#w/riandur.1

[alucardrakul]

@riandur location: Nornwatch Keep notes: (he lives for the drama)

A flash of a wailing horde, laughter like a chorus of cicadas rattled the peripheries of his mind's eye. Wherever Alucard looked, there was more to see and yet his mind could take in none of it. An acrid taste coated the tarmac of his mind as a hollow cry echoed against the abused barren of his unconscious synapses. Heat seared at the expanse of Alucard's spine alongside a hunger, unlike anything he'd ever felt before. It burned through his core as the lurking presence of a gaze that Alucard could not place remained upon him. Thousands of lies, a city in flames, and at the core he saw the face of High King Orhan.

A rap at his chamber door brought Alucard's red eyes open into the dark, cracked velvet interior of his casket. Soon the tell-tale sound of said doors being flung open told Alucard all he needed to know about the person that entered. The triggered mechanism turned gears installed under the stones of the Keep's floor, painstakingly placed in the years that Alucard had spent as a legionnaire at the end of this barren world.

Gas lanterns cracked to life as the chamber was cast in the warm glow of their Stone panels lifted as they ground against one another in protest, groaning as the mechanical arms exhaled steam, turning the lift that raised Alucard's coffin from the hidden chamber below. From the long shadows the lanterns cast, howling echoed off the Keep's walls as the feral barking of wolves punctuated the cold air about the drakul, rousing their master from his slumber.

Metal ground against metal as the coffin was tilted upright, raised by propulsion, and the mechanical arm at its back. A hiss resounded as steam was pushed from either side of the limbs and the sleek, black coffin ceased its ascent. Its cover slid away to reveal the stoic features of the dhampir within, hard as the cold, dead earth beneath their feet. Telekinesis lifted him from his deathbed as the dhampir drifted from his coffin the simple, black clothes shifted about his frame as if they were moved by a gentle breeze, a brush that fluttered the curls atop his head.

Alucard's armor came to him in pieces, his plate, weaponry, and the signature cloak emblazoned in gold with the symbol of the Old God Lusacan under a bed of stars. An echo of his heritage in Veilcrest's Church of Night; Alucard drifted through the air as his plate fastened itself to his frame by will of the dhampir's telekinesis, finery concealed until the cloak was latched and draped across his back. The proud symbol of the griffon writ across his chest plate as he floated still, a foot off the ground, as he looked down at arguably his only friend in this Keep: Riandur.

"I was napping."

[alucardrakul]

What Riandur did with his corpses was his business, but even in the legion there had to be some restrictions on what a legionnaire could or couldn't do. Alucard swallowed because the thought of bedding a corpse was beyond vile, but Riandur always did what he wished. There were so few of them now, his taste for rotting, bloated partners wasn't something that Alucard would address. "I see." Alucard's voice was distant to hide his disappointment, but it came with a sense of relief because now the dhampir would not need to go through the mental gymnastics of getting Riandur something as well. What did you get the legionnaire who seemed to have everything? Charisma, brawn, and a beard. Maybe soap, that would help with the smell of death - Alucard decided then that when next he was with Iskrates he'd pilfer some of the Archivist's lye. He could still remember the flowers that bloomed where Riandur was from, some extract might remind the other of home if Alucard could ever find the means to obtain it. "Some of those fools have been dragged into caves after wandering too far out." Alucard had heard enough reports, but there was safety in the Keep - no one was telling these Iskarans to go for walks in nature amid the blight. "There are mines below the waste, this many scouts-" Alucard didn't see the need to finish the thought.

"Too long. Especially since I sleep around a bunch of dead fucks," Riandur continued along the wall, though he didn't try to explain that wasn't what he meant. "Not exactly. Except maybe a headache, depends on how you want to see it," he murmured, stopping now as he reached where he'd been looking out all night. There was a small pile of dead darkspawn, stragglers or scouts, Rian wasn't sure, but they'd been cut down by the dead that he'd raised around them. "I don't know where they came from." He'd sent one of the bodies out further, trying to puppet and find the link to where they came from. "Nothing we can't handle, except now we have a full fort and idiots who think they can be heroes. The wall should hold."

[alucardrakul]

Riandur was so interesting, and cool. It was Alucard's hope to be like him, but the dhampir always managed to fall short. Melancholic and socially awkward where the warrior was all unabashed charisma and fortitude. Someday maybe the dhampir could glimmer some of those social graces that had Riandur cursing with every other breath; his violent undertones were familiar to Alucard, death and decay were a little piece of home for the former citizen of Veilcrest.

"You must have been awake for a long time then." Deadpan delivery, even as his feet touched the ground and the truth of his derisive height was plain for any to see if they looked at the stark contrast between the two. Alucard followed in habitual step behind Riandur, mentally running through a list of everything that the other might have gotten him. Maybe Riandur had secured a new sword, or perhaps it was a dead body, Iskrates had made use of the falling Iskarans in his research against the blight. More subjects could be useful. Was it a new hammer? Alucard had broken his recently when one of the gears for his coffin had come loose. "Did you get me something?"

Riandur pushed open the doors that he knew would grate along the stone, screech as if they were protesting doing any work like the rest of the stone heap that the Legionnaire's were currently living in. Now, with an amassing of refugees, Nornwatch was on its last leg. And now, Rian was somewhat tired of dealing with most of this on his own. Alucard was always napping, this wasn't exactly a surprise, and the Elvhen had to wait not so patiently as the entire fanfare began.

The coffin rose, Rian had offered to scribble some runes on it for him, but he was always denied. The gentle caressing breeze was another thing, the Elvhen had picked up a fan from a traveling merchant once to add a little gusto and he'd been told off, the fan was never seen again.

The black armor they donned wasn't going to get anymore mysterious or dark, but that was something he'd told Alucard many times. "I've told you before, beauty sleep is only for us that are a little more alive than dead." He tried not to laugh, reaching forward to grab onto the cloak Alucard was wearing so he could yank him back onto the ground, "Stop fucking around with your height, everyone knows you're a hundred year old twink. Let's go, I have to show you something."