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sybilgraves · 4 days ago

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They needed supplies. That was all. A quick stop. A nameless village. A tavern with a stage and too much ale.

They weren’t supposed to stay long.

(And yet.)

Keep reading below the break for the Frankenstein’s monster of every tavern headcanon I’ve had while drafting my Alucard x Araura fic [on ao3]. There’s a bard, a song, some drunk dancing, and Alucard experiencing one (1) unguarded moment of joy.

Read with Notre Dame by Paris Paloma in your ears for best results:

The village wasn’t marked on most maps. Just a crooked scattering of rooftops tucked between frost-bitten fields and leafless birch, its claim to fame being the tavern at its heart—a ramshackle building with warm light leaking through the shutters and laughter spilling out the door.

They weren’t staying long, just enough to gather supplies and maybe a meal if it didn’t reek of rot. Lindenfeld was still some ways out.

Inside, the tavern was loud and alive—lanterns swaying from the beams, boots thudding against old floorboards and packed earth, someone whistling sharply for another round. Alucard stood just inside the doorway, cloak still draped around his shoulders, catching on the scent of stale ale and hearth soot.

He hated it, but it would have to do.

A bard strummed the last few notes of a song near the hearth, the melody softening into applause. The man gave a theatrical bow, grinning as he stepped down and wove his way toward the bar. Araura hadn’t even reached the counter when the man slowed—and then stopped entirely.

“Seer?”

She turned instinctively, halfway through tugging down her hood. The title still echoed like a second heartbeat inside her. She answered it as easily as her own name.

The bard’s eyes widened.

“Seer!” he beamed, rushing forward.

Before she could brace, she was scooped clean off the ground. He spun her in a joyful arc that pulled a startled sound from her throat, then set her down with both hands still on her shoulders.

When they locked eyes again, his expression fell into a pained, polite smile.

“You… don’t remember me, do you.”

Alucard, behind her, had gone still. Not threatening—not quite—but his spine had straightened, and his gaze now fixed on the man’s hands with surgical precision. One wrong move. That’s all it would take.

“I’m sorry,” Araura said, blinking hard. “I—”

“No, no, it’s fine!” The man held up his hands quickly, taking a half step back. “It’s been some time. But you and that mystic fellow with the sash? You saved my father and me.”

She tilted her head, brow furrowing, still gentle. Trying.

“We were cornered just outside Oxmere,” he pressed, almost tripping over the memory. “There were these…ghoulish things. You fought them off, I tried to help and nearly got dragged off for my trouble. You told me I was better off hiding behind my old man—”

A quiet snort came from over her shoulder. She didn’t turn, but she felt Alucard’s eyeroll.

The bard flushed, brushing a hand through his copper curls. “Right. Well. You got us to the next town. Let us ride in your cart. Helped me finish that song about pigeons in a tower?”

Yes, that sounded familiar. Though she remembered it being more about haunting a cathedral than the tale of a bird.

But the memory of him stayed stubbornly out of reach. And he knew it.

“…We have the same birthday? Which, by the way—happy belated.”

That pulled something from her. Her eyes narrowed faintly, searching. And finally—mercifully—it clicked. Her face lit, slow and stunned.

“Florin?”

The bard all but melted. “Yes! God, yes, it’s me!”

Araura’s hands found his arms, steadying him more than herself, and then she was pulling him into a real hug. Not dizzy or spun this time, just warm and full of apology.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, laughing lightly. “I didn’t recognize you with the—” she gestured vaguely at her own jaw.

Florin scrubbed a hand across his chin, clearly proud of the bit of rust-colored stubble clinging there. “Oh. Yeah. Took a while to grow in. D’you like it?”

Araura laughed, and for a moment she was just light again. “It suits you.”

Behind her, Alucard shifted.

“And your father?” She asked. “How is Marius?”

“My father’s well,” Florin said, brightening. “Actually—he’s just over there, setting up for the next act.” He jerked his thumb toward the far side of the tavern, where an older man was adjusting a set of stringed instruments near the hearth.

“And your—” his voice gentled, careful. “Nadira, was it?”

Her smile faltered, just a bit. But it was enough.

Florin’s own expression cracked. “Oh, I’m—Araura, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She shook her head, quick to wave it off, and he didn’t press. Just nodded with quiet understanding and continued on.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re still standing. And traveling with…?” His gaze shifted, for the first time, to the unamused sentinel looming over her. The man whose half-lidded gaze still somehow felt like a threat.

Araura’s hand brushed lightly toward him. “This is Alucard.”

Florin blinked. Then blinked again.

And then fell stone still. His eyes swept over Alucard’s silhouette—statuesque and otherworldly in black and gold beneath a cascade of golden hair and piercing yellow eyes. Florin’s features went pale, then pink again with sudden awe. His face didn’t register recognition so much as revelation. Like he was seeing something out of a tale, something half-whispered and barely believed.

“The Sleeping Soldier.”

The words landed like an invocation.

Alucard met his stare without flinching, but the title curled around him like a chain. Ancient prophecy. Bloodstained destiny. A name meant for someone else—or the version of him that hadn’t yet woken up to grief.

“I assure you,” he said, “I am very much awake.”

Florin let out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a stagger.

“The stories—” He shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe it. “The Speakers used to say you'd rise when the world needed you. That you’d sleep until summoned by a hunter and a scholar to fight a great evil. We thought it was just myth.”

“It was,” Alucard said. “Until it wasn’t.”

Florin loosed another disbelieving scoff. He looked between them—Araura, steady beside him, and the legend she traveled with. “And now you’re just… here. At a tavern. Talking to me.”

“I’m still trying to decide if that was wise,” Alucard murmured.

Araura elbowed him gently. “Be nice.”

Florin was clearly too thrilled to care, a new song already taking shape behind his eyes. “How did you two—?”

“Florin!” A gruff voice bellowed from the stage. Marius stood, wiping his hands on a cloth and frowning toward the bar.

Florin jolted.

“Right. Break’s up.”

He turned back to Araura, a little sheepish, a little hopeful about what came next.

“I, uh—actually. We’re playing that song tonight. The one you helped me finish?” He rubbed the back of his neck, then offered, “You could join us, you know. Just for that one. If you remember it, of course. But I know it’d mean the world to the old man.”

Araura hesitated, glancing toward the small platform where Marius was adjusting the base of a drum. She rocked back on her heels.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Isn’t it a little too… dreary for this crowd?”

“You remember it, then,” Florin smiled. “These folk’ll listen.”

A flicker of self-preservation kicked in as he looked to the pale, unreadable figure beside her.

“Don’t you think so, Alucard?”

It was as reverent as it was cautious.

Alucard tilted his head, one brow lifting in silent amusement. Slowly, his gaze dipped to Araura—not answering, just watching her.

Her arms crossed, lips pursed as she weighed the moment. She didn’t like being seen. Not like that. But this wasn’t just an ask. It was a reminder. A glimpse of the girl she used to be, pulled forward by someone who remembered her.

“Alright,” she said finally. “But just the one song. And you,” she whirled on Alucard, “do not make fun of me.”

“I would never,” he vowed, all wide-eyed innocence.

Which was a lie, of course. A very polite, devastating, fond lie.

She narrowed her eyes at him—half a threat, half a smile—before heading toward the small stage.

Alucard watched her go, watched the way Marius’s expression lit up at the sight of her, how Florin scrambled to retune his lute like a boy prepping for a coronation.

She crouched beside Marius, exchanging quiet words that looked like shared memory. A few patrons glanced up, murmurs rippling through the room as the musicians returned to their instruments. Some turned in their chairs. Some stilled their cups midair.

Florin stepped forward first. “We’ve got one more before the night kicks back up,” he called out. “A quiet one. If you’ll lend your ears.”

Florin looked at Araura—a soft, steady, unspoken ready?

She gave a small nod, stepped forward. And began.

It started with her voice, alone. An airy, wistful alto—like something echoing through a cathedral long after the bells had stopped.

I'm in the rafters looking down

Florin and his lute joined on “down,” the melody falling in beneath her like the rise and dip of a boat adrift. A rhythm that felt like it had traveled far just to reach her.

It's cold up here

Between walls of stone

I made my home

The effect was immediate. A stillness washed over the audience—the kind that settles in the bones. Conversation thinned to nothing. Chairs froze mid-rock. The whole room listened.

And the air hangs

Heavy with the incense

Feathers fall from pigeons

Cooing in the tower

Alucard hadn’t meant to react. He’d heard her voice before. In passing, in hums.

But not like this.

Not this.

She sang like she lived between worlds. Like the rafters were real, like she’d once made her home in the silence between old prayers. And maybe she had.

I rarely go down there, the view's just

So beautiful from here and I can see everybody

At their worst points

Her voice caught slightly on the line. Not faltering. Just raw.

And Alucard felt it. Not just in the music, but in her. In the way she’d once watched him from across a fire. In the way she’d first looked at him in the library and not recoiled.

I'm not a sadist, I enjoy just being able

To be witness of the loneliness and be a higher power

In case there isn't one

The words curled like incense smoke. Every person in the room seemed suddenly smaller beneath them.

She wasn’t a performer. She was a living memory, and every note was a thread winding through the tavern—gentle, binding, pulling.

I'm not a higher power, I just live in the ceiling

'Cause I'm lonely on the fringes, and it gives my life some meaning

In the exile, in my exile

He looked at her, and for one impossible moment, he saw her as the world must have—not as Araura, but as a Seer.

A girl made of stories, a vessel for prophecy, a living answer to prayers too dangerous to speak in daylight.

He hadn’t known she carried this in her chest.

Of course she did.

And God, it hurt.

Even as the tune climbed into something colder—something about grey light filtering through roof slabs, stained glass glowing, tip-toeing over the sound of prayers whispered into stone—she held her gaze just above the crowd, like she wasn’t standing among them, but remembering what it was to look down.

Alucard didn’t blink.

The notes rang with truths she’d never said aloud—about loneliness, about not belonging no matter how long you stood among the living.

And still, she sang.

At least I'm looking down.

When the final note faded, the hush held, like the room was worried applause would break the spell too quickly.

Araura gave a small, almost embarrassed bow as she stepped back from the stage. Marius touched her shoulder, and Florin was beaming like he’d just witnessed divinity, but she didn’t linger with them. She moved like she needed air. Like the performance had pulled something from her she wasn’t ready to explain.

Alucard was already waiting.

He stood at the edge of the bar, half-leaning against a pillar, two pints in hand. She came to a stop in front of him, brushing a loose curl behind her ear.

“Now, why would I have made fun of you for that?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, then looked pointedly at the drink he was holding. “One of those for me?” she asked, trying for nonchalance. When he held it out to her, the words tumbled out of her in a grateful sigh: “You’re my favorite person.”

He felt it like lightning inside his chest, but he didn’t stumble, just lifted his glass in a subtle clink against hers.

“Consider it a belated birthday gift.”

She looked up at him, more guilty than surprised.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. It’s not—”

“You don’t have to explain,” he cut her off gently. “When was it?”

She hesitated, then allowed, “The sixth.”

Alucard did the math: shortly after Briarstone, mere days after the cave. He’d been the only one with her.

He took a drink, hiding the heaviness in his throat.

“And how old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-three.”

He smiled—slowly, slyly—into his pint.

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, far too casual. “Simply that you’re older than I am.”

“What?” She choked.

He nodded, far too pleased. “Mhm.”

“How?”

“Only by a few weeks,” he allowed. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

“When?”

He set his pint down like it didn’t matter, but he felt her stare. “The eighth of January.”

“Huh,” was all she said.

He tilted his head, mock-expectant. “Well, go on. Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you’re disappointed I’m not a ‘couple hundred years old’ as you clearly suspected.”

“Oh.” She sipped her drink and shrugged. “I’m not disappointed.”

“No?”

“Quite the contrary.”

He waited. Carefully. She was definitely up to something.

“It means I have seniority,” she mused. “And the authority to say the next round is also on you.”

A chuckle escaped him, low and breathy, but it was there. “As you wish.”

They didn’t say anything after that. Just leaned against the wood of the bar, side by side, the weight of the song still hanging in the rafters like dust in candlelight.

Onstage, Florin struck the first few chords of a livelier tune, and Marius joined in with a smile wide enough to split his face. The tavern began to breathe again—voices rising, mugs clinking, a few brave souls clapping in time.

Araura watched, drink in hand, a little smile at the corner of her mouth.

Alucard did too. But every so often, his focus drifted sideways—back to her.

Araura was two drinks deep and nursing a third by the time she bumped her shoulder against his. Her glassy eyes glittered, lips curling into a grin that teetered between daring and dizzy.

“Dance with me,” she said, more instruction than question.

Alucard didn’t look at her. He just lifted his mug, unhurried—but not unaffected.

“You’re drunk.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re… pretty.”

She said it like an accusation. Like it was his fault she was drunk. His fault she was flustered.

He paused mid-sip.

“And you’re doing that thing,” she forged on.

His gaze slid toward her, slow and sideways. “What thing?”

“That thing where you pout a little to keep from smiling. It means you like the idea.”

She turned back toward the music as the words left her, swaying in time with the beat like her body was halfway to the dance floor already.

More musicians had joined Florin and Marius at the far end of the tavern—a hurdy-gurdy whined in a wild, spiraling rhythm, sharpened by a frantic violin and the steady thump of a hand drum.

He exhaled a soft almost-laugh through his nose but shook his head.

“I don’t dance, Araura.”

“Pshhh.” She waved a hand, still tracking the crowd, plotting how she’d join the current. “I don’t believe that.”

“I’m not lying to you,” he said plainly.

“Oh, no, no,” she teased. “I don’t think you’re lying. But I do think you’re being tragically humble.”

Then she leaned in.

Just enough to lower her voice, just enough to let her breath ghost against his cheek. Her grey eyes narrowed in mock conspiracy, her grin sharpening like a secret.

“I bet you’re lethal at a waltz.”

He was silent for a few strums of the violin before he admitted, almost cautiously, “I know the steps, if that’s what you mean.”

His voice was lower now. Tighter. “But I don’t think they fit a place like this.”

She clicked her tongue, disappointed but not deterred. “Shame.”

He didn’t get the chance to reply before a shadow cut between them.

A young man stepped in front of Araura—scruffy, charming in the way tavern boys often were. Tousled brown hair, a bit of stubble, his dark tunic open at the throat. He offered her a calloused hand, eyes gleaming.

“May I?”

Alucard’s voice cut the air, a tremor beneath the music. A weapon drawn too fast.

“No.”

The man blinked, startled. Araura turned with equal surprise—until her gaze found Alucard’s. The corners of her eyes tightened, an unspoken challenge thrown his way.

One last chance.

When he didn’t move, she took the stranger’s hand.

And vanished into the crowd.

Alucard sat back, the wood of the chair creaking beneath him. One arm draped over the backrest, the other curled around his mug. His knees spread slightly, posture lazy in a way that might’ve looked casual—if not for the tension in his jaw.

His eyes didn’t leave the dance floor.

Araura spun into the crowd, laughter rising over the music. Her skirt flared with every step, boots kicking up dust as she moved with the young man, then between partners, then back. She danced like she fought: fierce and unapologetically alive. He twirled her, and she let herself go with it—light on her feet, dark hair catching the lantern glow like midnight silk.

She had been through fire.

And here she was, laughing in the smoke.

The tempo climbed. Feet stomped. Palms clapped. The violin shrieked in triumph.

Alucard’s hand tightened on his mug.

He watched her smile with someone else, hands brushing hers—at her waist, her back, her shoulders.

Watched her move like she didn’t owe the moment to anyone but herself.

He flinched when she stumbled once and caught herself, but he didn’t move from his seat.

Not yet.

That’s when the barkeep came up beside him—tall, broad, bearded, and wiping a glass with a rag that had definitely seen better days.

“Need another, lad?” he asked, voice deep and rumbling, like it had rolled downhill to get here.

Alucard didn’t answer.

The barkeep followed his gaze.

Araura was spinning again, laughter rising like sparks off a bonfire. She looked like she’d never known what it meant to be hunted.

The barkeep let out a rattly sigh. “Bet you’re wishin’ you took her hand, aye?”

Without waiting for a response, he reached over and slid a fresh mug beside the old one.

“For your troubles.”

When Alucard didn’t take it, he continued, more a nudge than advice.

“Sit ‘ere all you’d like, but I’d get out there before the next song if I were you. Girl like that? She’ll dance herself right into someone else's arms if you don’t.”

He fixed Alucard with a look that was neither cruel nor pitying.

Just the look of a man who knew a thing or two about regrets.

He walked away, the floor creaking loudly under his boots, already calling to someone down at the other end of the bar, “Don’t make me come ‘round there.”

Only then did Alucard stare at the mug—and look back toward the crowd.

Toward her.

She took another spin too fast. A misstep. Her boot slid in the dust.

She tipped forward—

—and he was already up.

He moved like water, like instinct. One arm looped around her waist, catching her mid-fall, the other braced her shoulder. Her body collided softly with his chest, hands landing against him in a startled, breathless thud.

She blinked up at him, a crooked smile blooming across her lips.

“Oh,” she said through a giggle. “There you are.”

He didn’t answer. His eyes flicked to the scruffy man who’d been dancing with her.

What passed between them in that glance could’ve cracked stone.

The man backed away.

Araura, either oblivious or pretending to be, slid her hands from his chest to his wrists.

“No more excuses,” she murmured, voice lilting. And tugged.

He didn’t resist fast enough.

In a breath, he was standing on the dirt floor, surrounded by flickering firelight and pounding feet and a rising tide of music.

She looked at him like she had him cornered. And maybe she did.

Marius caught her eye, a slow, knowing smirk tugging at his own mouth. The tempo shifted.

She clasped Alucard’s hand, palm warm against his.

“Ready?”

The music surged—

—but her pace didn’t match it.

Her fingers tightened slightly, and her feet moved with a softness that didn’t belong to the tavern’s usual tempo. A subtle shift. A glide where there should have been a bounce. Three steps, then a turn. A rhythm smoothed out just enough to whisper something different.

A waltz.

She was adjusting for him.

And he followed—his movements effortless in a way that looked almost out of place in the sea of bodies.

She saw the moment he caught on.

Saw his head tip back with a sigh of exasperated amusement, a reluctant smile breaking across his face as his steps fell into place.

His hand found the curve of her back, the tension unspooling from his shoulders, and they moved through the crowd like they weren’t part of it but rather like the space carved itself open just for them. The rhythm was too smooth, too sure. They shouldn’t have fit.

But somehow, they did.

She looked up at him, breathless.

“Do you trust me?”

His brow arched.

“At the moment?”

“I’m serious,” she insisted, though the glint in her eye said otherwise, still loose with drink and wild with possibility. But he only had one answer to give:

“Yes.”

“Good.” Her smile turned wicked. “You’ll need to trust me for this next part to work.”

The tempo jumped.

And Araura let the rhythm have them.

Their hands crossed, arms overlapping, the world becoming a blur of sound and skin. She pulled him into a spin—her curls flying, her breath catching in laughter—and he moved, fluid now, letting the music carry him.

Letting her carry him.

The tavern spun. The crowd fell away.

There was only her fingers in his, her body trusting his strength, her joy radiating so brightly it swallowed the dark. Her face tilted up toward him, laughter ringing like wind chimes.

He laughed, too.

Just once. Quiet. Unbidden.

A sound like velvet unraveling that startled even him.

Joy, he realized. That’s what it was. Pure and bright and impossible.

The music rose, then broke—crescendoed into one final beat that rang through the floor like thunder.

They stopped.

Still holding each other.

Araura staggered slightly, blinking hard. Beneath the flush of her cheeks, her skin had gone pale.

“I need to sit down,” she muttered, half laughing, half swaying.

He steadied her without a word, though he quietly cursed himself for not ordering food with that last round of drinks. Bread, at least.

He led her back through the crowd with one hand pressed gently against her back. He didn’t let go until she was seated once more.

Even then—

His fingers brushed hers as they parted.

Just long enough to remember.

Tbd if this ever makes its way to ao3 in a separate collection of bonus chapters (because oh yes, there's more), but my completed Alucard x Araura fic lives here! Thanks for reading :)

#bonus content no one asked for #i had to get this out of my system #he's a capricorn ladies and gents #alucard castlevania #fanfic #what haunts the veil #bonus chapter #paris paloma #ao3fic #alucard x oc #araura #Spotify

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