( elves are terrific; they beget terror. )

[cailisairgid]

WHO: Princess Nuala, Anna Demirovna
WHAT: A few things clarified.
WHERE: The Hellsing Residence; Princess Nuala's room.
WHEN: Recently!
WARNINGS: Discussion of violence, the Balor twins' disturbing relationship, etc.

It is eventually both necessary and feasible to move Nuala out of the infirmary itself; without Bethmooran healers and without Nuada at hand to ensure that both twins are receiving proper care, much of her recovery process will be a matter of maintenance, keeping her comfortable and stable and not letting her up and about to work. This is, she strongly feels, the very worst of it; there is so much still that she must do, and she can hardly afford to waste her hours in idleness. There's only so much she can do from her own bed, particularly when the Hellsing nurses in and out to tend to her are engaged in committing the cardinal offense of actually enforcing doctor's orders to rest and let heself heal.

The injuries, extensive as they are, will heal -- faster for the twins than they might on mere mortals, even -- but she's always been a difficult patient and the awareness of how much else is tied into her recovery now hardly helps. The obligatory cursory investigation into the incident only encourages the rumours that they have chosen not to contradict (Hellboy, who can be trusted with the truth of the matter, handles that); it's smarter, long term, to let this work for rather than against them. It's only that she wishes she could have more of a hand in it, that this terribly useful thing didn't have to come at the expense of her own health, comfort and workload.

There are a few things she can take care of from here, however; when Anna is summoned, the nurse at the door admonishes her not to overfuss the princess with the air of someone who has had a very long day already.

Comments

[indiscreet]

In Anna's defense, the list of people for whom she would have this reaction is limited. She cares about Jones, she can admit, and their unexpected friendship. Rosa has her uses. Mina is...gone from the city somehow, and she finds herself thinking of it as a sign of some moral failing on the other woman's part; assigning blame has long been her preferred coping mechanism. Leander she simply forces herself not to think of at all.

Nuala, though-- the Princess has been her anchor here, the one who has kept her safe from herself; a mentor and, in her way, a unique sort of family. The notion of the Princess threatened thus brings out in her a harsh kind of rage, an instinctive and animal fury -- a feeling just familiar enough for her to recognize it as dangerous. With a deliberate expenditure of effort, she very distinctly does not rip out the nurse's throat simply to get in the room faster. (It would be messy. Nuala would disapprove.) Perhaps later she will have time to reflect that the display of fangs was also rather unnecessarily petty.

Once she is past the door, it is...adequately reassuring, finding the Princess alive and, if not precisely well, recovering. She is at her bedside inhumanly fast.

"Your Highness."

[cailisairgid]

"My dear," Nuala greets her, with tired affection; whatever the circumstance, it is good to see Anna and she is privately quite proud of her little vampire's restraint, recognizing that it is indeed restraint. She could be quite the warrior, with a bit of polishing, she could be so many things... but that is a thought she allows to slip away. It isn't the purpose of this. "Sit. It's necessary for me now to take you into my confidence."

[indiscreet]

There is a moment's hesitation -- like she would rather be pacing in anxious circles around the bed, because that is in fact what she would like; she'll be the Princess's guard dog if that's what it takes to make sure this never happens again.

She sits; crosses her ankles neatly.

"Does that mean that you know who has done this?" Her voice is level, but doesn't hide the slight widening of her eyes when she asks.

[cailisairgid]

"Yes and no." It's a level answer, frustration on a leash to keep her from venting her pettish mood on Anna who is far from deserving that. "In truth, there was no attempt on me- nothing so direct."

A sigh, barely.

"On my life, yes, but only by the way in which it is not only my own. I have always shared it with another."

[indiscreet]

She's listening, and carefully, but at this stage of the explanation it can only go over her head; she wants things to make sense in the way of a fundamental law of the universe, and they won't, and they're not going to. Even after the clamorous entrance of the True Fae into everything, up to and including her own mind, any explanation that hinges on some variety of "magic" won't be the first thing she thinks of.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean." Her brow furrows: Anna has less experience controlling her own frustration. At least the Huntress no longer whispers to her when she does not ask it, or this would be even harder. "Sharing your life with another... someone was able to use that to harm you?"

[cailisairgid]

"I have a brother," she says, and there is a wealth of meaning and history behind that simple statement that makes it seem to ache with an emotion hard to define. The time was that there would never have been a need to discuss her loyalties, as complex as they have become; they never swore allegiances that they had no need of, that they transcended.

Perhaps if it had been oaths that had been broken it would have felt less like a part of her torn out.

"We aren't separate, as most are; individual, but not separate. Our life is ours, one whole that we share in, and if I were to cut my hand, he would bleed."

She turns her hands palm up, glancing down at them for a moment and thinking of sense memories that don't belong to her.

"He lies injured, some place out of my reach."

[indiscreet]

That there is a brother involved... it both helps and does not help her understand. After all, less than a year ago she still had a brother, and she was herself the one who ultimately changed that. She tells herself that he deserved it. And comforts herself with the fact that he begged her to do it.

"...There was no assassination attempt, then." She speaks slowly, carefully.

Things would have been very different, had Pyotr been linked to her thus; her relationship with the Huntress is a closer model.

"And you will not heal, unless he is healed." It doesn't mean she fully understands, not quite, but this is one piece of information she wants to pin down.

[cailisairgid]

"We heal together, but...slower for how we are and are not tended." One needs the other's aid, and so on and so forth; they heal faster than humans do, but can aggravate one another's wounds. A complicated situation, to be sure, and one that she's still kicking herself for not telling McCoy about in advance. "But it's so; there was no such attempt on my life. My brother is near - I felt him, for just a moment when we were struck, I felt him - but he is yet beyond me."

She considers, then presses her hands together. "It's prudent to allow the city to believe otherwise."