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sparkindarknessOk, this is a bit of an ouchie. I don't know where the plot can go from here, but one option I see before me sees the plot ending. It's not the opption I intend to take, but it's there... I don't want it though, there were prequels and fillers I wanted to do for all those years Darren and Rick spent together without being in constant crisis. There was more stuff... but ending it might just be more... appropriate?
Gah, forget the rambling on an extreme outside possibility. This one has no real intro, I can't think of one:
I ran back to the table, setting the music back playing and repairing the obliterated marks the panic had caused. Eric's hadn’t even been smudged. Git still won’t tell me how he manages that. I’m betting we’ve got all of 10 seconds before Darren pulls another trick out of his hat. And no way it’s going to be a bunny - not unless there are evil daemon bunnies lurking around. And if there is? Please don’t tell me, I really don’t need to know.
I dragged the spirits back to the front line - light, protection, purity. I wove them back into line, calling in every boon and chimminage I had to make all the spirits work together. Actually, the daemon helped, I’d never have been able to get this squabbling lot to co-operate without that incentive. They may want to tackle each other to see what the pecking order was, but they wanted a world without daemons popping up far more.
“How long’s this going to take, people?” Liam was pacing back and forth through the room, managing to stare into space and still avoid the piles of furniture. I know I’m a shaman and really don't have room to talk - stones and glass houses, y’know? But he’s still fucking weird.
“Why don’t you tell us, oracle man?” Mia looked as fucking terrible as I felt. She was beating out a low deep rhythm on a huge drum with one hand and a fast, jumpy rhythm on a smaller, sharper one with the other. No, I don’t know how she does it, but it was pushing power into us, letting us stretch just that little bit further than we should be able to.
Even Misha looked up from where she was helping Zara to her feet. The stranger raised his eyes to the ceiling, I think he was counting, or muttering something anyway. “Too long. Too damn long.” He gave us an irritated look. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Then his face just went white - I’m talking seriously fucking white, as pale as Darren. It made his dark sapphire eyes and gleaming black hair shine incredibly...
He grabbed a table leg, ran to Misha and began pawing at her pockets. She slapped him, hard. Tried to anyway, he ducked just before she touched him - fuck, he’d started moving before she did, I swear it! He ducked away from her, grinning with a bottle in his hand. “Trust me.” Why do I never trust people who say that? Oh yea, because I have a fucking brain.
He poured the potion onto the table leg and started counting again. He walked forward, still counting, pausing now and then to adjust how he stood, turning just a tiny bit to the left. He crouched, holding the table leg angled towards the wall, just a few feet in front of him. The look Mia gave me at least said I wasn’t the only one who thought he was a fucking lunatic.
Then the shadows in the corner came together, kind of like something melting in reverse. Shit... it happened in less than a second, one instant shadows rushing together, next Darren stood there, hands raised up. I saw it all in that second, time itself seemed to stand still. He stood, not naked this time (yes, it was a shame), he was clothed in shadows and deep fire. The shadows shifted across him, forming strange shapes and eddies that you could almost see - at least you could see just enough in the depths that you knew you really didn’t want to see them any clearer. Images that pulled out the very worst fears I could imagine, they seemed to burrow through my brain to drag up memories and impressions and throw at me phobias I never even knew I had. The fires flickered, somehow managing to spread dark shadows throughout the room while at the same time making it darker. Sweat poured out of me as the room became fucking boiling, hotter even than when the daemon arrived. Heat hazes danced across the room, making it almost impossible to see Misha and Zara clearly. Something burned my hand, I looked down and saw that the table was covered in a fine rime of frost. My breath came in icy clouds that distorted in the heat haze. The coffee we’d spilt froze solid on the floor, while a thin sheen on top of the dark ice frothed as it boiled. Darren’s face was almost unrecognisable, so white it was nearly transparent, I’m sure I would have been able to see right through it if it wasn't glowing, a solid white glow like a will ‘o the wisp in a graveyard - something pale, ethereal and somehow unclean. Like the fire that flickered over him like a cloak, it managed to cast no light into the darkness, only make him shine as if he were under a spotlight. His hair was even darker than ever, even darker than the deep shadows he was clothed in. It didn't gleam, it ate the light, it was a black hole he’d woven into hair to dance around his head and body in fierce winds that seemed to emit from him. The winds rushed among us, filling the whole fucking room, somehow they managed to be near hurricane strength yet still not make even our hair ruffle or our clothes flap about. The winds smelled of death, the sickly sweet charnel stink of a rotting corpse, the stench of flesh searing in the funeral pyre, the dark, dried smell of an ancient crypt, the dank airless feel of a room long undisturbed. I could hear the croaking of vultures and the cawing of ravens just on the edge of that wind, almost, but not quite, drowning out the echoing sound of endless, insane laughter. Fuck, the laughter, it was the laughter of a guy who’d spent years in solitary, the laugh of the only survivor from the field of bloody battle, the laugh of the torture victim who had no information to tell or confession to give. It was a laugh made up of every moment of human despair, every burn of human rage, every tear of human grief and every echo of human insanity since the beginning of mankind.
Between Darren’s raised hands was a perfect sphere of darkness. A pure orb of absolute pitch that actually shone, and even that seemed bright as a noon day next to the burning pits of his eyes, eyes as alien as the dark side of the moon, as terrifying as the mad gleam in the eye of a psychopath and more compelling than any seductive shine in the eyes of a lover.
I nearly broke. Completely and totally fucking broke. If the daemon hadn’t prepared me for just how terrible some of the things out there actually were, I think I would have. Here was what a Sorcerer, an Infernalist, a Necromancer truly was - the complete and utter avatar of all that was dark, all that was evil, all that human’s feared and grieved and hated. He was the enemy of all that lived, and the foe they could never stand against. And he was my boyfriend. Fuck.
Then that shining pale face twisted in sudden, unexpected pain. The laughter rose into a strident shriek of pain before dying. The orb of shadow between his hands, ready to be cast at us, slipped between suddenly nerveless fingers, dissipating and collapsing to nothing before it hit the floor. The sweat on me chilled as the room cooled, the frost on the table and ice on the floor quickly melted. Darren crumpled to the floor, sapphire eyes rising through the darkness, wide with agony and shock. And that hurt... fuck, I saw what he was and it still hurt, still hurt so fucking much to see him in pain.
He hit the floor heavily, the table leg stuck right through his chest, placed in his heart with medical precision. He’d coalesced around it, with it inside him. It had been in just the wrong place for that one, tiny vulnerable second. Most of the table leg had charred to ash, only the length covered with Misha’s potion, most of which had boiled away had managed to survive. One split second’s chance, which could only have worked with just the right tools. Ok, part of me had to say it, shit, he’s good. Only part of me. The rest of him had driven me to my knees, numb and empty. My brain had just stopped. My cheeks were wet... I was crying. My mind couldn’t grasp why...
Darren’s eyes lost their shine, that slight glow that tells you that the eyes belong to something that's alive. The last of his shadow clothing disappeared, leaving him pale and naked. No magic, no power, just naked, vulnerable and empty. Deep rich blood, heart blood, flowed freely from the wound, flowed from his back and chest, washing over that flawless skin. I crawled over to him, looking deeper in his eyes. The blood flow slowed, no longer pushing forth, just gently flowing, almost trickling, from that terrible wound. No heart beat to force the blood out. I crawled closer. My knees were wet. I’d crawled into the blood. My mind ignored it, ignored everything. Just crawled closer. Just kept looking into those eyes. Looking for something. Anything.
Nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing looked back. My mind snapped, what little surface thought I had left fell away, taking the world with it. I wasn’t sure, but I think I smiled as the cruel world drifted away.
Gah, forget the rambling on an extreme outside possibility. This one has no real intro, I can't think of one:
I ran back to the table, setting the music back playing and repairing the obliterated marks the panic had caused. Eric's hadn’t even been smudged. Git still won’t tell me how he manages that. I’m betting we’ve got all of 10 seconds before Darren pulls another trick out of his hat. And no way it’s going to be a bunny - not unless there are evil daemon bunnies lurking around. And if there is? Please don’t tell me, I really don’t need to know.
I dragged the spirits back to the front line - light, protection, purity. I wove them back into line, calling in every boon and chimminage I had to make all the spirits work together. Actually, the daemon helped, I’d never have been able to get this squabbling lot to co-operate without that incentive. They may want to tackle each other to see what the pecking order was, but they wanted a world without daemons popping up far more.
“How long’s this going to take, people?” Liam was pacing back and forth through the room, managing to stare into space and still avoid the piles of furniture. I know I’m a shaman and really don't have room to talk - stones and glass houses, y’know? But he’s still fucking weird.
“Why don’t you tell us, oracle man?” Mia looked as fucking terrible as I felt. She was beating out a low deep rhythm on a huge drum with one hand and a fast, jumpy rhythm on a smaller, sharper one with the other. No, I don’t know how she does it, but it was pushing power into us, letting us stretch just that little bit further than we should be able to.
Even Misha looked up from where she was helping Zara to her feet. The stranger raised his eyes to the ceiling, I think he was counting, or muttering something anyway. “Too long. Too damn long.” He gave us an irritated look. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Then his face just went white - I’m talking seriously fucking white, as pale as Darren. It made his dark sapphire eyes and gleaming black hair shine incredibly...
He grabbed a table leg, ran to Misha and began pawing at her pockets. She slapped him, hard. Tried to anyway, he ducked just before she touched him - fuck, he’d started moving before she did, I swear it! He ducked away from her, grinning with a bottle in his hand. “Trust me.” Why do I never trust people who say that? Oh yea, because I have a fucking brain.
He poured the potion onto the table leg and started counting again. He walked forward, still counting, pausing now and then to adjust how he stood, turning just a tiny bit to the left. He crouched, holding the table leg angled towards the wall, just a few feet in front of him. The look Mia gave me at least said I wasn’t the only one who thought he was a fucking lunatic.
Then the shadows in the corner came together, kind of like something melting in reverse. Shit... it happened in less than a second, one instant shadows rushing together, next Darren stood there, hands raised up. I saw it all in that second, time itself seemed to stand still. He stood, not naked this time (yes, it was a shame), he was clothed in shadows and deep fire. The shadows shifted across him, forming strange shapes and eddies that you could almost see - at least you could see just enough in the depths that you knew you really didn’t want to see them any clearer. Images that pulled out the very worst fears I could imagine, they seemed to burrow through my brain to drag up memories and impressions and throw at me phobias I never even knew I had. The fires flickered, somehow managing to spread dark shadows throughout the room while at the same time making it darker. Sweat poured out of me as the room became fucking boiling, hotter even than when the daemon arrived. Heat hazes danced across the room, making it almost impossible to see Misha and Zara clearly. Something burned my hand, I looked down and saw that the table was covered in a fine rime of frost. My breath came in icy clouds that distorted in the heat haze. The coffee we’d spilt froze solid on the floor, while a thin sheen on top of the dark ice frothed as it boiled. Darren’s face was almost unrecognisable, so white it was nearly transparent, I’m sure I would have been able to see right through it if it wasn't glowing, a solid white glow like a will ‘o the wisp in a graveyard - something pale, ethereal and somehow unclean. Like the fire that flickered over him like a cloak, it managed to cast no light into the darkness, only make him shine as if he were under a spotlight. His hair was even darker than ever, even darker than the deep shadows he was clothed in. It didn't gleam, it ate the light, it was a black hole he’d woven into hair to dance around his head and body in fierce winds that seemed to emit from him. The winds rushed among us, filling the whole fucking room, somehow they managed to be near hurricane strength yet still not make even our hair ruffle or our clothes flap about. The winds smelled of death, the sickly sweet charnel stink of a rotting corpse, the stench of flesh searing in the funeral pyre, the dark, dried smell of an ancient crypt, the dank airless feel of a room long undisturbed. I could hear the croaking of vultures and the cawing of ravens just on the edge of that wind, almost, but not quite, drowning out the echoing sound of endless, insane laughter. Fuck, the laughter, it was the laughter of a guy who’d spent years in solitary, the laugh of the only survivor from the field of bloody battle, the laugh of the torture victim who had no information to tell or confession to give. It was a laugh made up of every moment of human despair, every burn of human rage, every tear of human grief and every echo of human insanity since the beginning of mankind.
Between Darren’s raised hands was a perfect sphere of darkness. A pure orb of absolute pitch that actually shone, and even that seemed bright as a noon day next to the burning pits of his eyes, eyes as alien as the dark side of the moon, as terrifying as the mad gleam in the eye of a psychopath and more compelling than any seductive shine in the eyes of a lover.
I nearly broke. Completely and totally fucking broke. If the daemon hadn’t prepared me for just how terrible some of the things out there actually were, I think I would have. Here was what a Sorcerer, an Infernalist, a Necromancer truly was - the complete and utter avatar of all that was dark, all that was evil, all that human’s feared and grieved and hated. He was the enemy of all that lived, and the foe they could never stand against. And he was my boyfriend. Fuck.
Then that shining pale face twisted in sudden, unexpected pain. The laughter rose into a strident shriek of pain before dying. The orb of shadow between his hands, ready to be cast at us, slipped between suddenly nerveless fingers, dissipating and collapsing to nothing before it hit the floor. The sweat on me chilled as the room cooled, the frost on the table and ice on the floor quickly melted. Darren crumpled to the floor, sapphire eyes rising through the darkness, wide with agony and shock. And that hurt... fuck, I saw what he was and it still hurt, still hurt so fucking much to see him in pain.
He hit the floor heavily, the table leg stuck right through his chest, placed in his heart with medical precision. He’d coalesced around it, with it inside him. It had been in just the wrong place for that one, tiny vulnerable second. Most of the table leg had charred to ash, only the length covered with Misha’s potion, most of which had boiled away had managed to survive. One split second’s chance, which could only have worked with just the right tools. Ok, part of me had to say it, shit, he’s good. Only part of me. The rest of him had driven me to my knees, numb and empty. My brain had just stopped. My cheeks were wet... I was crying. My mind couldn’t grasp why...
Darren’s eyes lost their shine, that slight glow that tells you that the eyes belong to something that's alive. The last of his shadow clothing disappeared, leaving him pale and naked. No magic, no power, just naked, vulnerable and empty. Deep rich blood, heart blood, flowed freely from the wound, flowed from his back and chest, washing over that flawless skin. I crawled over to him, looking deeper in his eyes. The blood flow slowed, no longer pushing forth, just gently flowing, almost trickling, from that terrible wound. No heart beat to force the blood out. I crawled closer. My knees were wet. I’d crawled into the blood. My mind ignored it, ignored everything. Just crawled closer. Just kept looking into those eyes. Looking for something. Anything.
Nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing looked back. My mind snapped, what little surface thought I had left fell away, taking the world with it. I wasn’t sure, but I think I smiled as the cruel world drifted away.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-10 03:59 pm (UTC)*Jarrod stares a while silent, covers his mouth with his hand and walks away to go have an introspective moment*
Yeah,I think you just scared him away from going Maurader. Well.. for the time being. He hopes he doesn't do anything that world force the ones that care about him to see him die like that.
I hope that's not it for Darren. yer right though does seem like a logical ending. But then what's with that Seerer guy? Whew. lotsa stuff.
Btw,... YOU LIVE! YAY!!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-11 11:55 am (UTC)Yes, definitely an ouchie one...
I live! Blame muse death and the packages of Amazon.co.uk.
(marauder? Ick, Jar, that's even worse than Nephandus... just about).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-11 12:26 pm (UTC)*Jarrod just smirks and polishes his fingernails on his shirt*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-11 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-11 06:55 pm (UTC)Aigh! he's been doing it all afternoon! *yells at Character pounding on his trailer door* Stip teasing to Classical music is Not possible! I don't care if the Cultist Rep dared you!
*music changes*
..........NO! Striping to Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party is not permissable either! *rails at stubborn muse in my head with the inclination to take all dares no matter how stupid*
*music changes Again*
Ok Playing NIN - Closer while you Sulk is just fucked up Jarrod, even for you.
*Broods to dementia music spitefully*
Me: *whimpers*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-17 03:11 pm (UTC)Sorry, he's justificed. No matter what he does, he's justified *shudder*
Nik: You can strip to ANYTHING. Trust me.
Emrys: So says the man who managed to mosh to the Hallelujah chorus. The Celestial Chorus still hasn't forgiven us.