vrykolakas | TIMESKIP.

Entry tags:

eachdraidh,
ooc

TIMESKIP.

THE BRUCOLAC

COURT Unseelie.
TITLE Baron of Srathmarbh, Black Omen.
OCCUPATION Baron, drugs manufacturer, political thinker gods help him, Umibōzu captain.
ABLE TO FAST-TRAVEL Yes; puca.
RESIDENCE IN 2,701 Srathmarbh.
RESIDENCE IN 2,702 Srathmarbh.

MAJOR EVENTS

PUBLICATION OF THE REDDENED HILL
Being a Personal Account of the Battle of An Carn Ban... [ ✖ ]

ADOPTION DISCUSSION
"There is no one I would want to do it more." [ ✖ ]

COMPLETION OF THE SRATHMARBH SPIRE
Description [ ✖ ]

PUBLICATION OF THE GOVERNOR
A brief meditation on what and what not to do while holding public office. [ ✖ ]

BIRTH OF SHAMASH
Description [ ✖ ]

BIRTH OF ISHTAR
Description [ ✖ ]

RESCUE OF CHILDREN
Description [ ✖ ]

PLANS
By the time the timeskip ends, the Brucolac will be in a more stable position, his spire complete and the surrounding lands a buzzing centre of construction and commerce. He will have two children in the care of Alyosha Hazan.

SUMMARY OF KNOWN DETAILS
Beebins; daring rescue of beebins; becoming reluctantly published; stuff stuff stuff; seeing a scifi film and being the biggest nerd; building a wee town & preparing for ports & shipyards; maybe hunting cloudwhales; tsk'ing unhappily at the cult of the fox

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

SPRING IN 2,701 (Mar, Apr, May)

MARCH - Publication of the Brucolac's The Reddened Hill: The Unseelie Triumph of An Càrn Bàn. Anonymous, though rumour suggests it was one of the Barons.
MARCH - A long talk with Alyosha about adoption.
APRIL 5TH - The Srathmarbh Spire is completed and the name 'Srathmarbh' finally begins to catch on. Construction workers are encouraged to stay and continue building on the town proper. Whispers abound of future, grander plans (the Brucolac himself ensures these whispers circulate). Various grants and start-up loans are offered to would-be business-owners.
APRIL - Hunting cloudwhales for their precious floaty bones.
MAY - Publication of The Governor. Anonymous/under penname.
MAY - A run-down rural farmhouse west of Mair is chosen for the location at which to base the Brucolac & Dasha's growing drugs business.
MAY - Aileas an Seabhac requests that the Brucolac act as her diplomat to help smoothe over tensions between the vampires and the elves.
MAY - Those fucking swans. The Brucolac will scoop up a few and be seen to pour what wealth is gained from them straight back into Srathmarbh.

SUMMER IN 2,701 (Jun, Jul, Aug)

JUNE - Two vampire entrepreneurs take advantage of the Brucolac's offered start-up loans and begin to create a printing press in Srathmarbh.
JUNE - The Brucolac participates in the Treun summer tourney, in the Melee category! Yseult comes to watch; the rumours which have long abounded about the Brucolac's kept woman in Mair become noisier. The event ends terribly for them when, during the daytime, Yseult is attacked by copycats of the fox cult for her association with shardbearers.
JULY - Perhaps it's the rich heat of the summer sun which the slakemoths respond to? Or the blood in the air. They wrap themselves up in cocoons and emerge terrible, but are manageable. Don't ask how.
JULY - An attempt is made to feed one Mr Bones to the slakemoths.
AUGUST - The Festival of Shadow.

FALL IN 2,701 (Sept, Oct, Nov)

EARLY SEPTEMBER - The Brucolac is affected by the scrambling of the translation enchantment; he speaks some stilted Drabbish, and a whole heap of languages from his world, which are all totally useless to him. Expect terrible handwriting and a lot of gestures. Also expect one great big universally-understandable I TOLD YOU SO.
SEPTEMBER - The Srathmarbh press is complete and ready for business! Grants for teachers and educators, or literate people wishing to become teachers and educators, are refined and more widely publicised.
SEPTEMBER 29TH - Birth of Shamash, son of Verla.
OCTOBER 3RD - Birth of Ishtar, daughter of Yseult.
OCTOBER 5TH? - By the grace of the Unseelie monarchs, the children are returned, delivered safely to the arms of Alyosha Hazan.
OCTOBER 25TH - 30TH - Samhain! An excuse to be naked with loved ones.
NOVEMBER - Some of the escaped criminals are former employees of Mr Bones, out for vengeance or perhaps out for gainful employment now that Mr Bones is no longer quite the force he was. The Brucolac puts out feelers to ascertain various situations and deal with them appropriately.

WINTER IN 2,701/2,702 (Dec, Jan, Feb)

DECEMBER - The Brucolac stays far away from the White Hart. No thanks. Srathmarbh will hold a fervent Yule celebration, which promises to become a tradition.
JANUARY - Fuck, what do you mean the slakemoths bred? Oh fuck.
FEBRUARY - Yseult causes controversy at the Ostara Festival by anonymously submitting a work named Blindeye, a great abstract mural of wild colours meant to be touched and stroked and stared at with unease. It is torched by a traditionalist. The Brucolac tries to use this to distract from possible re-emergence of elf/vampir tensions caused by the assassinations of elven artists.

SPRING IN 2,702 (Mar, Apr)

DATE - Description
DATE - Description
DATE - Description

( codes by whambam )

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She caught his eyes, shoulders shaking, held them for a long while. Before she was forced to move her hands, snuffling uselessly, to knuckle away pinkened tears. Her fingertips wicked them away in clear frustration at herself.

"Of course I want them. With... Just, dizzyingly, I want it. I'd always... in the back of my mind, the way we all have fool's hopes and dreams, imagined a future, a one day when I might again, and time just... had just crept on and on and on. It was... fuck was..." She snuffled again, more delicately brushed tears from her thick lashes. "Was nights after I'd first risen like this, stumbling from one realisation to the next. Didn't hit me 'til those nights after, like someone had reached into me and pulled out my heart, I'd never have a family again. Not the same way. It was..."

Hard, she wanted to say, though her tear-tightened throat couldn't croak the word. And hard wasn't what she meant. Who could measure the worth of dreams forever lost?

"I want this," she whispered instead, hoarsely. "I want this. I'd determined weeks ago if not the children you'd sired, then some others needful of mothers."

He opened his mouth to respond and swiftly shut it again, in favour of gripping her shoulder tight and leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Drawing back, he said, "Yours, then. The son, at least, is your son. The daughter...I can't take her away from her birth mother if she wants her, but if she doesn't, she's yours as well." He filled his lungs, tried to root himself; gave a shaky smile.

"References? Really? Godsfuck, Aly, I know you. I know the life you'd give my—" almost imperceptibly, his smile slipped, don't act as if you've the right, Brucolac "—these children, any child of yours."

She breathed a startled puff of laughter, self-aware and goodnaturedly embarrassed. "I— that silver tongue of yours, I swear— how the hell was I to know you'd made such kind judgement of me? And it... it seemed very pragmatic at the time, to prepare to make my case..."

Her smile was still tremulous, but at least she'd stopped crying, dark eyes red-rimmed and very honest. She made some helpless gesture, I couldn't very well do nothing, you realise, and leaned to fold herself against him, face tucked toward his shoulder, and hugged him hard.

He locked her tight against him, hissing briefly when his left shoulder smarted but not loosing his grip. Opened his mouth to say something—you should meet Yseult, I should tell you about the pyrii, we should plan and discuss...

It would wait. For now, relief spiked with a not unpleasant sense of loss stopped his words, crammed his throat, made him swallow and smile and relax. He leaned his cheek against the soft down of her hair and let the sea mutter uninterrupted.

They were very still together. She grew steadier, saying nothing, and after the long moments ticked by gave the Brucolac a last, smaller squeeze before leaning away. Mouth crooked into an expression not quite fully a smile, she reached to delicately divest him of her glasses, murmuring a quiet,

"Thank you."

He let her go, reached his right hand instinctively to massage his left shoulder. It did nothing but make the ache grind harder, and so he left off. Smiled at her.

"I know why you're thanking me," he said, "so I can't not accept it, but you..." You do me a great service, he could have finished, but that was courtly nicety, the sort of thing he might graciously offer to those doing him political favours. Baron-language, cumberous on the tongue. Any child of mine will be safe with you; will come into this dying, warstruck world not a fool's debt, or a terrible error, but a child you'll want and cherish; how do I say what that means to me? He shook his head. "Thank you."

She watched him rubbing his shoulder; a corner of her mouth hooked down in knowing sympathy. But at his thanks, her eyes dropped down to her hands. She made a small motion with the one which held her glasses.

"The world... all worlds... are nearing their ends. If the Unseelie don't claw out a victory before the Seelie win by default, if I can't find a more sensible solution to the dilemma of the gem... all the stars will wink out, and us with them. A rare sort of gift, I suppose, to know that... and sound reason to give myself license to just... do what makes me happy. And what might spread a little more happiness into the world beyond me."

She touched the backs of her knuckles lightly to his arm, drawing him on to walk with her again. "I'd want you to name him. Or them. A father-name, at the least, in the northern tradition." She watched him with care from the corners of her eyes. "Would you want to be known, as their father?"

Her way of putting it gave the Brucolac pause: sound reason to give myself license to just do what makes me happy. He swept a wash of curls and braids over his shoulder, straightened the pin of his cloak where the force of her embrace had knocked it from position (putting himself back together, small acts of restoration) and walked with her at her silent request.

"Would I want to? Yes. But I would forfeit it, if you believe it would be...best for them not to know, or if the rest of the world knowing me as their father would put them in danger. But then neither of us are without our enemies." He looked to her. "I don't fully understand the northern tradition. I have no family name; have never had one, even with all the names I've gone through. How would they be named for me?"

Her brows lifted faintly; and she nodded, looking forward again, hands turning her closed glasses over, slow and thoughtful.

"I lean towards honesty as a general policy, where kin are concerned, and where it can be afforded. I would prefer that they know." She met his gaze from the corners of her eyes, mouth crimping.

"But them knowing you for father doesn't by nature mean the rest of the world must know. For my part, I won't be able to hide them; but I can delay the inevitable. Ideally, I'd manage the mercenaries from the background, assign their leadership to trustworthy seconds. I have candidates already selected. Undertake a great deal of my other business in short or by proxy..."

She tapped the rim of her glasses lightly upon the curve of the metal forefinger of the opposite hand, looking at him again, brows lifted.

"Dorchadas is a predominantly... martial culture. The vast majority of its men employed forever in Caer Scima's armies, the soil useless for much. While in the south, families are... more clearly defined, tight structures, in the North..." she shrugged. "Sometimes the only bonds you have with them is the surname. The father-name. A man chooses the name by which his offspring shall all be known when he sires his first child; bastards and legitimate children alike, as legitimacy has nothing to do with heredity, and the count of one's offspring are... considered a sign of virility, good fortune, etcetera. For those with any sort of notable ancestry, elements of their own father-name are heavily weighed upon," she lifted her shoulders faintly, "So that if you're familiar with the various wildling clans or have served with the armies for any amount of time, you can typically infer one's family tree just by hearing their name. At the most basic," she tilted her head, watched him again, "A father-name resembles some notable aspect of a father, something you'd done, as a stamp someone might recognise."

He could only shake his head, smiling; "Bastards of bastards, the poor things. I'll think on a name for them, that they'll have some standing if they want to call on it, and forenames too. I'd be...I'd be glad to have them know me as their father. As for the rest of the world...it depends, perhaps, on how my reputation looks in eight months or so."

As he said it, he cast his gaze over his shoulder, towards his spire; wondering perhaps if that, translated into Drabbish, might do—but there were nine other spires to consider, a lack of uniqueness about the notion. Na Srathmarbh? His tongue flicked, considering.

Looking forwards again, he said, quite confidently, "I wouldn't ask or want you to hide them. You are more than capable of protecting them without locking them away from the world or disowning them. Ah..." And here he scuffed his boot along the pebbles, slightly hesitant. "I'm sorry I can't give you more certainty as to the daughter. Her mother, you see, is a pyrii."

She followed the direction of his attention, fork of her tongue shivering over her lips in time to a thoughtful hiss. Her smile broadened fractionally, a little sadly. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't hide children from the world. Or vice versa.

And then split into a grin while she shook her head. "A pyrii! You know, I've always—" been curious. She waved a hand, laughing, eyes shining, "Why am I not surprised? Were you shown a good time, at least? If she's born a nymph like her mother, she'll have the best care in the world. If not, we'll find out at the eleventh hour, and I'll adore her all the more for the uncertainty."

His laugh split the chilly, seaside air. "A good time? Yes, I suppose I was, though I've never been more grateful for my ability to heal. Hell's teeth, she was...ah, you'd have been pleased. Even to see them there, in the heart of Verla. Dancing."

There was a yearning strain in his voice, a happy reverence, his eyes far away and his mouth crooked. He remembered his own feeling, standing on the edge of a precipice, as fire wove about him. "First time in a while I'd beenso ...shaken out of myself. A slap in the face to any self-pitying, moping tendency. Gods, I was...am...glad to be here, I think, for all I miss my home."

Alyosha's tongue flicked again, her amusement coming all unbridled, and she lightly pinched his upper arm between thumb and the bend of her forefinger. Entirely teasing. "I wasn't going to wonder aloud how you survived it! I can imagine it was beautiful. I see in your eyes that it was. I've never been..."

Happiness made her radiant, and her smile creased the scarred side of her face. She looked out to the slow roll of the surf. Sea birds bobbed here and there beyond the break, waiting for shoals of prey to swim beneath. "It's good for the soul, I think. To be reminded how small we are, and how vast and strange and beautiful the world can be. Even when it's also terrible, and terrifying, and utterly beyond us. And I'm glad that you've found parts of it that move you."

"Precisely why I'm so in love with that—" gesturing here towards the ocean at large "—briny hell-bitch, with all her dark secrets. You heard about Reynard dumping us in the sea? Of course you did." Laughing now, he explained, "Once we were all of us not in immediate danger of drowning or being bludgeoned by a seacreature, I had fun aboard that godsdamn wreck. There's something wrong with me, I'm sure." In response to her pinch, he nudged her in the ribs, their shoulders knocking companionably together.

"Speaking of the terrors I inevitably embroil myself with, would you meet Yseult?" he asked, trying to keep his tone light, but meaning it quite seriously.

"I heard!" she crowed, voice quiet and throaty, enriched with her own delight. "Didn't envy you fuckers a damn bit; imagined how fast I'd have sunk from solid ground and toasted your mad skills for survival from a safer vantage." Her mouth crimped with a smile she couldn't suppress entirely, eyes darkly and delightedly flashing beneath half-lowered lashes at his 'there's something wrong with me'.

She cleared her throat rather than comment, and toed the ground like a schoolboy at his offer. "Shit, do you think that's wise?" Her fingers fidgeted with her glasses. She lightly kicked a spray of pebbles away with the heel of her boot. "If I were living I'd be sheeting sweat just thinking of it. What if I said the wrong thing, cocked it up, and she didn't approve of me?"

Edited 2015-02-17 20:50 (UTC)

Her show of nerves touched something slightly painful and longing in him. He quickly averted his eyes. "Well, from your treatise, she thinks you're an authoritarian bitch. But one with sensible ideas. She makes a great fuss of abstaining from wine, but she does it all the same. You'd have no trouble proving her wrong about you."

Finally he drew his eyes from the sea and looked back to her profile. Hands in his pockets, he nudged her shoulder with his. "I won't force you. But the offer's open. Should you want to be sure she's keeping well. And I think it might...please her. She doesn't say as much, but she's had me promise to find a good home for the boy."

"Authoritarian bitch. Ah," She sighed, without rancor, head tipping back to raise her eyes to the slate sky. Smiled a little. "Well. I'm grateful she's been willing to listen." And she sounded it, heavily.

His nudge made her smile, and she leaned towards it; lightly now, having seen how he rubbed at it, and looked up at him. "It's an offer I'll take; and if my hand shakes a little, I'll try to be in charming form otherwise. I... want to meet her, despite all my nerves. It's somehow easier to be brave when it's my life on the line and not my heart."

"Ah, yes," he said, grin splitting his features, momentarily looping an arm about her shoulders to squeeze her tight, "and you are so famed for doing things which are easy, aren't you."

He dropped his hand. Best not to linger, and best too not to stare too earnestly. Still, there was an easiness to his smile which had been rare enough of late. He could feel it himself, in how strange the expression seemed to him. "I'll propose it to her, then."

"And are you the pot, or the kettle?" She teased from inside the embrace, leaning, forked tongue flicking in clear amusement. But when he dropped his arm, her attention flit away, almost regretfully.

She put a short stride of distance between them, watching the sea, returned the glasses atop her head.

"If she agrees, you need only give me a date, time, and place. And... and of course, if there's anything she should need... or that you should need to see to her care, her happiness," she spared a look to him again, her meaning clear.

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TIMESKIP.

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