[open catch all!]

[cryptsleeper]

WHO: Alucard + [open]
WHAT: Enjoying some new office space, exploring Oleuni Square, and more
WHERE: Cadens, Oleuni Square, the desert, and more!
WHEN: Throughout December
WARNINGS: Potential for violence in the hunting grounds

Comments

[cryptsleeper]

Of course.  [The response is without hesitation.]  Just as I hate that the circumstances asked me to choose between their respective wishes, which were at direct odds with one another.  And that his expression of devotion was annihilation.

[aquilus]

A strange manner of showing love, to be sure.

[As if he should know.]

My condolences.

[cryptsleeper]

My father always had a flare for the dramatic.

[Not that Alucard's any better.

Moreover, what isn't said is appreciated. Like all the people Alucard has come to like most in Abraxas, he doesn't need to explain. The lines are clear, and there is no demand for details.]

Thank you. I hope your situation doesn't compare.

[aquilus]

[He can relate.

Altaïr is silent a moment, considering his words.]

The man I killed wasn't my father by blood. But he was close enough, I suppose, and it was just as necessary.

[cryptsleeper]

[The flinch Alucard makes is one of sympathy. He isn't inclined towards hand gestures or anything else.]

I am sorry that your circumstances forced you into that position.

[aquilus]

When you say it like that, it sounds unavoidable.

[As if it were an act of God. Powerful forces maneuvering him into position until he had no choice but to plunge his blade into his Master's chest.]

It was his choice that set us in opposition. And mine to do what I felt I had to do.

[cryptsleeper]

From what you just said, it was.

[Alucard leans back a little, propping himself up with his forearms.]

If the violence my father chose was localized and limited, I'd have been able to step aside. I might have even helped with the priest who set the whole thing into motion. But that was not happened, and to murder a country for one death was wrong. And not what my mother would have wanted. So things were unavoidable.

[aquilus]

You could have let the people burn to preserve your own life, just as I could have stepped aside and allowed my master to take control of men's minds for the 'greater good.'

[He shifts a little in place, restlessness, as if he wants to move but has nowhere to go. A part of him is far away, in a different time and place.]

Only I expect it would have cost us both our souls. Either way, I won't shrug off the blame, or the credit if it came to that.

[cryptsleeper]

I'm not sure about the matter of souls. I'd more say we were raised with particular understandings of justice and morals, born of those around us and any personal matters of faith. [Alucard's not sure on that front, but he knows his own family's relationship with religion is uh.

Different.]

None of it changes the regret though

[aquilus]

[That prompts a flicker of a smile, as un-amusing as the topic is.]

Not in the literal sense.

[He isn't at all sure he believes exist.]

No. It doesn't. We'll have to live with that.

[cryptsleeper]

--If I may be slightly facetious on that topic: at least you have a normal human life span.

[Alucard's own grin is thin, fang peaking out.]

[aquilus]

You realize, of course, that I have to ask you how long yours is now.

[He's still new to the biology of supernatural beings.]

[cryptsleeper]

The answer is entirely unsatisfying, as I don't actually know.

[There's a small shrug. Alucard can trust this won't be used against him.]

Offspring of a vampire and human don't happen every day. So there's a great number of questions.

[aquilus]

I've often thought that a life with no more unanswered questions would be a boring one, but then I never had any questions about how long that life might be.

[Setting aside the not-insignificant risk of death by violence.]

How old are you now?