvantage it didn't work as well as she had hoped. He nuzzled the side of her face, as he saw she was waking at her own speed.
Seras lowered her 'eye-rubbing' hand on the bed and she turned her head to the side a little bit; she found it not to hurt like it did before...and for this, she was glad. She remembered no pain when she moved her left arm, either.
"Master is still an obsessive hentai." She said as finality, as if that was all to be said about that at the moment.
"I haven't done anything too evil yet; it is too soon to say so." She snorted at this and shook her head, knowing that was a good cover up, if she'd never heard one.
She believed him anyway; but she knew in the back of her head that he usually was a hentai, save for this one time.
"Okay, you're right this time, master."
He rested his head on her again, musing at the fact that his blackness was not acting up for once...
"It is interesting, we have not heard many vampiric disturbances lately. The only thing we seem to have are these priests after us."
"It is strange, master..." She laughed. "But I don't think I'm complaining, especially when the priests are a handful within themselves."
"That little priest is even more entertaining than his old man; he has a sense of humor, or is just too foolhardy to actually do anything right. Or both, combined into one."
Seras' mouth formed another grim line as she looked down at her stomach, that Alucard had almost totally covered with his hands and arms.
"Well, he sure did something right...and he almost achieved his purpose, too." She grinned a little. "Little does he know I'm not going to go that easily, especially when I'm already dead."
He grinned the same as she. "Being already dead does have its perks," He mused sarcastically. "When you have, say, a dozen or more swords spearing in and out of you like on a cutting board...Of course, it will hurt like burning Hell, but you will live, in a matter of speaking."
Her mouth formed another trademark line and she closed her eyes, remembering well the excruciating pain.
"Hmmm..." One of his hands snaked to rest on her's, which conveniently rested on her stomach as well.
"Even though you have gotten stronger from it, you still have much to learn, and that only proved it so." He looked up from her, seeing the sky through the castle wall.
"Hmmm...Rain."
She looked at his hand seriously as he spoke; at the last statement her eyes snapped up and she turned her head sideways to look at him, her eyes narrowed to the side strangely to see him better.
"Eh?"
"I can hear the rain, Seras; if we were to train tonight, we'd not be very comfortable...Unless, you wanted to try out your animal form; you would have fur to protect you from the rain, in any case."
She gasped on reflex and her front half shot forward as she sat up, her head whipped around to him, her face holding the strangest, scariest grin, and her eyes flickered with excitement. Alucard saw it coming like the apocalypse, and let go a second before she moved.
"I see it's agreed; but it won't be an easy night." He thought for a moment. "It is ironic; from what you have told me, your comrades used to call you kitten, but then you turn out to be a tiger."
Her eyes flickered with the memory; she'd rather go without that little nickname.
"Everything I am learning seems to be hard in one way or another, I did not expect any less for this, either." Her facial expression turned back to normal, nothing scary.
Even in death, nothing was ever easy; he was glad for that she understood this fact. He sat up, half-grinning.
"I'm ready when you are; that is, if you feel you are ready and up to the challenge." His eyes bore into her, challenging her. A new struggle would keep him amused.
"I seem to be better, and I feel a lot better...So yes, I am ready." She said, strain of confidence in her voice; also maybe strewn in with a little bit of nervousness, but it hardly showed otherwise.
Simply nodding in approval, he slid to the side of the bed and hoisted himself up, offering a hand to her. When she was up, which took her a second or two extra with her wobbly, unused legs, he donned his hat and glasses once again.
The windows they passed showed a storm of sorts; lots of rain, and howling wind. Alucard tried his best to ignore its looming presence.
"Nervous, Seras?" He asked, side-glancing at her from under his orange-tinted glasses. As much as her master tried to ignore it, SHE noticed it right away, of course. She tried to tear her eyes away from the sight.
"No, not really."
They were silent as they walked further, eventually standing in the archway of the double doors; the last dry place before stepping outside and getting soaked.
"It is okay to be nervous, just don't let it get the best of you." He turned to her. "There is a little spot of trees that would be an ideal spot for your transformation...not to mention it would block most of the rain." He opened one of the doors and she peered outside.
"A little protection is better than nothing at all..."
Alucard agreed in full with her, nodding and grabbed her arm, not tightly, just so he could hold her hand as they made their mad-dash across the garden.
Two steps out the door, and they were immediately soaked; Seras more than Alucard, as he had his wide-brimmed hat. Her bangs stuck to her face and hung limply as the water weighed it down; he reached his other hand up and, doing something he rarely did, gave up his hat to her, plopping it atop her wet head.
"The red does not suit you in your blue uniform." He chuckled despite everything. The hat was wider and bigger than it was on Alucard; for him, the edges went right to his shoulders. For her, it was half past her shoulders.
She looked up as they walked...rather quickly...to the sanctity of the trees. Her master's hair was dripping wet and almost matting to his face; she could see the clear displeasure to the rain, she knew that feeling. She hated the rain, too...all the more reason to get under those trees quickly.
The trees were closer...Two more feet...
One more...Made it.
By the time Alucard reached the dryness underneath, his hair was perfectly flat against his head, he had to shake his head to get it to unlatch from his face, making it stick out in odd places. He looked around, brushing away some bothersome bangs from his eyes; the trees were much drier than outside of them.
He looked at Seras, amused to absolutely no end at the sight of his hat on her head. They walked a little further in for extra precautions.
"That is why I dislike my human form at times: gets wet too easily, and takes forever to dry." He laughed slightly at his own misery, as Seras tipped the hat up with one of her hands to see him. She had to look up very high to catch a glimpse, and the huge-ass hat was making it ten times harder.
"Master...Do you want this back?" His eyes roamed over her with it on.
"You should think about switching your uniform to red, then maybe I'd let you wear my hat more often." He took it back from her and placed it on his head again. Seras automatically rested her hands on her hips and looked out at the rain with irritation.
"I hope I can turn into a tiger quickly, I don't like this rain much, master."
"I do not either, I prefer it overcast, but not raining. I have a feeling that no vampire likes the rain," He peered at the raindrops a little then spoke again. "Hmmm...Okay then, Seras, this is a bit difficult. To transform you have to first find your animal spirit again; basic meditation, that is the easiest part to perform. But I do not suggest standing up for this process."
Looking around, they found a comfortable enough knot in a nearby tree. She sat down and breathed out without thinking, only afterwards remembering stupidly that she didn't have to do that in the first place.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, knowing exactly what she was concentrating on and looking for. Alucard sat down next to her casually. Obviously, he did not need to meditate, but it was never a bad thing once in awhile.
"Your guide should be easy to find, but once it is found, you have to ask him to emerge; to become your body as well as your mind."
Seras hardly heard him as she focused on concentrating; she felt herself become very relaxed and taken away almost, kind of like her meeting to find her animal.
But this was unnaturally easy, since it was already found; she knew, technically, where to look. In the blackness of her mind, a faint form of a large animal appeared before her, as if it had been waiting and waiting---
Silently and slowly, she beckoned it to make its appearance at least...It was eerily quiet amongst them both and between the two, and the animal shifted itself as if it understood exactly what to do.
Alucard knew about how things were going, the hard part was to find the animal. This was the easy stuff that one could do in one's sleep.
"This will be amusing..." He said to himself as he noticed Seras stir a little, usually meaning that she had found the spirit once again. With that, he decided to do the same, closing his eyes and melting into one huge, black mass. His whole body distorted itself and morphed to what looked like a very painful experience; the six red eyes slid open and rolled around until his tail shot from behind.
Between the pearl white of the many teeth held a shining cross, the chain on it attached to the huge collar around his neck. The very last of the blackness morphed to be his hind legs, and the Hound of Hell had emerged once again.
On the outside, her lips moved as if to form words, but no sound came forth; right afterwards was like an explosion. The spirit burst from inside of her and enveloped her being, going unseen. What came next, felt like her skin boiling and rippling.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled and raised, and she opened her eyes to slits; her hair was the exact same color as would be her tiger fur, save for the black stripes as they melted all over her body from the tiny spiked tufts from either side of her head.
It seemed to conceal her body from view as her muzzle sprouted from the front of her face; a black nose appearing on the end like it was an afterthought. Her skin burned as the fur started to form itself by the melted hair on them, and at the same time her joints grew out, their bone structure taking on a different kind of form.
Her body itself grew and changed a few seconds afterwards and so did her hind legs, so she was forced to fall forward on her newly created feline legs, her large claws like rapiers digging into the dark grass underneath her paws. Just as her black stripes melted onto her back and all over her body, her ears and her tail poked out of her head and backbone, her ears swiveling and poking this way and that out of curiosity. Her tail grew long and slender, and she kept it in a nice, arched semi-circle.
She tested her new form out, in utter shock and dumbfounded ness; she was too shocked to speak. She turned her head slowly, finding it easy, and opened her bright, red catlike eyes and started at the black dog next to her.
He seemed so much tinier than she expected him to be; the whiskers on the end of her nose twitched and her eyes narrowed.