so this is actually a shine fic. and shine heaven now, to be precise, also to be found at . Go and read, and you will understand more of the how and why. but for now, reflect on the meaning of logos naki world in the theological sense.
hellsing belongs to kohta hirano, and shine heaven now belongs to erin. i am but a lowly writerperson.
logos naki world
en archa an ha logos, kai ha logos an pros ton theon, kai theos an ho logos.
in the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
"A world without God..."
"Yes?"
"A world without God," Integra repeated. "What do you think? I myself would dismiss it outright. I would believe that there can be no such thing."
"You would," Alucard mused thoughtfully. "Do I take this to mean that you can't?"
"I'm not fond of deluding myself," Integra replied. Her hands rose and curled around the railing in front of her, night air grabbing at her hair and clothes.
Just to be perfectly clear...
"You're not?" Alucard smiled, duskdark and easy. "Still the same little girl..."
Integra checked herself before she could even begin to rise to the bait with the habit of long years' practice. "I must be, to you."
"Really now?" That oh so charming smile turned on her. A new answer, and an interesting one. "And what makes you say such a thing?"
"Can't you figure that one out?" Integra made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "These paltry years I have. The fact that I even consider years meaningful," she added, stilling the taunt on his lips.
"Nn," Alucard admits defeat on that point and leaps to another. "The need you have to prove yourself a grown equal to me."
"My world is one not made for the likes of me," Integra volunteered. "I have to prove myself equal to everyone."
"And you consider me part of this world?" Alucard inquired. "Your strange isolated world, where weakness is despised and secrecy is so commonplace you forget about it? Since when have I had a place there?"
Integra's eyes flicked sideways. "I was unaware that you considered yourself aloof from my world."
"From your human ideals on these matters, these common trash vampires..." Alucard made a small gesture, restrained and yet expansive. "But this world seems important to you. I would not interfere in an honest fight that did not necessitate my being there."
"You think I am in a fight with the world."
Sideways grin. "Isn't it obvious?"
Integra smiled, possibly to herself, or possibly at the growing night. "And who is winning, Alucard?"
Alucard ignored this and moved to another topic. "In a war with a world with me...a world without God?"
That barb went home and stung, though one would not admit it and the other would not openly recognize knowing it had done so. "Are you asking me if I think I have renounced God by employing you?"
"You, employing me?" Alucard laughed, and it was certain that he was laughing at the night and not at her. "Employing me?"
"Are you?"
"Employing," Alucard said thoughtfully, dodging yet another question. "You always need to put a human spin on things which are by no means of that realm."
"It helps me know my limitations," Integra told him. "Do you think like those Catholic swine, that I am unholy for having resurrected you with my lifeblood? The contract was not mine to make, and that was all I did."
"You neither wrote the contract nor read it nor knew whom it was with, and yet you signed your name in blood," Alucard said, fingers moving idly along the railing. "So strange, what humans do when desperate."
Integra closed her eyes and thought of blood dripping hot down her cheek and the ringing shock of the bullet more painful than the scratch, with voices in her mind and madness in her lineage. "I am still the Royal Maiden of the Holy Order."
"And you think that I do not agree." Alucard mulled this over, eyes darkening in thought. "You are not entirely sure yourself."
"No one is entirely sure," Integra said cryptically.
"Have you created for yourself a world without God by creating a world with me in it?" Alucard asked. "That is what you wanted me to ask of you, isn't it? You wanted to hear the question," he added, "from my own mouth."
"I have deliberately created a world with you in it?" Integra retorted bitingly.
...I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, in love with you...
"Ah..." Alucard's eyes narrowed and his mouth formed the odd regret-smile that went with Integra's more venomous words.
Integra's fingers wrapped around the railing, her eyes glowing in cold starlight and her gloves whispering on paint. "I have created a world with you in it," she answered herself.
"But not deliberately?" That odd mocking smile and darkened angryconfused eyes were still firmly in place, a mask against Those Silly Mortals, in capital letters.
"Deliberately," Integra informed him. "Quite deliberately."
"And have you renounced God by doing so?"
Integra looked thoughtfully at the stars. "Would you like a taste of my blood?"
Interest flickered in hooded eyes. "I would not become the stronger for it," he gently reminded her.
She cocked her head and looked at him, a hooked smile playing across her face. "Wouldn't you? Wouldn't it free you from your bonds?"
"That is very doubtful," he told her. "As I'm sure you're aware."
"Hellsing blood has passed between your lips before, and you are no less contracted to that blood for it," Integra said. It wasn't a concession, but a prelude. "No more, no less."
"But it is not the same as...regular blood," he finished, putting an odd twist on the regular.
"But what you are contracted to do and what you are bonded to do are different," Integra pointed out. "They might even diametrically oppose each other at times."
He looked at the stars as well, their remote, years-dead light glimmering warm and new against his face. "I have wanted," he answered, as it was no secret, "to hear you offer such a thing."
...Nor I you.
"So you have," Integra said softly. "So you have..."
"A world without God." Alucard's voice was murky and quiet. "You asked me what I thought."
"I did."
"And if I said that, to so many of those mortals, it would be a world without Hellsing? Without someone to protect their blind faith?"
"I am not God," Integra said sharply.
"But to them, God is stability. God is mercy. God is peace. And so, their false imagery of God is pasted onto you." Alucard smiled.
"I would not be as hasty to apply any description to God," Integra said, her fingertips curling into the railing.
"Would you say that God is?" Alucard asked after a pause.
"You toy with me," Integra said darkly.
"A world without God," Alucard mused. "And they almost had that world...for thirty pieces of silver. That, Master," he added, almost as an afterthought, "is what your servant thinks, and you are none the less sanctified for it."
Integra's eyes flickered downwards, at the grass spread over the grounds.
"Understood."
there. much 3 to erin, and please review!