[He speaks in a winding, twisting, almost temporally disconnected way that sharply reminds her of Speaker Elders. Sypha can't say she completely understands what he's trying to get at, what he's experienced, but she trusts that his empathy is genuine.] My grandfather used to say that, just because we find a story in our past doesn't mean it originated there. That sometimes, it's possible to hear stories from the future, and that those can change the courses of our lives. It sounds like you might know something about that.
[Sypha takes a moment to sip from her cup. The Horizon may not be real, but she feels all the normal physical impacts from activities - like a mild burn from bubbling ink, or a dry throat after a chat. This is going to be a long story, she'd better pace herself. She sets it in easy reach, rolls her shoulders back, and falls into the cadence of a practiced orator.] The story is a tragedy, born of ignorance. You likely already know that Alucard's mother was human, and that his father was Dracula, the most powerful vampire in our world. In many ways, he ruled over all corporeal monsters, and commanded many other spirits and wraiths. But he was also ancient, and reclusive, and did not keep human chattel like many of his vassels. He'd been withdrawn to his Castle for so long that most ordinary people thought he was only a myth. There was an...uneasy sort of truce, between him and other scholars of magic, or those who protected humanity from lesser monsters.
Alucard's mother drew him out of that isolation. From what little he's told me about her, she was an extraordinary woman, who convinced Dracula that he could not judge humanity from his towers. Somehow she encouraged him to travel the world and live among humans as one of them, so he would leave on periodic sabbaticals.
In the summer of 1476, a Bishop of the Church in Targoviste came to Lisa Tepes' home and arrested her on charges of witchcraft. She was a doctor, and they were men who maintained their power by convincing the populace that their only hope of salvation was through God. Scientific remedies threatened that power, as does magic, so both were punishable through the Church. They took her away, bound her to a stake in Targoviste's main square, and burned her alive.
[Sypha interlaces her fingers, thumb tapping a rhythm that directs the flow of her words. Her expression is oddly calm, voice matter-of-fact, an observer removed from the events she recounts. But her hands shake ever so slightly.] Dracula's face appeared in the flames of his wife's pyre. In his rage and grief, he gave the people of Wallachia one year to make their peace with death, and remove all marks of human occupation from the land. The Church did their best to repress this information in the aftermath, but some did heed the warning and took their families abroad. Most, though, lacked the means.
Based on Alucard's own account, he overheard his father's pronouncement and immediately spoke in opposition. His mother was human, and she'd believed that knowledge and education would elevate humanity and overthrow institutions like the Church. I don't know that he personally agrees with that view most of the time, but in deference to her memory and wishes, he defied his father. And Dracula nearly killed him for it. [Sypha touches her chest, drawing along the line of an imaginary slash. Jaskier must have noticed the scar - Alucard goes around with his shirt open 86% of the time. Perhaps he's even shared its origin with the bard before.] He barely survived, and fled to a private sanctuary beneath the city of Gresit. One year and five months later, I and the last member of a bloodline of monster hunters, ah, disturbed his rest.
[Her own appearance in the story triggers a noticeable shift in her tone. Sypha frowns and drums her fingers on the tabletop.] I don't know if the fact that Dracula failed to kill him the first time was intentional. And he never went to Gresit to hunt Alucard down, though he could have. There's no real chance he didn't know about the sanctuary. Perhaps, even in the immediacy of his grief, he couldn't bring himself to actually murder his own son. Or maybe he was too busy preparing an army of a hundred thousand Night Creatures to ravage the country, who can say.
[This makes a natural place to break, wet her throat, and leave Jaskier some room to react - she may be a trained to share history, but so much of that relies on the listener coming from the same cultural context. Maybe none of this is making sense at all.]
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-05-29 07:07 am (UTC)[Sypha takes a moment to sip from her cup. The Horizon may not be real, but she feels all the normal physical impacts from activities - like a mild burn from bubbling ink, or a dry throat after a chat. This is going to be a long story, she'd better pace herself. She sets it in easy reach, rolls her shoulders back, and falls into the cadence of a practiced orator.] The story is a tragedy, born of ignorance. You likely already know that Alucard's mother was human, and that his father was Dracula, the most powerful vampire in our world. In many ways, he ruled over all corporeal monsters, and commanded many other spirits and wraiths. But he was also ancient, and reclusive, and did not keep human chattel like many of his vassels. He'd been withdrawn to his Castle for so long that most ordinary people thought he was only a myth. There was an...uneasy sort of truce, between him and other scholars of magic, or those who protected humanity from lesser monsters.
Alucard's mother drew him out of that isolation. From what little he's told me about her, she was an extraordinary woman, who convinced Dracula that he could not judge humanity from his towers. Somehow she encouraged him to travel the world and live among humans as one of them, so he would leave on periodic sabbaticals.
In the summer of 1476, a Bishop of the Church in Targoviste came to Lisa Tepes' home and arrested her on charges of witchcraft. She was a doctor, and they were men who maintained their power by convincing the populace that their only hope of salvation was through God. Scientific remedies threatened that power, as does magic, so both were punishable through the Church. They took her away, bound her to a stake in Targoviste's main square, and burned her alive.
[Sypha interlaces her fingers, thumb tapping a rhythm that directs the flow of her words. Her expression is oddly calm, voice matter-of-fact, an observer removed from the events she recounts. But her hands shake ever so slightly.] Dracula's face appeared in the flames of his wife's pyre. In his rage and grief, he gave the people of Wallachia one year to make their peace with death, and remove all marks of human occupation from the land. The Church did their best to repress this information in the aftermath, but some did heed the warning and took their families abroad. Most, though, lacked the means.
Based on Alucard's own account, he overheard his father's pronouncement and immediately spoke in opposition. His mother was human, and she'd believed that knowledge and education would elevate humanity and overthrow institutions like the Church. I don't know that he personally agrees with that view most of the time, but in deference to her memory and wishes, he defied his father. And Dracula nearly killed him for it. [Sypha touches her chest, drawing along the line of an imaginary slash. Jaskier must have noticed the scar - Alucard goes around with his shirt open 86% of the time. Perhaps he's even shared its origin with the bard before.] He barely survived, and fled to a private sanctuary beneath the city of Gresit. One year and five months later, I and the last member of a bloodline of monster hunters, ah, disturbed his rest.
[Her own appearance in the story triggers a noticeable shift in her tone. Sypha frowns and drums her fingers on the tabletop.] I don't know if the fact that Dracula failed to kill him the first time was intentional. And he never went to Gresit to hunt Alucard down, though he could have. There's no real chance he didn't know about the sanctuary. Perhaps, even in the immediacy of his grief, he couldn't bring himself to actually murder his own son. Or maybe he was too busy preparing an army of a hundred thousand Night Creatures to ravage the country, who can say.
[This makes a natural place to break, wet her throat, and leave Jaskier some room to react - she may be a trained to share history, but so much of that relies on the listener coming from the same cultural context. Maybe none of this is making sense at all.]