When blossoms fade

[hellsingsforyou]

Khamja were having a crisis meeting.

They didn't meet often. The disparate interests of a group like Khamja meant that the individual members didn't like being stuck together very much. It led to tension, and tension, in Khamja, led to people mysteriously disappearing. Not everyone knew everyone else in Khamja, and they usually liked to keep it that way, but something like this was unavoidable.

It had also created an opening for Lucis to expand its interests. Integra had no investment in Lucis; her interests lay in Athlum, but Lucis was tentatively an ally of Athlum, and more importantly, an enemy of Niflheim, and Integra was fond of the adage that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. At least for now.

The Lucian member was sending a representative. Integra had agreed to vouch for him because she knew him through other channels. That the young man in question was the nephew of a personal friend of Integra's went a long way towards her agreement. She could confirm his identity, and his origin in the absence of the Lucian member himself.

Underlings were allowed to accompany members on the journey, which was fortunate because Integra wasn't walking into the rat's nest that was a Khamja meeting without Alucard. Nor would the journey through the dry, sandy, and monster infested Zertinan Caverns have been so easy.

Alucard was brutal, but rarely efficient. He enjoyed the work too much to keep things neat. Integra walked, and Alucard cleared the path. It was a long walk, but Integra knew better than to complain because she wasn't foolish enough to show weakness in front of Alucard.

As she made her way past the mangled corpse of an Archeoaevis, its head nearly torn all the way off, she pulled a cigar from her breast pocket and lit it with a match. "Try not to leave a trail," she warned.

The path narrowed considerably in places, and sandfalls disguised other parts of the route, but eventually they came upon a door, barely visible in the rock, and magically bound. Integra pressed a gloved hand to it, and a glyph formed, followed by the sound of rock sliding against stone.

There was another chamber beyond, and multiple routes into it, but Integra ignored those in favour of the next door. The chamber reeked of potent magic, this fell within the sphere of some powerful wards.

The next door also opened at a touch, leading them into a bottleneck. Alucard walked on ahead, like any good guard dog would, and Integra followed as the final door opened to reveal a grand entrance hall.

"Mind your manners," she said, glancing sidelong at Alucard, "and no fighting unless I tell you." Not that Alucard needed the warning; he knew the rules. Integra wasn't concerned about his safety, or her own; she was more concerned with the tedious reparations that would have to be made if Alucard killed someone's prized underling.

"Don't I always?" Alucard asked, with that knowing look and flash of fang that said he knew the answer all too well.

Integra ignored him.

Comments

[intangibleman]

The palace, in Tyki's opinion, wasn't bad at all.

It was fancy looking, full of lots of interesting people and yet big enough to avoid all of them if he wanted to. It was nice. He hadn't spent any time in the library, half because he couldn't read Ivalician and half because there were always people in there. The recently arrived Lucians and the kid with the automail arm being the most prevalent lurkers.

The kitchen was the social hub of the palace, that had been clear from the start. People gathered there, as people had done since the dawn of time, to chat and eat and drink really, really terrible coffee. Really terrible. Tyki had tasted coffee from stands on the back streets of Ankh-Morpork during his time there and even that struggled to be as bad. It managed, but it was a close run thing.

He was crossing the hall to the kitchen when he felt the sudden arrival of another two people in the long entrance bottleneck. He paused in his step, trying to identify the signatures, but he fell short. He didn't know them. One of them felt rather powerful, but also incredibly sinister, like there was something decidedly ... off about them. Whether that was being broadcast as a warning, or whether that was just their usual signature he didn't know. The other was barely anything of note at all. A bodyguard and their master, then.

Tyki took a few more steps towards the kitchen when the entrance hall door swung open. They didn't hang around, at least.