Let's dance in the graveyard

Poseidon & Demeter

victoriadevereaux​:

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

She can’t just stand here and do nothing, bleed out in someone’s arms and not fight back. She can feel her strength slipping and she guesses it must be the blood loss, because she feels the grip on her abdomen slowly giving out and a wave of discomfort that she recognizes as nausea. It reminds her of the time she was sick with whatever Noah had accidentally brought into the manor, before she started throwing up blood, but she keeps her slowly closing eyes on Victoria, eyelids only half open, and decides – against her better judgement – to drop her hands from the gushing knife wound and close them altogether. It brings her focus away from her body and towards her magic, because whatever is wrong with Cash, she hopes to find before its too late. It pulls every bit of energy she has left, finding it, trying to push herself through the barrier in his mind against his will – she knows Victoria will know she’s using her magic – except she finds, not the mind of Cash Stone, but something far more otherworldly, something her magic can’t push through, something… Eerily spiritual. Angry. When she opens her eyes she’s bleeding far more profusely, and her fingers are trembling, white as a sheet. “Its not…” Her voice shakes. She feels cold. Her teeth chatter. “This isn’t Ca-Cash”. Its the last thing she chokes out before she faints, the side of her neck pressed against the blade.

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

It’s not Cash. That explains a whole lot more than anything else. She’d been staring at Aurora, watching as her wife no doubt used what was left of her strength on magic. Victoria resisted the urge to not tell her not to do it, there’s a reason. If she knows Aurora, there’s a reason. And the reason comes out in her stuttering, weak sounding voice just before she collapses. It’s not Cash. Because of course. Victora’s mind reels, flashing through her conversations over the last few days. Wren – the witch who talked to ghosts. She’d mentioned a wolf, one who was angry. His words could very well be mistaken for Cash’s, along with any other wolf that had been at the Compound that day. And Victoria knows, perhaps the most important point, that fighting someone with nothing to lose is almost impossible. Shifting won’t be possible if she wishes to spare Cash’s body. So she relies on magic first, quietly altering the energy around her with determined focus until she can zap him with a force so strong it will hopefully knock him out before he has the know-how to hurt Aurora. 

She pushes Moll behind her further and with one quick, barely detectable blast, the wolf and her wife are separated. His body on the ground, Victoria clears the space between them and pounces, with abandon and strength usually only reserved for her shifted form and yet, still entirely possible with her years of training as a human with alongside wolves. “Moll, get her!” Victoria shouts as she lands on top of Cash’s body, delivering a solid blow with her own bare fist to his jaw. “Get her out of here and help her!”

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

The time for arguing is over. Moll recognizes the signs of a man past reason. And then she watches in horror as Aurora stops pressing her hands into her wound so she can do some sort of unseen magic. In that moment, she doesn’t care if it’s Cash or not - the truck is off road and barreling towards them, regardless of who’s behind the wheel. She staggers back at the push, watching the crackle of energy that breaks the two apart and the snap of violence she has no desire to watch. She’s already moving to the crumpled heap of Aurora on the ground. “Yes to half of that,” she huffed to herself. They’re already cutting it so close and Aurora has a few inches on her - she isn’t wasting time or magic trying to get her far. Instead she drags the witch by her legs out into the hallway with a wince of apology, careful not to hit her head on the doorframe. She drops to her knees. There’s so much blood painting the front of the tailored shirt that she can smell it, nearly making her gag as she slowly peels it back. Moll shuts her eyes tightly and covers the wound with both hands. It takes a second to start working, but once it does her desperation to fix it is so strong that the surge of power steals her air. Her magic sinks into Aurora’s abdomen, flooding over the torn tissue and nicked organs and knitting them back together, mending veins and arteries and refilling them with blood. 

All of the other small wounds were just practice for this, and panic starts to creep in around the edges when she realizes just how long this is going to take. They’re so close to the danger of two wolves fighting, and they need to get backup for Victoria and warn everyone else, and Aurora is still a bloody mess not out of the woods yet. Does Victoria have it in her to kill Cash’s body after witnessing everything? The magic falters and threatens to cut off until Moll manages to get her racing heart under control again, more warmth in her palms where they’re pressed against Aurora’s sticky cold skin.

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

When Aurora goes limp, he holds her up in his arms and snarls at her final words. It’s time; He’s going to end it now. But in the seconds it takes to make the decision to slice her throat, he’s being propelled away from her by magic with such force that his back slams into the ground before he fully comprehends what’s happening. 

Then a weight lands on him quickly followed by a fist colliding with his face and he regains some of his composure, trying to grab a hold of Victoria’s shirt to send punches to as many weak points as he can while fending off her attack. He’s at a serious disadvantage, facing off against a werewolf/witch hybrid, so his only choice now is to go for the kill. 

victoriadevereaux​:

blacknessaura​:

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

She doesn’t know what to focus on, the pain, the words coming out of Cash’s mouth, or the sight of Victoria looking at her by the door. The knife is pressed closer to her throat and she can feel it slicing through her skin like butter, followed by the rush of slowly trickling blood down to her collarbone. If he were to press it any harder, he’d slice right through her neck, and the fact that she’s trying not to writhe in his arms and trying to keep her hand steadily over the gash in her abdomen is making it very hard for her to keep her neck upright and away from the blade. And she tries, she looks at her wife and moves her hand away from her wound to attempt and use her magic to pry Cash away from her, but a rush of blood has her hands pooling in red, forcing her to keep them pressed against it. Aurora can’t use her magic, and that same familiar feeling of helplessness she’s experienced before comes back in a rush, bringing prickling tears to her eyes. “Victoria –” She thinks she doesn’t know why she says it; she’s not calling out for her when she’s right in front of her, but when when Cash assures them he won’t let anyone come close enough to heal her, she knows why. She’s terrified. “C-Cash please, let me go…”

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

This isn’t Cash. Something’s wrong. It’s in his voice and his face and his anger. But the words he says aren’t untrue. That he never would have been lost if not for what had happened that day at the Compound attack. Victoria doesn’t have time to parse it though. The fear in her wife’s voice, the overwhelming sent of blood as it drains far too quickly from Aurora’s body are all far too powerful a distraction. Moll’s behind her, and reasonable. Moll can heal Aurora, as long as they can get her away from Cash. Victoria’s jaw tightens. She’d never choose her own feelings over the pack, but she’ll take him out in a heartbeat if she has to. “Cash, I won’t let you hurt her.” Victoria speaks even and determined, eyes focused, jaw tight. “You have five seconds to let her go. Whatever you’re trying to do here, you can still take back. But I won’t let you kill her. Five seconds. Your choice.”

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

Moll can’t tear her eyes away from the wound and the slick spill of blood around clenched fingers. Cash doesn’t sound like himself - not just the words and the temperament, but the rhythms and patterns. Compelled by some spell or magic gone wrong, or the unlikely scenario that he had snapped from the stress. The why doesn’t matter with Aurora in immediate danger. Wolves have always been grenades, primal magic woven in waiting to hurt others. “We were just kids.” There’s a steel edge to her voice that she tries to soften. Like there’s anything at all she can do that he won’t see coming. Victoria, her favorite grenade, is the one with the real power. “We were kids blindly following Brigid’s orders. Same as you. Go after who you’re really pissed at next time.” Victoria delivers the ultimatum and Moll doesn’t even have to turn her head to know she means it. She tries desperately to focus. If Victoria manages to launch Cash back somehow, she has to be prepared to rush forward and catch Aurora before she hits the floor and does further damage. She repeats the instructions to herself, over and over. That means staring at the knife wound and ignoring the terror clawing at her throat. It means pretending she isn’t about to witness another powerful young witch snuffed out by the hands of a trusted wolf.

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

victoriadevereaux​:

blacknessaura​:

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

She’s not expecting it. Why would she? Its Cash Stone; if there was a poster child for a dutiful wolf, him and Presley would be plastered on the walls of Carden Manor like stellar examples of what it means to be in the Devereaux pack. And she’s so certain of the person he is that she doesn’t even notice until she feels the stabbing pain on her abdomen, the feeling of wetness on her perfectly tailored shirt, and how the pain makes her lose her balance on the chair only to be caught by him with a knife to her throat. “C-Cash?” She clutches the bleeding wound, whimpering in pain as she’s dragged away down the hall, feeling powerless against the grasp he has on her neck and her rapidly beating heard. She sees the trail of blood she starts to leave behind, and when she attempts to shuffle away from him, the knife digs ever so sharply into the side of her neck, making her wince, until she’s subdued inside her and Victoria’s room, breathing rapidly and training her eyes on the door in front of her. “Why are you… Why…” She can’t get the words out, but she knows, as she slowly bleeds out in Cash Stone’s arms, that somewhere in the manor, Victoria had felt it.

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

“Aurora –” Victoria feels it immediately. She mouths her wife’s name, cutting off whatever Moll had been saying as they both walk down the hallway. The full moon had gone off without a hitch, things beginning to slide back to normalcy. It’s nice to have Moll around again. She’s a friend, an ally, someone who knows Victoria’s whole life without having to say it or work not to. But that feeling interrupts her. Something in her gut. And then fear. Her hand goes to her own abdomen and she freezes before her eyes shoot up to Moll, much more intense than they’d been a second ago. “Something’s wrong,” Victoria says nothing more but takes off down the hall around one more corner to their room. There’s blood on the floor. She clocks Moll behind her, as if to tell her to stay back,  and shoves the door open fast. “Aurora what’s –” but her questions die in her throat at the sight on the other side. “Cash – what’s going on here? What did you do?” Her eyes flicker from the blonde wolf to Aurora, bleeding in his arms. Victoria locks her eyes on her wife’s. “What happened?”

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

Another moon come and gone, and she could breath again. They had fallen back into an easy rhythm, Moll and Victoria, relearning the lines of their relationship. But her next sentence never gets fully formed. There’s sudden terror in Victoria’s eyes, a hand pressed to her stomach. It takes a moment for Moll to put the very obvious pieces together. She still doesn’t think of Victoria as a wolf, forgets that she has a tangible bond to her wife now. She follows blindly. Her stomach flips uncomfortably as her shoe loses its grip in a spot of sticky red just outside the room. “I’m not going anywhere,” she snaps out, quickly, not wasting time. But she can’t help it - she knows that look. It usually comes right before someone shoves the healer to safety and then charges into danger alone and dies. The sight on the other side of the door doesn’t make sense, but Moll forces it to. Stones might be the least likely to snap, but even they aren’t immune. Especially not when magic and buckets of trauma are involved. “Cash. You haven’t done anything you can’t undo yet. You need to let me help her.”

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

She’s on her tiptoes atop of a chair near the small storage closet upstairs, digging through old artifacts that have run their magic and run their course and boxes where she knows she’ll find what she’s looking for. She hears footsteps but doesn’t turn, unsurprised to hear one of the wolves calling her attention, though the tone catches her off guard, frowning as she turns to look at him where she’s standing. “Cash, you don’t have to ask every time you want something special from the kitchen, just take it. Its fine”. She wipes her hands on her pants, turns to the closet and then back to Cash. “Actually, can you give me a hand or a boost? There’s something really weird going on in this house today and I’m determined to find out what it is. I just need to get what I was looking for in this closet and I can’t reach”. 

[ PRIVATE F2F ]

Yeah? You think so? I.. why do you say that? 

Hey, now, I dunno about pro. It’s hard to describe, maybe? But it just feels right. There’s a good kind of ache after that settles in for a bit before wolf healin’ kicks in. And it’s challenging. I like challenges. It’s like figuring out a hard puzzle, you know? 

Yeah, yeah.. they’ve both been really great with it. I can tell with little things, like my stance automatically falling into place and being able to go a little longer. I’ve been trying the sparring thing, which feels a little weird, but I kind of like it. 

No worries. Oh, uh, no.. no surprises, really. I’ve been doing some one on one stuff with Presley, though, and that’s helping. I mostly just feel behind, which I kinda expected. 

I was only interested when the effort was hypothetical. I’ll just enjoy your work instead. Oh I don’t know yet - I’ll think of some orders in the moment.

You’re being very genuine tonight, I don’t know what to do with that. I thought I would be watching a drunk werewolf by now. I’ll leave you to leave you to mourn your friends.

I can tell. How many jumping jacks until I look like I can safely lift a truck? Well that opinion will stay between you and me, Cash Stone. I can’t say it isn’t the answer I wanted to hear. Promise?

So a true marriage with no divorce option. That sounds terrifying. Never agree to bond with a morally questionable witch, my first instinct would be to kill off an unsatisfactory bonded wolf and find another. Not me. You seemed positively overflowing with simmering anger the last time we spoke, I didn’t think your protection was in the cards. Honestly, I went four hundred years without getting desiccated, and then somehow wound up staked twice in one week? My assumption was that in some grand overtaking of the manor, I’d wind up with a similar fate rather quickly. No one seems to understand that Cristiana and I are old and powerful, but we were never fighters. And I think attending fight training alongside her might…..put everyone on edge.

What about The Crucible? If your mandated readings were more traditional. That accomplishes the same thing. Because it’s my name and I’ll never have another. Or maybe you weren’t forced into reading classic witch portrayals. Lots of jumping jacks instead? I’m not asking you to make a decision, just to give your honest opinion. I thought I’d finally run into a wolf who understood the pure freedom and fun of succumbing to duty and letting himself get bossed around by a witch.

You seem to have an awfully clear head about it all. Your heartbeat didn’t falter for any of that. For something that seems so coveted and sacred, there are very few bonded wolves running about. Something doesn’t add up there. Vampires are magic too, you know. I’ve wrapped my head around the necessity of what needed to be done with the others. But you claim to worship magic. We have it, just in a different package. Keep that in mind if the girls ever need protecting.

Seriously? There’s such a power in names. What would Werewolf McWerewolf from the Rowling books be if he had never actually been turned into a werewolf? I don’t think you can get saddled with a ridiculous name and not live up to it. Yes, even stronger feelings if they died because of the choices of witches. It make you wonder if any of it is worth it, if you’re just going to be consumed with witch hate upon your death. What a fair-weather follower. Not anymore. I didn’t feel like passing on any of her critiques to her daughter, she pestered me less afterwards. Actually, you know Victoria. Do you think she would mind if I just….banished Brigid a teensy tiny bit? Honestly, she wouldn’t be able to give me an honest answer, not with obligation standing in the way.