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[draculabutbackwards]

I have no idea if there's some future etiquette for this. Leave whatever message you choose?

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[atowncalledtreffy]

[He raises the bottle to clink against Adrian's own and opens the top of it]

This is fine. Everyone's so fucking quick to shower me with comforts so they can take them away as punishment.

This is a nice bottle.

[draculabutbackwards]

One of those future things, I think. In a world where everyone has technology like the castle's, you can spend your time making glass all pretty and putting...

[He pauses to check.]

A pretty horsey on paper to paste to the bottle?

[atowncalledtreffy]

[Trevor snorts, audible]

Say 'pretty horsey' in that tone of voice again.

[draculabutbackwards]

[Adrian has only just cracked into the wine, and cannot blame it for being a bit... loopy. There's a place where hysteria is a little more welcome than the vast, threatening emptiness, and he'll let Trevor get the better of him if he can stay there.]

You look at this and describe it as something other than a pretty fucking horsey.

[atowncalledtreffy]

[He turns the bottle around and cracks a grin]

Well, would you look at that..

[Trevor, with the label facing Adrian, bounces the bottle up and away a few times to make the horse look like he's galloping]

[draculabutbackwards]

[Not backing down. This pointless absurdity is now the most important thing in the world.]

Commit to it and do a horse noise, you coward.

[He takes a pull off his bottle. A generous one.]

[atowncalledtreffy]

[He snorts, but commits to the bit and makes a shit impression of a whinny, flushing when his voice cracks. He puts the bottle down with a laugh]

Aaaaaah, fuck you.

[draculabutbackwards]

[Adrian snorts. It's a little thin and frantic, and a breakdown in his reserve is always a sign of... something, but it's an honest if frankly ridiculous noise.]

Did I tell you about the almost certainly not-actually-a-horse horse?

[atowncalledtreffy]

What? No, you didn't. When was this?

[He turns to face Adrian, popping open his bottle and drinking, a little slower this time than what he's used to.]

[draculabutbackwards]

[This is the first Adrian's volunteered of anything that happened between seeing Trevor and Sypha off and their return mid-battle. Any other time, you'd think he simply ceased to exist in those intervening months.]

Comes trotting up to the castle with a sorry corpse on its back. That much is understandable. What's a horse going to do to get rid of a corpse? But the man's got a letter requesting aid from Alucard. How the fuck does the horse know how to find me? I don't know. Waited around perfectly politely while I buried the poor bastard, carried me twenty fucking miles just as the crow flies to a town I'd never heard of. Disappears.

[atowncalledtreffy]

What?

[He laughs, but it's a little out of disbelief.]

Christ.

[draculabutbackwards]

So yes, evidence suggests I was summoned to night creature eradication duty by some form of horse-shaped ghost.

[Of all the unfathomable things that have happened, it's probably the most benign.]

[atowncalledtreffy]

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

[draculabutbackwards]

Sort of a nice chestnut color, actually.

[atowncalledtreffy]

Hah. Fuck you and your horse.

So did it lead you anywhere nice?

[draculabutbackwards]

Town overrun with horrible monsters wriggling out of the dark, the usual. Ultimately opted to move them. If you happened to notice any cowering strangers in between battling for our lives in the last little bit there, that was them.

[atowncalledtreffy]

I did mean to ask you where they came from, come to think of it.

You brought them to the castle. Couldn't stand being alone so you kidnapped a town.

[draculabutbackwards]

Their walls were compromised. In theory, the castle is nothing if not defensible. In practice, well, you were there.

[atowncalledtreffy]

Well, well. Look at you.

You know, I used to read stories about knights with sword and shield and long golden fucking locks, defending townsfolk and living in castles. Might as well start calling you Lancelot.

[draculabutbackwards]

And the creepy horse. Can't forget the horse.

[atowncalledtreffy]

What is it with you and this horse of yours?

[draculabutbackwards]

You wouldn't be slightly intrigued or at least a bit alarmed if you were apparently the chosen instrument of a supernatural horse?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Horses, I'm sorry to say, aren't really all that supernatural.

[draculabutbackwards]

Which is why this one was spooky as fuck. I didn't think about it that much at the time, but in retrospect.

[atowncalledtreffy]

I think you've been digging too far into my family's bestiary.