Scene #8968: BINDING BLADE Ch7x: Oh, Brother

Owner	Pose
Marigold	Lycia, March of Ostia, near the Etrurian border In a fairly nice tea-room. Castles are often thought of as severe and forbidding, or maybe gothically dramatic and poorly-lit, but Castle Ostia has a disarming near-fairytale quality that survives the recent fighting. Nearly every hallway either looks out on the merry town or in on a gorgeous courtyard. As the two least-familiar faces coming to Ostia's defense, Petra and Alucard are both warmly ushered by formally-dressed staff to such a courtyard-facing room. There, Lord Roy and Lady Guinivere sit at a small round wooden tea-table, already enjoying something that smells pleasantly herbal (or is that just the garden's scent carried on the breeze?). Behind them, a woman in white stands pleasantly idle with the kind of posture that signals she's meant to be ignored. Roy stands and starts to make some formal bowing gesture; Guinivere nudges him back down with a hand on his arm and just smiles ingratiatingly. "I'm delighted you both could make it. Our customs likely mean little to you, so I insisted on this being an informal event. But please, let us know if there's anything you need for your comfort. The pastries are only a little late, and I know they're a balm for the soul. Far better than anything we have in Bern," she says with a little laugh. Roy smiles too, uneasily, and hides it behind a sip of his tea. He's not so used to even 'informal' high-society. "Thank you for your help yesterday," he manages to say. "And especially for rescuing Lilina. I don't know where we'd be without all of you."
Alucard	In what is possibly an incredibly odd circumstance, after the fraught battle through the town, Alucard stayed behind to help with the manual labor of cleaning up. As someone who literally arrived by chance and, because of circumstances that boil down to 'I need an adventure before I legitimately try to see how much wine it will take to kill myself', pledged his sword to Hector's cause and the defense of Ostia. He could have retreated. Gone hom to recover and relax. Well, 'relax'. Had he gone home, it would just be the bottle and misery and boredom. Instead, he made the healthy choice to use his inhuman physical strength, endurance, and willingness to get his hands dirty to the task of clearing out the dead, collecting abandoned weapons and helping with minor repairs. The people of Ostia find him a quiet, if diligent, helpmate, waving off thanks and offers ranging from money to their daughter's hand in marriage. (He is, after all, considered to be a very pretty man with a quiet and seemingly steady personality with impeccable manners.) When he is tracked down with an invitation to the castle, he considers ignoring it and taking this as his cue to leave. Sypha's voice in his head dispenses her 'wisdom' and, well, he can hear her browbeating him from here as he returns to his inn room to clean up. (Luckily he bought new trousers and a new shirt after the fight because spears ruin clothes!) Now, clean, presentable and moving with the easy formal skills of some flavor of nobility, Alucard lets himself be ushered into the tea room by the staff. He lets his preternatural senses go, taking everything in seemingly at a glance so he can be prepared. It's vital so he doesn't accidentally offend anyone. (He's still wearing his sword, unless the staff made him leave it.) The son of Dracula bows. It's the kind of bow a noble of ambiguous level would give others of similarly ambiguous station. Mostly because he does not know what the Title Exchange Rate is here. "Thank you for the invitation," he says graciously. "I am Alucard of Wallachia. ...In this instance I suppose I am but a wandering swordsman." Golden eyes flicker to Roy, then to Guinivere, and then even to the woman in white before he eases into a chair at the table. "I do not know exactly what was going on," he says gently. "From what I gather, Lord ...Hector was his name, yes? His bondsman betrayed him for power. Innocent people were suffering and ... I cannot abide it. I could not stand idle."
Petra Soroka	The faces of the Lycian army are least-familiar to Petra too, which is a particular problem when considering her already-existing challenges when it comes to faces. Coming into the war late to the social starting line, with the handicap of both her memory of most individual people and her personality, triggers old discomfort in Petra that she hasn't had to deal with in a while-- at some point, Elite business became 'her' business, and the ability to simply expect, or be immediately privy to, tactical details became expected. It's not as if Petra has to worry about her social standing within the Elite community of Sector Zero in general; even if she still fretted about their opinions like they mattered, people are obsessed with talking about her to the point that her reputation buoys itself. Back at Twin Peaks, one of her first outings in the wider multiverse, she remembers she had a little meltdown over everyone else already knowing each other and knowing the details of the Kamen Rider bullshit that went on there. Now, it's a little different. She knows the Elites involved, she got caught up on-- a heavily Tom and Jerry-centric-- an abbreviated rundown of the war effort so far, so though she's still newer than most to the world, she's not blind. No, the Lycian army carries the weight of a different threat, instead: she actually wants them to like her. That still means showing up to the fairytale castle in slop clothes, though. Petra's ability to dress for 'high society' is dependent entirely on Lilian and Tamamo's instruction, and usually that's only provided for the sole purpose of causing her distress. Instead, she wears dark green cargo pants tucked into combat boots that look like they're meant to be part of a uniformed set, of which she doesn't have the upper half, instead wearing a trimmed black tank top, just short enough that a hint of a blotchy purple birth mark with some sort of golden tattoo on top of it peeks above the belt that cinches her waistband. She regrets this fashion choice immediately, as she does every time she sees the way everyone else here dresses. Led through the beautiful castle by two properly noble staff like a stray dog dragged in from the street, Petra's face is faintly pink by the time that she gets to the table. She freezes up when Roy starts to bow, uncertain of how she's supposed to respond to that, and then relievedly just waves and smiles at the two of them when he's stopped. "I-I wouldn't say they mean little, but I guess I wouldn't be too familiar with them. I can manage a formal dinner though, you know, when it comes up; I can behave." The lightness and ease with which she says that is a slight but noticeable contrast to how she complained about the impending Ostian dinner before-- it's because there's been at least one traumatic battle that she's participated in, so she's earned a fraction of rest. She sits down opposite Guinevere, pausing to reconsider something when reaching for her tea. "Well, having Lilian there would help, for that. But she'd enjoy that kind of thing too."
Petra Soroka	"Thanks for inviting me, by the way." Petra's eyes flick to the side to meet Roy's over the rim of her teacup, sympathetically smiling-awkward. She's a million times less used to it, and has other social minutiae to worry about on top of that. In response to saving Lilina, Petra nods slightly, and then ventures a tentative guess. "Rescuing princesses from towers is, um, sort of my forte, aha. Not really. But I'm happy to do it. She's... your cousin? Childhood friend? I'm not super caught up on those kinds of details." Belatedly, Petra remembers something Lilian said, about PR disasters in the broadband, and hastily adds, "Or princes. Princes too." Then, after a long, probing stare at Alucard, as he talks, introduces himself, bows, and so on, she abruptly says like this is some big reveal, "Oh, that's where I know you from! You're that guy from the radio!"
Marigold	Carrying weapons here seems normal, even if you hadn't so thoroughly proven your goodwill: Roy has his rapier by his side, and the lady in white has some kind of magical-looking staff. Guinivere might be the only unarmed person in the room. Alucard blends in near-seamlessly. On the other hand, Roy seems vaguely entranced by Petra's outfit, as if thinking 'you can get away with that??' or 'there's anywhere where that's proper??', but tries valiantly to seem like he isn't. "No, that's alright," he says while dragging his eyes up from the cargo pants. "Maybe you could've survived a proper dinner, but right now I'm not that strong. Thank you for sparing me." Guinivere laughs politely. "A temporary stay of execution. We've still got that feast." "Lady Guinivere . . ." He smiles weakly behind his teacup, and then suddenly remembers that he ought to be pouring some for Petra and Alucard, but just as he reaches for the pot the lady in white gently pre-empts him. Poor Roy settles back into his seat awkwardly, but the topic of Lilina cheers him up. "Oh, yes. We've been friends forever. We studied together under Lady Cecilia, and our fathers have always been close. Closer, when our mothers died around the same year, but... ah, sorry." He trails off into bittersweet recollection, seeming a little older than his age, and Guinivere smoothly takes over while he looks off past the arches at the garden. Butterflies patronize the flowering bushes. "You're right, Alucard. We've-- pardon, they've-- been betrayed several times now by fellow Lycians. A favored tactic of my brother: everywhere he turns houses against themselves. I suppose he's used to holding court with traitors." "You're that guy from the radio!" Guinivere laughs a sharp little "Ah-!" before stifling it. "So Otherworlders don't all know each other..." she murmurs to herself, crossing her legs the other way and studying the intra-elite interaction as if she were watching a nature documentary. "Lady Guinivere," the woman in white says gently, "don't forget why you have them here." "Oh, yes! Of course. There are three parts to this story: one began a thousand years ago, one began two-and-a-half years ago, and one began when I was born. Where shall we start?"
Alucard	Alucard was raised in a castle. While Castle Dracula is a very different beast than this one, he was still taught manners and how to deal with high society. Even if that high society was made of (literal) bloodthirsty predators. Manners, protocol, and decorum are vital in a society where the members could start shredding each other with fang and claw at the drop of a hat. He smiles politely at the woman in white when she pours his tea, lifting the cup and saucer with the ease of someone who has done this before. He glances at Petra, his gaze free of any kind of judgement regarding her outfit choices. "Yes," is his only reply to that statement. This is neither the time or place for anything else he might wish to say. "I suppose," he replies to Guinivere. "We should start at the beginning, and work in chronological order. Unless there are objections."
Petra Soroka	"Lilina and Cecilia..." Petra repeats, in now-familiar wonder at the naming coincidence. She's entirely happy to brush past the topic of shared familial grieving when Roy touches on it, and had automatically braced to push through it if it was really what he wanted to talk about, so when he drops it she circles back to his previous comment seamlessly. "That's nice though; that sort of almost extended family type situation, from all the way back to when you were little. It must be nicer when your parents are actually friends too, haha." In an equal trade, Petra provides one slightly leaky backstory allusion for another, but she doesn't seem too bothered by the topic she brought up. "She popped into the radio a couple days ago, too. I hope I didn't scare her too much when, uh, something she said made me realize that I'm arguably responsible for all of the weirdly high number of Elites in wheelchairs you've got coming to help you." Petra's smile settles into a more serious expression, now that she's actually experienced one of the betrayals that everyone else has been so tormented by. She'd been unsympathetic before, because they were only hypothetical and trapped in the records of the past to her, but shared victimhood is the key to empathy for her, and it works here just as well as always. She clinks her fingernails on the side of her teacup rhythmically, muted by its half-fullness, and leans back in her chair. "That sort of thing drives me insane. People being unreliable about what they say and what they mean, you know? I hate, uh... being suspicious of people, right, it's easier to me to just decide that anyone unreliable is an enemy right from the start. But that doesn't really work when it comes to countries, I guess? Is Ostia stable enough now, at least?" Her heavier mood is fragile, though, and it evaporates on contact with Guinivere's laugh, matching it with a short giggle of one of her own. "I-I'm not really the best example of that! But yeah, there's so much of the planet beyond just one world, it's hard to even compare it. It's honestly funnier how often we run into mostly the same people, but I guess that's just because of how small the business-- you know, the stuff the factions and, um, me, do-- is. Hell, I haven't even been doing it for two years myself yet." "Er--" Alucard puts in his vote for 'starting from a thousand years ago' when Petra is still distracted on her other tangent, and her expression twists awkwardly. "Um, I'm not too good at the, hugely big picture stuff, really. It might make more sense to start at... twen... thirt... at, um... the middle option, if that's alright." Petra takes a long sip of tea, eyes focused intently inwards on the liquid inside the cup, while trying to deflect from the few seconds of tentative staring she did to try to guess Guinivere's age.
Marigold	"Huh? Oh, don't say sorry. Ru Li and Ceri haven't been a burden at all. If you encouraged them to come, I guess I'm even more indebted to you." Roy smiles innocently, completely oblivious to Petra's legbreaking past. He's the exact blend of 'attentive' and 'a tiny bit dim' that would make him painful to disillusion. Guinivere starts to answer about Ostia's stability, too, but she looks to Roy as the more knowledgeable one about Lycian politics: "Ah, um, yes. Lord Hector's been very busy, but I don't think he's worried he'll be betrayed again. He's found out exactly who he can trust, after all... even if that's fewer people than we'd like." Roy eventually switches the target of his attention from Petra to Alucard: that buckled-down, businesslike demeanor is something he can studiously drink in. It becomes clear how- like Lilina said- he's the kind of person who could change totally in a couple of years. "Thirty-five, or thereabouts," Guinivere says to pierce Petra's shyness, resting her cheek on the back of her hand. "You're thirty-two, Lady Guinivere." "Oh, Elen, won't you let me have a little mystique!" Alucard and Petra disagree, of course. Guinivere looks between them, then looks to Roy (he fails to provide a tiebreaker), and finally sighs in good-natured exasperation. "Really, it's more of a fairytale than a 'big picture'. But... for personal reasons, I'll begin at the middle? It will be good for me to get this out of the way." "Lady Guinivere, if it pains you-" "No. It's fine." Deep breath. She puts down her half-full teacup, steeples her hands, and shuts her eyes. 'Elen' lays a soothing hand on her shoulder from behind. "I am Princess Guinivere of the Kingdom of Bern, the country you now fight- the country ravaging the world, truly. Your ultimate enemy, King Zephiel, is my half-brother. Of course I have no power in Bern now. But there was a time our late father- King Desmond- intended me to take the throne, rather than Zephiel." She adjusts, shifting uncomfortably, but her eyes don't open. This isn't a story she's used to telling: it exists not as rehearsed words on her tongue, but as memories before her eyes. "You see, King Desmond despised Zephiel for reminding him of the Queen. Our father's contempt only made Zephiel strive harder for his approval. Zephiel excelled in his studies, his martial practice, in the hearts of the people... but rather than quelling Desmond's hatred, I fear this bolstered it with jealousy." Guinivere's eyes open. Her lips assume a sad smile. "That I, his illegitimate daughter could inherit- even though I had no ambition for the throne- Desmond conspired to kill his own son. Zephiel feigned death. He could have fled the kingdom. Instead he leapt from the coffin at his own funeral and stabbed our father to death before the entire court." "That is the kind of man you now oppose. Although... for many years after, he was a fair king. His recent madness is another matter."
Alucard	Alucard sips his tea and listens to the tale. It's not the ancient history, or myth, or fairy tale. No, this is visceral and real. He seems to be listening to the tale, nodding along as is appropriate as he takes it in. Until the patricide. For an instant, his hands shake, rattling the teacup in the saucer in his hand before he puts it down. His hands end up on his thighs, fingers clawing and clenching into fists. His face, if possible, gets a little paler. Sure, it's been about six months since he killed his own father, but, well. That's recent. He takes a long, deep breath through his nose, holds it for a second and lets it out. Trauma is, as they say, a bitch. "As a man who was forced to kill his own father to save the people of my world," he says quietly. Tightly. "I find his reasons wanting." He needs a minute.
Marigold	Guinivere smiles sympathetically, but she still challenges, if gently: "Do you find them wanting, Alucard? I do not." "Lady Guinivere, you can't approve of Zephiel?" "Roy, your father is a kind man, is he not? And Alucard, however you felt about yours, you still call him 'your father'. That may make it hard to understand." "But Desmond was no father at all to me. Even less to my brother. I cry for Zephiel's loss of innocence, but not for Desmond's death. Neither should you." Roy squirms in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. But Elen's own discomfort stems only from protectiveness of Guinivere, and Guinivere herself drops her eyes to the table but keeps her sad smile steady.
Petra Soroka	"If you encouraged them to come, I guess I'm even more indebted to you." Petra blinks and smiles vaguely right back at Roy, processing his words. Thinking about it, it is true that both Ru Li and Ceri are people Petra would encourage to help here, because despite breaking Ru Li's legs, she'd be pretty upset if he held himself back from exercising his heroic instinct because of that. She's plenty friendly with both of them; that must be what Roy means. "Oh, they're both great, yeah. I'm not too worried about them contributing." Petra is the exact blend of 'attentive' and 'a considerable bit dim' that makes her unaware that there's a misunderstanding to disillusion. Petra coughs and nearly chokes on her tea when Guinivere bluntly answers-- lyingly-- the question Petra had held back on asking at all. She ducks her head down, blushing, transitioning from wiping her hand on her mouth to scratching the back of her head embarrassedly. "A-ah, er-- I hadn't meant, um, to ask, since it's sort of rude to; s-so, I'm fine with, uh, mystique...." After stammering a bit, she subtly adjusts her posture to be slightly straighter in her seat, fingers twisting over each other in her lap when they're not busied with other tasks. Petra's gaze unfocuses somewhat from Guinivere's face, taking in the aggregate composition of the princess seated at the tea table, framed against the backdrop of blue marble and vibrant garden through the windows. As Guinivere works up to managing to tell the story that Petra specifically had requested, obviously being put through emotional stress by recalling the memories, Petra's smile slowly turns politely stiff and tense. She hadn't thought about it in the moment that the choice was posed, but-- "Oh, Zephiel?" she says, mildly surprised. "Didn't I say?" "Our father, King Desmond, favored me over him . . ." ... It's the exact same story Petra already overheard back at the burnt-down village. As Guinivere continues going through it, Petra rapidly attempts to conjure up justifications in her head for why this was an acceptable action for her to take: Alucard wasn't there, probably, so he still needed to hear it. It's different, emotionally, to be told directly, as opposed to simply overhearing, and Petra's goal is mostly to build a social rapport, anyways. It's also good to get a refresher of something now, so when the context is elaborated on in the other two-thirds of the explanation, she'll have it immediately on her mind, rather than needing to disrupt Guinivere with unexpected demands for elaboration.
Petra Soroka	Also, she absolutely needs to pretend that this is her first time hearing it. --She's done? Petra coughs to clear her throat. "I mean, I don't know how you feel about that all, since it's your family, but I don't know if I can blame him for that. Like--" She's immediately contradicted by Alucard, and she frowns at him, narrowing her eyes a bit disdainfully. "... Really? Mister 'I obsess over having killed my dad all the time while drinking and jerking off alone in my castle' thinks he's got a leg to stand on for judging other people for doing it?" She blinks and then cringes and ducks her head at the two nobles, "Er, sorry, that was a bit too rude." Then back to Alucard, "I feel like getting neglected and then attempted to be murdered by your own fucking dad is a pretty fucking good reason to do it back. Kids deserve better than that, especially from family. I've thought about killing dads for less. I have killed dads for worse." She pauses and swallows, abstractly guilty, "Not-- not my own, though. He's normal." "So he's... extremely driven, and self-assured in... protecting himself? Is it as simple as just 'himself'? Or is that related to the recent stuff?"
Alucard	The dhampir is silent as the Princess explains, and then Petra is really, really rude. He doesn't react. Not visibly anyway. No rising of ire. No twitch or tensing of muscles. He, instead, stares at his teacup for a moment, seemingly trying to decide which part to address first. He goes with rank. "You have my sympathies, Your Highness," he says quietly. "My father was literally a vampire. The most potent of all of them on my world," he says, since she doesn't know and he can't help but share. "Until my mother was ... executed for witchcraft," his tone shifts to a bitter scoff with those words. "He was good to me. He adored my mother. Then she died, and he decided that all of humanity must suffer for the sins of a few." He waves his hand, trying to dismiss the fog that threatens to overtake him if he dwells on it too long. His eyes, glittering gold, slide to Petra. The phrase he utters will be meaningless to her, but he says it anyway. "You remind me of Carmilla." He means it as an insult. Though Petra, if she knew who he compared her to, would probably take it as a compliment.
Marigold	"I'm fine with, uh, mystique..." Guinivere covers her mouth again and smiles with her glittering eyes. "Oh, my. I'll take your flattery," she says, "but let's go with 'too old for you', okay?" Mister 'I obsess over having killed my dad all the time while drinking and jerking off alone in my castle' Lady Guinivere blinkblink-startles, then leans back and glances between Petra and Alucard, distantly fascinated. "It seems to me to be a reasonable thing to 'obsess' over?" Roy says anxiously, but Guinivere's too busy examining their duo interactions like dignified exotic animals to intervene. I've thought about killing dads for less Roy slightly pales and becomes quite interested in his tea. It's empty. He takes a very long sip anyway. "An unjust execution, I assume," Guinivere says, effortlessly slipping back into 'compassionately serious'. "You have my sympathies as well. That he was once good must have made it harder. Punishing all of humanity for the injustices of the few, too, certainly sounds familiar." "King Zephiel, you mean. You've spoken of his sense of 'justice'." "I have." Guinivere turns halfway in her seat to look at the map hung up behind her. The borders on it may have to be redrawn, soon. Roy eyes it too with that uneasy knowledge. "If my brother had only wished to 'live', Petra, he would have fled the country while my father thought him dead. Nor was his ambition for the throne so strong. I believe he killed our father... merely because of his sense of fairness." Long fingernails drum against the table's wood in uneasy thought. "He is a very 'ideological' man. By which I suppose I mean, he takes ideas seriously, and once he is aware of a wrong he cannot let it go uncorrected." "Even if he commits greater wrongs in its pursuit?" "Perhaps. ... That made him a good king once. But I fear it may have made him easy prey for that mysterious woman that your fellow Otherworlders found by his side."
Petra Soroka	"But let's go with 'too old for you', okay?" Petra jumps in her seat as if zapped, staring at Guinivere with wide eyes. "T-too old? I didn't say anything?" The opacity of Petra's mind is nearly unaffected by the fact that it's entirely, magically, unreadable. "A-and besides; I turned twenty last month. And I wasn't even in-- well, that's not-- not an important detail, actually." "You remind me of Carmilla." Petra pauses and raises her eyebrows at Alucard, drawing back slightly. She's struck silent for all of a long few seconds, before suddenly snickering as a smirk grows across her face, which she poorly tries to hide with the curled back of her hand. Suppressing obvious, faintly mean-spirited mirth, Petra effortfully forces out words without breaking down into laughter. "Uh... hey, you know... what I talked about before? About, ahah, the continuity of mythology and cultural... cultural reality across Earthlike worlds? How there's stories of... of 'Dracula' in my world, with what I'm familiar with, that's at least a little similar?" A little burst of giggles escapes her before she reels them back in. "S-so, uh... I wouldn't mind hearing about the kind of person your Carmilla is." Petra turns her eyes away from Alucard, attention directed inwards and voice lowering, a private joke to herself spoken out loud. "I mean, I'd say I'm more like Laura, honestly." "It seems to me to be a reasonable thing to 'obsess' over?" Petra's mood sinks when she shoots a glance over to Roy and sees how uncomfortable he is, entirely unused to Petra's particular brand of relentless psychopathy. She purses her lips and looks away, out the window rather than at any of the other people joining her at the table, rubbing her thumb along the handle of her teacup so it squeaks very faintly. "Well, that's kind of a heavy topic for an 'informal event', yeah. What I mostly mean is... stagnation and isolation are death. Shutting yourself away, looping around the same thoughts, letting every conversation you have go back to the same topic talked about in the same way, is... obsessive, and not in a good way." What good way, Petra? "It shouldn't be careless, doing that." The fact that Petra is clumsily avoiding directly repeating 'killing your dad' is fairly obvious. "But if anything, I think it's more careless to be stuck on it without any progress for so long. If you've got a good ideological framework for why you need to do it, then... it's an extension of 'being the person you need to be' instead of something to just wallow around in." "He is a very 'ideological' man." That was the answer Petra had expected, really, so her alternative suggestions being denied easily isn't surprising. The fact that she basically just explained her own philosophy, at least a narrow slice of it, echoing similar notes, doesn't go unnoticed by her, but it's also not something that makes her automatically uncomfortable. There's a little thrill of excitement in being the heroic foil to be grand villain-- unfortunately for Petra, that spot's already taken twice over, which is more appropriate for her anyways. "So, the most dangerous kind. That means we can fight past his entire army, and he'll still stand up and try to kill us himself at the end of it all. But, then...." Petra trails off, nodding, but as she turns over Guinivere's explanation in her mind, a thread of thought tugs at her until she explores it. "... Mysterious woman? Who he's fighting a war against the entire world for? Who is she? What... ideology of his does she, um, embody, that he'd fight the whole world in her name?"