He was so used to the constant stream of magic in Below that when they'd walked into something similar upon entering the forest, it had simply felt familiar rather than a warning.
Another WIP snips from Bluesky!
The moment D closed his eyes and felt all the Threads around them, understanding hit him as fast and firmly as C's slap to the back of his head when he had nodded off in class. He was jerked into full alertness as sharply as if he had just woken up.
He was so used to the constant stream of magic in Below that when they'd walked into something similar upon entering the forest, it had simply felt familiar rather than a warning. He rubbed the base of his left horn in irritation as he opened his eyes. “We've unknowingly entered a Slip.”
“A… Slip?” Holly questioned, looking at the trees around them as she took a sideways step closer to him. “You mean like the—the Underground?”
“Underground? Ah, no, not Below. It’s a different kind of fae's realm—what on earth are you doing?”
Holly had jumped forward and reached up with both of her hands to cover his mouth with an expression of alarm in her wide grey eyes. D, however, was just a little too tall and a little too quick to jump backwards in a completely baffled panic that she'd even thought to touch him.
How—why don't I inspire even the tiniest bit of terror in her?? Or at least the barest amount of—is she actually shushing me?
The smaller woman quickly gave up on trying to physically silence him and glared at him instead, putting a finger against her own lips.
“Don't say their name!” she hissed. She closed her eyes and shook her head, resting one hand on her temple. “You—you don't even know that much?”
D put one hand on his hip and straightened his long coat with the other. “Perhaps you have forgotten what I am?”
“The—the horns are a nice hint to remind me,” Holly retorted with unexpected sarcasm, her pink lips twisting in an irritated pout. The energetic expression—so different from any she had shown yet—was bizarrely amusing to him, but he was successfully able to prevent it from showing on his face. “Does—does being adjacent to them mean you get to just—just wantonly anger them?”
“I'm not ‘adjacent,’ I am one of them. Demon is simply a type of...” D trailed off as he glanced around at the silent forest. Even his vision couldn't pierce the darkness between the trees, and the wild Threads tangled around them made it impossible to sense if anything was out there, watching or listening to them. He turned back to Holly, lowering his voice. “I won't say it if you aren't comfortable, but I personally have no particular problem being referred to as such.”
“Oh...” Holly's fiery emotions deflated from her quickly, and she flinched backwards. Her shoulders raised as she tensed, as if she were the one who had fallen asleep in class and was waiting to be physically reprimanded. An unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling twisted in D's chest as he observed her.
It faded so quickly, but… For just a moment, she seemed more… more alive.
“I—I'm sorry for being so… so presumptuous... I—I didn't know that.” Holly's eyes flitted around the dark forest surrounding him. She bit her lower lip again before her grey eyes flicked back up to his. “Still, it can't hurt to be—to be cautious, in case anyone nearby doesn't feel the—the same way though, right?”
"That won't be—" D paused just as he had begun to raise his hand to wave it dismissively. He clenched it as he lowered it. He could almost feel the ghost of the strength he'd held before those Threads had been stripped from him.
No. Nowadays… that will be a problem.
