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sparkindarknessProbably not... but anyway, some clearing up at the scene. It doesn;t end with horrendous angst at least! But I won't claim it ends fluffily either...
But I have finally found a fool proof method of stopping Darren angsting!
And I think I'm going to do one of the other fics next though... maybe. Decisiveness is not my strong point
It was quiet, really quiet. I know the cliched, and so aren’t going to use it. I need to find Darren, I heard screams a while ago, screams, explosions all sorts of weird sounds I can’t even begin to describe. Worse is the magic, there was enough magic pooled in this park to take out a large part of the city, now... nothing. Had Darren been able to take down both of the others? Shit, I’m not sure I want to know.
And this guys still breathing too. If I leave him here he could wake up... Or Darren could find him before I find Darren, I really don’t know what Darren will do but... hell, I can’t leave him here, helpless, OK? Sometimes you’ve got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, right?
I hoist him other my shoulders, damn, virtue has its price, doesn’t it? At least Darren’s family’re all gnomes. He doesn’t weigh much, he's almost as light as Darren. And if I keep telling myself that I might actually believe it, right? Anyway, you’re all witnesses right? There’s a reason why I’m carrying an unconscious English shaman whose trying to kill my lover through the park at midnight, right?
Whoa... freeze. Something moving, close to the ground... damn, these Camaalis folks are getting shorter. Then the shadow gets closer.
Ok, so it was only a small black cat. I’ve been fighting against some of the most powerful wizards in the world, I have a right to be jumpy, right? Ahrimadan gives that cold stare that says I’m an idiot - nah, he can’t read my mind, he always looks at me like that. Besides, blind panic isn’t that bad an idea with this cat.
“Thou hath escaped.”
“Yeah, not going to let you two have all the fun.”
“Thy gift is gratifying, but I can find mine own victims.” He starts batting at the unconscious shaman’s trailing hair that I’m near tripping over.
“Later, Tiddles, I’m looking for Darren.”
The cat gives me a look of massive contempt, yup, just his standard look again, before doing the cool stalking thing into the night. Though I’ll lay money he’s purposely choosing a route with the most low branches. I’ve got more bruises from the wilderness than I got from the battle!
At last we’re out... I drop the shaman instantly, don't even blink as he hits the ground a little hard. Darren is sat on the floor, eyes unfocused, swaying drunkenly from side to side. Is he hurt? Fuck...
I don’t remember crossing the distance, but I’m suddenly close enough to touch him, run my fingers through his hair and just hold him for a while... He stinks of burnt meat, and the acrid smell of burning molten metal. Shit, his wards must have melted into his skin again. How he can stand it I’ll never know.
He doesn’t move in my arms, just rocks, dazed and confused. His eyes try to focus on me, deep blue pools staring bemusedly at my face. Has he taken a head wound? I run my hands through his hair, deep in that gorgeous black mass to feel his scalp... a couple of bruises, but nothing major. There’s a massive bruise on his chin, looks like someone hit him in the face with a sledge hammer, but I don’t think anything’s broken, or if it was he's healed it by now. Can sorcerers heal quicker than usual? I kinda remember Darren mentioning some kind of regeneration spells, but I'm not sure. Necromancy maybe? Shit, I know nothing about the black arts, and I’m usually quite happy with that too, thank you. Either way, I don’t think the bruise is what did it. Can you get concussion from a chin blow? probably, but this looks faded, so I’m guessing he can regenerate and this happened early. See, elemental, right?
I move down from his head, pulling aside folds of cloth, looking for any injuries, anything that could have caused this. Caused my lover not to know me.
He has horrendous burns at his wrists and chest, and on the back of his neck, where his wards usually rest. Around the burns are small pools of silvery liquid, gelling as they cool. The remains of the wards I guess. I wince at the sight of it, that has to hurt more than anything I can imagine, having metal melt against your flesh. The flesh around his bright tattoos is a swollen angry red, shading to a deep purple, like an infection or a really bad bruise. Self inflicted by his wards again. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. His ribs are just purple and yellow, looks like that sledgehammer hit him more than once... enough to cause, what, delirium? Yeah, right, he regularly has molten metal sear its way through him but a broken rib makes him go nutso? Well maybe, fuck, I’m not a doctor.
Anything else? A real deep long slash down his arm, that would have been really bad, but it looked like it had been sealed, somehow. Burnt? Must have hurt like hell, but it wasn’t bleeding, and there wasn’t much blood on the wound. Guessing this isn’t it...
“What did this too him?” fuck, I sound pathetic. Don’t care, not important right now...
“Methinks the miscreant doth lie before you.”
I look towards the cat... there’s a body on the floor, I completely missed it. A woman, lying on her back, dark blue eyes, twins to Darren’s stare blindly at the sky. She might have been beautiful, it was hard to tell now, her face was twisted so much in pain, and fear... Poor woman didn’t die easy. There is something... dead lying over her, something spiritual but dead. I don’t know what it is, I never looked at death and don’t really want to. Don’t know. Don’t want to know.
“She’s his cousin right?”
“Was. Master Darren did say that she hath mighty power over the humours of the mind. She is a mentalist. She tried to defend herself against the inevitable. How noble. How courageous. How strong. How human. How stupid.” The cat knocked her head to one side with a blow of his paw, laughing joyously under his breath.
“Failed?! Then what’s wrong with Darren? Why doesn’t he answer me?!”
“She hurt his mind. Thou doth fear unnecessarily. His mind is strong. The darkness, she comprehended it not.” He grins at me... then slowly lets it fade, what, a reference I didn’t get?
“Then why...?”
“Time... he needs time.”
I look at Darren... does he look a little better than before? Maybe. Maybe wishful thinking...
“Ok, what do we do now?”
“Home. Bring thy hostage and my master. We needs must wait until he wakes.”
“Hostage?! Hey, wait...”
The cat looks at me, and sighs, fucking sighs! “Thy morals are ill-placed. Wouldst thou let him live, unbound while Darren languishes in this state? Wouldst thou surrender the one hold we have over our foes?”
He glares at me until I lower my eyes. Fine, screw him, it’s Darren that matters.
“Ok... what about the bodies?” I so don’t need the police right now either...
“Leave them. Let Clan Camaalis mend these wounds. Their reputation hangs in the balance. They will act.” He turns and leaves, his tail twitching and his purr echoing.
Fine, I’m following the cat, he seems to know what he’s doing. Darren down, Ghost out of action, bodies on the ground... I certainly don’t.
But I have finally found a fool proof method of stopping Darren angsting!
And I think I'm going to do one of the other fics next though... maybe. Decisiveness is not my strong point
It was quiet, really quiet. I know the cliched, and so aren’t going to use it. I need to find Darren, I heard screams a while ago, screams, explosions all sorts of weird sounds I can’t even begin to describe. Worse is the magic, there was enough magic pooled in this park to take out a large part of the city, now... nothing. Had Darren been able to take down both of the others? Shit, I’m not sure I want to know.
And this guys still breathing too. If I leave him here he could wake up... Or Darren could find him before I find Darren, I really don’t know what Darren will do but... hell, I can’t leave him here, helpless, OK? Sometimes you’ve got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, right?
I hoist him other my shoulders, damn, virtue has its price, doesn’t it? At least Darren’s family’re all gnomes. He doesn’t weigh much, he's almost as light as Darren. And if I keep telling myself that I might actually believe it, right? Anyway, you’re all witnesses right? There’s a reason why I’m carrying an unconscious English shaman whose trying to kill my lover through the park at midnight, right?
Whoa... freeze. Something moving, close to the ground... damn, these Camaalis folks are getting shorter. Then the shadow gets closer.
Ok, so it was only a small black cat. I’ve been fighting against some of the most powerful wizards in the world, I have a right to be jumpy, right? Ahrimadan gives that cold stare that says I’m an idiot - nah, he can’t read my mind, he always looks at me like that. Besides, blind panic isn’t that bad an idea with this cat.
“Thou hath escaped.”
“Yeah, not going to let you two have all the fun.”
“Thy gift is gratifying, but I can find mine own victims.” He starts batting at the unconscious shaman’s trailing hair that I’m near tripping over.
“Later, Tiddles, I’m looking for Darren.”
The cat gives me a look of massive contempt, yup, just his standard look again, before doing the cool stalking thing into the night. Though I’ll lay money he’s purposely choosing a route with the most low branches. I’ve got more bruises from the wilderness than I got from the battle!
At last we’re out... I drop the shaman instantly, don't even blink as he hits the ground a little hard. Darren is sat on the floor, eyes unfocused, swaying drunkenly from side to side. Is he hurt? Fuck...
I don’t remember crossing the distance, but I’m suddenly close enough to touch him, run my fingers through his hair and just hold him for a while... He stinks of burnt meat, and the acrid smell of burning molten metal. Shit, his wards must have melted into his skin again. How he can stand it I’ll never know.
He doesn’t move in my arms, just rocks, dazed and confused. His eyes try to focus on me, deep blue pools staring bemusedly at my face. Has he taken a head wound? I run my hands through his hair, deep in that gorgeous black mass to feel his scalp... a couple of bruises, but nothing major. There’s a massive bruise on his chin, looks like someone hit him in the face with a sledge hammer, but I don’t think anything’s broken, or if it was he's healed it by now. Can sorcerers heal quicker than usual? I kinda remember Darren mentioning some kind of regeneration spells, but I'm not sure. Necromancy maybe? Shit, I know nothing about the black arts, and I’m usually quite happy with that too, thank you. Either way, I don’t think the bruise is what did it. Can you get concussion from a chin blow? probably, but this looks faded, so I’m guessing he can regenerate and this happened early. See, elemental, right?
I move down from his head, pulling aside folds of cloth, looking for any injuries, anything that could have caused this. Caused my lover not to know me.
He has horrendous burns at his wrists and chest, and on the back of his neck, where his wards usually rest. Around the burns are small pools of silvery liquid, gelling as they cool. The remains of the wards I guess. I wince at the sight of it, that has to hurt more than anything I can imagine, having metal melt against your flesh. The flesh around his bright tattoos is a swollen angry red, shading to a deep purple, like an infection or a really bad bruise. Self inflicted by his wards again. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. His ribs are just purple and yellow, looks like that sledgehammer hit him more than once... enough to cause, what, delirium? Yeah, right, he regularly has molten metal sear its way through him but a broken rib makes him go nutso? Well maybe, fuck, I’m not a doctor.
Anything else? A real deep long slash down his arm, that would have been really bad, but it looked like it had been sealed, somehow. Burnt? Must have hurt like hell, but it wasn’t bleeding, and there wasn’t much blood on the wound. Guessing this isn’t it...
“What did this too him?” fuck, I sound pathetic. Don’t care, not important right now...
“Methinks the miscreant doth lie before you.”
I look towards the cat... there’s a body on the floor, I completely missed it. A woman, lying on her back, dark blue eyes, twins to Darren’s stare blindly at the sky. She might have been beautiful, it was hard to tell now, her face was twisted so much in pain, and fear... Poor woman didn’t die easy. There is something... dead lying over her, something spiritual but dead. I don’t know what it is, I never looked at death and don’t really want to. Don’t know. Don’t want to know.
“She’s his cousin right?”
“Was. Master Darren did say that she hath mighty power over the humours of the mind. She is a mentalist. She tried to defend herself against the inevitable. How noble. How courageous. How strong. How human. How stupid.” The cat knocked her head to one side with a blow of his paw, laughing joyously under his breath.
“Failed?! Then what’s wrong with Darren? Why doesn’t he answer me?!”
“She hurt his mind. Thou doth fear unnecessarily. His mind is strong. The darkness, she comprehended it not.” He grins at me... then slowly lets it fade, what, a reference I didn’t get?
“Then why...?”
“Time... he needs time.”
I look at Darren... does he look a little better than before? Maybe. Maybe wishful thinking...
“Ok, what do we do now?”
“Home. Bring thy hostage and my master. We needs must wait until he wakes.”
“Hostage?! Hey, wait...”
The cat looks at me, and sighs, fucking sighs! “Thy morals are ill-placed. Wouldst thou let him live, unbound while Darren languishes in this state? Wouldst thou surrender the one hold we have over our foes?”
He glares at me until I lower my eyes. Fine, screw him, it’s Darren that matters.
“Ok... what about the bodies?” I so don’t need the police right now either...
“Leave them. Let Clan Camaalis mend these wounds. Their reputation hangs in the balance. They will act.” He turns and leaves, his tail twitching and his purr echoing.
Fine, I’m following the cat, he seems to know what he’s doing. Darren down, Ghost out of action, bodies on the ground... I certainly don’t.
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OOO?
Date: 2003-09-25 11:35 pm (UTC)"What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way. What a wicked thing you do, to make me dream of you." ~Cover of Wicked Game by HIM~
Re: OOO?
Date: 2003-09-26 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-26 12:57 am (UTC)Poor Darren. Poor Rick.
*is worried about the backlash from all this* More, please!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-26 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-22 04:16 pm (UTC)i adore rick's whistling in the dark. his sense of humour is so cracked.
i'm not worried. i trust the cat. *nods*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-23 03:36 pm (UTC)You trust the cat?!
Ahrimadan: *grins*