Real Witches Don't Burn

by NonbinaryFaerie

Summary:

Trevor figures that if he's going to be punished for a crime he should at least have the pleasure of committing it. He wasn't born with magical energy, but luckily it turns out that blood is an easy substitute.

Or the one where Trevor takes up witchcraft out of spite, and it changes everything.

Chapter 1: Pilot Episode: Witch's Free Real Estate

Summary:

A stranger gives you directions to the Witch's workshop, and Trevor fails to get drunk.

Notes:

I'm still reeling from all the incredibly nice things people said about my first posted fic, and I'm super excited to finally start sharing the AU I've been mentally building for almost a full year now! Thank you all so much, I hope you enjoy this one just as well!

I'll be adding tags with each chapter. I plan to make this a trephacard fic eventually but the other two aren't even "on screen" yet, so to speak, so I'm waiting to officially mark it.

Warnings: "it" pronouns used for a person, the bar fight scene and everything that goes with it (minus the emetophobia trigger because guess who has that phobia it's me), brief allusions to sex work, canon levels of swearing, and fire (in case the title didn't make it obvious, that's going to be a frequently reoccurring thing). If there's something you want me to include a warning here that I missed, please let me know!

If you're looking for help that the church can't give you, then you're looking for the Witch. I know you might not like the idea of asking for help from someone who does such devil’s work, but from what your friend over there tells me, you're too desperate to be picky. Just between you and me, the Witch isn't all that bad! It's lived not too far from this town for a good while now, never done us any harm (not unprovoked at least). Done some rather unsavoury favours if the rumours are to be believed though. Don't tell any priests what I said, yeah? I like my head where it is.

 

If you're looking for the Witch, then you're looking for the old Belmont estate. You know the path? No? I suppose you aren't from around here. It's all grown over anyhow, not so grand anymore. The road you took to get here from the next town over, about halfway through the bit where the trees are real thick on either side, there's this especially gnarled tree with no leaves but plenty of moss growing on it. You've got to go a ways into the bush to see it, but behind that tree there's this path of mushrooms that look like little pebbles. You follow that far enough, you'll find a little gate with no fence. You've got to go through it, NOT around! And latch it behind you. The path widens enough to pull a small cart through after that. That's when you've got to start minding where you put your feet! Don't step off the path, you'd be on cursed land now. Those mushrooms keep back whatever haunts those woods, but you're fair game otherwise. You might hear someone calling for help or funny lights in the distance, but it's a trick to lure you out. Just keep walking.

 

Once you see the ruins of the old Belmont mansion you're almost there. If you're lucky, the Witch's cat familiar will meet you at the edge of the clearing to escort you the rest of the way. If you're not so lucky, it'll be a green stag blocking your path. You’ve got to bow and address it as you would a queen, otherwise it'll charge at you with no damn mercy! That thing doesn't like anyone, not even the Witch itself.

 

The Witch built its workshop right in the middle of the ruins, if you can believe it! Bold, eh? I swear it chose that cursed place because no one else could stand to live there. It got that estate for free no doubt.

 

You won't want to approach the place on your own, because that strange giant plant growing next to it is a people eating monstrosity. It only obeys the Witch, and even then, only after the Witch feeds it enough wild game. Even if you managed to get past it and break in, there's a wyrm that likes to slip down the chimney and nap in that giant fireplace. Awful lot of protection for a place with no valuables to steal, eh? But I suppose it's made a lot of enemies in its line of work.

 

No, it's best to wait just outside until the Witch greets you. I'd advise against touching anything in the garden while you're waiting, too. Most of them are ordinary herbs and such I think, but you can't know for sure until it's too late, now can you? Besides, it's just rude to mess with somebody's crops. You need the Witch to in a good mood if you want any help.

 

My last bit of advice is to think real careful about what you're willing to trade for whatever magic the Witch offers you. Making deals with it can be just as tricky as shaking hands with the Devil.

 

The food it sells though, that's just fine. Best apples I've ever bought. 

 

---

 

 

Trevor sat at the back corner of the tavern where he could easily see the whole room. He hasn't passed through this town before, and he's curious as to what the supernatural presence is like here. The best way to find out is usually in the local gossip. 

 

Of course, it's also just entertaining. He tries not to snicker too obviously into his ale as he listens to a farmer complain about being punished for defending his goat from acts of bestiality. Privately, Trevor agrees with the man. Anyone who assaulted animals like that had a hit to the head coming. But God, what an absurd conversation!  

 

The alcohol burns up inside him before it can reach his blood, but the extra heat makes him flush as though drunk anyway. So long as he keeps the fire from escaping his body, Trevor passes for just another normal traveler. 

 

He nearly says here here! out loud when the complaints turn to the noble families and their petty squabbles that always seem to end with dead peasants. 

 

“... like the Belmonts!” the farmer continues. Ah, fuck. “Thinking they’re all high and mighty with their witchcraft!”

 

“If you really believed that, you wouldn't be saying it where anyone might hear,” Trevor says before he can stop himself. 

 

“And why not?” the man asks, challenge in his voice.

 

“Because you never know when a witch might be listening in. They can be awfully spiteful, you know. Might curse your crops.”  

 

“That a threat?” The farmers come closer, ready for a fight. 

 

“Not at all,” Trevor lies, “I’m just speaking from experience.” He honestly isn’t sure if he wants to start a fight or not anymore. He should just sweet talk them into buying some of his more questionable wares and leave it at that, but he can feel the influence of his fiery patron’s echo seething for violence. Wouldn’t it be satisfying, to strike fear in their hearts? To leave them cowering? 

 

Deep Breaths, he needs to take deep breaths before he sets something on fire.

 

“Who are you, to have experience with witches? Did you work for the Belmonts? That why you’re so pissy?” 

 

Trevor almost laughs because technically, the farmer is right. “Naw, I’m just a traveler with bad luck. Believe me, I resent the nobles' violent power trips just as much as you do." 

 

The men look him up and down. He wonders what he looks like to them. They aren’t close enough to notice that the whites of his eyes are actually pale green. The blue glow to his teeth is too faint to see even in this dim light. Can they see the scars on his neck? Can they tell that his vest is really a corset? 

 

“The fuck is up with those boots?” as if that’s the most suspicious thing about his appearance. Bless drunk men's observational skills. 

 

Trevor looks down at his footwear that would be perfectly average if they didn’t come up to his thighs. “My line of work requires a lot of time spent on my knees.” 

 

Across the room the bartender makes a choking noise. The ridiculously tall farmer whistles. It’s pretty easy to lead them to the conclusion that they came to; Trevor’s clothing doesn’t show a lot of skin but it certainly isn’t modest either. (His customers want their food to look “appetizing” after all.)

 

"By which I mean gardening, of course," Trevor says with the best innocent doe eyes he can muster. He pulls a bundle of fresh herbs from his bag to show them. 

 

The farmer who was ranting squints at the herbs like they're going to spill secrets, then back up at Trevor's face. "You're a strange one," he muses. At least he's less hostile now. 

 

"Thanks, I try," Trevor says, raising his mug as though making a toast. He's considering making a peaceful getaway before these men change their minds about what level of violence he deserves to have inflicted upon his person. There aren't many other people for him to eavesdrop on anyway. 

 

"You look familiar too, now that I think about it," the man continues as he invades Trevor's personal space to inspect his face. 

 

And Trevor definitely doesn't recognize any of them, which is never a good sign. "I get that a lot," (bullshit), "eye scars are more common than you think," (more bullshit). He forces his body language to stay relaxed instead of pulling away. 

 

“Wasn’t Father Fredrick saying something about someone like that?” The bartender is being purposely vague, like he doesn’t want Trevor to clue in on what he means. He’s holding a sheet of parchment that must be a wanted poster. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

 

The farmers clue in though. In an instant they’re aggressive again, shifting to block Trevor’s way. 

 

“Yeah, he was saying a heretic dealing in dark magic has been spreading Devil’s lies and curses.” 

 

There’s no way he’s getting out peacefully now. “That’s such a mouthful,” Trevor says, “why not just call me a witch and be done with it?”

 

The closer farmer pauses, confused. “But you’re a man.” 

 

“Are you sure about that?” Trevor leans forward as though flashing cleavage, though there’s not much to show, and feels slimy even as he says, “you can find out, for a price-” 

 

He should have seen the slap coming. His cheekbone smarts from the impact, but the farmer is much worse off.

 

The men stumble back as the one who’d struck him clutches his hand and yells in pain. The skin there is an angry red and blistering. “You BURNT me! How the fuck did you-” 

 

“More like you burnt yourself on my face.” Trevor finally has room to shove his chair back and stand. At this point he can only just hold his fire inside his skin and the bandages on his forearms are becoming wet with plant sap oozing from his shallow injuries. “I don’t know what you expected, backhanding someone you think practices so-called “dark” magic.” 

 

“We should take the heretic to the chapel, Father Fredrick will know what to do with him.” 

 

“We’ll be rewarded too, no doubt.” 

 

Trevor throws his bag strap over his shoulder. “And how do you plan to drag me there if you can’t touch me, eh?” Deep breaths, deep breaths. 

 

The bartender just looks exasperated. “I’m used to rowdy customers.” He pulls rope out from under the counter and tosses it to the farmers.  

 

Not bothering to even reply to that (seriously, just how “rowdy” do the local drunks get to warrant rope? ), Trevor makes a move to just shove past them. It’s not exactly difficult. Until he feels a tug on his cloak and nearly chokes before the clasp gives way. He whirls in a panic, unwilling to leave without that fluffy "pelt". 

 

Before he can snatch it back, he’s been lassoed twice from different directions so that his arms are pinned and he can’t reach anyone. Maybe later he will be impressed that they are so practiced at this that they can aim decently even when drunk, but for now he writhes and snarls like a wild thing. How dare they grab her like that how DARE they- 

 

Tongues of flame burst from his skin and catch on the rope. It’s good quality though, the heavy kind meant for holding horses, and is slow to burn through. 

 

The fur starts to writhe like a wild animal as well, dead pelt coming alive and taking a feline form. His familiar claws at her captor until dropped. She detaches from the rest of his cloak and bounds across the room to hiss and swipe at the taller farmer until he drops his rope to defend himself. 

 

Trevor charges at the other one, arms still bound but body still very much on fire. He only needs to headbutt the farmer to leave another burn mark on his forehead and send him sprawling to the floor.

 

“Get back! Get back, monster!” he screams in open fear as he scrambles backwards away from Trevor. Trevor can barely hear him over the raging fire in his own ears. 

 

The rope has finally burnt enough that Trevor can tear his way out of it. He kneels and leans over the man, ready to grip his throat and burn through his windpipe.  

 

His reach is halted by his sleeve being pulled back. He turns his head to see his familiar clinging to it with her teeth, her Belmont-blue eyes wide and begging. She cannot communicate in words, but he can feel her urgency to escape and strong belief that he would regret an unnecessary killing later. He makes a half-hearted attempt to jerk out of her grasp before conceding. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Trevor doesn’t think that he would regret it, but he knows that it would upset her. 

 

He turns back to the man cowering under him. “If you follow us, I will know, and I will bury you alive under your fields before setting them ablaze. Do you understand?” He (probably) wouldn’t do that, but this bastard would believe Trevor if he told him he eats babies at this point. 

 

After a moment of hesitation the man nods. 

 

“Good.” Exhaustion is slowly overriding Trevor’s anger and his fire shrinks to a subtly flickering glow on his skin. When he shuffles back and readjusts his bag he checks the contents, sighing in relief when he finds the re-purposed wine bottles and other goods intact. Were he in a generous mood he might have offered the man Aloe Vora salve for his burns. He is the farthest thing from a generous mood right now. 

 

By the time he stands, the white cat has retrieved his now fur-less cloak and offers it to him. He manages to give her a weak smile. Thank you, he thinks at her. 

 

She purrs. 

 

With the men all either unconscious or cowering, the Witch and his cat make their way out of the tavern and into the forest. They’ll find a tree to rest under for the night before hitting the road again in the morning. 

 

They’ve got deliveries to make, priests to hunt, and a fledgling to feed.

Notes:

Aug. 6th Edit: I've pretty much got the next chapter ready, so I'm going to try and give myself a rough schedule of one chapter each week.

Tune in on Aug. 12th for Chapter 2: Trevor Belmf, Tailor in Training

Chapter 2: Trevor Belmf, Tailor in Training

Summary:

In which Lisa changes the course of a whole prophecy with a single offhand comment.

Notes:

I wanted to get right into Gresit but I felt like this part would loose impact if you already knew what's going to happen and how it will change the future. But at least Lisa is here and there's finally some hurt/comfort, my favorite flavour of fluff!

Warnings: a (likely inaccurate) semi-graphic description of someone getting their stitches redone, a brief anxiety attack, a dissociation episode/shut down, and a bit of sleep paralysis at the very end.

When Trevor was younger, he loved sitting with the women while they did their sewing. His older cousin had the best gossip about who had gotten in trouble for what, and Auntie appreciated an extra pair of hands to fetch a new spool of thread or measure and cut the fabric. It only made sense that she would teach him basic stitches for repairing tears in clothes.

 

Trevor never thought he'd be making a living with these skills, but the tailor also appreciated having an errand boy. Trevor just had to keep out of the way.

 

“When'd you take an apprentice, Martin? Thought you hated kids.”

 

“He ain't an apprentice, Lisa, he's just here for chores.”

 

Trevor glanced up at the unfamiliar voice, curious as to why someone from out of town would visit this tiny shop instead of the much finer tailors in the nearest city. The isolation in this village was what kept him safe from spreading rumours of a last surviving Belmont, and he wasn't eager to be beaten and chased out again because of some gossiping traveler. If his gruff employer bothered to remember her name, then she must be a regular visitor…

 

Lisa had pulled a small jar from her bag and was speaking softly enough that Trevor couldn't make out the words, but her tone sounded stern as she handed the jar over to the tailor. They were acting like it was some kinda underground drug trade. Trevor snorted at the thought.

 

The sound made Lisa's eyes snap up to meet Trevor's, catching him in his nosiness. He couldn't look away fast enough. Trying to focus on the task at hand, he hoped Martin hadn't noticed him being an annoyance to customers, again. Brown thread on this shelf, black thread on that one, the fancy red thread over –

 

“Who stitched this wound? It's positively atrocious,” Trevor heard from right fucking behind him. He nearly elbowed the poor woman in the gut as he spun in surprise and pulled his shirt collar up to cover his injured shoulder.

 

“What the - y' should know bet- none of your – how – to sneak – busin-" Trevor clamped his mouth shut before it could scramble more of his sentences together and congratulated himself on immediately establishing who the village idiot is. His very fierce and serious glare was probably undermined by the way he was holding his tongue between his teeth and lips, but he had about three different thoughts trying to force their way out. He wasn't taking any chances.

 

Lisa raised her eyebrows and her hands in the universal I'm unarmed so quit freaking out gesture, saying, “I only meant that it will heal badly if it isn't treated properly. If you'll let me, I can clean and redo the stitches so they're more even.”

 

Trevor fidgeted with the spool still in his hand. He'd nearly forgotten that some of his wounds were visible for others to gawk at. The tailor must've gone to the back room, because Trevor was alone with this weirdo. Would it be suspicious if he refused? Was she more likely to report him to a priest if he acted too guarded, or if he let her see the whole mess of his back? What would kill him faster, the church or an infection?

 

“What do you want from me? You're not getting my money.” Mainly because he didn't have any, but she didn't need to know that.

 

“I'm a doctor, it's my job to help people,” she said with such a gentle expression that Trevor relaxed his posture without meaning to.

 

“That's not what I asked,” said Trevor. He wanted to trust her, for her to be trustworthy, but he knew better than to take something without knowing its price.

 

Was that a flash of pity in her eyes? “I don't need payment, dear. I'll do it for free.”

 

“I…” Trevor swallowed. “Alright.”

 

Lisa practically beamed at him, like he'd just made her fucking day. Damn, did she have no other hobbies? “Wonderful! Would you be more comfortable doing this at home, where you can lay down?”

 

“I don't, uh,” have a home, he almost finished. What could he say that wouldn't strike her as weird? “My house is a long way from here.” What was left of it, anyway. “Is it good enough if I just sit or something?”

 

“Oh! Yes, that's fine.” She turned to walk towards the curtained door that led to the back room and called out, “Martin, is it alright if I steal your apprentice and a chair for few moments?”

 

“HE’S NOT MY APPRENTICE!” The tailor shouldered aside the curtain. “What do you want with my furniture?”

 

Lisa raised a playful eyebrow. “To use it for what people usually do with chairs. I promise it won't come to harm whilst fulfilling its noble purpose.”

 

“Har har,” Martin deadpanned. He stepped fully through the doorway to hold the curtain aside for her. His eyes didn't miss the way she rooted through her bag as she passed by him. “I hope you don't plan on using that thread for whatever the good doctor is doing for you,” he addressed to Trevor when he made to also duck past Martin.

 

“What?” Trevor hadn't even realized that he was still fidgeting with the spool of red thread. “Oh! Shit, sorry.” He scrambled to put it back where it belonged, nearly dropping it in his embarrassment.

 

“Watch your damn language!” Martin chided him as Trevor disappeared into the back room.

 

Lisa had already started setting her supplies on a work table, and Trevor watched in confusion as she washed her hands with what smelled like alcohol. “I thought that whole thing about doctors doing magic rituals was bullshit.”

 

“It is. I'm just getting rid of contaminants, to prevent infection.” She nodded towards a simple wooden chair next to her. “Take off your shirt and make yourself comfortable.”

 

Trevor unbuttoned his shirt and carefully pulled his left arm out, but kept his right side clothed. He figured that should be enough room around the wound for the doctor to work with, and Lisa didn't correct him. He straddled the chair backwards so he could rest his cheek on the back and tried to not be too obviously shy. She hadn’t reacted to the littering of burn scars that were visible even with just half his shirt off.

 

“I'm just going to take a closer look first. Is it alright if I touch your shoulder?”

 

Trevor gave her a baffled look. “isn't that a kinda necessary part of this?” When she didn’t do anything, he clarified, “yeah, obviously.”

 

Lisa’s hands were gentle on his skin as she inspected the cut that ran across his shoulder blade. “I’m almost embarrassed for whoever did these,” she muttered to herself.

 

He couldn’t help but feel defensive at that. “I’d like to see you try and sew up your own back.”

 

“You did these?” Her incredulous tone made Trevor’s face heat up. “Why on earth- surely you could have asked someone else to help you instead?” 

 

“... No.” 

 

After another moment of Trevor refusing to meet her eyes, Lisa went back to her task. 

 

“I’m going to clean the area before I take the stitches out. It might sting a bit.” 

 

Trevor turned a bit to watch her soak a small cloth in more of that stuff she’d washed her hands with. It felt cold when she patted the skin just above the cut. As soon as the cloth made contact with the edge of his wound he yelped. Fuck, but she hadn’t been kidding about the sting! He gripped the back of the chair with his right hand as she cleaned. 

 

“Alright, I'm going to start removing them now,” she said. Trevor could hear her setting down the cloth and the clink of what he assumed was small metal tools, but he kept his head down. The wound had started to feel sort of numb, and he didn't want to move in case that made the pain flare again. 

 

Finger tips held the skin next to his wound in place, and there was a soft snip of tiny scissors before he felt a gentle tug. It was really weird to feel the thread being pulled out of his skin with barely any of the pain he expected. It became a rhythm of snip, pull… snip, pull , and while he couldn't exactly relax while having his skin unsewn, his mind drifted in a familiar fog. He was used to spacing out when he didn't have anything to do. 

 

That's probably why he didn't catch what she said at first. 

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

“I said, I realize I didn't catch your name before.” 

 

“I mean, it's not running away,” he joked, not expecting her to actually laugh at such a weak pun. Her laugh was warm and tickled the back of his neck. 

 

“Hello, Not Running Away, it's nice to meet you” she said.

 

“Oh my god, you're worse than my fath-” Trevor cut himself off. Cheer abruptly leaving him, he took a deep breath and hoped she didn't notice the way it hitched in his throat. 

 

No such luck. “Are you alright?” Lisa asked. 

 

“I'm fine.” 

 

“If the pain is too much, I can give you medicine to help with that. It will make you sleepy though.” 

 

He strongly suspected that she'd caught on that it wasn't anything to do with his shoulder wound, but he appreciated the out she'd given him. “I can handle it. I don't want to fall asleep here.” 

 

“That's good to hear, because I'm already-” there was one last snip, “done,” and one last pull as she took out the last stitch. “I need you to stay as still as you can so that the parts that are already starting to heal don't open up again.” 

 

Trevor did his best to follow Lisa’s instructions, but he really wished he could see what was happening. 

 

As though sensing his discomfort, she started narrating herself again. “I'm going to wipe away any fluid that seeped out,” she said just before Trevor felt that cloth on his skin again, “and disinfect the needle and thread.”

 

“Does booze really ward off infection? Most people I've heard say that before were drinking it, not washing stuff with it.” 

 

“What I'm using is much, much stronger than anything people drink,” Lisa said with amusement, “alcohol kills germs,” she paused at Trevor's confused noise, “ah, these tiny creatures, so small you can't see them, that want to live in your body. But they make you sick when they do that. Also, I'm going to start on these stitches.” 

 

Trevor could tell when someone was dumbing things down for him. That was how most of his education went. But the problem with smart people oversimplifying things enough that he had any hope understanding them, is that it usually ended up sounding fucking ridiculous. It left Trevor debating whether he'd rather risk being an ignorant fool for refusing to believe the truth, or a gullible fool for believing wild bullshit. The distracting sensation of thread securing his skin back in place didn't help either. 

 

“That sounds like parasitic demons by another name. ‘Cept you're using really fancy moonshine instead of holy water.” 

 

“I.. suppose so,” Lisa said with that hesitant tone of voice that meant he was completely wrong but she was trying to let him down easy, “but this isn't magic, this is science.” 

 

“What's the difference?” Trevor asked so quickly that it sounded accusatory instead of genuinely curious. Wincing, he added, “Sorry, I didn't mean that in a, uh, doubting you sort of way. I'm just not good at either of them, so I don't get it.” 

 

Lisa paused, which was kind of uncomfortable because she was in the middle of a stitch. “You were tested for magic?” 

 

“Obviously, yeah,” was out of his mouth before it dawned on him that Good Christian Families probably don't get all their children evaluated for supernatural talents. Oh, fuck. “There were Speakers passing through a few years ago, and one of their magicians offered… and I mean, why not, right?” he said, and mentally hit himself because any normal person would know why not, “besides the church not liking it of course, but, they already don't like me, and I turned out to be a dud anyways, so no harm done- not that I think magic is harmful, inherently, I just mean that would've been an additional crime, in the eyes of the church, on top of getting tested at all and everything, and-” his sentences had gotten so fast and choppy that he wouldn't be surprised if she didn't even understand what he was saying, “and WOW I needtoshutup-” 

 

“Breathe, dear,” Lisa said, trying to steady his shoulder.

 

Trevor felt a stab of annoyance because he was breathing, he was breathing a LOT, but he obeyed anyways. He took a deep, shaky breath as she said, “I'm not exactly on friendly terms with the church either. You don't have to worry about me turning you in.” Once his breathing was steady enough, she finished that stitch she'd been in the middle of. 

 

“Ow,” he said more out of confusion than pain, because he could feel his heartbeat in his wound and it actually hurt again. 

 

“We're halfway done now,” she reassured him. 

 

He had to put just about all his attention into not flinching from every stab-slide of the needle. Jerking around would just make her job harder and he didn't want to act like a wuss. Unfortunately that meant all he was thinking about was the stab-slide sensation, and he forgot to be cautious when she said, “Really though, I would like to know your name.” 

 

“Trevor Belm- mnf,” an especially hard poke snapped him back to reality in time for him to cut himself off, but he was afraid the damage was already done. 

 

“Belmf?” Lisa echoed incredulously. 

 

“No, uh, just Bell. Sorry, I kinda… bit my tongue,” he said. Bell could be a last name, right? 

 

“... I see,” Lisa huffs a laugh, “I almost thought you were going to say Belmont.” 

 

Trevor’s mind just chanted oh fuck, oooh fuck oh fuck ohfuckfuckfuck- because there was something in her tone that made it sound like a warning. Like she drew a line somewhere between “not best pals with church” and “member of Belmont Clan” where her opinion became less flippant. Like she suspected he was lying. Or maybe he was being paranoid and she really did think the idea of a noble kid hiding in a Tailor Shop was funny. But he wasn't going to bet his life on it. 

 

He forced a laugh, “hhhhhhha, no, I'm alive aren't I?” 

 

“What's that supposed to mean?” 

 

“You haven't heard the latest hot gossip? Seems like it's the only thing people talk about.” Haha, HOT gossip. When she made a confused noise he said, with the most neutral voice he could muster, “Church had the Belmonts excommunicated. Obviously that's a death sentence, so I don't know why the church bothers with all that ceremony and doesn't just skip right to execution. I guess they enjoy dragging out the drama, or want an excuse for extra postmortem shaming. So they burnt down the whole house (as in, building), with the whole House (as in, family) inside it.”

 

“That's… sad.” She sounded like she really meant it. 

 

“Is it? I hear they were doing some awful stuff. They were excommunicated for witchcraft, after all.” The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, but some part of Trevor hoped she would argue with him. 

 

Lisa snorted derisively. “Belmonts doing witchcraft,” she muttered, as if he'd told her a troop of monkeys were being sued for tax theft. Trevor didn't know if he should be more or less offended at that than if she had believed it. 

 

“How do you know they didn't? Did you know them?” he asked. He was starting to think she'd been pissed off by his uncle or something. The guy had had a talent for getting a rise out of otherwise even tempered people.

 

“... not personally,” she said, “but if they were really witches, they wouldn't have been killed by a mere house fire.” 

 

Trevor's breath caught in his throat. “What?”

 

“Witches can shield themselves from fire and go a very long time without breathable air,” she said in a matter of fact voice, as though she hadn't just turned Trevor's world upside down and shaken it like it owed her money. 

 

“You mean…” he trailed off, unsure of what he wanted to say or even how he felt. 

 

“Real witches don't burn,” Lisa clarified.

 

“So if they had actually. Done the crime they were accused of. They wouldn't. Have paid the price,” Trevor's speech was halted, each string of words a labour to get out. He thought he ought to be furious, or sad, or something, but all he felt was the great effort it took to think at all. 

 

Lisa might have replied, but it didn't register with him. He didn't know how long he sat in that slow moving fog. When he heard the doctor say “I'm done,” it took a moment before he realized that she didn't mean she was done with his bullshit but that she had finished his stitches. He hadn't felt it, or perhaps he had felt it but forgot the pain as quickly as it happened. 

 

She was explaining that he should keep the area clean, and he nodded and made affirmative noises when she seemed to want a response. 

 

“That's not a direction.” 

 

He blinked at her. A thread of panicked shame made its way through the blankness. He had answered wrong. He was being annoying. 

 

He took a deep breath and managed, “sorry… what w…,” was the question he tried to finish, but the rest of the sounds didn't make it out of his mouth. 

 

She gave him a moment, as though he might say more, before she said, “I asked what direction your house is in. It's getting late, and it's not safe for injured children to be travelling alone.” 

 

“I don't,” he said. She gave him a blank look, so he tried again, “It's nowhere.”

 

She didn't look at all surprised. He was pretty sure her smile was gentle, but it might have been mocking. “Trevor, where do you sleep?” 

 

He pointed to the wall. “Out.” 

 

Her face pinched like she was the one in pain. “Outside you mean? In the alleyway?”

 

He nodded. 

 

“And when it rains?”

 

“Tree.” 

 

Her face was doing a lot of things that he had no idea how to interpret. It occurred to him too late that he could have just lied. That's a thing he could do, probably. 

 

She raised a hand as though to rub at a headache but aborted the movement, and took a deep breath. “Right. Do you want to stay with me for tonight?” 

 

It took a lot of concentration to stand up from sitting backwards on the chair without getting his feet tangled. By the time he was up, the doctor had gathered her things and helped him slip his arm back into his sleeve. 

 

She said something to the tailor on their way out, and the sudden chill of the late evening wind briefly shocked him into full awareness long enough to take notice of the last few streaks of red-pink light glowing in the dark sky. It was beautiful and probably like, poetic or symbolic or something. 

 

She held his hand as they walked, and Trevor would have protested to being treated like a toddler except he thought he might forget to keep moving if he didn't have her pulling him in the right direction. His skin broke out in goosebumps from the just-past-pleasant cold that his cloak didn't keep out. When had he put on his cloak? 

 

They must have found the inn, because suddenly it was warm again and the doctor was talking to the innkeeper. The innkeeper looked at Trevor funny and the doctor said something like, “my son is just tired, he's had a long day.” He didn't know what her son had to do with any of this. 

 

Then they were in a room with two small cots, and then he was staring at the ceiling for what might have been years or minutes. He was tired. This was the most comfortable he'd been in… he didn't know. He should have fallen asleep instantly, but he laid there and observed where the wooden beams had gone longer without dusting than in other places. The once familiar but now strange sound of someone else’s deep sleeping breaths seemed both far away and uncomfortably close. 

 

He drifted in and out of shallow sleep for the rest of the night. The waking nightmares that he was so familiar with crawled in through the window to skitter across the floor. Trevor couldn't move or make a sound, only watch as one shadowy figure crawled onto his chest and caressed his throat. It wouldn't entirely suffocate him, just force his breathing to stay slow and heavy, but the threat was there. 

 

All of that was routine for the waking nightmares, but many of them also paused next to the opposite bed to bow in respect. An especially large figure drifted in through the wall to lean over the sleeping doctor. Trevor tried to call out to warn her, but with his vocal chords frozen all he managed was a harsh exhale. The figure pressed its blurry face to her forehead as though in a gentle kiss before dissipating like smoke.

Notes:

I don't even know what to say, thank you so much for the kudos/comments! I'm so happy that folks are interested in this concept I'm messing with here! You have all my appreciation!

Next chapter we'll finally get to Gresit, meet Sypha, and have 2 different POVs! Tune in next Monday (Aug 19th) for "Chapter Three: Sunshine Child Wants To Say Fuck"!

Chapter 3: Sunshine Child Wants To Say Fuck

Summary:

Lisa gives a lesson on politics. Trevor has an awkward conversation with a grandpa. Sypha seeks out forbidden knowledge.

Notes:

Every scene has a title so I can navigate the document easier when writing, and I'm including them because I think they add flavour(tm). And we're finally in Gresit!

I think a lot about wtf is up with Wallachia's government. There's noble families but we never see evidence of royalty? It's definitely not a democracy. So here's the explanation I've come up with.

Warnings: the church is a whole set of warnings on its own tbh, and some violence under "Long Time, No Speak"

Lisa and Trev Talk Politics

“I'd take you home with me, but that's a shitstorm waiting to happen,” she muttered more to herself than to Trevor the next morning.

 

“You don't have to keep helping me,” said Trevor, still embarrassed that he couldn't pay her back for his fair share of the rent. “Sleeping outside isn't all that bad now that it's getting warmer, and it's not like I'm starv-” 

 

Lisa handed him an apple. 

 

He glared at her.

 

She glared right back. “Eat it,” she said like it was a threat. 

 

He made a point of nipping the skin just enough that he could peel a strip of it off with his teeth.

 

“Brat,” she said with an approving smile. 

 

Trevor’s brain wasn't entirely cotton anymore, but it still felt like someone had built a dam where his river of thoughts were meant to flow. Instead of going anywhere they pooled into a shapeless mass. There was somewhere his mind refused to go, and Trevor wasn't sure he wanted to know what was on the other side of the dam.

 

If he wanted to be less poetic about it, it felt like his brain was holding in a big fart. 

 

“There's a Speaker tribe I'll be passing by today on my way to another client. They'll be willing to take you in,” she said. 

 

“Why not just dump me off at an orphanage?” he challenged. 

 

Lisa gave him a considering look. “How much do you know about the church's role in government here?” 

 

“They took over the role of the monarchy after the royal family died out a couple decades ago and a bunch of noble families were going to war over who would take the throne,” he rolled his eyes, “‘God is the one true king’ or whatever their excuse was.” 

 

She nodded. “And do you know how they've been maintaining power?” 

 

“By making the nobles compete for power by winning favour with the church,” he frowned, unsure of where she was going with this, “That's why they couldn't keep the Belmonts on a leash; they didn't care about politics, so they didn't bother with sucking up to their local clergy.” 

 

“That's not all. The church saw the Belmonts as competitors.”

 

Trevor stared at her incredulously. “Competitors? They were a House, not a fucking religious sect!” 

 

“No, but the church wants to be the only entity who can protect and provide for the people. How will they keep everyone terrified of demons when there are hunters around to fight them?” Lisa sighed, “It's also why independent healers are disappearing; people with medicinal knowledge are being forcibly recruited or… gotten rid of.” 

 

He felt his thoughts slamming into the dam again, sliding away from some conclusion or realization on the other side. “I don't get what your point is with all this.” 

 

“My point is that the church is tightening its control over every institution in this country a little more each day, no matter who gets hurt in the process. Trevor, if I left you at an orphanage, they would brainwash you into obeying the church without question and hating everyone who isn't Christian or practices magic and science, or they would kill you trying.” 

 

Trevor swallowed and stared down at the apple core in his hand. He could tell she wasn't exaggerating. Months of running from priests had taught him that it was always just a matter of time before he had to find a new place to hide. Of course he'd known that orphanages wouldn't be safe for him, but it hadn't occurred to him that they wouldn't be safe for anybody-  

 

There was the dam again. 

 

Lisa placed her hand on his uninjured shoulder. “I don't say this to be cruel, but because those of us who still accept the scientific and supernatural need to stick together. I'd hate for your spark of rebelliousness to be stamped out.”

 

Rebelliousness stamped out

 

Your spark 

 

He wasn't sure if he groaned aloud or if that was just the dam in his head creaking from the increasing pressure of the blocked river of thoughts. 

 

“Yeah… okay. Thank you, I'll come with you to the Speakers,” Trevor gave her a meek smile, “maybe they'll be the same ones I met before.” 

 

Long Time, No Speak

Talking to the citizens in the marketplace had only confirmed what Trevor already suspected; Grisit is under the Bishop's control. 

 

Seeing armed priests ganging up on a Speaker confirms the other thing he'd suspected; the Bishop keeps that control by threat of violence. 

 

"I wish I could say we meet in peace," he calls cheerfully to the Speaker from behind the priests, "but that doesn't seem to be the case."

 

The priests immediately turn at the sound of a witness. 

 

"The hell are you talking about?" snaps the larger one.

 

Trevor ignores him, only addressing the Speaker. "Mind if I accompany you back to your caravan? I've got some damn fine honeyed apples to trade, very convenient for on the road snacking." 

 

"You should know better than to associate with Speakers," the larger priest says it like it’s a warning. Trevor is guessing that this one is in charge, because the skinny one isn't taking any initiative beyond keeping an eye on their captive. 

 

He keeps pretending the priests don't exist and steps into the light. As much as he'd love to just kill them both, he knows any violence would probably distress the Speaker even more. Better to come back later to burn the fuckers up. 

 

Except that up close, the Speaker is starting to look familiar, and the Speaker's eyes widen in recognition. 

 

"Belle?"  

 

Trevor hasn't heard that nickname for a long, long time, and it was even less accurate now than it had been over a decade ago. 

 

"Long time, no Speak, Elder." 

 

"Trevor Bell, we -" the Elder says, and seems ready to say more but the priests take interest at Trevor's almost full name. 

 

Trevor mentally winces. It really is just his luck that these men of the cloth would know about the Belmont who got away. Just his luck that the Elder would use what he thought was Trevor's full name in front of them. One verbal slip up when introducing himself that was still biting him in the ass all these years later. 

 

"Forget the old man," the large priest orders, eyeing the whip on Trevor's hip, "get the Belm-" 

 

Said whip catches the priest right on the mouth like a shushing finger, except a finger wouldn't split the skin open from nose to chin. He screams but his dividend lips flop uselessly against his teeth, unable to finish uttering that damming name. 

 

The other priest got the idea though, and a blade appears in his hand before he charges. 

 

"Now that's a funny thing for a priest to be carrying," Trevor says, "That's a thief's knife." He steps to the side at the last minute and catches the priest by the arm to twist the weapon out of his hand. "Good quality too. Bet it'll fetch a pretty price on the market." 

 

The priest scrambles up from where Trevor had tripped him and makes a grab for his knife. Trevor spins them both just in time to use him as a meat shield from the larger priest swinging his cane. It comes down with a crack on the priest's bald head and he drops like a puppet. 

 

Trevor jumps over the body to get up close while the priest's cane is still down. He makes an upward sweep with the knife between the priest's legs, as though aiming for his dick. Of course the priest stumbles back and hits the wall sideways, making it easy for Trevor to pin his wrist as he raises his cane again. The jolt to his hand makes the priest drop his weapon. This time, Trevor is a little more serious when he presses the knife to his groin. 

 

"Why so scared?" He asks with a grin, "It's not like you need this in your profession. Unless you plan on breaking your chastity vows?" He leans in close to whisper in his ear, though he wouldn't be surprised if the Elder can still hear it. "The only reason I'm letting you both leave here alive is because murder would upset our friend over there. Take your lackey and run home, before I change my mind." 

 

He waits until the priest nods to step back. The cane stays under Trevor's foot where he'd stepped on it to make it evident that it was his now, though the priest clearly isn't happy about it. 

 

Trevor watches the two holy men, one slung over the other's shoulder, disappear around the corner. He can feel the fur pelt on his shoulders twitch as though his cat familiar wants to chase them like mice. 

 

"How did you find us again?" The Elder asks, still staring at Trevor with bewilderment. "Where have you been? What happened to you?" 

 

He stiffens slightly when the Elder reaches out, but forces himself to not flinch or step away. Trevor had been so fucking touch starved as a teenager that the Elder will definitely realize something's up. Instead he gives himself some sense of control by meeting the Elder's hands with his own in the space between the two of them. At least that way he wasn't just passively being touched. 

 

It's a calculated decision, but Christ, Trevor is bad at math. 

 

"What happened?" The Elder repeats, staring at what look like regular bandages wrapped thickly around his forearms and the heels of his palms. Which they had been, until Trevor got sick of re-wrapping them every time he had to wash them. Sewing the layers of fabric together to make them into stretchy not-quite-gloves that he could slip on and off saved him a lot of goddamn time. But explaining to the Elder why he wears them, why the few scars still unhidden on his fingers have a faint green tinge, is not something he is eager to do. 

 

"It's not as bad as it looks," it's so much worse, "and I wasn't looking for you, I came through here by chance." 

 

The Elder offers a hesitant smile and says, "Then perhaps it is fate that brought you back to us." 

 

Gah. He seems to think Trevor is going to, what, drop everything and join them again? 

 

"I didn't see a camp outside the city, where are you staying?" 

 

"We found it easier to take shelter in the slums," says the Elder, beginning to lead Trevor in the right direction, "closer to the people who need our help, and not so exposed to the horde." 

 

"Closer to the people who want to kill you, you mean." 

 

"Still so cynical," the Elder says fondly. 

 

It clicks suddenly, why the Speakers would come to Gresit when the creatures of the night suddenly exploded in population and got extra hangry. 

 

"You're here for the prophecy, aren't you? Hoping the Sleeping Soldier will get his shit together and make a fashionably late entrance?" 

 

The Elder gives Trevor a look for the casual cussing and dismissal. "Yes, and I assumed you are as well. I take it that this is not the case?" 

 

"I'm on my way to make a delivery to a client nearby," Trevor says. It's a very censored but still true way to say that he needs to check up on and feed his fledgling.

 

He had also been planning on removing any church presence here, but the Speakers were an unexpected problem. 

 

“Will you be staying long?” there’s something in the Elder’s tone that makes Trevor suspect this isn’t just a matter of wanting to catch up with each other. 

 

“No, and neither should you. The church is planning to sic a mob on you soon.” 

 

“You know we cannot abandon those in need of our help.” 

 

“But they aren’t accepting your help anyways!” Trevor exclaims, frustrated. 

 

"But they may change their minds." 

 

“Your people are going to die meaninglessly again, but this time from something completely preventable.” 

 

The Elder inhales shakily and stops to turn towards Trevor with an openly hurt expression. “You have learned cruelty in our time apart, Trevor Bell. We sent the children and their parents to a hidden camp in the woods days ago. Only twelve of us who are ready to risk our lives remain within the city.” 

 

Okay, Trevor should have guessed that the Elder wouldn’t keep kids where the church was liable to snatch them up and toss them in an orphanage to “save their souls”, but still. “It’s not a risk, it’s a guarantee! The locals are convinced that killing you all will save them from demons.” 

 

“You referred to the plague that took nearly half my tribe from me, including my daughter and her wives, but I think you have your own blood family’s tragedy in mind.” 

 

“The hell are you talking about?” Trevor asks, glad that he’s had years of practice in snide assholerly as a mask for his panic.

 

 "Trevor, even if I had not already known your heritage from the day we met, did you really think I wouldn't figure it out?" 

 

Trevor has to remind himself that it isn't the end of the world if the Speakers know he's a Belmont. They aren't his caretakers anymore. Being turned in doesn't matter anymore. He's made a game of letting priests capture him just so he can terrify them by leaping from the fire unharmed. The only reason he still keeps his bloodline on the down low is because it's bad for business (and because he's not especially proud of it). His panic is unnecessary. But just to be difficult, Trevor makes one last play at obliviousness. "Everyone has heritage, you're going to have to be more specific." 

 

The Elder looks at him as though to say I know that you know what I'm talking about . “The very first thing the Doctor told me about you was that she thought you might be the Hunter from the prophecy,” he says, “because she was certain that you were a survivor of the Belmont Clan.” 

 

Trevor doesn’t even know where to start with that. The Speakers had known he’s a Belmont the whole time? And didn’t bother to tell him so he could stop stressing about keeping that a secret? They think he’s a part of the prophecy? There’s a lot to unpack here. 

 

“... I did always wonder why you kept me around even though I was such a bad influence and an all around asshole.” 

 

“That’s not-” 

 

“Wanted all your cards in one hand? To make sure you wouldn’t have to go searching out of country for a candidate?” 

 

“No,” says the Elder, voice firm, “We would have taken you in regardless, because compassion is the Speaker’s way. I did not tell you what I knew because I knew you would think we do not care for you as a person.” 

 

He doesn’t completely believe the Elder, but he’s not interested in arguing about it in circles either. He's especially not interested in talking about the Belmont fire. "Whatever. This is why you're so eager for me to stay though, isn't it?" 

 

"I am also grateful to see my long lost ward again. The others will be too." The Elder starts once again leading Trevor through the absolute disaster that is the layout of the buildings in this place. He seems to think he's won the argument about the Speakers staying on their suicide mission. 

 

"Look, I know that running from a prophecy practically guarantees that it'll come true in the worst possible way, but I have deliveries to make. I can't be waiting around for this messiah to wake up." 

 

"It is good to hear that you have learned from the Stories," the Elder says with amusement. 

 

"I'm serious, I-" Trevor cuts off when he feels his mental shields being pushed at. He's immediately on alert, pushing back at the telepathic intrusion and looking around for the attacker. The presence feels familiar somehow, almost as if…

 

A Speaker with dark curly hair emerges from one of the rundown houses and Trevor puts the pieces together. 

 

“You've gotten sloppy, Arn,” he says. 

 

Arn's eyes widen. "Belle?" they ask before scowling, "you come back after all this time to criticize me? " They turn to the Elder. "I was hoping that the second presence was…" 

 

The Elder shakes his head. 

 

"What?" Trevor asks, sensing that something is wrong. 

 

"Sypha went down into the catacombs on her own and hasn't returned. It's been long enough that if she hasn't found a source of fresh water…" 

 

"None of us can sense her life." 

 

Which could be because she was so far underground that she was out of range. But Trevor knew the Speakers had some damn powerful telepaths. 

 

"Where's the entrance to the catacombs?" is out of his mouth before he even realizes it. 

 

Sunshine Child Wants To Say Fuck

"Hello again, Young Belnades," Lisa greeted the Speaker child who'd been thwacking shrubbery with a stick and making surprisingly realistic blade impact sound effects. 

 

Belnades whirled around and hid the stick behind their back as though caught misbehaving. Knowing how strictly Speakers adhered to pacifism, Lisa thought that play-violence might well be against their rules. 

 

"MA'AM! I mean, Doctor, sorry, I-" the poor child looked truly mortified, chubby cheeks turning bright pink. With a hurried bow and the solemn voice that children used when reciting phrases of politeness, they said, "We meet in peace, Doctor." 

 

"And may we part in peace, little one," Lisa replied. She wasn't sure she had remembered the phrasing exactly right but Belnades beamed at her. She must have been close enough. 

 

Lisa slid down from her seat on her little cart so she wouldn't be looming over the child. She could use the opportunity to stretch after driving for hours anyways. "Would you be so kind as to lead me to the Elder? I have something I need to discuss with him." 

 

"Of course!" Belnades ran up to greet the shiny black horse pulling the cart. Nurse Boo-berry tolerated the sudden onslaught of affection with very literally supernatural patience. General Raman had been very proud to present one of her finely bred steeds as a wedding gift, though she probably hadn’t imagined it would be used for hard labour. 

 

Either Trevor was still passed out in the cart or he was too shy to emerge from the nest of luggage and blankets. 

 

As they made their way towards the Speaker camp, Belnades babbled about all the places they'd been since Lisa had last met with their tribe, and all the new languages and magic they were learning, and the cat who'd invited itself into one of the caravans to have kittens, and - 

 

"And I'm pretty sure I've decided on my name!" 

 

"Oh?" Lisa felt a little out of her depth, talking about something so culturally important when she didn't know all the surrounding social protocol. 

 

"I'm going to be Sypha!" Belnades was glowing with pride. "I like Cipher too, but I think the - pha sounds better in song than - pher ." 

 

"It's a lovely name," Lisa said with an honest smile. 

 

"I know!" Belnades didn't say it to be sassy, but because they were excited and glad Lisa agreed. 

 

Lisa wasn't sure if she was supposed to ask if Belnades had also chosen pronouns, or if that would be invasive. Considering how bold the child was, she assumed they would bring it up on their own if they wanted to.

 

As they emerged from the forest path and the Speaker camp came into view, they were spotted by another teenager who Lisa recognized. Though last she had seen them, they were still in the gray clothing Speaker children wear. Their new blue robe marked them as a Named and young adult member of their tribe. 

 

"Cousin, where have you been? Our teacher -" they cut off their scolding when they saw who was following Belnades. 

 

"Arn, where's Grandfather? The good Doctor," and here Belnades planted their hands on their hips and positively radiated smugness, "who I have been escorting to our camp, has asked to meet with him." 

 

Lisa smiled at their antics and said, "We meet in peace, Arn. Congratulations on your Naming." 

 

Arn flushed. "Thank you, and in peace may we part, Doctor. Right this way." 

 

Before Lisa left her horse and cart at the edge of the camp she turned to Belnades and said, "young one, would you do me a favour and make sure my cart isn't disturbed? I have a patient sleeping next to the luggage, and he needs his rest." 

 

Their eyes widened in surprise, and Lisa could hardly blame them. Her cart was too small for most people to comfortably lay down in, let alone hide themselves the way Trevor had. "Is that what you're here to talk to Grandfather about?" 

 

"Don't be nosy," Arn chided, before leading Lisa to a tent in the middle of the camp. She waited outside while Arn checked that the Elder wasn't busy, entering only once Arn had come back out and gestured for her to go ahead. 

 

The dark blue fabric of the tent trapped the heat from the sun and kept the inside warm and dim. It was large enough to serve as a gathering place, though only the Elder sat at the short table at that moment. 

 

"Doctor Tepes, I welcome you to our home to Speak in peace."

 

"And in peace may we part, most honourable Elder of the Codrii Speakers," Lisa said with a small bow.

 

The Elder laughed, "There is no need to be so formal, Doctor." He motioned towards the seat cushion next to himself.

 

Lisa arranged her skirt so that she could sit without getting it tangled. "I could say the same to you, old friend. You don't have to use my title all the time." 

 

"I would not leave out the title of the doctor who saved my grandchild," he said, "unless you were to request that I not use it at all." 

 

"They were already recovering by the time I arrived," Lisa insisted. She tried not to think about how many more people she might have saved from that plague if she had only happened across the Speakers sooner. "But that's not what I came here to argue with you about." 

 

"You came here to argue with me about something else then, Doctor?" he teased. His ability to make his kind old man smile leave the impression of a shit eating grin never failed to impress her. 

 

"I think I've found your prophecy's Hunter." 

 

That certainly made him serious again. "... and for what reason have you drawn this conclusion? That prophecy is not very specific beyond the location of the Sleeping Soldier." 

 

Lisa could tell he was doubtful, but she wasn't very sure of it herself. She just wanted to start with a good reason for him to take in the foul-mouthed adolescent. "With most of the supernatural hunters executed or chased out of Wallachia, the candidates for that role are few." Unless it referred to someone who only hunted natural animals, or it was metaphorical, but she wasn't going to poke holes in her own argument. 

 

"You've heard of the Belmont fire, then?" The Elder shook his head sadly. "One of our sister tribes tried to warn them about what was happening to the common hunters, but they seemed to think their noble status would protect them from the church." 

 

She chose not to comment on that out loud, because she didn’t think she would be able to stop herself from swearing. Arrogant bastards, Lisa thought. She knew it was petty, but she couldn't imagine knowing that the church was coming for her family and choosing to rely solely on her husband's reputation to protect Adrian and herself. What kind of parents let pride come before their children's safety? 

 

“I think it’s safe to assume that it’s been long enough since the other hunting families were taken out that the rare survivors will have had the time and sense to flee the country,” she said, “but the Belmont’s excommunication is fresher news, yes? The orphan I found has burns that look to be about six months old.” 

 

“I don’t know the exact date of the fire, but I believe that is roughly how long ago it was,” the Elder confirmed. He leaned his elbows on the table and sighed. “But orphans and burns are far more common here than they ought to be. I assume you have more evidence?” 

 

Lisa nodded. “He’s the one who told me what happened, and while he worded it as though it had nothing to do with him, it was obviously… distressing for him.” Distressing as in putting him in such a strong dissociative shut-down that he could barely communicate, but it felt cruel to share that much detail. “I didn’t have to go through the usual defending of my practice before he would let me treat him, and he seems generally open minded towards science as well as magic. He even said he was tested for the Gift by a Speaker.” She paused, frowning. “In hindsight, I don’t think he realizes that he put us both in danger by admitting to associating with magicians.” 

 

The Elder raised his eyebrows. “You mean he doesn’t know about the Church’s informant and accomplice laws?” 

 

“Probably not.” Lisa shrugged in dismissal. “The crime of not turning him in is only a raindrop in an ocean for me, but he couldn’t have known that; I didn’t give him my married name.” 

 

“That’s how strongly you believe he’s a Belmont? You think he would recognize your family name?” 

 

“I don’t know if he would recognize it or how he would react if he did, but I didn’t want to take that risk.” She ran her fingers over her wedding ring. “It’s why I’m bringing him to you instead of taking him in myself; even if he’s in no fit state to do serious physical damage, even if he eventually got over the prejudices he’s likely been fed from birth, our home is the only place where Adrian doesn’t have to guard himself against that kind of hatred.” 

 

“I understand,” The Elder said, and placed his hand over hers in a comforting gesture. 

 

After a brief silence, she said, “he claims his last name is just Bell, but to me it came across as a slip of the tongue to even tell me that much.” She couldn’t help but smirk a bit. “He’s not very good at lying.” 

 

“Knowing you, Doctor, I suspect it has more to do with your rather sadistic interrogation techniques than his skills of deception,” the Elder said with a teasing smile as he stood from his kneeling cushion. “I would like to meet this young man who will be staying with us, if you would be so kind as to introduce us.” 

 

Lisa followed him from the tent to guide him to her cart. “You make it sound like I was torturing the poor boy! I treat my patients with the utmost care -” 

 

“But did this careful treatment happen to involve any stabbing?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

 

She tried not to laugh, “... technically yes, but -” 

 

Their joking manner vanished when they heard a scream and the thud of something heavy thrown into a cart. 

 

Lisa bolted past the last few tents to see Trevor with a face full of confused panic and arms full of the Speaker child he’d pinned to the floor of the cart next to where he’d been sleeping. He was breathing hard and his legs were still tangled in the blanket. But despite being only half awake, his hold was professional and allowed him to press the tip of a stick in the perfect place to stake Belnades’ heart. 

 

Any doubt that Lisa had about her own judgement vanished and was replaced with a rush of protective fear because that could have been Adrian, and then guilt because this incident hadn’t even reached its conclusion but she was already glad it had happened this way instead of to her own child. 

 

It must have been at least a decade since she had last raised her voice at a child, but now she shouted, “TREVOR, let them go RIGHT N-” 

 

“TEACH ME HOW TO DO THAT!” 

 

Everyone present stared at Belnades, who looked positively delighted with this turn of events. 

 

Trevor, who had started loosening his grip even before Lisa’s shout, very eloquently asked, “what the fuck?” 

 

“And teach me how to swear, too!” Belnades didn’t even try to move out from under him despite being let go, instead sitting up and grabbing him by the wrists. By their grin, they clearly planned to hold him prisoner until he promised to impart the forbidden knowledge of violence and bad language. 

 

“Arn, what on earth is happening?” the Elder asked. Lisa hadn’t even noticed Arn was standing nearby, and was more interested in why they hadn’t interfered. 

 

“Cousin was trying to find the Doctor’s patient among the luggage by poking everything with a stick,” Arn said, “and he reacted in a way that is fair and logical.” Their tone suggested that Belnades had woken them in a similar manner on multiple occasions. 

 

“We’re keeping him, right?” Belnades asked, “That’s why you brought him here, so we can keep him?” 

 

“I’m not a fucking stray puppy!” Trevor’s voice cracked a bit and his face flushed. He still didn’t try to pull his wrists away, though he had shifted back and sat so he wasn’t bent over Belnades anymore. 

 

“You kind of look like one though,” Belnades said, making Trevor even more confused and flustered. 

 

"Young man, as the Elder I can confirm that you are welcome among us," the Elder said, "but I ask that while you travel with us, you respect our ways. We do not condone violence," he gave his grandchild a pointed look, "and we recognize the power of Speech. Please do not use harsh words lightly." 

 

Trevor startled at the light scolding, and pulled away from Belnades so he could fully face the Elder. Bowing while still kneeling put him in nearly a full kawtow position as he said, "Elder, I'm sorry for violating your peace, and I will accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate." 

 

If it weren't for the way he tensed with nerves, Lisa might have thought Trevor's over the top show of formality and respect was mocking. Instead, she had to wonder how he could know enough about the Speakers to use their general formula for greetings and apologies, but still expect to be punished in a way that deserved fear.  

 

The Elder didn't seem to know what to make of it. "... I accept your apology, but punishment is not our way either. By what should we call you?" 

 

"My name is Trevor Bell, sir," he said, glancing up at Lisa. He sounded hesitant, as though he wasn't sure he believed that the Elder was simply letting it go. 

 

"Trevor Bell, we welcome you with peace to our group. I'm sure Arn and my grandchild will appreciate a new partner in their studies and meditations." 

 

(Belnades muttered "ugh" at the suggestion of things that required sitting still.)

 

Trevor sat up slowly. "And in peace may we p- … may I stay." 

Notes:

Except we know that Trevor doesn't stay forever! :^)

Also: Let! Sypha! say! Fuck!

Tune in next week for more of Trevor making questionable life decisions, Sypha being badass and some Extreme Botany in "Chapter Four: The Bishop Grows Up"

Chapter 4: The Bishop Grows Up

Summary:

Sypha starts a fight. Trevor sniffs unidentified sludge and becomes a damsel in distress immediately after. The Bishop experiences growing pains.

Notes:

After a rewatch of season 1, I realize that the cathedral seems to be kinda secluded but I had already written it being right in front of the city square and I like it too much to change it.

Also, that mention of "Aloe Vora" in the first chapter? T'was not a typo >:)

Warnings: fair bit of plant body horror in the 3rd/last section. I don't think I will ever be able to match canon in terms of gore, but it does get kinda graphic. Also some forced blood drinking (not the sexy kind).

Sypha T-poses at Trevor

Arn did in fact, appreciate a new partner to practice their Mind Speaking on. They complained that Sypha was "loud" in their head, that she tried too hard to steal the spotlight. Which was absurd, of course, because she was sure that she would develop the ability to initiate Mind Speech eventually, so she also needed to practice.  

 

"Aren't people either telepathic or not?" Trevor asked. "Like how you either have the Gift for magic or not? I'm not going to waste your time trying to cast spells." 

 

"Some people just don't develop these abilities until later in life!" Sypha insisted, face heating up, "Maybe you should try casting a spell or listening for other people's thoughts every so often!" 

 

"Maybe you should be worrying less about the slim chance that you won't be Mind Deficient forever," Arn said, "and more about how inconsistent your control over your magic is right now." They gestured towards the grass around where she was sitting, which had begun to glow and sizzle with heat. 

 

Trevor helpfully informed her, "your ass-" caught and corrected himself too late, "butt is catching fire." 

 

Sypha grinned. "My assbutt?" 

 

He groaned and put his head in his hands, presumably to hide his blushing. "Please don't repeat that in front of your grandpa. He already thinks I'm a bad influence." 

 

Yet despite his character flaw of obedience, Sypha found that she could bug him into rebellious behaviour so long as she assured him they wouldn't get caught and it's not that big a deal anyways- 

 

"Pleeeeeaaaaaaase?" she whined one morning when they were done chores. 

 

"How do you even have so much energy this early in the day? I'm going back to bed before you get us into trouble." He clearly meant it too; the shadows under his eyes weren't new but they weren't lessening either. 

 

"You'll wreck your sleep cycle even more if you sleep now!" She jumped in front of him and spread her arms wide as though she could block his path in the middle of a meadow. "Sunrise was at least an hour ago!" 

 

"It's summer! We have like, four or five hours of darkness." He was humouring her at least, not going around her, but it was hard for her to be intimidating when he was a head taller than her. "You look like a kid asking to be picked up." 

 

"If being picked up is part of teaching me how to fight-" 

 

Trevor scooped her up by her armpits like he would a toddler, and nearly fell backwards from using more force than necessary. "Jesus Christ, you're so much lighter than you look." 

 

"Listen," Sypha said, ignoring the way she was now dangling in the air with only his scrawny arms to support her, "we're not expected back any time soon, and we're far enough away that no one will see or hear what happens." 

 

"You sound like you're threatening to beat me up."

 

"That is the idea." 

 

He swayed her back and forth. "You sure you're not lemon meringue shaped like a person?" 

 

"Awww," she batted her eyelashes mockingly, "you think I'm sweet?" 

 

"I think," he gritted his teeth in a grin, "that you're full of air, and you leave a bitter taste in my mouth." 

 

She tried to kick him in the groin, because that was the only self defense tip he'd really given her so far, but he twisted his torso so that she was at the wrong angle. 

 

"That's a nice try," he said without sarcasm, "but it might be more effective if you used both legs to push me off balance." 

 

"This is exactly," she said as she swung her feet up to plant them on his torso and try to push him, "why you need to teach me! What if some town bully tried to do this for real?" 

 

Trevor was giggling like her feet tickled more than hurt. "You've got as much magic as a baby dragon, you could just blow them up!" 

 

"I can't use magic where churchgoers might see!" 

 

"... Right. Fine." He tried to set her down but she wouldn't take her feet off him, so he had to lower both of them until they were sitting in the tall grass and he could just let go without dropping her. "Fine. But I'm only teaching you self defense, okay? Not like, sword fighting and stuff." 

 

She wiggled her feet in excitement, her toes poking him in the belly (what he had of one anyways; he must have been awfully sick before he joined them). "You know how to sword fight?" 

 

He squirmed away from the bread dough kneading treatment on his stomach, flopped back and threw an arm over his eyes. "I regret this already." 

 

And he called her overdramatic! 

 

But he did keep his promise, and any breaks they had with privacy were spent showing her how to twist and pull her wrist out of someone's grip. Then how to go limp and slide out of a hold. How to stomp on someone's foot. How to make someone drop a weapon. How to actually knee someone in the groin, because he insisted that, "even if they don't have testicles, it won't hurt as much but it will hurt. Make them think twice about grabbing you again."

 

Trevor Gets Distressingly Damseled

The catacombs are in even more questionable condition than the surface buildings, which is not especially encouraging in a place bearing the weight of each level on top of it. Trevor is tempted to let his familiar scout out ahead for danger but decides against it; he doesn’t want to risk getting separated from her. 

 

He pays for that decision by falling through the floor. Multiple times. It makes him glad that there’s no one around to witness him making a damn fool of himself; an audience is the last thing he wants right now. 

 

The farther down he goes the less it looks like it was built by humans, certainly not by the church. Which begs the question of whether someone had snuck under the church-built catacombs and installed these warm pipes and self-lighting lamps, or if these were already here and the humans slapped a church on top of the entrance and called it theirs now. 

 

His thoughts are interrupted when he enters a large chamber and steps in a puddle of something upsettingly viscous. 

 

“Eugghh oooh my god,” he groans. The stuff sticks to his boots like strings of saliva and squelches when he moves. It doesn't seal him to the floor but it's slippery enough that he's careful about escaping. 

 

"What the fuck is this?" Trevor mutters as he inspects the Mystery Substance from the safety of dry ground. He would assume it was bloody snot if there weren't so much of it. He could easily lay down and make a slime angel. But no, that isn't flakes of blood; bringing the torch closer reveals countless little pink petals trapped in the clear shimmering puddle. 

 

Trevor has read about many different kinds of oozes in the family bestiary, but none that decorate themselves with glitter and flowers. It almost smells like… "...eggs?" 

 

The creature thundering it's way into the room to roar at Trevor is much easier to identify. 

 

"Oh of course there's a cyclops hanging around down here, of course. God just can't stop shitting in my dinner." It would explain all the statues Trevor was ignoring in favour of sniffing unidentified sludge on the floor. Maybe his priorities need reorganizing.

 

He ducks behind a column just in time to avoid the cyclops' eye beam. The very end of his cloak is not so lucky, and his heart clenches with anxiety at the thought that his familiar was nearly hit. Would being turned to stone and broken apart hurt her? Kill her? It wasn't like she'd come with a manual- 

 

The cyclops takes a swing at him, and Trevor has to dive out of the way again. 

 

"Is this how you greet all your guests, or am I just special?" he calls to it. 

 

It roars and tries to shoot him with it's beam. 

 

"Understandable," he says as he pulls his whip out, "but I'd hate to have to kill you in your own entryway." He lashes out his whip and yanks himself up on top of a self-lighting lamp. If the blue glow lighting him up from below gives him an eerie look, then it's absolutely accidental and not at all him being dramatic. 

 

"One monster to another," he grins nastily, lets his voice echo with fire, "would you mind letting me go?" 

 

Trevor likes to think that the cyclops hesitates slightly out of fear before it attacks again, but it's probably just marveling at the sheer audacity of a human looking it dead in the eye and asking to be politely excused. 

 

He jumps clear over its head as it turns a perfectly good lamp to stone. His intention was to land on its shoulder, but all the acrobatics without warm-up stretches catch up to him when one of his many old injuries spasms mid-air. It knocks the breath from his lungs and only the bracing of his corset stops his back from arching unnaturally. 

 

Needless to say, he misses his mark. 

 

He barely manages to twist enough that when he slams into a pillar his already fucked up spine doesn't shatter. Through the haze of pain from his agitated scars and freshly cracked ribs he realizes that the ground is rushing up very fast and he's about to be a second splatter of mystery goo. 

 

… Except that he doesn't splatter. Doesn't even hit the floor. A massive gust of wind catches him and sets him gently on the ground like a sleepy child. 

 

Trevor tries to say something like "What? The Fuck?" but only manages to gasp and cough. 

 

"Stay back!" shouts a voice that is at once nostalgic and unfamiliar. Trevor isn't sure if the newcomer is talking to him or the cyclops. 

 

He wants to scramble up to see who the fuck saved his life and rejoin the fight, but even just propping himself up on his elbows has him biting his lip in a closed-mouth scream. Pushing himself all the way upright makes him cry and desperately hope the other person is too occupied to notice. It's out of the question to twist his torso to look back at what's going on, so he has to awkwardly tip over onto his side and tilt his head back instead. 

 

Through his watering eyes he sees a whirl of blue robes dodging the cyclops' beam. Giant icicles form in the air and shoot into its eye with enough force to snap it's head back. The cyclops hasn't even finished crumpling to the ground before the figure turns their back on it to walk towards Trevor, deservedly confident that it's dead. 

 

Except that its massive arm is about to fall right on top of them. 

 

Trevor doesn't even think, just snaps out his whip to wrap around their middle. A fresh wave of agony hits him from the motion but it's nothing compared to when he yanks the stranger out of danger and into his arms. He gets a split second impression of small warm smells like sunshine before their full weight slams into his chest and he blacks out a bit. 

 

Unluckily for Trevor in general, but luckily for him in this moment, he's plenty used to dealing with these chain-reaction cramps. The stranger scrambles off of him and he ignores their questions in favour of rolling onto his back with his knees up and feet flat on the floor. Closes his eyes to shut out the bright lights. Careful, deep breaths. Otherwise, he stays as still as he can in the hopes of not making the cramps worse.

 

His ribs are a sharp stabbing pain, but the muscles in his torso clench in one awful ache. It's not run of the mill pain, so much as pressure so overwhelming that his brain can only understand it as agony. The intensity of it ebbs and flows but never disappears. 

 

Just breathe, he tells himself, don't brace yourself against the next wave, just breathe and relax.  

 

The stranger starts tugging at his corset. They probably have good intentions, probably think that it's strangling him. They can't know that he designed it to support his back without limiting his breathing. 

 

Still, though. 

 

"DON'T!" he snaps. A person doesn't realize how much they use their diaphragm when talking until doing so makes their insides feel ready to explode. 

 

He opens his eyes to see the figure in Speaker's robes startle back. That certainly explains some things. There's only one Speaker magician down here (as far as he knows) but he'll address that when he can move without wanting to die again. 

 

The pressure slowly eases. Trevor shifts his hips to test if moving is a good idea yet, before deciding he's safe to pull his knees to his chest and slide his hands under his lower back to lift it. He's well aware that a lot of his stretches look weird and vaguely sexual but he can't afford to care. 

 

Shoulders still flat on the floor, he turns his head and legs sideways to face the Speaker. He frowns. 

 

"You're not the Sypha I'm looking for," he says, eyeing their wavy orange hair and sharp face. Their features are delicate in a way he doesn't remember his childhood friend's being. The eyes are the same though. A distant relative maybe? 

 

The Speaker tenses and raises an eyebrow. "How many Syphas do you think are down here?" 

 

"So many. Like at least ten," he says sarcastically. "Seriously, are you her secret cousin or something? You're not the little blonde girl I remember." 

 

She scowls at him. "And you're not the scrawny stray puppy I remember. People change, Trevor Bell." 

 

"... Fair enough, I guess." He sits up and keeps trying to stretch the aches out of his body as he thinks. Hair changing colour and texture over time isn't the oddest thing he's heard of. It's probably not worth prying into. The Elder only has one grandchild, so who else could it possibly be? 

 

"Are you going to be alright?" Sypha asks. She really does sound concerned. "Did you hit your head? I've never seen someone seize that way before." 

 

Trevor finally manages to twist just so, making his back crack and pop loud enough that it echoes a bit. She groans in disgust while he groans in relief. "Not a seizure. I'll be fine." 

 

"You're sure?" She gets right in his face, most likely checking his pupil sizes. 

 

"'m not concussed either. Seriously, it's just a … thing, that happens." He looks around at the broken statues changing into torn apart corpses. "If you weren't stone, then what the hell have you been doing down here all this time? Your tribe is worried sick!" 

 

Sypha turns to the entrance the cyclops had come through. "I'm not giving up on the Sleeping Soldier! He's down here somewhere, if I could just find -" 

 

"You got lost, didn't you?" He straightens out his legs and folds himself over them so that his face is buried in his shins. 

 

"I did NOT get lost! There's just a lot of ground to cover!" 

 

"Uh huh." Trevor parts his legs ninety degrees and rests his cheek on the ground to look at her over his shoulder. She's flushed with anger. "Look, how about we go back up so you can at least show the Elder you're still alive? It's not like you only get one chance to search this place, you can come back." 

 

"And you?" 

 

"What about me?" 

 

"Are you going to help me search for him?" 

 

Trevor tests his back before standing. "I still don't buy into this bullshit prophecy but it's like I told the Elder: I don't want to be that fool who denies a prophecy and pays the price." 

 

"You're sticking around to do damage control?" Sypha raises her eyebrows with a smile. 

 

He snorts. "Basically." 

 

They make their way through the catacombs in awkward silence. Or maybe it's just Trevor who feels awkward. He's honestly surprised that Sypha hasn't so much as mentioned the way he just ditched the Speakers for so long. Guilt gnaws at him as he remembers telling Sypha that he'd be back soon. 

 

By the time they've surfaced and the Speaker's house is in view, Trevor is starting to wonder if she's giving him the silent treatment. She seems distracted though, eyes unfocused and lip bitten. 

 

"Sypha?" The Elder squints at the back-lit silhouettes that appear in the doorway. "Is that you?" 

 

"Do you not recognize your own grandchild?" she teases. She just barely hesitates before initiating a hug. "I'm back, Elder." 

 

Something about her phrasing seems a bit off, but Trevor dismisses the thought before he can put his finger on what. 

 

The Elder hugs her back fiercely. "Of course I do, my angel." 

 

Trevor backs out the door to give them some privacy. He'd like some of his own actually, to stretch out again and think, but apparently that's not in the cards for him. 

 

"Oh for fucks sake," he says to the armed priests surrounding him. Sure, he could beat them, but the Speakers wouldn't appreciate a pile of bodies so close to their residence. 

 

He's tempted to burst into flame when they get to the church, just to fuck with them. 

 

The Bishop Grows Up

 “I arranged it, in fact.” The Bishop is clearly proud of it too.

 

Trevor pauses. “You killed the good doctor?” He doesn't recognize this man, but he didn't have time to look at the audience when he pulled her dying body from the pier. 

 

“The woman was a witch, consorting with the devil and inflicting his evil on the people of Wallachia.” The Bishop seems to actually believe his own bullshit. 

 

The phoenix fire crackles inside Trevor. He doesn't break eye contact as he takes slow, measured steps towards the man who caused all this tragedy. “If she were really a witch,” he seethes, “she wouldn't have burned.” 

 

He can still remember the wheeze of her dying breaths as she asked him to save her soul on a much more literal level than the church ever could. Told him to take her back to her family, to save her husband from his grief. 

 

The Bishop is still smug, fully convinced that he is safe from harm in this church. “Devil worshipers are no match for holy power,” he says, “every witch I have found succumbed to the flames.” 

 

Trevor reaches the raised floor where the Bishop stands and begins to circle him. He inhales, the fire gathers in his chest, and when he speaks it spreads over his body and out his mouth. “You've only killed innocents. I won't die so easily.” 

 

Finally catching onto the danger, the Bishop flinches back against his podium. “Impossible! This place is sacred, you cannot work your magic here!” He turns toward the door his cronies had left through and opens his mouth to call for help, but Trevor's whip snaps against his throat. He drops to his knees with a strangled cry. 

 

“Any god worth worshiping would be disgusted by what you do in their name. You're the reason the night creatures are killing your people, just like you do. Your God has left you for dead… if He was ever here in the first place.” Trevor punctuates each sentence with another strike of his whip. “And to think, I was considering having mercy. To at least make your death quick.” 

 

The fire feeds on his wrath, animating his whip into a snake that coils around the Bishop of its own accord. Trevor watches him fall with a voiceless scream. As he tries to imagine an appropriate punishment for the Bishop’s crimes, the Aloe Vora seeds waiting under his skin tremble in hunger. 

 

Perfect. 

 

“You've ended countless innocent lives,” Trevor says as he pulls off his bandage-sleeves, “so now, countless innocent lives will end you.” He wrenches the Bishop’s mouth open and lets the seeds break through a scab on his palm to pour down the Bishop’s throat. The Bishop writhes, desperately trying to escape, but Trevor holds fast and forces him to drink the blood soaked seeds. They bore into tissues and lay in wait for the sunlight they need to sprout. 

 

When the planting is done, Trevor frees him from his whip and steps back. 

 

“Well?” he asks, “won't you at least go warn your people of what you've brought upon them? Before I come up with any more clever ideas.” 

 

The Bishop stumbles to his feet and flees from Trevor's menacing grin, stumbling down the aisle and colliding with the front doors. He watches Trevor with wide, horrified eyes as he scrambles to unlatch them. The doors finally open and he bursts out towards the city square. 

 

The sun is hiding behind a cloud, so the sprouts are slow to react. The citizens in the square look on in confusion as their Bishop strains his injured throat to scream unintelligibly. Their alarm grows as his wild gestures reveal skin turning green. When the sun peeks out to shine down on the square, true panic begins.

 

At first it's only small leaves that break like pustules from his skin, but they gather speed and delicate vines spread to reach for the light. The pain of their roots digging into his organs to feed on his blood causes the Bishop to collapse once again. Even as he writhes, the roots pin some parts of him to the ground and saplings lift the rest of him with their rapid growth. 

 

Despite many people running in fear, many more gather to see what the fuss is all about. A growing crowd watches in horror as their supposed holy leader births a forest. One especially unfortunate onlooker is making direct eye contact with the still living Bishop as the plants reach his brain and branches burst through his pleading eyes. 

 

His nose, ears and mouth bleed vines. As more of his body is torn, more seeds are exposed to the light to crack open and join their siblings. The strongest of them are the ones in his heart, the best source of blood, and when a sapling that had started on his front spears through his torso and pushes the organ through his back ribs, they produce trunks thicker than the rest. His arms are stretched grotesquely as his chest rises while his hands remain fused to the earth. The growing trees twine with each other for support in complex patterns. The Bishop’s body disappears in the foliage, the snap of bone almost drowned out by the groaning of the plants devouring him. 

 

Trevor watches this all through the church doors. The rage that had burned in him cools into something that could almost be mistaken for regret. Not for killing the Bishop, no, that man deserved what he got. But Trevor had planned to trick or force him into confessing to the people, so that they could hear the truth of their situation from a source they trusted. Getting the people to lay off of the Speakers was going to be much more difficult now. 

 

He's startled out of his thoughts when the ground shakes. The cobblestones are warping from the roots spreading underneath them. The city had been precarious enough already, barely held up above the catacombs, and now the Aloe Vora plants are shifting that thin layer of earth with their powerful roots.

 

Grisit is about to collapse into a sinkhole because Trevor couldn't control his temper for a damn second and consider the consequences. His impulsiveness is going to bring about total disaster and death, but what else is new? 

 

It's ironic that his Aloe Vora back home had reinforced the underground library, and now its children were doing the opposite. 

 

… Wait. 

 

Could he do the same thing here? Organize the roots to strengthen the structure? He'd planned and mapped out the library project thoroughly beforehand, while he barely knew the Gresit catacombs. But he had to try. 

 

He falls against a pew with the next tremor, and lets himself sink to the floor and close his eyes. Taking deep breaths, Trevor reaches for his blood bond with the plants. The strongest feeling he gets from them is their pure joy over finally growing, the same way natural fire delights in eating wood. It's the wholesome love of doing exactly what they are meant to do, almost childish in its simplicity and obliviousness to any harm they do in the process. He knows he has to work with that desire, not against it. 

 

Keeping track of what must be hundreds of plants growing as a colony is much more disorienting than it was to meld his awareness with a single individual. He tries to think of them as a unit as he mentally explores their root system. 

 

The ones cracking the ground weave and harden to form a solid platform at his encouragement. He gives the ones who had broken through to the catacombs nudges towards crumbling supports to climb. They resist at first, not wanting to leave dirt for stone and metal. But he pushes the mental image of much richer soil deep beneath them, if only they grip these columns. 

 

When the plants reach the chamber with the cyclops’ corpse they dive into their new meal, giving it the same treatment they had the Bishop. They gain even more momentum with this new energy, reaching faster for new holds. Trevor no longer recognizes where they are and they are spreading further apart. He can only hang on as their senses bring more and more information. The shake of machinery, the warmth of pipes, the taste of tomb corpses, shattering glass and blood to absorb like rainwater. It all whirls through his head too fast to process. Structures are replaced with woody fiber just as quickly as they crumble. The ones shooting out just under the city surface go into a feeding frenzy over the river of bodies and drink the sewers dry. 

 

It lasts mere seconds, or perhaps a whole day. Trevor has lost all sense of time and has no awareness of his own body anymore. There is only food, and growth, and sweet soil to sink into. The sun caresses their leaves with warmth. Their complex braids and knots are beautiful and strong. So happy, satisfied, tired… he's so proud of them… 

 

The sunlight sings while the cool darkness of the earth rises to embrace him.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed! My classes start again in September and I'm not quiet done Chapter Five, so I may have to slow down updates :( I'm still going to try and have it up sometime next week though, even if it isn't right on Monday! I'm also @agendertrevor on Tumblr, feel free to come talk to me!

I'm constantly rereading comments because they make me so happy I practically swoon! You guys are so nice assjjshuigddvf ;w; <3

So tune in next time for "Chapter Five: Pangur Bán And The Plant Children"!

Chapter 5: Pangur Bán And The Plant Children

Summary:

Sypha and Trevor have exhaustion fueled mood swings at each other as they have some Serious Discussions(tm). The kitty finally gets a name. The Aloe Vora show off and form a SECRET TUNNEL! SECRET TUNNEL! THROUGH THE CATACOMBS! Secret secret secret tunellllllll yeAH!

Notes:

This is only one scene, but it's a long one! (By my standards at least! This fic is already the longest work of fiction I've written in my LIFE!) Your support fuels me!

Warnings: just a touch of plant body horror (nothing compared to last chapter), a brief mention of physical abuse, and some sex jokes.

 

“What the hell was that?” Sypha is demanding before Trevor is even fully awake again. 

 

He squints at the ceiling of the Speakers’ hut, tries and fails to remember how he got here, and struggles to sit up. Spots dance in his vision. His familiar is laying on top of him, purring softly and nearly smothering him with her fluffy fur. 

 

“Someday, you’re going to have to learn not to aggressively wake people up like this,” he says. 

 

“I asked you a question.” She glares at him with more fury than he can ever remember seeing on her kind face. 

 

“A non-specific one. Mind giving me more context?” 

 

“You’ve never had magic!” Sypha bursts out, “You don’t have the Gift! How did you-” she pauses to gesture at the door, “do that? I don’t even recognize this spell!” 

 

He hadn't heard so much as a disapproving noise from the Elder over Sypha’s cuss; the other Speakers have only been looking at him with more than a little horror. As his head clears, he realizes that they know he's to blame for the city being encompassed by a magical forest. By their expressions, they already suspect the truth of how.  

 

“Not all magic requires a natural ability from the practitioner, you know that.” He gives her a wry grin and wonders if the lighting in here is dim enough for her to see the way his teeth have a faint blue glow. “If you can’t produce your own magical energy, blood-bought is just fine.” 

 

“It is NOT FINE! If this cat hadn’t dragged me into the church to find you, you would have bled to DEATH!” She’s on her knees next to him on the floor, doing a surprisingly good job at looming over him considering how tiny she is. “I don’t know what’s worse: that this might have been a one time mistake of you messing with power you don’t understand,” she narrows her eyes, “or that you’ve been practicing this, this mockery of the magic I hold dear.” 

 

The thing is, he can't even blame her for being so angry. Blood magic is viewed by most magicians as a cheat, a shortcut for people who would rather twist life itself than put in the time and effort to do a spell properly. She doesn't know that the magic he'd done wasn't the series of complex spells it appears to have been, it's the result on an ongoing contract . To her, it probably looks like he's spitting on her lifetime of training and studying. But he also doesn't think that assuring her that he wasn't messing with the plants' life force, just his own, would be much help. 

 

Trevor is tired . He holds out his hands, palms up like a beggar, to show off his still bare forearms. What look like vivid tattoos of delicate vines trail down them. His skin already itches from new leaves and flower buds trying to break through to the surface. At least the littering of never-healing cuts that he uses for blood-casting have scabbed over. “And what do you think the case is?” 

 

Her nostrils flare. “I think you smell of demon magic, and your blood is darker than a human’s should be. I think your cat looks an awful lot like the fur that was on your cloak.” 

 

He sighs, "if you're going to beat me for it, then get it over with." 

 

Sypha deflates at that, giving him a hurt and baffled look. She waits a moment, like he might say haha just joking, I don't really think you would do that!  

 

But he doesn't. Because he's long since learned better than to believe unconditional love and respect exist outside fairy tales. 

 

"Trevor, I'm not going to hit you for making shit decisions. I just wish you'd explain why ," she pauses, "and promise not to do it again." 

 

Now that she's given him some space to move, Trevor rolls to his feet. His blood isn't regenerating as fast as he'd like, but he doesn't want to use his emergency venom dose when he's going to see his fledgling soon anyways. 

 

The cat jumps up and gives him her shoulder to steady himself against as he stands, just in case he falters. Which is more helpful than one might assume; she is roughly the size of the pelt she forms out of and can easily headbutt his hip without taking her paws off the ground. 

 

"I can't make any promises, but I want to see what my plants and I managed to do. I can explain stuff as we go." 

 

Sypha follows him out the door. The rest of the Speakers seem to have decided this is one bit of friendship drama that they'd rather not get mixed up in. 

 

"Fine. How did you multitask turning your cloak into a giant cat and speed-growing plants at the same time?" Sypha's giving her a wary look even though the cat is only trotting along with them. 

 

That wasn't what he thought she'd ask first. "My familiar does that on her own and the Aloe Vora naturally grows that fast in good… fertilizer." They have to be careful to not trip over roots or walk into the saplings that have popped out of the road at random. Getting carts through these streets is going to be such a pain in the ass. The slums are far enough from the planting site that the trees are still sparse and human height at best, but Trevor can see that the treetops gradually rise and condense towards the middle of the city. Gresit probably looks like a hill from a distance now. 

 

Sypha looks like she can't decide where to start with her next question because there was a lot going on in Trevor's answer. She finally settles on, "Aloe Vora don't grow in Europe and they don't look like this!" 

 

"Yeah, these might be hybrids with the native plants here," he says and stops to put his palm to a vine crawling up the side of a house. It's smooth like polished wood and warm like it has its own body heat. He wonders if they inherited his immunity to fire. 

 

"I think you were sold magic beans," Sypha says as she peers up at the peak of the treetops, which seem to be reaching for the clouds. 

 

"Naw, I didn't buy these. They came from the one I've got next to my workshop." He turns back to her. "The Aloe Vora have been spreading up into the Mediterranean, and I managed to, uh, acquire a specimen and bring it back here."

 

" "Acquire?" You dragged someone's corpse all the way from the sea to Wallachia?" She at least sounds more doubtful than accusing. 

 

"I'd love to tell you a dramatic and heroic tale of how I totally went to Greece and sacrificed my virginity to a mature Aloe Vora so I could bring a sprout of this rare medicinal plant back to our country, which so desperately needs it, and now regularly fight the one on my property to harvest its leaves, and somehow haven't been digested at any point,” he grins, “but that would be a huge lie.” 

 

“Uh huh. I think my favorite part of this fake story is that you’re fake-confirming the kinky sex plant legends.” Sypha raises her eyebrows. “So what really happened?” 

 

Trevor debates how much to tell her. He doesn't want to break Hector’s privacy and he definitely doesn’t want to admit that his partner in crime had found the body of some poor infected bastard to turn into a flying night creature and sent a sprout to Wallachia via undead mail. "Neither I nor my contact in Greece killed anyone in the process, and that's probably all you want to know." 

 

Frowning, Sypha says, "I don't like it." He thinks she's referring more to not getting the whole story than what he did, but he's not sure. 

 

"You don't have to." He starts making his way towards the middle of the city again. 

 

Sypha makes a frustrated noise behind him and speed-walks to catch up. "And your familiar?" 

 

The cat in question is still at Trevor's side, jumping over roots and rubbing her face on every passing plant. She looks up at Sypha with a "mrrp?"  

 

"What about her?" 

 

"How does it animate? What is it?" 

 

"She is an enchanted pelt, and takes form at will." 

 

Sypha raises her eyebrows at Trevor's instance on pronouns. They had agreed as teenagers that projecting human gender concepts onto animals was silly. So why would he be asserting his cat's femininity? 

 

The answer to that is something he wants to talk about even less than his questionable botany habits. It's not just taboo, it's personal. He's relieved when she doesn't question it out loud. 

 

"Not an ordinary cat, is she? Has she got a name?" 

 

"Uh," Trevor stalls. In his head she's just The Cat , the same way he doesn't give nicknames to his limbs. But this isn't the first time he's been asked this either. 

 

Hector had insisted that all pets need a name, and now calls her Artemis as a little in-joke. Trevor has to wonder just how accurate Hector realizes the association with hunting is. It's flattering in a way, but he feels like being named for the Goddess of the Hunt is too badass for his doofy companion. 

 

"Pangur," he says, "her name is Pangur." That suits her better, he thinks. 

 

"I've never heard that one before," Sypha says, surprised, "did you make it up?" 

 

"No, it's Irish." He's pretty sure the Codrii Speakers haven't focused on stories from that area, so hopefully Sypha won't realize the name is from a written poem. Trevor has a reputation as a jackass to maintain, he can't let people know he's a sentimental nerd. (Or more importantly, that he has access to books at all). 

 

"Like yours, Treffy La Belle?" 

 

"Ugh. " 

 

She laughs at his suffering. Treffy the Beautiful . Sometimes he regrets telling his childhood friend the origins of his first and last names. Would he ever escape that nickname? 

 

By now they've reached trees that are roughly twice his height, and Trevor swears he can feel the air getting warmer. 

 

They've also reached the first few locals they've seen since leaving the Speakers' house. There's a young woman swearing under her breath as she struggles to get her ax to bite into the rubbery plants blocking her doorway. A couple children are already climbing the trunks. Most amusingly, a man has been scooped up and held aloft by vines as though he's been put in time-out.

 

"YOU!" The man shouts when he sees Sypha and Trevor approaching, "you Speakers did this, didn't you?! Brought these devil plants into our-" 

 

"Quit giving other people credit for my hard work," Trevor cuts him off. 

 

"HARD WORK? This is WITCHCRAFT!" The man thrashes but the vines keep adjusting to keep him bound. It might be Trevor's imagination, but he seems a bit more flustered than the situation calls for. 

 

"Yeah, and witchcraft is hard work," Trevor says casually. 

 

The young woman turns to stare at Trevor when she overhears his blatant admission. It’s clear they all expected him to deny it; even Sypha raises her eyebrows. 

 

“Are you the one who’s been summoning the demons then? Not the Speakers?” the woman asks. Trevor thinks he recognizes her from the market, she’s the one who thought the Speakers were making the Sleeping Soldier sick or something. 

 

“No-one in Gresit is summoning the creatures,” he says, exasperated, “they’re being sent to cities all across Wallachia, because your Bishop pissed off someone a hell of a lot more powerful than me.” 

 

Before she can interrogate him further, he plunges deeper into the trees and Sypha scrambles to follow him. 

 

“You could have told me you know who controls the night creatures.” 

 

“You didn’t ask.” He has to hop over an especially high root arching up from the cobblestones and slows down a bit. Storming away and disappearing might be satisfying, but tripping and falling ass over tea kettle would ruin the effect. 

 

Sypha makes a frustrated noise. "There were Speakers in Targoviste when Dracula released his horde. How did you find out?" 

 

“I,” he starts, desperately trying to come up with a good excuse. This is another subject he really, really doesn’t want to talk about. Not just because Sypha would be horrified by what he’d done but because he hated even thinking about it. 

 

Now that he considers it, there isn’t anything about his life that he’s eager to tell Sypha about. 

 

“What happened to always telling each other the truth?” There’s something in Sypha’s tone of voice that Trevor can’t quite place, but it pushes him to at least show a crack of vulnerability. 

 

“I was in contact with the Doctor for a few years before all this… she was-,” he doesn’t know how to explain the weird relationship he had with Lisa, especially since he doesn’t dare presume to call her a friend, “a regular customer. Aloe Vora isn’t the only medicinal plant I deal in.” 

 

“I don’t understand,” Sypha says. She’s caught on that what Trevor is trying to tell her is emotionally charged, but, “what does she have to do with the night creatures?” 

 

Trevor freezes in the middle of pushing a branch out of his face and his stomach drops. He’d just assumed that the Speakers all knew who Dracula’s wife was. But Speakers have complex traditions regarding the usage of names, and he’s never heard any of them actually refer to the Doctor as Lisa, or even Doctor Tepes. Hell, even Trevor didn’t know what her last name was until the day she died. 

 

“Sypha… do you know what the Doctor's name is?" He still doesn't move, doesn't look back at her, though he hears her coming closer. Pangur plasters herself to his legs and buries her face in his hip. 

 

"Now that you mention it… I think she told me when we first met, but I was so young at the time that I can't remember," Sypha says, sounding a bit embarrassed. She's proud of having a good memory as every Speaker must. 

 

"You were recovering from a deadly fever too, according to your grandfather," he says. 

 

"That too," she admits sheepishly. 

 

He should turn his head and look her in the eye. He should be gauging her reaction as he delivers the bad news. But he's a coward, so instead he keeps staring into the trees and hiding behind his bangs as he says, "Doctor Lisa Tepes. Married to Vlad Dracula Tepes." 

 

Silence. 

 

When Trevor finally turns to Sypha, her face is unnaturally blank and her eyes are unfocused. Alarm jolts through his heart. Should he have not told her? He reaches out but hesitates to actually touch her, unsure of what she needs right now. Pangur pulls away from him to gently paw at Sypha’s feet and stare up at her with a worried trill. 

 

After a moment Sypha twitches a few times before she blinks and inhales deeply as though waking up. The sweet, gentle smile that dawns over her face would have been a lot more comforting in a different circumstance; here and now, it's downright unnerving. 

 

"So, how did you control the Aloe Vora?" she asks. 

 

It's Trevor's turn to stare blankly at her. He's never known her to be the type of person who deals with unpleasant feelings by pretending the cause doesn't exist, but then, they've both changed a lot since they last met. And like hell is he going to miss an opportunity to avoid an emotional talk. He can’t imagine how badly she’d react to finding out about the truly twisted magic he performed that night, even if it had been at the Doctor’s request. 

 

"They're all marinated in my blood." 

 

"Oh, yummy," she says, trying for dry sarcasm but failing to hold back her laughter. 

 

He grins. "I'm fucking delicious, ask any creature of the night." 

 

Sypha's smile turns impish. "Nice try, but I know better than to put something in my mouth if I don't know where it's been. That's a choking hazard." She passes him into the ever denser forest, and the golden hour sunlight reflecting off of her makes her almost painfully bright to look at in the shade. 

 

"That's not- Sypha!" He exaggerates his scandalized reaction for her entertainment and she laughs. 

 

Sypha's leading the way now. The tree trunks have become so thick that Trevor doubts his fingers would touch if he hugged them. It's difficult to see the end of the street simply because of all the branches and vines in the way. The air is warm like a midsummer night, and Trevor is glad he isn’t wearing his cloak. 

 

There are a few people milling about, but most have decided the best way to deal with enormous plants engulfing their city is to stay in their homes and wait it out. Or they might just be trapped; Trevor was more concerned with not causing a sinkhole than not blocking doorways. He pretends he doesn’t notice that a lot of people are starting to follow him and Sypha at a distance. 

 

As they get closer to the cathedral the tree canopy becomes so high and dense that what little sunlight filters through looks more like twinkling stars. Glowing mushrooms have sprung up along the roots, so at least they aren’t tripping in the dark. Trevor has no idea where those came from, he’s pretty sure fungi can’t breed with plants. Mimics, perhaps?

 

When they turn the corner into the city square and come face to face with a massive humanoid figure reaching in their direction, Trevor nearly has a fucking heart attack. Its empty eye sockets seem to look right at him and its mouth is open in a silent scream. For a moment he thinks that he really did manage to accidentally summon some awful creature, before he realizes that it isn’t moving. 

 

It’s all Aloe Vora. 

 

“Oh,” Sypha manages. Trevor thoroughly agrees with that statement. 

 

Countless trunks, branches and vines have twisted, woven, and knotted themselves to create the illusion of a ghoulish giant leaning over the city square. Its torso emerges from the front of the cathedral (smashing the wall in the process) and the area where the bishop had collapsed, while its hands clutch at the ground on the opposite side of the square (right in front of the humans gaping at it), its grotesquely long arms framing the open area. Its head almost reaches the top of the canopy, easily taller than any of the buildings. Its chest is split open and glowing light peeks through the cracks. 

 

It has no specific features, but the pose and agonized expression reminds Trevor of the bishop being eaten alive. 

 

“I didn’t tell them to do that,” Trevor says. 

 

"It's amazing," Sypha breathes, "like mother nature beckoning us to her heart." 

 

"I'm sorry, what?" Trevor finally tears his eyes from the nightmare sculpture to stare at Sypha. "It's screaming. In agony. What about this looks welcoming to you?" 

 

"She's singing," Sypha says, like it's an obvious fact and Trevor is the one who should consider getting eye spectacles. Which, okay, it's true that all the time he's spent squinting in bad lighting at his ancestors' messy handwriting that won't stop shifting probably isn't good for his vision, but still.  

 

Trevor doesn't get a chance to reply before the herd of locals make their move. 

 

"What did you do to the priests?" yells one of them from among the crowd. Many of them are armed and some have coils of rope ready, presumably to tie Trevor to a stake. Still though, what the fuck is with the people in this area and being so prepared for bondage? 

 

"Might'a roughed them up a bit," Trevor admits. They've clearly switched targets from the Speakers to him, and he wants to keep it that way. 

 

"They're gone! " shouts a man who shoves his way to the front, "where did you take them? What did you do with my brother?" He does look a fair bit like one of the priests who had gone after the Elder. It doesn't escape Trevor's notice that he's wearing finer clothes than most of his neighbours. 

 

"Have you checked in there?" Trevor gestures at the not at all welcoming figure that crushed the front door of the cathedral. "Y'know, where they work?" 

 

Sypha snorts. 

 

The crowd is clearly even less eager than Trevor is to get up close to the false giant. At least he knows it's not going to eat him. "I'll take that as a no." 

 

“I can go check,” Sypha says with a cheeky smile, “If everyone else is too afraid.” 

 

Trevor gives her his best exasperated are you fucking kidding me look. He was going to inspect it eventually anyway but now it’ll look like he’s rising to her bait. She probably knows it too, this is some double reverse-psychology bullshit. Without saying anything, he turns and heads toward the Thing’s armpit, planning to duck under and find another entrance to the cathedral. The crowd doesn’t move against him like he expected; they wait behind in nervous quiet. 

 

“They’re bold witch hunters until they see truly dangerous magic,” Sypha says under her breath next to him. 

 

“How much of what happened did you actually witness?” Trevor asks. 

 

“We left the house in case it collapsed on us, but we couldn’t go far until the ground tremors stopped. Pangur led me through the alleys to a side entrance into the church to find you.”  

 

“So you didn’t see the Bishop?” 

 

“No?” Sypha looks at him in confusion. “What about the Bishop?” 

 

“Ah,” Trevor says, “I may have fed him to my saplings. Alive. There may have been witnesses.” 

 

“Trevor!” she hisses, “when you said good fertilizer, I thought you meant the bodies in the river!” 

 

“That too.” 

 

“You can’t just kill people! Who are you to decide who deserves to live or die?” Sypha hurries ahead so she can block his path just before they reach the upper left arm of branches, and isn’t that familiar? If he didn’t know better, Trevor would have sworn the leaves turned towards her as though seeking light.

 

“He killed the Doctor.” 

 

That’s all he needs to say. Her face spasms and goes blank for a moment again before she simply says, “ah,” and turns away to start parting the dangling vines in their way. 

 

Shit. He should probably talk to the Elder after this, so that Sypha will have someone to help her work through her grief. Trevor’s attempts at comfort usually do more harm than good. 

 

The plants part for Trevor with much less reluctance than they do for Sypha, forming a small archway for them to duck through until they meet the still standing side wall of the church. A few vines are holding up shards of stained glass that fell from the windows, moving them the way a child might to inspect how light shines through and glints off of the glass. He knows they don’t see so much as feel light and wonders how much of the glittering colours they can sense. Pangur reaches up to playfully bat at them. 

 

All thoughts of his plant children’s adorable exploration of the world around them take a backseat when they enter the building through a side door and find an interior very different than either of them remember. Besides the tree giant’s back replacing the front of the cathedral, the wooden furniture has been pulled into the plants and begun sprouting as though the dead wood has come alive again. Vines climb the walls to hang from the rafters and widen into shapes that Trevor recognizes as pitchers even in the dim light. 

 

“What on earth…” Sypha says before summoning a flame in her palm and gasping at the illuminated sight. She’s probably never seen a pitcher plant before, but even Trevor is impressed by their sheer size. He could probably fit inside one. 

 

That is, he suspects, exactly the point. As they get closer, an acidic, meaty smell becomes more obvious. There is no sign of the priests anywhere. 

 

Unless you counted the vaguely humanoid shapes only just visible through the sides of the shut pitcher traps. 

 

“Well, that answers that question. Too late for them now.” 

 

“Hmm,” Sypha sounds disapproving of his flippant attitude towards human life, though she can’t argue with his statement. She runs a hand across the side of one of the traps, frowning in thought. “Do they only eat humans?” 

 

“They’ll eat pretty much anything they can catch,” he says, “Including literal shit.” 

 

“Gross,” she says like it’s an absent minded observation. She turns back to him. “Could they catch night creatures?” 

 

Trevor thinks of the speed and strength of the adult Aloe Vora’s traps whenever something strays too close to his workshop and grins. “Sypha, you’re a fucking genius.” 

 

Sypha grins right back. “Thanks, I know.” 

 

Telling the plants to start growing traps throughout the city doesn’t require a connection nearly as intense as Trevor made before. He only needs to press his palms to the enormous collection of trunks and tell them, food is coming at nightfall, before they buzz with excitement and get to work. No more humans… for now, he adds, which they are less enthusiastic about but give in to. He sends them waves of approval and affection before pulling away.

 

“I’m not sure they’ll get all the night creatures before they reach the people,” Trevor admits to Sypha, “We should probably bring the rest of the Speakers into the catacombs with us, just in case.” 

 

She nods. “What about the rest of the humans?” 

 

“What about them?” Trevor barely blinks when Pangur leaps onto his shoulders, the better to climb onto the trees and get a close look at the spaces between the woven trunks. 

 

“Shouldn’t we protect them too?” She almost sounds genuinely confused. 

 

He groans, watching Pangur shove her paws through the cracks like she’s reaching for something. “Isn’t the sun about to set? Do you really want to waste time gathering up the whole damn city and herding them underground?” 

 

At this point it’s sounding to Trevor like she’s just saying this on principal. “Is that fair, though? Are we doing enough?” 

 

“You said yourself I nearly fucking bled out stabilizing everything, and now there’s going to be fewer night creatures going after them,” he snaps, “I’d say that’s more enough for people who’ve done fuck all for either of us.” 

 

Sypha winces and he immediately feels like garbage for being harsh with her. 

 

“Sorry, I-” 

 

“No, you’re right,” she sighs and pinches her brow with her fingers. “I’m just tired.” 

 

Before Trevor can ask when she last slept, Pangur lets out a muffled “maow?” drawing their attention to what’s still visible of her rear half. Waist up, she’s wedged herself into the trees and her hind legs dangle uselessly underneath her. 

 

Trevor is well aware his boneless cat could just drop her form and slither out, but Sypha huffs a laugh, “are you stuck, kitty?” 

 

(Trevor is just glad to see her smile again.)

 

Pangur replies with an overly sad, “mrrrow.”  

 

Trevor accepts that if he doesn’t help his needy cat then Sypha will, and he’d rather not deal with the fallout of someone getting so, familiar, with his familiar. “Alright, alright,” he says, and grasps her by the hips to pull her out. Pangur squirms but otherwise stays in place.

 

"Maybe her fur is caught on something?" Sypha suggests. 

 

Trevor doubts that, but he doesn't need to even ask before the trunks soften and part to create a larger opening. Pangur floats down to the ground and flops backwards onto his feet. 

 

"Huh." The gap is large enough for any of them to slip through, and they can see the hollow torso lit up from somewhere below. Trevor gently scoots Pangur out of the way so he can get a closer look. 

 

"I told you, she's guiding us to her heart," Sypha says as she crowds in next to him. She snuffs out her tiny flame now that they have a better light source. The hollow has no floor, woven trunks continuing down to form a sloping tunnel. 

 

"You realize that these are hundreds of individuals clustered together, right?" Trevor asks, "this isn't a single being." 

 

"Are we not all made of many parts?" Sypha replies. She climbs in and nearly slips on the smooth bark before vines catch her.

 

"Hold up, we need to get the Speakers to safety before we fuck off looking for something's heart!" He has to block Pangur from diving in after Sypha, earning him a frustrated, "mmmrrrf" . 

 

Sypha looks conflicted for a moment before her face lights up with an idea. "It's fine, I'll just send them a message!" She cups her hands over her mouth as though whispering a secret and closes her eyes. A flickering glow appears between her fingers as she sings a few notes, and when it steadies she murmurs something to it that Trevor can't quite make out. When she opens her eyes and pulls her hands away from her face there's a gold spark floating over her palms. "Go," she tells it, and it zips away into the darkness. 

 

"I've never heard of that spell before," Trevor says, "did you make it up yourself?" 

 

She beams. "Just now!" 

 

"Damn," he says, impressed, "you really aren't the kid lighting your own ass on fire anymore." 

 

"Excuse me?" Sypha says in mock offense, "are you implying that I've ever been anything less than completely magnificent?" 

 

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," Trevor almost laughs. He steps aside so Pangur can finally launch herself towards adventure. She slides out of sight with a surprised yowl before clawing her way back up, vibrating with excitement. He can practically hear her urging, come on, come on, hurry up! 

 

Sypha finds herself better foot holds and starts a more controlled descent. There isn't much room for two people side by side, so Trevor waits before carefully climbing through the opening, mindful of his still aching torso. Vines steady him to ease his way. 

 

The gap closes up again behind him. 

 

It doesn’t take long before they find the source of the light. The bark on the trunks/branches cracks to reveal luminescent veins running through them. Sypha makes a comment about it but Trevor isn’t really listening, too caught up in his thoughts. Where did the plants pick up that ability? How far does this tunnel go? Why the hell did it form in the first place, so conveniently sized and lit up? 

 

The slope changes multiple times along the way, at some points gentle enough that they can walk, but at most steep enough that they have to climb. The passage twists and turns as well, and without a single glimpse of the catacombs visible between the plants, neither he nor Sypha know where they are or where they’re going. Pangur only seems to become more urgent, racing ahead and waiting for them to catch up before zooming off again. 

 

When they feel a breeze coming from ahead, Pangur whines and starts doing her ridiculous pay attention to me ballet that involves curling her tail into a question mark and vibrating it while slowly tip-toeing like a dancer. 

 

“What,” Sypha laughs, “is she doing?” 

 

Trevor is about to tease his familiar (“oh woe is me, I can’t go an hour without snuggles or I’ll surely perish on the spot”) until he turns the corner and sees that what she was trying to communicate was more of an excited, hurry the fuck up I found the end of the tunnel! He still picks her up as they enter the chamber though, holding her like the giant baby she is and letting her lash her tail about like a very fluffy whip. 

 

“I,” he says, looking around the giant chamber, “don’t recognize this place at all. You?” 

 

“It’s hard to tell,” says Sypha, “I don’t think I’ve been here, but I doubt it looked like this before.” 

 

That’s an understatement. If the space hadn’t opened up so suddenly, Trevor might not have even noticed that the passageway ended here. Roots cover every surface, holding up pillars and branching out over the floor. Stone and some metal is visible underneath, but it’s difficult to imagine what this place looked like yesterday beyond the basic layout. 

 

“I think they broke something here.” Sypha calls from ahead, where the floor rises, “Who keeps glass just laying around in a catacomb? I thought it was expensive to make without magic.” 

 

“Glass?” something about that tickles Trevor’s memory, something he’d been too out of it to note as strange when the plants were mid-growth spurt. He picks his way over to her and sure enough, shards of glass litter the floor. There’s no sign of blood, but the plants likely licked everything clean. There’s a twisted pile of crushed machinery underneath the roots with pipes leading to another lump of something a couple of meters away. 

 

“What the fuck?” he says to himself when they see what the lump is.

 

“They must have been important, to have all this space dedicated to them,” Sypha says, tracing the surface of the fancy coffin. 

 

Trevor has a sinking feeling in his stomach. Why would the plants reach a coffin but not open it? As far as he can remember, they ate every dead body in and under Gresit. “It has to be magically sealed or something. The Aloe Vora don’t exactly understand the concept of respecting graves.” He nudges the roots and they clear away without protest. 

 

Her eyes sparkle with excitement. “Do you think? It could be the Sleeping Soldier?” 

 

As soon as there’s nothing on top of the lid, the pipes hiss and gears grind as the broken machinery struggles and fails to… lift the coffin? It’s difficult to tell what it was meant to do before everything got busted. Besides, Trevor suspects, the pipes leading from the coffin to what used to be giant containers of blood. 

 

“I think we’ve got a smartass taking advantage of the legend to get self-delivering snacks.” At Sypha’s affronted noise, he gestures to the broken glass and explains what it was from. Pangur whines and crawls up onto his shoulders. 

 

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” she says. With a hum and a shooing motion of her hand, the lid lifts into the air and shoots away before falling to the ground. Trevor would compliment her on her magic again because, wow, but he’s too busy staring at the stranger with what Trevor easily recognizes as a Sire’s Mark on their chest. 

 

They bare a painful resemblance to the woman who made him swear to save her family, and he realizes that he’s failed her even more than he already knew. 

 

“Oh, shit-” 

Notes:

Sypha: *acts strangely/OOC*
Trevor: ThisIsFine.jpeg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangur_B%C3%A1n
Pangur Bán is a short and cute little poem that I highly recommend reading! *slaps the link to it* this bad boy can hold SO much foreshadowing!

Next chapter might take a while but it WILL happen! I refuse to leave this unfinished! That said, I may have started the habit of saying the next chapter title in the end notes just so I could leave y'all with the following:

Tune in next time for "Chapter Six: Adrian Wakes With Trevor's Pussy On His Face"

Chapter 6: Adrian Wakes With Trevor's Pussy On His Face

Summary:

Pangur licks a stranger. Trevor tries to lie to the Truth. Lisa does (not) die.

Notes:

I am soooo sorry this took over a month omg!! Get ready for me blatantly borrowing FMA alchemy lore (you don't need to know anything about FMA tho).

Please note that there is some miscommunication re: Adrian's age in this chapter, but I want to make absolutely clear that the trio are all in their twenties. Assumptions are made otherwise based on how young Lisa looks and knowing that dhampirs age quickly (also bc he's cranky at the moment lol).

Besides that, Warnings: some scattered mentions of gore, general Angst. 1st scene: unasked for biting/blood drinking, metaphorical/symbolic drowning and an attempted mind probe (idk how to describe it) at the end. 2nd scene: canon character death, genital jokes, brief mention of that good ol' plant parasite. As always, if you see something you want me to warn for, let me know!

Adrian Wakes With Trevor's Pussy On His Face

 

"Oh, shit, they're hot!"  

 

Adrian has been drifting somewhere between coma and consciousness ever since his coffin was shaken and his blood supply cut off, and these are the first words he hears since descending into slumber. Though he struggles, he does not have the energy to open his eyes. His body aches from lack of blood and movement. 

 

He doesn’t recognize the voice or the heartbeats above him, and his chest clenches with fear at the thought of strangers looming over him in his weakened state. Why are they here? Has his father sent assassins to finish him off? It’s not a possibility he would have ever given serious consideration before he… before. 

 

“Really, Sypha? That’s your first observation?” 

 

“Well, it’s true!” 

 

The one called Sypha is human as far as Adrian can tell, but the one with a deeper voice has a heartbeat that’s off in a way he can’t quite place. They may simply have a heart condition, but he suspects that they are not entirely human. 

 

His fangs begin to extend in fear and keep going out of thirst as his sense of smell sharpens. He had attempted to make his blood supply last as long as possible by taking only the bare minimum, but he had not accounted for the possibility of being cut off from the containers. It cannot have been more than a week since his last dose and yet he is already ravenous. 

 

Something furry brushes his face. Adrian groans and turns his head away only to feel it on his bare shoulder. Two great paws touch down on his chest and arms and the animal snuffles at his hair. He fights to fully awaken but only manages to twitch and moan. 

 

“Are they having a nightmare?” 

 

“Not anymore.”

 

Adrian only has a second to wonder what they meant by that, before the animal settles its whole body over his and a sense of calm settles over him with it. His fear and discomfort melt away. It reminds him of the weighted blanket he has at home, soft and heavy in just the right way. 

 

Of course, his weighted blanket doesn’t purr with such enthusiasm that it vibrates his bones. 

 

“I think we might have to kiss them awake.”

 

“Oh my god, NO, this isn’t a fairy tale!” 

 

“But it might be, someday! If you don’t want to then I guess I’ll take one for the team-” 

 

“You want to go down in history for kissing someone who can’t say no?” 

 

“ … okay, well, when you put it like THAT, yeah, it does sound creepy. Do you have any bright ideas?” 

 

For a whole second, Adrian thinks that the nameless one must have at least some common sense.  

 

Until their voice is suddenly very close, saying, “Hey kid, wakey wakey, blood and bakey.” 

 

“THAT’S your plan?”  

 

It must only be a tiny pinprick on a finger, and yet the sudden scent of blood laced with magic is what takes Adrian from struggling for full consciousness to jerking awake and instinctively lunging at the source. 

 

He gets a mouthful of fur for his achievement. 

 

Adrian absolutely does not flail, regardless of what witnesses may say in the future. They are biased sources and not to be trusted. He makes a dignified attempt at getting the mass of fluff out of his face so he can breathe. 

 

"Pangur, you're suffocating them." 

 

The giant cat pulls back to look Adrian in the eyes, their noses almost touching. All he can see are bright blue eyes that fade into green at the edges which, despite the slit pupils, seem to have a disturbing level of humanity in them. It still hasn't stopped purring. 

 

He opens his mouth to speak just before it licks a stripe up his face, which puts his left canine right in the path of its tongue. Instead of drawing blood, his fang passes harmlessly through the cat’s tongue as though it were just more fur. Adrian makes a noise of disgust as the cat licks all the way to his hairline. 

 

"Ugh, what the f-" he pushes the cat's face away and sits up properly, cutting off his words when he sees the two people sitting on either side of his coffin, staring at him. Distantly, he's aware that he should be on guard but that dreamy sense of calm hasn't left him. The most he can work up is bafflement. 

 

"Oh, good, you're awake!" says the bright, cheery voice on his right. This must be the one called Sypha. They wear what Adrian guesses, based on his mother’s descriptions, are Speaker’s robes. Their face is lovely the way benevolent fair folk are lovely; sweet and delicate with the potential to be dangerous. 

 

In contrast, the unnamed one on his left looks like they get run over by carts on a regular basis. Their clothes are well worn and strangely provocative, far too figure-fitting for the Speakers' dress code. Adrian can't read their expression; it certainly isn't happiness, but it isn't hostile either. 

 

Adrian doesn't recognize these people, and at this point he doubts that they're here to kill him. So why are they here? 

 

"How did you find this place?" he asks with as much dignity as he can muster with a fluffy cat still pinning his legs down, "and what happened here?" 

 

"The plants brought us here, to find the Sleeping Soldier!" Sypha says with an expectant look on their face. 

 

His mind races as he tries to remember where he's heard that bef- ah. One of the bedtime stories he was told as a child. A story from the Speakers, if he recalls correctly, which explains why they're taking it seriously. "I see." 

 

"Dracula has unleashed his horde," they continue, "and we need the messiah who sleeps under Gresit!" 

 

Adrian doesn't let it show, but ice settles in his stomach at their words. Just the thought of facing his father again makes him want to cry like a frightened child, and they expect him to be their messiah? Because he'd picked the wrong hiding place to rest in? 

 

To hide in, to cower away from the world and pretend someone else can solve your problems, hisses his mind. 

 

No, there was more to the story, wasn't there? That the Sleeping Soldier would have help? 

 

He raises an eyebrow. "Are you the Scholar and the Hunter, then?" 

 

"Apparently," mutters the unnamed one. 

 

Sypha nods, still beaming at him. "We will come with you!" 

 

Awfully enthusiastic, considering the subject matter, Adrian thinks. "That still doesn't explain why my machines are destroyed." 

 

"Oh, that's his fault." Sypha points at the unnamed one, who finally stops silently staring at Adrian. 

 

He shifts his attention to Sypha and protests, "Hey, this place would have collapsed if I hadn't done anything!" 

 

“But what did you do?” Adrian asks, getting exasperated. The cat keeps trying to give him a tongue bath. 

 

He just frowns at the cat, ignoring Adrian’s question. “Pangur, we’ve talked about this.” He lifts the cat up by its armpits and drags it out of the coffin. Or attempts to. It's back legs remain inside and apparently he decides that it's good enough to have its face away from Adrian. 

 

"It's a long story," Sypha offers when their companion clearly isn't going to explain, "but I'm Sypha, and this rude one here is Trevor." 

 

Trevor huffs but otherwise doesn't protest that statement.

 

It surprises Adrian to hear a Speaker give out someone else's name when his mother had told him that was incredibly rude in their culture, unless they were very close and had permission. Were they partners, then? 

 

Adrian is debating which of his names to introduce himself with when Trevor suddenly says, "you're the good Doctor's brat, aren't you?" 

 

"Excuse me?" Adrian isn't even sure if he should be offended by that. It is rare to hear someone acknowledge his mother's work, and yet, "I'm a grown man!" 

 

"Yeah, physically," Trevor says quietly enough that Sypha probably doesn't hear. Louder, he says, “but you are her son?” 

 

“That is correct.” Without the cat pinning him down, Adrian can finally stand and exit his coffin. Breaking contact immediately lifts the calming effect and he tries not to show how overwhelmed with distress his mind becomes. 

 

Sypha easily follows suit so that they aren’t kneeling on the ground anymore, but Trevor’s breath hitches as he stands and he leans on his cat as though rising is enough to unsteady him.

 

“Oh,” Sypha says, realization and then sadness spreading on their face as they look at Adrian, “I grieve with thee.” 

 

In any other situation Adrian would have appreciated the opportunity to lean on a social script to get himself through a conversation, but the phrase so closely echoes what he had said to his father the last time they spoke that he is briefly gripped by the vague and broken memories of everything that followed. He shoves them aside only for a petty part of him to think, a stranger cannot possibly grieve as I do, and decides that he would rather appear cold by not directly acknowledging the statement than risk saying something outright cruel or breaking down altogether. “You believe yourselves fit for the task of defeating Dracula?” 

 

Sypha’s expression morphs from empathy to a sweet smile with an undercurrent of breathless ferocity. “A vampire is nothing to a daughter of the sun.” 

 

Adrian mentally re-calibrates the pronouns he was using for her (he tries not to assume strangers’ genders as a matter of principal) and wonders what the fuck that was about. 

 

“Could you find a more off-putting way to say that you’re a magician?” Trevor drawls, “that wasn’t quiet ominous enough.” 

 

Her smile relaxes back into something more genuine and she just laughs. 

 

“And you?” Adrian asks Trevor, “why should I believe you to be strong enough to do battle with-” 

 

“We might not have to,” Trevor interrupts. His strange heartbeat betrays his calm expression and Adrian’s thirst spikes in reaction. 

 

“You know some other way?” Sypha asks, evidently unaware of her partner’s plans. 

 

“You think you can, what, talk him down?” Adrian asks with a sneer, when I couldn’t? When he tore me, his own son, apart for even trying?

 

“No,” Trevor is watching them both with a wary look, “but I think your mother could.” 

 

Adrian nearly breaks on the spot because that’s exactly what he’s been agonizing over and hating himself for it. If it were Adrian who had been killed, would his father still be this upset? Would his mother have been able to stop him from his war on humanity? Would she be strong enough to defeat him if he couldn’t be swayed? Why was Adrian less important than vengeance? 

 

“How much do you know about necromancy?” Trevor asks, running his fingers through his cat’s fur. 

 

“Trevor, no,” Sypha says, horrified. Unsurprising, considering that even the Speakers had to draw a line somewhere with magic. 

 

Adrian can’t even exam his emotions closely enough to name them at this point without risking them bursting forth from his control. “Enough to know that it is impossible to call back a soul to its body once it has moved on. Even a Forgemaster cannot recreate a person as they were before they died. To attempt such a thing is a fool’s errand.”

 

“If the soul has moved on, yeah,” Trevor says, “but what if it hasn’t?” His voice was still casual and calm as though they were discussing this all theoretically. 

 

“You,” Adrian says as he flash-steps into Trevor’s personal space, “have reason to believe that my mother does not rest?” The idea of her haunting the ruins of Targoviste all this time tears at his mind. 

 

Trevor inhales slowly, watching Adrian like a hawk. No, more like a rabbit watches the hawk circling above. Adrian can practically feel his pulse, taste the strange magic that runs in his veins. He’s distantly aware that his pupils have probably contracted to tiny slits and his vision is tingeing red with thirst-rage-fear-grief-

 

“She asked me to bring her soul back to you and your father, so she could prevent all this from happening in the first place,” says Trevor, “but better late than never.” 

 

Adrian’s gaze snaps to the cat still pressed to Trevor’s legs. “That’s…” he struggles to think past the storm in his mind to remember what little theory on soul magic he was taught. Even his father avoided it, not just for moral reasons but because it’s so damn dangerous. 

 

Moving slowly as though to not scare a wild animal and still watching Adrian, Trevor kneels so that he’s at eye level with the cat. He reaches through the fur on her chest and pulls out a pendant. 

 

Dracula has a vast collection of magical and scientific tools. Among them was a crystal of the most distinct red which he explained to Adrian was a philosopher’s stone, and why he rarely used it.

 

The pendant Trevor offers to Adrian is a tiny glass jar in which sits a sliver of that same distinct red. 

 

“What did you do,” he hisses. 

 

“Only what she asked of me,” Trevor insists. 

 

His father had explained why philosopher’s stones were so rare, why the few alchemists who knew how to make them kept it a closely guarded secret. 

 

“She asked you to use her as an ingredient?” his voice doesn’t sound at all human any more, “to damn her to eternal torment?”

 

“… no.”  

 

The guilt in Trevor’s voice is not enough to appease him. Adrian doesn’t even make the conscious decision to attack before he throws him across the room like a doll. 

 

Disappointingly, he doesn’t hit a solid wall and break. The vines cushion his landing and Sypha calls out with worry, “Trevor?” as she summons an ice wall to block Adrian.

 

“Don’t,” Trevor coughs out, “just, let him blow off steam.” 

 

Adrian snarls at the implication that he’s just a child throwing a tantrum. He leaps over the wall and nearly pins Trevor down before he rolls out of the way at the last second and reaches for a weapon. Adrian doesn’t give him time, turning to swipe at him with outstretched claws. 

 

The smell of spilt blood erases what was left of Adrian’s control and rational mind. He forgets why he’s so upset, knows only that he’s desperate to feed and make it as painful as possible for his prey. 

 

He dodges the whip of flame that keeps lashing at him, he chases his prey to and fro around the chamber to exhaust him, he levitates and dives down again and again. Yet somehow this tired, injured rabbit keeps escaping his talons. 

 

His own strength wanes as he uses up what little fuel he had left and his thirst outweighs his vengeance. He hears a woman’s voice say, “oh, honestly, this has gone on long enough,” and remembers that his current target is not his only option. Head snapping around to look at her, he sees her raise her hands to defend herself and thinks, her magic won’t matter if I reach her before she can cast.  

 

The whip clips his ankle just hard enough to draw his attention back around in time to see his prey stumble and collapse backwards. Finally.

 

He leaps across the room and slams into his prey, savouring the resulting gasp of pain. He haphazardly pins down his prize and presses himself close to that overwhelming body heat. 

 

When he finally sinks his teeth in, his moan of satisfaction comes out more like a sob of relief. His venom rushes from his fangs to keep his prey docile. The first mouthful of blood is heavy and completes the circuit necessary to initiate a melding of their minds. 

 

He meets no resistance as he slips into his prey's mind. It feels as sudden and jarring as diving into a massive lake, all-encompassing and murky. He wants to know what happened and why, and he wants to take out everything on someone he can blame. But as he reaches for the deeper mind, the deep reaches back. Thoughts grab him and drag him down to the inky depths, and it finally occurs to him that he has no experience with forcing himself into another's mind. He is not the one in control here and he has no idea how to swim back to the surface. 

 

The thoughts gripping him are things like please and I'm sorry and let me show-guide-help you. One slithers up to his ear and his mother’s voice whispers, “just trust me.”  

 

Adrian gasps for air and the memory rushes in.

 

Lisa Does (Not) Die

Perhaps, if Trevor had strolled into Targoviste an hour or so earlier, this whole mess could have been avoided. 

 

Trevor didn’t realize anything was wrong until he saw the smoke, didn’t start running until he was close enough to hear the commotion. At first he was naive enough to think it was a building on fire. 

 

What he found instead was a crowd gathered around a woman being burnt at the stake. A woman he recognized. A woman he owed his life to. 

 

“Please, be better than them!” Lisa called out before screaming in pain as the fire lashed at her. Trevor didn’t know who she was talking to but he was surprised she could draw enough breath to speak at all; most people died from smoke inhalation before the fire reached them.  

 

He lashed out with his own whip of flame to clear a path through the crowd. Onlookers screamed as they scrambled out of his way. Leaping onto the pyre unharmed, he drew a knife and hacked at the ropes binding her to the stake. If this were his own phoenix fire he could have snuffed it with a thought, but he couldn’t control fire lit by someone else. 

 

“Trev’r?” she croaked. For a moment he thought she might tell him to run before they found a way to kill him too, but she was too sensible to be a selfless martyr. As soon as he freed and caught her limp body, she nodded at small alleyway and rasped, “through there.” 

 

He jumped off the pyre and ran like hell. Only a few people tried to stand in his way, and their courage wilted when they heard his voice echoing with ancient burning wrath, “M O V E!”  

 

The way Lisa coughed and gasped as he carried her through the city in desperate search of a safe place to rest was more terrifying than any beast he had ever faced. A creature he could fight, but severe lung damage he could not. He knew the sound of someone on the brink of death and he knew he was not a skilled enough healer to save her. 

 

“Here, put me down.” She was already so quiet he nearly didn’t hear her over the pounding of his feet and heart. 

 

After a brief struggle he managed to lay out his cloak on the ground before gently setting her down on it. They were hidden for now, but he could hear the shouts in the distance as the priests and their pawns searched for the witch(es). The pelt on the cloak shifted and curled around Lisa to better support her and ward off shock. Her face relaxed as his familiar’s calming effect blocked out fear and pain from her mind. She took a rasping, coughing breath and asked, “Soul magic?” as her fingers flexed in the fur. 

 

Trevor didn’t want to play his usual evasion games when any words might be her last. He nodded. 

 

Lisa didn’t look surprised and he ignored the pang of hurt he felt at that. Soul magic was an extreme form of witchcraft, what kind of self proclaimed witch would he be if he didn’t at least understand the basics of it? He should be flattered really, that she believed he was competent enough to fuck around with something so advanced. 

 

“A philosopher’s stone-” her words were cut off by more coughing. 

 

He frantically dug through his bag for a canteen of water and helped her take small sips from it. “But I’m not an alchemist, even if I had a stone-” 

 

“I’m dying,” she said, like it was an inevitable fact, “I’m past the point where medicine can do anything except ease my pain. But Trevor, I haven’t been entirely honest with you about my family.” 

 

“You don’t, owe me, that kind of-,” he hadn’t stammered like this in ages but he was too preoccupied to be embarrassed. 

 

Lisa managed to lift her arm enough to drop her hand on his arm and squeeze to get him to shut up. She looked him directly in the eye and said, without a scrap of humour, “my husband is Dracula.” 

 

Trevor’s thought process came to a crashing halt. Lisa wouldn’t lie on her deathbed, and this re-framed everything he thought he knew about her home life. 

 

Trevor was one of the few people Lisa could freely brag to about her amazing, handsome, genius, dhampir son, and did so at any opportunity. But she never talked about the vampire Sire and always said her husband was “travelling”, so he had assumed that she wasn’t really married at all, only protecting her son and herself from the stigma of having a child out of wedlock. After years of working as a freelance feeder, Trevor knew from experience that vampires hated taking responsibility for what happens when they play with their food. 

 

Then again, a dhampir being born healthy and not ripping their human parent apart on their way out was pretty damn rare. Not unheard of, but still impressive. Being under the care of motherfucking Dracula would certainly explain why her spine was still intact. It explained how the hell she’d gotten a better education than anyone else in this country too, now that he thought about it. 

 

“When he finds out what happened to me…” Lisa grimaced in pain. “I need to talk him down, he’s come so far,” she cut herself off with another bout of coughing and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t have time to explain everything,” she managed after a few shaky breaths, “Please just trust me, making me a stone is the best option.” 

 

Lisa had really never struck Trevor as the type to condone killing people for power, but he was learning all kinds of disturbing things about her this night. “Damn, alright. There’s plenty of ‘ingredients’ on their way but I don’t know all the alchemic formulas and-” 

 

She shook her head. “I mean, turn me into a philosopher’s stone.”

 

He stared at her blankly. “What.” 

 

“Please,” she rasped and squeezed his arm, “even my husband can’t revive me if my soul moves on or gets attached to something.” 

 

“You-” Trevor cut himself off as her eyelids started to droop. “Holy fuck okay, I’ll do it- I’m doing it- hold on, stay awake,” he rambled as he opened a cut on his arm and pulled a long line of blood from it, directing it through the air to draw a perfect circle around Lisa. “Don’t you dare die before I finish this!” 

 

There hadn’t been an alchemist in his family since his great-grand aunt, but he’d read her journals and understood the theory. Extract the souls from human sacrifice, mash them together, and you get a stone made from Essence of People that gives you unbelievable power. If you sacrificed enough people (hundreds, thousands) it would basically last forever. But how would a philosopher's stone of just one soul even work? 

 

He skipped all the sigils for the binding part and focused on arranging a transmutation circle that could cleanly pull a person’s soul out and preserve it without fucking, breaking the person’s mind in the process. Was drawing it all out even necessary? He wasn’t really an alchemist, the same way he wasn’t a magician. Any magic he did had to be altered to account for it being fueled by his life energy, wouldn’t alchemy be the same? 

 

"Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it," Trevor muttered and opened a cut on each palm so he'd be connected to the circle of energy directly. He started to pull the pelt out from under Lisa as gently as he could and asked, "you're absolutely sure about this? I can't even guarantee this will work!" 

 

Lisa nodded. "Please, save my family from their grief." Her face was already going slack and her cry of pain was weak when she lost contact with the pelt. 

 

There was no time for Trevor to consider how he felt about any of this. Trevor flung his familiar away from the danger of the circle. He was well aware that this was going to "cost" him something, and he had only made her in the first place because she was everything he couldn't bare to lose. With his bleeding palms slammed onto the circle of blood, the circuit was completed. 

 

The lines of blood began to glow a sickly red and an awful wailing surrounded them. Lisa arched and spasmed as though she'd been struck by lightning. She went limp. 

 

Trevor's body seized with pain like something was trying to tear it apart. His fire engulfed him as it and the parasitic Aloe Vora clipping tried to keep their host in one piece. 

 

A giant, ghostly eye opened in the circle, each lid becoming a door to form a warped gate. Trevor only had a moment to think, that’s not quite what the journals described, before he was pulled through and found himself falling, falling through the void. 

 

"Very unconventional," said a voice that echoed like many people speaking out of the same mouth. It reminded Trevor of the way his own voice sounded when the phoenix (or what was left of it) spoke with him, only turned up to the extreme. "Impressive, even." 

 

Trevor had stopped falling (or had he never really been falling in the first place?) and stood on an invisible floor in front of a barely defined figure. It wasn't separate from the void yet Trevor had the impression that he could "see" something humanoid staring at him. 

 

"I've never had someone try to create a new Gate and perform human transmutation in one go before," it continued. 

 

This too, he had read about in the journals, but, "I honestly didn't think I'd get this far." Trevor turned to look behind him and sure enough he had made a… Gate. If one could call that nasty thing a "Gate". It looked more like a wound with the skin on either side peeled back to form doors. It looked like a child's first clay project if the clay was congealed blood. It looked like a shitty back door into hell. Wasn't an alchemist's Gate basically a doorway to their soul? That probably said some very fucked up things about him, though he wasn't surprised. 

 

"You think you understand what I am," it said, though its tone didn't indicate if it agreed. 

 

Trevor turned back to squint at the figure and tried to recall the exact words his great-grand aunt used to describe this thing. "You're One, and All, and possibly a god or even the God, and you're the Ultimate Truth and the whole wide world and also my very own ass." She had usually just called it the Truth to save time. 

 

"... close enough." 

 

"So are you going to rip my balls off for helping out a," he chokes on the word friend, "for helping someone out? That's what you exist to do right, kick people while they're down?" Even as he said it he knew pissing off the being that held his life in its hands was a damn awful idea, yet he couldn't resist. It was like the Belmont instinct had been reversed for him, he saw something (that claimed to be) godly and he had to pick a fight with it. He just HAD to. 

 

"Is that the price you find equivalent for a human life and access to a power you were never meant to use?" 

 

"Hey that thing is made of my own blood," Trevor said and jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder at the butt-ugly structure of gore behind him, "you don't get to charge me for a purchase I already paid." 

 

"That's only a symbolic representation, or you'd be dead already from blood loss." 

 

"You underestimate my ability to bleed a whole lot." 

 

The Truth didn't actually groan and rub its brow but Trevor got the distinct impression that it wanted to. It was an urge he was both familiar with and very good at inducing in others. 

 

"And I think it's a fair deal because I'm the only Belmont descendant left, so obviously I need to continue the bloodline and-" 

 

"Lying to an omnipotent being about how much you value your testicles is unwise." 

 

"Sound advice," Trevor said, as if he hadn't been doing exactly that. 

 

“I think you are far too accustomed to flying towards the sun without falling to your doom,” the Truth said, “perhaps a physical toll is not enough.” 

 

Trevor heard a soft mew behind him. 

 

“No,” he said as he turned around, “no, no, why are you here?” 

 

The cat didn’t answer, just nuzzled his outstretched hand. His familiar was completely unaware of the danger they were in. 

 

“Did you really think that you could hide a part of your soul from me by wrapping it in a blanket?” the Truth asked. 

 

“No,” Trevor repeated, though he wasn’t sure if it was in answer or in continued denial.  

 

“Even I am not in the habit of splitting souls,” the Truth said, “but since you’ve conveniently already done the splitting for me-” 

 

“NO!” Trevor shouted and his heart beat painfully fast against his ribs. “No, please don’t take her, that would kill me-” she was where he stored his will to live, among other things. 

 

“Most people do die when attempting what you have, false alchemist.” The Truth grinned. “I am not here to help you succeed in fucking around with Life itself yet again.” 

 

“Take anything else,” Trevor begged, “take everything else, just let her go back safely.” 

 

The Truth’s smile widened. “Why do you still think yourself a clever bargainer, when all your most important deals end like this?” 

 

Trevor found himself once again kneeling in a dirty alleyway, voice already hoarse from screaming in agony that his conscious mind hadn’t even registered yet. There was something wrong in his chest; his internal organs shifted in a way they were never meant to and no matter how hard he breathed his body couldn’t do anything with the air it received. He brought a hand up to his chest and through the haze of panic and pain he realized what was wrong.

 

The heartbeat that had been rapidly pounding against his rib-cage only moments before was gone. He had paid the Truth with his heart. 

 

Trevor collapsed next to Lisa’s dead body and lost consciousness just as the mob spotted them. 

Notes:

I promise that next chapter is gonna start revealing why Sypha keeps having Moments of Weirdness! Though at this rate I won't be finished it until November, so happy early Halloween!

You can find me and stuff for this fic here https://autumnsky.tumblr.com/tagged/witch-au it's mostly cats and plant facts

Your comments/kudos/etc continue to absolutely blow me away, I can't believe there's more than like 2 or 3 friends who like this fic?? You're all Forgemasters raising me from the dead, I swear! <3

Nov. 5th Edit: I forgot to include that next chapters title!! stick around for "Chapter Seven: Life Isn't Always Faerie"!

Chapter 7: Life Isn't Always Faerie

Summary:

ALL SYPHA POV CHAPTER BABEY!! Are you ready for Answers!?

Notes:

*crawls back to the Castlevania fandom 2 seasons and almost 2 years late with a virgin margarita in each hand* Surprise, readers! Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me! (I'm honestly still not satisfied with this chapter but it's FINISHED after all this time so up it goes!!)

Warnings: so so much blood. uhhhhh identity issues? conflict?? KINDA SORTA CHARTER DEATH MAYBE IDK IF IT COUNTS??? idk how to phrase it RIP, but as always if there's smthn you'd like me to tag just let me know!

Broken Egg

Sypha Belnades went down into the catacombs of Gresit determined to prove herself. Sure, her magic wasn't always very reliable, but she was convinced that in a life or death situation it would come through for her. Why should she have to wait for the Hunter to show up? Surely, if the prophecy were true, then the mere act of her approaching the Sleeping Soldier would summon the Hunter as well? 

 

She travelled ever deeper with a growing worry that perhaps she should have left a trail to follow back to the surface. Was she going in circles? This chamber looked familiar- 

 

The ground trembled and her heart stuttered at the brief impression that the catacombs were about to collapse around her. Instead, slow footsteps shook the floor enough to make Sypha stumble and fall. An enormous cyclops entered the chamber and before she could scramble out of the way a beam of light shot from its eye and hit her dead on. 

 

Which did… absolutely nothing. The cyclops tried again, and again the light sort of, itched, at most. It didn’t hurt. 

 

“Ha!” Sypha shouted in triumph. She stood and raised her arms to cast, only to find that her well of magic remained out of reach. No matter how she strained, her power would not respond to her call. “Oh no, oh no no nonono, not NOW!” 

 

Without a means of attack, she could only run when the cyclops reached out to grab her. She dodged between the statues that she could only assume must be the cyclops’ previous victims. If her magic wasn’t cooperating, then what was protecting her from being turned to stone?  

 

Sypha paused behind a pillar to catch her breath and assess her options. Could she fight this thing in hand-to-hand combat? Probably not. Her go-to self defense move of kick them in the crotch and run wasn’t going to work if she couldn’t even reach the thing’s- ugh stop thinking about it. If she had a weapon she might have a chance of hitting something vital but she hadn’t seen anything in here. Really, she didn’t have a reason to stay and fight if escape was an option. One of the entrances to this chamber was small enough that the cyclops might not fit through it. 

 

Decision made, she made a break for the exit. The cyclops was right behind her but she didn’t dare look back. Her magic still refused to come to her call. 

 

She almost made her escape before she felt wind rushing against her back and a giant fist hit her with bone-shattering force to send her flying into the wall. There was a brilliant flash of light leaving her body and she landed on the ground with a loud SPLAT!  

 

Sypha watched in shock as her limbs melted into clear goop and she coughed up not blood, but pink petals. Her last thought before she was completely unmade was, “But I was so close! I almost made it!”

 

The Sypha Belnades who grew up with Speakers, who befriended Trevor, whose body was as soft as her heart and kept her sunshine-blonde hair in a traditionally short style, who struggled all her life to access that well of human magic, never returned from the catacombs of Gresit. 

 

Far away, in the Court of the Sun, the adoptive niece of the Empress cast her Songs. The closest thing she had to a True Name was Decipher. A knight and the High Musician, she had worked hard for the respect and awe with which the court watched her perform. When the Changeling died, the Stolen Childe dropped to her knees, clutched at her long red curls, and in a voice still heavy with powerful magic,

Screamed in agony. 

 

The World of Men Kinda Sucks

"Are you sure you want to do this, little sunbeam?" her mother fussed. 

 

"I won't be leaving forever," she said for what felt like the hundredth time. Her head still ached but at least it no longer felt ready to explode with someone else's memories. 

 

"But humans are greedy and diseased and hostile! What if they capture you? What if they infect you again?" Her mother paced back and forth across her dressing chamber and fluffed her head feathers in agitation. 

 

“We had this conversation before my first expedition to the mortal world,” she reminded her mother, “and I was fine, remember?” She turned her head this way and that in an attempt to better see her hair in the mirror, so that she might begin the arduous task of picking out all the decorative gems and pearls scattered in her curls. The fine glittering powder that had been dusted in her hair and over her skin would require a bath to remove. 

 

Her mother was behind her in an instant, kneeling down to her height and plucking out the decorations that she couldn’t see on the back of her head, hands gentle but moving inhumanly fast. “Yes, and I am terribly proud of you, but you weren’t alone! You had other knights riding with you!” 

 

She smiled at her mother’s reflection in the mirror. She didn’t know how to explain why she needed to enter the mortal realm on her own, why she needed to meet the people in her changeling’s memories. 

 

Sypha Belnades. Sypha Belnades was why. She felt the name encase her like a second skin and settle in her chest like she hadn’t even realized her heart was elsewhere until it snapped back into place. A precious, dangerous secret that she didn’t dare utter aloud. Her powerful magic and her lack of a true name were the reasons she had survived growing up in the Court of the Sun. Yet she desperately wanted to shout it to the sky, to feel those sounds in her mouth and hear her name with her own ears. 

 

A name chosen by someone else, for someone else. The Changeling was a copy of her but the Changeling chose the name, so which was the original Sypha?  

 

“It should have been me,” she thought as the Changeling’s memory of the naming ceremony ran through her head. Why did that decoy, that rushed copy, get to decide something so important? Why did someone else get to live her life? 

 

And such a cushy life it was! The Changeling hadn’t even realized how easy she had it. She didn’t just have her guardian, her “grandfather” looking after her, the Changeling had a whole group of people who went out of their way to keep her safe and happy. The cruelty she experienced was never at the hand of the people she lived with and the concept was mind boggling. 

 

She, the human among courtfolk, had only ever been able to trust her mother and herself. It took over a decade of training to show other members of the court that she was more than just her mother’s pet, and years more on top of that to reach her place in an essential role: the High Musician. Stubbornness and sheer spite had fuelled her. She didn’t regret not being returned to the human world once she had recovered from the sickness that would have killed her; her childhood hadn’t been all bad and this life had pushed her to become more than she ever could be among humans. 

 

That's why her Changeling died. The Changeling had been weak, spoiled, had expected the world to catch her when she fell. 

 

She was self aware enough to recognise that her bitterness came from envy but that just made it worse. To envy her Changeling for living a life that allowed her to be soft and sweet felt like a betrayal to the loved ones and status she now had here in the Court of the Sun. 

 

She didn't regret this life or what it had made her into, it was just that -

 

How could she -

 

She didn't realise that she was crying until her breath stuttered in a sob that tarnished the gold mirror frame. 

 

Her mother was humming a lullaby of sparks from when she was a child. The tiny lights drifted around them both like dandelion seeds, gentle and soothing. 

 

Sypha let herself cry, if only to get it out of her system and because she would miss her mother’s bright voice while she was among the humans. She would be able to show weakness in the world of men even less than among her own people. 

 

When her tears stopped her mother said softly, “If you don’t want the humans to notice a difference, you’ll need a changeling’s glamour.” 

 

Sypha couldn’t help but snort at the irony. It was true though; she needed the humans’ minds to glaze over her sudden change in appearance and any other oddity from their perspective. “Will you help me?’ 

 

“Of course, my little sunflower.” her mother kissed the top of Sypha’s head. They both knew that Sypha could easily Sing a glamour for herself, but her mother Sang the original Changeling, so her mother would be better able to imitate it. She hesitated before adding, “it is alright to want more than what one life can give you. We are Royals, it is in our nature.” 

 

Something eased in Sypha’s chest. Her mother had once told her that a Court was basically a treasure horde of people that a Royal wanted in their life for whatever reason. She had not truly understood the impulse to collect loved ones together in one place until now. Wouldn’t it be nice to have easy access to them all at once? That hadn’t been a problem before, when everyone she loved was already living in the Court of the Sun. 

 

Of course, Sypha was only an honorary Royal. Her human body did not shift to reflect her status and logically she should not have the instincts of courtfolk, but being raised on their food and ways of thinking could change a person. 

 

Sypha hummed in thought and the tarnish on the mirror began to recede. “Perhaps I will bring home some souvenirs.” 

 

Her mother laughed.  

 

… 

 

When Sypha opened a faerie ring to the mortal world, she found herself in a dirty city of stone. The smell of every imaginable body fluid was heavy in the air. Though she didn't see anyone else on the small street she had appeared in, it sounded as though there was a crowd not far away. 

 

She peeked around the wall of the nearest building and saw a market place covered in gore. The sun was well risen, surely it could have been cleaned sooner? How long could it take for humans to knock body parts off of rooftops? Unless they just didn't care anymore. Her Changeling's memories indicated that these attacks had been happening for a while now. Had they simply gotten used to this? Yikes.  

 

With her clean body and Court style clothing, she would stand out far too much in this place but she wasn’t willing to dirty herself and steal peasant clothes just to blend in. She only had to make it to her Changeling’s death site to hopefully find Speakers’ robes to hide in. Stealth was part of her knight’s training; it should have been easy. 

 

Should have been. She stuck to the small deserted streets and avoided any humans. It was as she approached the entrance to the catacombs that she was spotted. 

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman,” called an ugly voice from behind her, “wandering around naked like that?” 

 

Sypha bristled at being called a woman, such an inaccurate interpretation of a Royal. She spun to face the ignorant creature. “Do your eyes fail you?” she snapped, “can you not see the cloth upon my form?” 

 

The human looked her up and down. “Shit’s see-though. I’m seeing more form than cloth.” 

 

At home, her current state of dress would be considered a very modest show of her status. Loose fabric covered everything but her arms and her Musician’s wand was tucked away in a sheath. Though, as more relevant memories trickled into her mind, she realized the problem was not the amount of cloth but rather the sheerness of it. 

 

The way he looked at her made her skin crawl. Sypha was no stranger to lustful stares, but there was something about it coming from a dirty mortal that made it much more vile. 

 

"Look away," she Sang. 

 

The man cried out in alarm as his body twisted unnaturally so that his back was turned to her. She took the opportunity to dash into the catacombs. She couldn't wait to pull on those Speaker's robes. 

 

With her Changeling's memories guiding her, it didn't take long to find the right chamber. The enormous smear of changeling ingredients and empty blue clothing marked the spot of her death quite clearly. 

 

Sypha made a face at how soaked the outfit was, all too aware that the shimmering goop came from one of her mother's dud eggs. It only took a few notes of Song to clean off the fabric, and a few more notes to cut her hair short. She wrapped the cut hair in her Court clothing and disintegrated the evidence. Only her wand and sheath were left, and that was easy enough to hide under the baggy Speaker's robes. On the Changeling the robes were a comfortable fit, but this Sypha felt as though she were wearing a tent.

 

With her disguise in place she had planned to pick up the quest where her Changeling left off, but the sound of approaching footsteps had her vanishing from sight. Had that accursed mortal followed her? But no, the man she encountered on the surface did not smell of herbs and hurt the way this one did. 

 

The arrival of her "old friend" brought about a change in plans. 

 

3.5 Cranky Toddlers 

Sypha crosses her arms and glares at her frie- her Changeling’s childhood friend, though she’s pretty sure he can’t see her from where he’s laying on the ground. She doesn’t need him to “save” her! She could have knocked that hot vampire into next week! Even if she had only screamed in surprise, it would have incapacitated him! 

 

“Was this part of your plan,” her voice echoes in the chamber as she approaches Trevor and the aforementioned hot vampire who’s gums-deep in Trevor’s neck, “getting chewed on?” 

 

Trevor gives her a weak thumbs up with the hand that isn’t pinned. His eyes are unfocused and his breathing is uneven, but at least he’s still responsive. 

 

With a jolt of alarm Sypha remembers that Trevor already came dangerously close to dying of blood loss today. She’s about to give Hot Vampire a musical kick in the ribs before he yelps for no apparent reason and pulls his mouth away from Trevor’s skin with a sickening squelch. He scrambles away and Sypha only catches a glimpse of his terrified face before he curls into a fetal position, burying his face in his knees and covering his ears as though to block out a loud sound. 

 

"Ow," Trevor mutters. His injuries form green scabs before even a drop of blood can leak out. He does not sit up. 

 

"So, now what?" Sypha asks. She considers sitting down so she won't be hovering over him but decides she's earned being the only person in the room who isn't crumpled in a pathetic heap on the filthy floor. 

 

"Now, we, uh…" Trevor trails off as his eyes drift to the gap in the vines that Pangur had disappeared into when the fight broke out. Sypha suspects he may not have enough blood in his brain to even bullshit a plan. 

 

She sighs. "Do I have to carry you both back to the surface?" 

 

"You'll fuck up your back an'... there's only room for one… with a busted body, in this proph'cy." He grins like he's said something funny.

 

Sypha would argue, but she's not sure how many people a human could comfortably carry before it became suspicious. At least he's smart enough not to suggest she couldn't lift them at all. "Don't pass out." 

 

"Me? I would never." His unfocused gaze would not make his statement convincing, even if she hadn't found him passed out earlier. 

 

She turns to the other pathetic heap on the floor. "And you, Sleeper? Any thoughts?" 

 

"H's name'sss, Adr'n," says pathetic floor heap number one.

 

"Alucard," pathetic floor heap number two corrects, before clearing his throat and uncurling to at least sit up while introducing himself. "I am called Alucard, lesser known as Adrian Tepes." He stands with slow, careful movements. "Son of Doctor Lisa Tepes and… Lord Dracula." His face is blank. 

 

Sypha smiles, because this is what human locals do to show they are polite and trustworthy even if they are not particularly happy at the moment. "Thank you for your name, Alucard.” She resists the urge to speak his truer name, lest he sense the power it would have on her tongue. “Do you have any suggestions for our next course of action, considering our Hunter is near death from blood loss for the second time in the past 12 hours?" 

 

Did she see a flash of guilt on his face, or is that just petty hopeful thinking? 

 

Alucard heads back to his coffin to retrieve a shirt and gold embroidered coat, as if he can distance himself from acting feral mere minutes ago by getting fully dressed. “My venom will help him regrow blood, but he will still require food and rest.” He glances over his shoulder at Trevor, who makes a vague noise of confirmation. 

 

“I’m not gonna die, I just need a fuckin’... nap,” Trevor drawls from his place on the floor, “‘ve had worse.” 

 

“Indeed,” Alucard says to himself, though not quietly enough for Sypha to not hear. 

 

“Oh?” she raises her eyebrows. “Care to share what you know ab-” 

 

Trevor lets out a loud curse as he tries to sit up and swoons right back down again, suddenly frantic. “Where’s m’bag? Where’d it -” He manages to roll to his side and starts dragging himself towards the rubble of stone and crushed roots their fight had created. 

 

“Be still, ” Alucard snaps. 

 

At the same time Sypha says, “I saw it fall over here somewhere,” and starts digging through a different rubble pile. She really hopes the bag will have some intact medical supplies, even if it’s just herbs to help with blood loss. The sloshing noise it makes when she finally finds and picks it up is not reassuring. Sypha sets the bag next to Trevor before he can make another attempt at moving around. “Please tell me you kept things in water resistant packaging.” 

 

“... Fuck.”  

 

“I suppose that’s a no.” Sypha unbuckles the cover flap and the sharp scent of copper hits her nose just before dark blood begins to overflow from the bag. She pulls away before it can stain her robes and sees Alucard twitch at the edge of her vision. 

 

“That’s not the problem,” Trevor says, straining to see into his bag. “Are there any bottles that aren’t broken?” 

 

Alucard slips on gloves and reaches into the still leaking bag to unpack the soaked contents. He sorts what he finds into piles of packages wrapped in oil-cloth and shards of glass. The only bottles he finds intact are smaller, sturdier ones filled with tinctures and one wine bottle with protective wards carved all over it, the contents much too viscous to be wine. 

 

"Only one?" Trevor stops trying to sit up and flops back into the puddle of blood as though he doesn't even notice it. "Dammit, that's not nearly enough… " 

 

"Are you going to tell me why you were carrying what looks like a whole cascat of blood?" Sypha asks, inspecting the carvings on the remaining container thereof. The puddle on the floor is slowly disappearing, presumably from the plant vines soaking it up. 

 

Trevor sighs, "for one of my… customers. They're too recently turned to be safely hunting on their own, so they need a stockpile for when I'm not there." 

 

Alucard's lips thin at that, though he doesn't look up from searching through the packages. "Feeding a fledgling is the duty of their Sire. They'll be malnourished if they only drink human blood while they're still developing." 

 

Trevor turns his head to level Alucard with a Look. "You really think every vampire sticks around after Turning someone? I've yet to meet a truly feral vampire who wasn't abandoned before they learned to control themselves." 

 

Sypha’s smile is genuine this time. "So, this is the vampire equivalent of adoption? That's almost sweet, in a morbid sort of way." 

 

That makes colour start to return to Trevor’s deathly ashen face. Apparently, Alucard hadn't been lying about the healing properties of his venom. "I'm not going to kill a kid because they might become a serial murderer if they're left to fend for themselves."

 

Alucard pauses. "They're a child?" He asks, voice softer than before. 

 

"Late teens, I think. They're not fond of sharing personal details." Trevor inhales deeply before twisting onto his side. His clothes are stained and sticky all along his back and the already messy bun his hair was in is a matted rat's nest at this point. He doesn't seem to care, gesturing at the packages. "The big one there, it's got my food supplies." 

 

Alucard unwraps and opens a woven basket to reveal shiny apples, bread, and cheese in wax paper. "Hmm. I was beginning to think you only carry questionable herbs and snake oil." 

 

Sypha tip-toes her way through the mess so she can slice and hand over the food before Trevor gets any ideas about sitting up and handling a knife in his condition. “He’s not a plant, it’s not like he could live off of dirt and sunlight.” She almost takes out her Musician's wand out of habit. Sypha mutters under her breath, “dammit, where’d I put the eating knife?” 

 

Alucard hands her one seemingly from nowhere. At her expression, he says in a dry tone, “there was a hidden sheath on the inside of the basket.” He tilts the basket so she can see the little cut in the lining. 

 

At both of their expressions, Trevor says, “what? It’s just convenient! Those little things are easy to lose!” before once again trying to sit up. 

 

Sypha pulls the knife out of Trevor’s reach before he can grab for it. “Would you stop moving around and be patient? Honestly, you’re just as bad now as you were as a boy!” 

 

Trevor raises his eyebrows. “Bit hypocritical, that.” He makes as though to lay back down but in the blink of an eye he nabs one of the apples and scoots back so he can prop himself up against some vines. His face as he takes a bite just screams what are you going to do about it?

 

“Oh, you little-!” 

 

“I’m behind on delivery as is, I don’t have time to take it easy,” Trevor says through another mouthful of apple, “and I know my limits better than you do. You think I would last in this business if I pushed myself until I burned out?” 

 

Alucard picks up the blood bottle. “Where were you meeting this fledgling?” 

 

Trevor narrows his eyes. “... why?” 

 

Alucard narrows his eyes right back. “You can continue to leave them thirsty and waiting without explanation until you’re fit for travel, or you can allow me to deliver this myself. A single bottle is still better than nothing.” 

 

“... fine. But you bring them back to me as well, so we can figure out a new feeding plan.” Trevor grunts as he shifts around, trying to find a position that doesn’t strain his torso while he eats. “They should be in the forest north-east of Grisit. I’ve taught them to hide from strangers, so good luck.” 

 

“I think I can manage tracking down a fledgeling.” Alucard stands. “And their name?” 

 

Trevor smirks, and Sypha thinks he wouldn’t look out of place among the Courts. “They don’t have one.” He nods at the entrance to the tunnel of vines that lead them here. “The plants can guide you out, and you’ll know the kid when you see them.” 

 

“I suppose anyone raised on genuine witch’s blood would stand out.” Alucard turns to leave, bottle tucked into his coat. 

 

“If you hurt them-” 

 

“You’ll what? Kill me?” Alucard gives a pointed look over his shoulder at Trevor’s prone form. 

 

Any humour in Trevor’s face disappears entirely. His voice is deathly cold as he says, “I’ll light my blood in your veins on fire and add your skull to my collection.” 

 

Alucard inhales through clenched teeth. “You’re sick.” He disappears at inhuman speed. 

 

Trevor closes his eyes and tilts his head back to rest against the vines with a tired sigh. 

 

Sypha only stares at this childhood friend of her Changeling’s. Were the memories she got of him warped by time and bias? The threatening presence he had filled the room with had felt horribly twisted and wrong in a way that left her both disturbed and intrigued. How human was he really? 

 

“Not going to tear me a new one for bullying a disowned orphan?” Under his breath Trevor adds, “I’d fucking deserve it.” 

 

The Changeling probably would have, but all the Stolen Childe can think of is her mother dismembering a lower Court member for trying to poison her. “You really care about them, don’t you?” She hands him a slice of bread with cheese. 

 

Trevor stares at the offering with disproportionate despair. “I don’t understand you.” 

 

“And I, you.” She sits down next to him and wedges the food in his mouth as he tries to cuss in exhausted confusion. “Do you really think the Doctor can be brought back?”

 

Pangur crawls out from where she’d been hiding and shakes herself before bounding over to Trevor and curling around him. 

 

He chews and swallows the food Sypha had so kindly hand fed him. “As a mortal human, like nothing happened? No.” 

 

Sypha continues cutting up food. “But that stone really is her soul?” 

 

“Yes.” Trevor runs his hands through his familiar’s fur. “I’m hoping we can at least give her enough form to share her last words and snap Dracula out of it long enough to kill him.” 

 

“I think you should tell Alucard that,” She says, handing him apple slices, “it would be cruel to let him think he might properly get his mother back.” 

 

Trevor finally submits to the mortifying ordeal of being cared for and accepts the slices without protest. “It’s still going to require some level of necromancy. You’re not bothered by that anymore?” 

 

Right, she was meant to be a Speaker. The Courtfolk weren’t morally opposed to such magic the way most humans were, they only considered it lowly mortal nonsense. “I’m not thrilled by it, but it’s better than not doing anything.” 

 

“Hmm.” Trevor’s eyes are starting to droop even as he chews. He makes a disgruntled noise when she pops the last apple slice in her own mouth and pats his head. 

 

"You need to rest before we go back to the surface." 

 

"So do you." Trevor closes his eyes, and Pangur opens hers to look at Sypha. "Pangur can keep watch." 

 

Sypha can sense dawn breaking up above, but Trevor is unfortunately right; she's barely rested since… since she died. She considers telling Trevor to scoot over so she can lean against him like when they were young, but she doesn't want to risk instinctively lashing out in her sleep. 

 

"Here." Pangur seems to deflate a little as Trevor pulls a blanket out from inside her and passes it to Sypha. 

 

"You have hidden pockets everywhere," she says in place of thanks. 

 

"You can thank me when 'm awake again." 

 

"Don't tell me what to do," she mumbles as she arranges the blanket to her liking. 

 

Trevor only gives a weak huff of laughter before drifting off. 

 

Sufficiently bundled and comfortable on her bed of plants, Sypha looks to Pangur. "Your master is so rude." 

 

Pangur just places her paw over Sypha’s mouth as though to shush her. Sypha falls asleep before she can think to protest, or register that the giant cat’s glowing eyes are the same as Trevor’s. 

Notes:

The characterization for the trio in that last scene had me so very creatively constipated, ESPECIALLY Adrian! They all have so much internal shit going on idk how they would act in this situation! Fun fact tho, that scene was meant to end with Sypha encountering that guy who yelled at her in the street again and magically ripping his vocal chords out for threatening to out her. It didn't add much to the story beyond shock factor tho so I didn't force it when she and Trevor decided to nap instead lol. They are Valid and a Mood.

Also, Trevor was totally slurping up that puddle of his old blood through the plants in his body because he believes in the five minute rule. Vampire venom is good, but not THAT good!

ANYHOO! I have no idea when the next chapter will be finished and I don't wanna once again go "oooo maybe a month?" before disappearing for nearly 2 years, so OFFICIALLY this fic is now on hiatus. But who knows, maybe I'll be able to post again soon just to keep you on your toes.

And the BIGGEST thank you to everyone who comments, your support means the world to me and it's what kept me working on my writing despite everything! My tumblr url is now autumnsky if you want to find me, updates and inspo and stuff regarding this fic can be found Here!