Hector (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
defieddracula) wrote2018-11-04 12:01 pm
defieddracula) wrote2018-11-04 12:01 pm
ONE | No Rest for the Wicked
[Locked to Isaac]
[Hector rolled onto his side, staring wearily at the slivers of moonlight creeping around the edges of the loft's curtained window. He hadn't missed these sleepless nights.
His limbs were leaden, and the demons' whispers had been distant or nonexistent, oddly enough, yet his thoughts still turned like gears in a well-oiled clockwork. Unlike spring and summer, winter came swiftly in the mountains. He'd done much to prepare and had so much more to tend before the snow and bitter cold herded game into the valleys, froze the nearby streams, and choked virtually all vegetation in the region. He needed to finish building his greenhouse and charm it against the cold. There were seeds to be gathered and sown, plants to preserve, and miscellaneous supplies to be bought in town. Wood to chop. Hunting and fishing to be done...
He scrubbed his dry, burning eyes. By the time the snows fell, he'd have many more sleepless nights, and none of them would be so quiet. He rarely worked his magic nowadays. Hunting and bartering and minor construction, those he could easily manage on his own, but if he wanted the greenhouse finished -- and to withstand the winter -- he needed his powers. He'd deal with the unfortunate, but necessary consequences.
Gideon shifted on the ground floor below, the corpsey's skeletal joints clicking and creaking as it readied its sword; demonic energy crashed over Hector. Rosaly's pendant stung his chest, and he drew it from inside his woolen shirt. He didn't need to follow his familiar's gaze into the rafters to know they had a visitor.
All at once, his thoughts shifted from surviving winter to wondering why Isaac had come unannounced at such a late hour. And what he was doing on the roof, of all places.
Swinging his robe around his shoulders, he motioned for Gideon to open the door and descended the ladder.]
[Hector rolled onto his side, staring wearily at the slivers of moonlight creeping around the edges of the loft's curtained window. He hadn't missed these sleepless nights.
His limbs were leaden, and the demons' whispers had been distant or nonexistent, oddly enough, yet his thoughts still turned like gears in a well-oiled clockwork. Unlike spring and summer, winter came swiftly in the mountains. He'd done much to prepare and had so much more to tend before the snow and bitter cold herded game into the valleys, froze the nearby streams, and choked virtually all vegetation in the region. He needed to finish building his greenhouse and charm it against the cold. There were seeds to be gathered and sown, plants to preserve, and miscellaneous supplies to be bought in town. Wood to chop. Hunting and fishing to be done...
He scrubbed his dry, burning eyes. By the time the snows fell, he'd have many more sleepless nights, and none of them would be so quiet. He rarely worked his magic nowadays. Hunting and bartering and minor construction, those he could easily manage on his own, but if he wanted the greenhouse finished -- and to withstand the winter -- he needed his powers. He'd deal with the unfortunate, but necessary consequences.
Gideon shifted on the ground floor below, the corpsey's skeletal joints clicking and creaking as it readied its sword; demonic energy crashed over Hector. Rosaly's pendant stung his chest, and he drew it from inside his woolen shirt. He didn't need to follow his familiar's gaze into the rafters to know they had a visitor.
All at once, his thoughts shifted from surviving winter to wondering why Isaac had come unannounced at such a late hour. And what he was doing on the roof, of all places.
Swinging his robe around his shoulders, he motioned for Gideon to open the door and descended the ladder.]
no subject
Barring some unfortunate magical accident or a particularly nasty blow to the head, Hector knows he can't forget Isaac, can't forget the comfort of their tense alliance in the castle or the mutual hatred and pain that later seethed between them. Julia, though? Family, for good or ill, is forever. Hector's mother would always be his mother, and his father his father; however sorely he wishes otherwise, no amount of neglect or physical, verbal, or emotional abuse would ever change that.
Julia and Isaac would always be siblings. She will grieve his loss - even Hector will grieve it, in his own way - yet she will never forget him. Her love for him won't allow it.
The fire might as well have been magicked, for its heat seemed to die long before reaching Hector's hands. He flexes his fingers before burying them in his robe's pockets, only to find his knife, a shard of too-cold and too-sharp steel. He casts his weary gaze over his shoulder, searching Isaac's face for explanations he knows, but will never hear. Born of false, distorted perceptions they may be, they're ones Hector intimately understands. Still believes, at times.
Family or not, no one associated with he and Isaac could prosper for long. Devil Forgemasters wrought death and destruction, and with or without the curse, that was all they were good for. That was all they'd ever be good for.
No isolation or outside influence would erase that. However sorely he wishes otherwise.]
It shall be done. [A few heartbeats worth of silence, broken by the thud of footfalls as Gideon finally moves to fetch wine from the cellar.] If I may, where will you go? Somewhere warm, I trust?
isaac does america
There was always some pleasure to be had whenever Hector stood his ground and showed his teeth; that's the Hector he's always liked best. But that Hector also knows his place when it counts is not unappreciated, either. He doesn't want to argue about what's best for Julia, much less about his own choices when life, at points, had stripped him of that freedom. His mind's made and Hector understands. Or he accepts, if he doesn't, and that's the best possible outcome he could hope for.
The question - and the sound of Gideon's heavy footfall - pulls him out of his own head and he remembers, suddenly, about the wine he has yet to be served.]
...Aside from hell itself, you mean? [He smiles wryly, there and gone.] That would depend on what it is the world has to offer me. Although I have heard rumours of new lands far to the West. [He absently chews a nail through his glove as he stares into the fire, thinking.]
no subject
Or perhaps it had simply been his now-habitual urge to flee from adversity and discomfort. Vallachia had both in spades. For he and Isaac especially.
Rationality won out, in the end, the hardships he'd known were not exclusive to Vallachia. He'd find them elsewhere. Isaac will too, he thinks, though doesn't dare say it. Here, at least, he knows the land and its people, what they're capable of and how to combat or cope with them.] 'Tis quite the journey, or so I imagine. I would not willingly embark on such a voyage. [Crammed with strangers in the dark, dank, damned holds of a ship, the close air choked with all manners of disease and stench. It reminds him of the castle dungeons. Devil forgemasters would have alternative means of transportation, of course, but ordinary humans and the animals packed in with them? He wouldn't wish their suffering on anyone.
Not anymore, anyway.
The thud-creak-thud creak of Gideon ascending from the cellar stirs him from his thoughts. The familiar emerges from the next room bearing a newly opened bottle in one hand and two crystal goblets in the other, all of which look frightfully fragile in its massive, bony hands. Hector nods his thanks as he had in the castle, not caring that such gestures are, and always would be, meaningless to his creations.] Much remained in the abandoned castle. [He fills the glasses and offers one to Isaac.] So the bottle is yours to take, if you so choose. I still do not care much for wine.
no subject
There's no toast or salute, no mawkish sentimentality. Not the send-off he needs, but the one he deserves. Soon it'll be his turn to try and outrun his past in search of something better, and it doesn't matter that he has little faith in finding it. If there is nothing better, then he'll settle for different. New faces, a new world and all its trappings, all its pleasures and disappointments.
He licks away the faint red film bearding his lip, eying Hector over the rim of his glass.]
Yes, I'd imagine you'd prefer something far more bland and tasteless. ...Your loss. [He adds, in lieu of a proper thank you, before going for another swallow. Trying not to count how many it'd take before he's left with an empty glass and nothing to do.]
no subject
Part of him is surprised surprised Isaac accepted the wine, let alone risked that cautious first sip. Given and Isaac's alchemical expertise and recalling all that has and hasn't passed between them, all the pain and betrayal wrought by their hands and those of strangers, he isn't sure he'd have done the same. Had he done so out of trust? Indifference and hopelessness? Hector doesn't squander time or energy trying to decide as he takes a sip of his own. He doubts he'll ever know. Or deserve to know, for that matter.
He allows himself a smirk as he lowers his glass - a thin, fleeting thing, but a smirk nonetheless.] 'Tis far easier to detect poison in the bland and tasteless, is it not? [A slight pause, another sip before setting his glass on the mantle and wedging another log into the pile in the fireplace.] Truthfully, I expected you to leave Vallachia soon after you recovered.
no subject
'twould have been for the best. [He lets that hang in the air in place of an explanation, staring into his a glass a while.] ...I suppose I could not resent you for wishing it, if you did.
[But there's no 'if', in Isaac's mind. Not after he was left behind, left struggling to find the will to live more than anything else.] Regardless... [he idly swirls the stem] 'better late than never at all', I believe the humans are fond of saying.
no subject
For Julia, for familiarity, for the sake of protecting one's hard-won home or hunting grounds, why he'd stayed doesn't matter. In another time and place, discerning such motives would've greatly interested Hector, if only because he might one day need to twist them into leverage or use them to guess what Isaac's next move might be. Doing so now is merely conversational fodder and for creating memories, intangible keepsakes that neither human nor devil could wrest from him.
Now, though, with Hector running on fumes and this being their first peaceful interaction since lifting the curse, he decides that descrying such things was too delicate a task. So he lets them slip away like water down glass.
Fire flickers sharp and swift and scarlet across his glass as he retrieves it. ] Perhaps, though I was always more fond of 'better safe than sorry,' myself.
[Discreetly, he glances into the room where Gideon had taken the wolf. His great granite butcher's block is out of view, but by the relative quiet, he knows the beast will be fully dressed and packed soon. Only Cain butchers game more swiftly.] Had I wished you gone, you would have known long ago, I assure you. Without the curse, I saw no reason we could not coexist peacefully. Julia surely would not want us at each other's throats again.