The sense of betrayal at that moment had been so much like that first time, like the day she’d watched the life of her own uncle spread out across a cold dungeon floor. The knight remembered well the way her pulse had frozen at the sight of her newest enemy first emerging there on the killing field. Walter with one irreverent foot smearing the priest’s ashes as he leered at them with the bastard face the nazi’s science had given him. The traitor’s satisfaction had shone brilliantly there while her pain had only surged then faded as fury hid the wound.
The resolve of a soldier marching on was about all she’d felt immediately after that fateful point. She’d wanted to strike again and again until the creatures smiled at her no longer. They'd said they’d come to be conquered, to die only laughing in their own endless war. What else could she have done but see that they found that end tenfold? London and beyond was already a dying ruin. And she would leave her homeland only dust if it could no longer be saved. Her enemies would speak no ownership to even the remains of that once strong kingdom.
So even old friends had found no mercy as she'd given final orders to erase all who stood against them. She’d told even her last father figure to die. Just die there. Her will was the passion that sent her returned Count out to engage him, purpose only to destroy.
But now that old man’s face -as it had looked before- was returning to the center of her thoughts. The scent of burning flesh and hanging corpses was fading as she twisted where she lay. Hate could focus none on those wise grey eyes and the kind, withered features though. Loathing now came back most alive within her own failure as she finally began to wake from the nightmare of her memories.
Still such a child...she didn’t need the vampire here to tell her that now. She thought it loudly herself as she tried to ration the truth of her mistakes. Responsibility could always only lay with the leader -with her- in the end. Because she hadn’t stopped their deceptions from coming to fruition. Entire cities now lay in waste, countless dead and worse.
Yet the battle wasn’t fully concluded as far as her memory knew. Their enemies still lived. So she shouldn’t be stopping to revel in the past. As she stared to a blurry ceiling she knew she shouldn’t even be wasting precious moments contemplating the punishments her Organization's failures may deserve.
No logic said she should even be here. And if the bed beneath had not met her body willingly, then capture could be the only logical assumption as well. Lying here clean and unarmed, divested of all clothing save for that which did not belong to her...alone in a white walled room.
But as she wasn’t dead, then they still weren’t done. But goddammit, that was true. They. She and the Draculina, they’d been side by side. Seras. But...she remembered now. That man, what had he done? Integra felt the flare of anxiety almost immediately, but held it back as she reached for her glasses on the nearby dresser.
She couldn’t begin thinking of more hypothetical losses. Not yet. She had to keep her mind clear if she was to help anyone. Simply start from scratch if she couldn’t remember how or why she’d come to be here. If they hadn’t immediately killed her, her captors had already proven themselves fools and a lesser enemy than some. Integra could only shove every worry to the corners of her mind as she rose purposefully, intent on trying an exit through the single door. Surely it'd be locked, but-
The blonde paused at the sudden click of the handle, half expecting anyone to emerge before only a small, smiling woman appeared standing there in the narrow archway. They both addressed each other in a look of mild surprise for a moment before the stranger's smile grew even warmer.
"Well, already up then Ms.Harker? It's good to know there's still some early birds about. I suppose I came just in time or else you would have gotten impatient. Off to breakfast then, dear?"
F12
The resolve of a soldier marching on was about all she’d felt immediately after that fateful point. She’d wanted to strike again and again until the creatures smiled at her no longer. They'd said they’d come to be conquered, to die only laughing in their own endless war. What else could she have done but see that they found that end tenfold? London and beyond was already a dying ruin. And she would leave her homeland only dust if it could no longer be saved. Her enemies would speak no ownership to even the remains of that once strong kingdom.
So even old friends had found no mercy as she'd given final orders to erase all who stood against them. She’d told even her last father figure to die. Just die there. Her will was the passion that sent her returned Count out to engage him, purpose only to destroy.
But now that old man’s face -as it had looked before- was returning to the center of her thoughts. The scent of burning flesh and hanging corpses was fading as she twisted where she lay. Hate could focus none on those wise grey eyes and the kind, withered features though. Loathing now came back most alive within her own failure as she finally began to wake from the nightmare of her memories.
Still such a child...she didn’t need the vampire here to tell her that now. She thought it loudly herself as she tried to ration the truth of her mistakes. Responsibility could always only lay with the leader -with her- in the end. Because she hadn’t stopped their deceptions from coming to fruition. Entire cities now lay in waste, countless dead and worse.
Yet the battle wasn’t fully concluded as far as her memory knew. Their enemies still lived. So she shouldn’t be stopping to revel in the past. As she stared to a blurry ceiling she knew she shouldn’t even be wasting precious moments contemplating the punishments her Organization's failures may deserve.
No logic said she should even be here. And if the bed beneath had not met her body willingly, then capture could be the only logical assumption as well. Lying here clean and unarmed, divested of all clothing save for that which did not belong to her...alone in a white walled room.
But as she wasn’t dead, then they still weren’t done. But goddammit, that was true. They. She and the Draculina, they’d been side by side. Seras. But...she remembered now. That man, what had he done? Integra felt the flare of anxiety almost immediately, but held it back as she reached for her glasses on the nearby dresser.
She couldn’t begin thinking of more hypothetical losses. Not yet. She had to keep her mind clear if she was to help anyone. Simply start from scratch if she couldn’t remember how or why she’d come to be here. If they hadn’t immediately killed her, her captors had already proven themselves fools and a lesser enemy than some. Integra could only shove every worry to the corners of her mind as she rose purposefully, intent on trying an exit through the single door. Surely it'd be locked, but-
The blonde paused at the sudden click of the handle, half expecting anyone to emerge before only a small, smiling woman appeared standing there in the narrow archway. They both addressed each other in a look of mild surprise for a moment before the stranger's smile grew even warmer.
"Well, already up then Ms.Harker? It's good to know there's still some early birds about. I suppose I came just in time or else you would have gotten impatient. Off to breakfast then, dear?"