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[draculabutbackwards]

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[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.

[draculabutbackwards]

While I'm sure that didn't help, poking around bestiaries was the closest thing I had to a hobby as a child. I don't need the added fancy.

[A lot of that bottle is gone, considering.]

[atowncalledtreffy]

Oh my god. That's so sad.

[draculabutbackwards]

Quite fascinating, actually. And infinitely better than the amateur taxidermy period.

[atowncalledtreffy]

Sorry, the amateur what?

[draculabutbackwards]

Keeping in mind I never made dinner without an anatomy lesson, it's perhaps a little less than entirely mad, but I had a notion of the idea of specimen preservation without much sense of the necessary chemistry. There were some wholly disastrous jars that had to be buried unopened.

[atowncalledtreffy]

That's...a little disgusting, I'm not going to lie. An insight into your childhood: bats and their many uses as a pale pink mush in a jar.

[draculabutbackwards]

Mostly mice, where jars are concerned. I have no idea where Father found those bats. They're fucking enormous. Knowing him he popped down to Africa or across the Atlantic to find something dramatic enough and start a colony in the attic.

[It's not often you get a chance to gross out Trevor Belmont. He's enjoying himself. He is also... tipsy, thanks to the pretty horsey.]