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When she closes her eyes, she sees the inside of her skull.
The world around her marches to a halt. Her heart, fluttering once, is now as stone-solid as the marble encasing her hands, her arms, her face, her chest. There is no space for her lungs to expand, the alveoli in them bursting, begging for release.
When she wakes up, she gasps for air, as if her head had just cracked the surface of a violent ocean that threatened to drown her.
Sypha opens her eyes in the dark and snaps a hand to her mouth, silently. She tries to swallow her gasp, not wanting to disturb the sleeping Speakers beside her.
Her grandfather lays closest to her, still wrapped up in the blanket he insisted should go to her. She knew him, and knew that no argument would convince him otherwise, so she begrudgingly accepted the blanket in silence. The minute he fell asleep, however, Sypha unwrapped the blanket from herself and threw it over his shoulders. It wasn’t so cold in this hut, but cold enough for an old man, no matter how much her grandfather would protest otherwise.
Sypha sits up, waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and glances around to see if her nightmares have aroused anyone else.
All she hears is soft breathing. The other Speakers sleep curled up in their robes, rarely moving. Alucard doesn’t seem to be anywhere here; he said he would go out before they had retired, but apparently still hadn’t returned. And Trevor lays out like a log, so still that Sypha thinks for a moment that he might have expired in his sleep.
Her breathing, on the other hand, can’t seem to settle. She stands, careful not to make any noise and steps on light feet. She opens and shuts the door to the hut with a soft clack and steps into the frigid night air.
A half-moon hangs above her, lighting a path along her way outside. Her sandals crunch on the frost against the grass, sending a wave of cold mist over her feet. Sypha shivers. Still harrowed from her nightmare, she chooses to press her back to the front wall of the hut and slides down to sitting.
The cold does well to calm her somewhat. The air is so frigid, it’s as if it compels her own heated lungs to relax. Sypha pulls her legs into her chest and tucks her chin between her knees. She could almost sleep in this position if her heart weren’t still hammering.
She almost jumps when the shack door creaks open again. From the dark, Trevor emerges, looking as worn out as Sypha feels.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks. He slides down next to Sypha and wraps his cloak over his legs. Sypha can feel him shiver against her.
“Every time I try to close my eyes, I feel like I’ll turn back to stone.”
“Well.” The furs over his shoulders seem to be consuming him as he hunches lower against the wall. “That’s not surprising.”
Sypha turns her head at that. Even in the dark, her eyes are bright enough to convey a questioning look.
“I’m more surprised all you did was throw up when I woke you,” he explains. “I told you, a Cyclops feeds on your fears. You’re bound to have at least a couple of nightmares after that experience.”
Sypha hums softly as if to agree.
“And you?” she asks. “You can’t sleep either?”
Trevor pouts in his furs, looking slightly flushed. “Let’s just say…it’s been a while since I’ve slept sober.”
Sypha resists the urge to give him a judgmental look, and instead turns back to stare at the ground in front of her. A cloud passes briefly in front of the moon, dimming the scenery before her. Another chill runs through her.
“Cold?” Trevor asks.
“No,” she answers curtly and changes the subject. “Where did you get that scar?”
If he’s offended by such a personal question, his face doesn’t reveal it. He leans his head back against the wall and starts with a slight groan, “The family portrait fell on my face while the house was being burned down.”
Sypha considers that it might be a lie, but she doesn’t prod in that direction. She can think of a handful of events from her past she wouldn’t hesitate to lie about.
“Your house was…burned down?”
“That’s what happens when the Church doesn’t like you.”
The Church. It always came back to the Church. The Church had taken Trevor’s home and his reputation, it had taken Alucard’s mother and unleashed hell on earth.
And it had ripped all of Sypha’s family to pieces until it was just her and her grandfather.
“I’m curious, since we’re sharing personal stories,” he begins. “The magic you cast. From what I know, Speakers usually say an incantation with it. But you…”
“My mother was mute,” Sypha explains, accustomed to this question. “She was my mentor.” An ache throbs in her chest at the thought. It had been a long time since she had even mentioned her mother to anyone. “The same that happened with your family…happened with mine.”
“For people who preach about avoiding hellfire, the Church sure loves to use it on everyone.”
There’s a short pause. Sypha spends it focusing again on her heartrate. Their chatter seems to have settled it somewhat, though there’s still a slight paralyzing feel of anxiety running through her.
“Feeling any better?” Trevor asks.
“A little. Do you feel any sleepier?” Sypha feels it pertinent to ask, to return the kindness.
“A bit,” he answers with a shrug. “Though, a bedtime story might help.”
“What,” she half-chuckles. “You want me to recite a story for you?”
“It’s been ages since I heard a Speaker myth.” Trevor glances up at the sky, as if reminiscing. “All this talk is getting me nostalgic.”
She says nothing at first, choosing instead to glance up at the starry sky with him. Dark and calm, stars gently glittering. It, and Trevor’s warm body next to her, lull her eyes to a half-close, and she dares to let her head rest over his shoulder where it’s far more comfortable.
“It’s odd,” she hears him say, voice rumbling in his chest. “How everything is so calm up there when it’s a complete mess down here.”
His voice starts to drift away, hardly discernible as anything but a cocktail of words that sing her to sleep like a lullaby. Sypha briefly tries to run through a list of stories through her mind but she’s so thoroughly exhausted, she ends up drifting to sleep before she can recite anything for him.
Trevor wakes up with an ache in his neck, the muscle tense from being locked in an awkward position for the last few hours while he slept. He hadn’t intended to drift off, but he supposes the same could have been said for the sleeping Speaker huddled against his chest. When he straightens his head out of Sypha’s hair, he tries not to move too much for fear of disturbing her.
Not that it’s much of a challenge. The morning air is frigid and bites at his cheeks, and he’d much rather keep close to the ball of warmth at his side. Just as he turns his head, however, so does Sypha’s lift up.
“You didn’t wake me,” she assures, seeing the pitiful look on his face. To his dismay, she unwraps herself from him and slides back, still keeping close but not close enough for him to feel the heat coming off her anymore.
“Did you sleep?” she asks. Her hair is a mess, and he resists the urge to comb it back, remembering his nieces and how he used to fuss with them all the time.
“Better than most nights, I think,” Trevor admits with a faint smile. She smiles back.
The soft patter of feet draws their attention away from each other. Trevor attributes it at first to the creaking of cartwheels or a stray dog that somehow managed to survive the night hordes.
Along the road trots a white wolf dragging meat in its jaw. Trevor can feel Sypha tense at first, and his hand reflexively twitches towards his whip. But quickly, the two of them realize the sun is up, and the creature that makes its way towards them far too calm and easy to belong to Dracula’s demon horde.
“Alucard,” Sypha greets. The wolf drops an entire raw thigh to their feet and butts its snout against Trevor’s knee.
“I thought I smelled something terrible.”
Alucard, apparently wounded, changes his trajectory and chooses to bury his snout into Sypha instead.
“At least he still smells better than you,” she retorts, responding to his affection by scratching behind his ears. Alucard lets out a whine as if to agree.
“I let you sleep on me and this is how you repay me?”
“Aww,” Sypha teases. “Do you want me to give you a head-scratch, too?”
As she lets out a small chuckle, Alucard’s form begins to shift. It’s strange to watch a wolf so seamlessly become human, white fur disappearing under a black cloak and long, blonde hair. Sypha’s hands are still buried in his hair, and she hurriedly removes them when she realizes he’s no longer a dog, blushing slightly.
“I brought you food.”
“Aw, that’s cute,” Trevor responds, feeling absolutely none of the sentiment.
“Normal people say thank you,” Sypha chides.
Despite his cheek, Trevor is the first to pick at the meat. It’s half-covered in blood and smells more like the rotting corpses in the street than edible food. But it’s food.
“Uh, this isn’t human, right?” Trevor asks.
“I’m a vampire, not a cannibal.”
Without saying another word, Trevor rolls the leg towards Sypha, who interprets his silence correctly. She presses a hand to it, fire glowing underneath, and when she removes it, the meat is cooked through and steaming.
“That’s the most useful thing you can do with that magic, to be honest,” Trevor says. When she doesn’t take it, he does and insists wordlessly for her to take it. She cooked, so she gets the first bite.
“Spearing a demon with an ice shard isn’t useful enough for you?” she asks with a crooked grin. She accepts the food with a grateful look. Fighting all night, barely sleeping with all the nightmares, Sypha must have been hungrier than him. She bites off a piece and then hands it to him. He does the same, and the two of them share their breakfast like this in silence. Alucard watches them intently, as if he’s never seen humans eat before.
“When you’re done, we can make our way towards my father’s castle.” Alucard stands as he says this, turning on his heels and strolling off in the direction he came from. Trevor hands the last of his food to Sypha and stands.
“And where exactly would that be?” But by the time Trevor has asked this question, Alucard is already far off and either didn’t hear or is choosing to pretend not to have heard. Given that he’s a vampire, Trevor assumes the latter. Despite the Speaker legend, he’s still not intent on trusting him all that much.
A gentle hand on his shoulder pulls him out of his thoughts. He turns to meet Sypha’s eyes, bright and soft and smiling. “Thank you for helping me sleep last night.”
Trevor smiles back silently for a moment. Sees her hair, lopsided and messy and remembers his niece again, and dares to ruffle his hand through it affectionately. Sypha blushes at first, but then dissolves into a giggle.
“You’re welcome.”