Characters: Daniel, mention of Cat ( @zoetic-tome )
Setting: The Secret World
The copper smell of blood and the harsh fumes of smoke fill the air as lances of blood and bursts of hellfire streak across the room. One, two, three--three rapid shots slam into the target, one right after the other. Three shots, three strikes, three solid hits leaving behind more scorch and strike marks to join the numerous others he had left already today. But not good enough. Not fast enough.
Daniel exhales a heavy breath, sweat beading upon his forehead, then he lifts his hands again; roiling hellfire flares around the left, coiling around his fingers and occasionally flaring outwards, like it is fighting to escape his grip, while the fingers of his right trace dark burgundy runes as blood drips from his palm. The tip of his tongue is caught between his lips as his brow furrows, his concentration split between keeping the flames in an iron grip and keeping the runes he needed precise and stable. Elementalism and blood; two very different forms of magic, with two very different forms of control.
And yet here he was, managing to keep both in check. For now. For long enough that he can lift his hands, and send crackling hellfire and boiling blood hurtling forward to strike as one.
And then he doubles over, his hands resting on his knees as he gasps for breath. This was hard. Harder than training with Cat, where it had felt like he had anima to burn for days. This was using just his own power, and it showed just how far he had to go to even try to rival her.
Well. One of the many ways he knew that.
With each spell that crackled and sizzled and burned through the air, he knew just how far he had to even begin to try and catch up. The point is only made more explicit when his next attempt to cast two spells at once leaves his legs feeling like jelly.
But rather than be discouraged by that knowledge, he takes it as a challenge. He had something to strive for, a standard to set himself against, and that alone would have been enough to light that competitive spark. The fact that he was having to make up for years of training that he felt he had been cheated out of was only extra incentive. Incentive, and spite.
He would be better. He had to be better. Had to show them all what he was capable of. Had to show him what he had missed out on.
Even if that means pushing himself until he's covered in sweat and gasping for breath like he had just run a marathon. Until he is forced to sit down heavily and guzzle down cool water from the bottle that Tempo rolls over to him before scurrying up to perch on his shoulder.
"I'm all right, Tempo," he says as he scritches at the Totally Normal Ferret's ears. "Just tired."
Tempo squeaks at this, his head tilting a little to one side as he eyes his warlock closely, then pat pats at the side of his face.
"Yes, I know I'm pushing myself, but I have to. I have almost a decade to catch up on, and we don't have time for that. I'll just spend some time down at the gate later; it's fine." It was not, in fact, probably fine, but here he was.
He sighs softly as Tempo pats more at his face, then flashes his familiar a small smile. "If I get you some cheese bread, will that reassure you?" he asks, which gets several squeaks and jumps from the Normal Ferret.
"All right, give me a few minutes, and we'll get cheese bread," he says as he continues to scritch reassuringly at Tempo's ears.
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Characters: Daniel, mention of Cat ( @zoetic-tome )
Setting: The Secret World
Warnings: Animal Death
He is running.
His heart pounds in his ears, his breath comes in shallow gasps as he flies down endless corridor after endless corridor, their cinder block gray walls only broken by locked metal doors and the hum of the fluorescents above only broken by the sound of his breathing and the slap of his feet against the concrete.
There is something missing. No, not something. Someone. A familiar presence is not where it should be, and that knowledge causes his guts to twist with dread.
And then dread becomes horror as he catches a whiff of aspartame. The cloying sweetness of it sticks in the back of his throat, leaving behind a bitter aftertaste. He knows that smell, that taste. He knows it too well.
"Tempo!" Daniel shouts desperately, his voice echoing through the underground corridors. "Where are you?!"
From somewhere up ahead, so far ahead that he cannot make out it's source, he swears that he hears a sharp squeak. The sound spurs him on, even as his lungs burn and muscles ache. Even as that smell becomes stronger.
Even as pitch black tar starts to bubble up between the cracks in the floor and the walls.
If anything, it causes him to run faster.
Even as more of that tar that is not tar seeps and drips and pools on the ground, even as he is forced to start stepping through puddles of the stuff to continue onwards. It sticks to his boots; each step becomes a struggle as he has to fight to free his feet from it's grip.
But he can't stop. He can't. There is another squeak up ahead, higher pitched. Pained.
He keeps going, even as the cold stone gray of the concrete tunnel gives way to nothing but black seeping from the ceiling, the walls, the floor.
Until, finally, he sees something gray. Gray, and small, and covered in fur, and curled into a ball.
"Tempo!" he calls out, rushing towards the curled up ferret. "Tempo, we need to get out of here. We--" he starts, only for the words to die in his throat as Tempo's eyes meet his own.
But that is not Tempo, not anymore. The thing that stares at him has no friendliness, no warmth; just malevolent hunger.
He does not have time to react before what was Tempo lunges forward, before teeth sink deep into his neck--
Daniel awakes gasping for breath. One hand flies up to his neck, the skin unbroken, the other rises to his mouth, to suppress the scream that rises in his throat. Dark eyes look frantically around the dimly lit room, landing first on the spill of pink hair resting upon the pillow nearby; Cat had barely stirred in her chemical slumber. And then they travel to the end of the bed, where a nest had been made from spare blankets and pillows, and where he could just make out a fuzzy gray head and the sound of soft ferret snores.
His shoulders slump as tension drains. Just a dream. Just a stupid, stupid dream.
His bare feet thump lightly on the floor as he slips from the bed and pads his way over to the bathroom. After making sure the door is firmly shut, he goes over to the sink and splashes cool water on his sweat-soaked face.
Tempo was safe. He was not infected. He would not end up like poor Squeaks, with his feral eyes and chittering teeth ready to bite at anything that moved outside of his mouse cage. He would not end up a broken smear of blood and fur.
"I won't let it happen," he declares to himself as he gazes at his own reflection in the mirror, and does his best to ignore the way his hands shake as he reaches for his toothbrush to try and wash the remembered taste of Filth out of his mouth.
The wind howled around him as Daniel held his breath and carefully edged his way along the narrow ledge. Almost there, almost done. The spray can hissed as he added another stroke of paint to the art upon the wall--the art that no one, besides him, had asked for or intended to be there.
But that wasn't his problem. The more bold and daring the work, the more his name would get around. And putting up an image of hellfire and a demon in the area around the courthouse would definitely get attention.
Unfortunately, that required not getting caught.
And that meant that, when he started to see the blue and red lights coming in his direction, it was time to go.
Stuffing his paint back in his backpack, he draws in a deep breath--and jumps. He hits the roof of the nearby building hard, but there is a smug smile on his lips as he darts across the roof, then slips over onto the next, ducking behind ac units and the feeble attempts at a rooftop garden.
He had only gotten caught once. And he wasn't going to let it happen again.
Confidence turns what could have been a terrifying situation into a thrilling one as he darts and weaves his way down to the city streets and their comforting anonymity.
The graffiti wouldn't stay up forever, but while it did, everyone would know what sort of risks he took to put it up there.
"So just how long are we going to sit here in silence, darling?"
It was a valid question, as far as Juno was concerned; the pair of them had been sitting in silence for what had to over five minutes at this point, with only the faint sound of traffic going by outside to break the monotony.
"Cat just said that I had to go see you. She didn't say anything about having to actually talk to you," the young man with dark hair and burning eyes sitting across from them declares, his arms folded stubbornly across his chest.
Juno just laughs softly at this, allowing both the sharp words and harsh glare sent their way to roll of their back like water. "Oh please, darling, we both know you can do better than the most basic of pedantries. But more importantly--" they continue, lifting a finger to cut off the rebuttal. "It's your hour. I'm not going to make you talk; that never actually works."
"And besides," Juno continues, flashing the surly young man a wry smile. "I'm getting paid a salary. So it doesn't really matter to me whether we have a conversation or not; I just thought that you might be getting bored."
Daniel rolls his eyes and scoffs at this as he looks away. Not that there was that much to look at; this space was new and clearly only half unpacked, the chair he was sitting in placed at a terrible angle to catch sight of the park outside. He was, actually, quite bored, but boredom was also currently waging war with his stubbornness.
And just when Juno thought that Daniel's stubbornness would finally be what won out, he finally speaks up.
"...Cat said you looked like a demon," he declares as he looks over towards the changeling. "Not really impressed so far though." Which, honestly, was a rude way of phrasing the matter, but also wasn't really wrong; Juno did look like an ordinary human. Pretty with ambiguous features, but definitely human.
And not currently happy, if the look on their face was any indication. For their nose was scrunched as if Daniel had just waived sour milk under it.
"I had a feeling you would ask about that," they admit, in a tone that suggests that they were disappointed but not surprised. "Would it make it easier, if I didn't look human? Would you feel better talking to me like that?"
Daniel instantly narrows his eyes at this, and Juno starts to suspect that they might have made a tactical error with the way that his hackles have raised.
"If you're going to try to make some salient point about how I feel about humanity, don't fucking bother. It's not about whether it's 'comfortable'." And oh hear the disdain in his voice. "I'm just curious. And it only feels fair, if you want me to open up about myself, for you to do the same," he adds loftily.
Juno presses their lips into a thin line as they weight up the look that Daniel was giving them, then they sigh softly and lift a hand to their face. They tug it in a downwards motion like they were removing a mask, and as they do so their features shift. Their tumble of brown curly locks shifts to a brick red, their skin shifting to a cherry tone. Their ears become pointed, their fingers clawed, their forehead bedecked with horns. And behind them, a pointed tail lashes unhappily.
"Better?" they inquire as they stare over at Daniel with a cool smile, who in turn stares right back for a few seconds before speaking.
"Hunh. You really do look like a Hollywood demon, not a proper one," he says, still keeping his arms folded as he does so.
At this, Juno sighs and does their own eye roll. "Yes, yes, I am aware, darling, you really don't need to rub it in; I didn't get much of a choice in the matter."
That seems to cause Daniel to pause, dark brows rising a fraction as he looks over towards the changeling. "You didn't?"
"No," they say impatiently. "Of course I didn't. My Keeper decided it would be funny if I looked like a succubus. They were very into the whole pop culture hell thing, and since they wanted me to sleep with them--no, not like that!" they add quickly as they see the expression on the warlock's face. "Literally sleep with. In their dreams."
"Oh," Daniel says, his lips drawing down into a deep frown as he looks away. "Well that fucking sucks."
"It does," they agrees. "But I'm free, and they can't touch me anymore. So you don't need to feel sorry for me," they add as they eye the warlock lightly.
Who promptly scoffs and rolls his shoulders. "I wasn't feeling sorry for you, I just know how much that sort of thing fucking sucks." He then pauses, then grimaces as he realizes what he had said, even as Juno raises their eyebrows.
"So who was it that hurt you then, that you know what it feels like?" they ask, choosing their words very carefully and deliberately. They could already tell that the warlock was having second thoughts, and they did not want them to retreat back into stubborn silence. "What did they do that's got you so pissed off?"
Daniel scoffs at this, his eyes flicking away as his posture stiffens. "I've got a fucking list with a lot of names on it."
Daniel narrows his eyes as he sizes up Juno, who was wearing a small, taunting smile. Like he was challenging the warlock. And, well, it was rare that he would turn down a challenge.
"Fine. But it's a lot. So don't say I didn't warn you. So it started with my fucking patron..." he begins, in a rant that would definitely take what was left of the hour.
The student life building stood tucked away in one corner of the Unversity of Cascade campus, a regular hangout and hotspot for generations of students that had passed through it's halls. And tonight was no exception; as the sun set over campus, more and more people started to file into the building, filling the air with conversation, laughter, and the frantic typing of keys as last minute essays were churned out.
In other words, just a regular Spring tuesday.
What was slightly unusual, at least today, was how one of those who had been frantically writing up the answers to homework had now paused, eyes narrowing as they tilt their head a touch to one side. He could have sworn that he had heard a screech of metal. An all too familiar screech of metal.
But no, that didn't make sense. Not here. Not in this place.
Daniel shakes his head a little, doing his best to dismiss the thoughts as he turns back to his history homework. And for a few minutes all is calm and (relatively) quiet, enough that he can just start to believe that he was hearing things when it happens again. The shock of it is enough to cause him to snap the pen he was holding, his head jerking up as he looks frantically around.
"Who the fuck--" he starts, only for his eyes to narrow as they fall upon a nearby cluster of people lounging upon the old, beat up blue couches. One person in particular stood out, for they were the only one with a steam deck. A steam deck, playing at what had to be full volume, and with no headphones in sight.
Daniel rises to his feet and starts to stalk over. He feels himself grit his teeth as his gaze falls onto the screen. For while he hasn't played the games himself, he's been unfortunate enough to see enough videos suggested in his youtube feed. Five Nights at Freddy's.
As he watches an animatronic in the shape of mangled bear appears on the screen, and that horrible noise sounds again. And for a moment he feels as if he can't breathe. He's not sure when he makes the decision to move, he only becomes aware of it as he starts forward and shoves the guy's shoulder. Hard.
"Hey, asshole!" he snarls. "Get a pair of fucking headphones! Some of us are trying to fucking work!"
The guy with the steam deck looks more stunned than anything else. "Dude, the fuck is your problem?!?" he asks as he turns to stare at the five foot ten bundle of anger glaring daggers at him.
"You fucking heard me!" Daniel shouts at him as he flings his own pair of cheap earbuds towards the other student, which bounce off against his chest. "Use them if you're going to play that. Jackass," he adds as he whirls on his heel.
Without waiting for an answer, he whirls on his heel, stuffs his papers roughly into his bag, and storms out into the cool evening air.
But it doesn't help. Being outside doesn't help. He still feels trapped. The eyes of every person passing by burn as they all look at him. He is sure that one of them says something to him as they go for the door he is blocking but the words don't make sense. And it's not like he can hear them over the pounding of his heart. Get away. He has to get away.
He makes it about halfway around the building, firmly out of sight of the main walkways, before he sinks down onto the concrete.
Breathe. He can't breathe. Can't seem to draw air into his lungs. Sweat beads on his skin as he holds his head in shaky hands. Why can't he breathe?
Squeak. Suddenly he feels something furry brushing against one of his arms. He doesn't bother to look down; instead he curls more in on himself, wrapping around the small, fuzzy ferret as he buries his face against him.
Tempo was here. And that meant he wasn't back there. He wasn't back in the cold, endless underground corridors. He wasn't actually hearing the screech of metal as it snapped through bone. He wasn't actually smelling the stink of fresh blood.
It meant that Osiris was dead, not dying. And that the metal monster that had done it was several years and several hundred miles away.
Eventually his senses stop whirling enough that he can notice the gentle pat pat of a paw against his cheek.
"I'm okay Tempo," he says quietly as he opens his eyes and finds himself looking down into his familiar's. Which were currently very skeptical at that statement. "I--well, no, okay, not really." The tears prickling at the corners of his eyes said that much.
"I do think that's enough studying here for one day. Come on, lets head home." Not that he was very likely to get anything done at this point, but it was better than sitting out here as the world grew dark.
At least there he wouldn't have witnesses if those memories decided to surface again.
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Characters: Daniel
Setting: The Secret World
Warnings: Emotional abuse, religious abuse
The sun beat down on an unremarkable street in the middle of nowhere Kansas as a school bus pulled up to one of the dozens of unremarkable suburban houses. A seemingly unremarkable young man, maybe fourteen or fifteen at most, stepped off the bus, stared over towards one of the houses, and let out a long sigh muffled by the sound of the engine revving and the bus pulling away.
And yet the young man doesn't move. He instead stares glumly towards the house as he tries to will his feet to move, and finds them lacking. Because he knew what awaited him, and he knew that he would rather be anywhere else in the world. It was always bad on the days that Robin stayed late at school, and Robin always stayed late at school now. He didn't understand how she could so easily get involved in everything and become friends with everyone, and yet she managed it everywhere they went.
Which left him all alone to face the music.
Without bothering to think he reaches up to run his hand through his hair, then grimaces; instead of the long, flowing black locks that he was used to, there was only the rough texture of a buzzcut. Another sigh leaves his lips as he walks up the driveway, his feet dragging. The gentle wind blows into his face, warming his warm, tawny brown skin, but it does not comfort him; there was none of the salt air that he had grown accustomed to when their last move had taken them to Hawaiʻi, and it was a stark reminder of how different things were here. There was no freedom to be found on a surfboard riding the crashing waves, and the sanctuary of the library was a 20 minute drive instead of a 20 minute walk, putting it tantalizingly out of reach. He was stuck. And there was no getting around it.
Swallowing hard, he steps up to the door and reluctantly swings it open, eyes and ears open as he subconsciously braces for the moment when he is noticed. But it (and the cutting words likely to come with it) does not come, and that causes his brow to furrow as his frown deepens. The house was warm, almost sweltering, and there was an odd noise coming from the living room. Someone was humming but there was also something else. A crackling? Like a fire...
Creeping past the still unpacked boxes, Daniel slips into the living room, and the source of the noise quickly became apparent: a blonde woman stood in front of a fire burning merrily in the fireplace, humming a hymn that he had tried his best to forget. Beside her was a stack of books, and even now and then she reached down to tear a handful of pages from one of them, all while the carved stone figure on the cross stared blindly down from his place on the mantle.
His hair prickles on the back of his neck as unease settles into his stomach like a stone. Something about this felt off, triggered the alarm bells that had been growing more finely tuned in his mind with each passing year. But he also couldn't just walk away either; the safety of his room lay beyond the living room, down the hallway.
So he grits his teeth, draws in a deep breath, and starts forward.
"Not even going to say hello or tell me how school went, Daniel?"
Shit. He grimaces and counts silently under his breath, before he reluctantly turns and faces his mother, though her own bright blue eyes do not travel to his face but instead remain on her work.
"Why bother, you don't actually give a fuck," he declares as the fingers of his hands curl tightly around the straps of his backpack.
"Language, Daniel," Karen says sharply. "I've told you a dozen times that I do not tolerate that sort of vulgarity under my roof, and I will tell your father." At this Daniel rolls his eyes; he had stopped caring about his father's lectures a long time ago, and another one wasn't going to change his mind.
"And I do actually care a great deal about your school day," she continues as she finally looks up at him, bright blue eyes gleaming manically with reflected firelight. "Especially when one of your teachers decides to call me."
Daniel feels a sensation uncomfortably akin to ice dropping into the pit of his stomach at this. "What...?"
"Yes, they were very concerned about you. Something about one of your drawings, how it depicted--well, I believe she said something terrible and disgusting like a devil. A nude devil," she adds, her sharp nose wrinkling in open contempt and disgust. "I had to reassure her that I do not tolerate such things in my home."
That cold chill feels as if it is growing as he finally leans to one side, the better to see what, exactly, his mother has been using as kindling.
"Hey, what the fuck!" he exclaims as he darts forward, trying to rip the book from her hands. "That's my sketchbook!"
"And it is full of wicked, sinful things!" Karen snaps back as she flings the book fully into the fire before he can reach it. Daniel stares in horror as the pages start to curl and blacken, before he looks over towards her, his teeth bared.
"We have talked about this, Daniel," she continues, her voice sharp. "Your father might believe that it is better for you to come to God when you are ready, but that does not mean that I will close my eyes and blindly tolerate whatever it is that you have been doing with these--these disgusting pictures and books. Not while you are living with us."
"Yeah, well I fucking wish I wasn't!" he snaps back, putting extra emphasis deliberately on the curse. "I wish you had just left me down in goddamn Hawaiʻi!"
And with that he spins on his heel and starts to walk away. He can hear the sharp inhale of breath, knows that it will be worse if he doesn't stay for the grounding and the lecture about "not taking the Lord's name in vain", but he doesn't stop. He does not even pause when he hears the sharp "Daniel!" behind him, for he will not give her the satisfaction of seeing the hot tears that prickle at the corners of his eyes fall.
His father had only so recently told him to toughen up if he was going to be a man, and he was going to take Natano's advice, if only so that he could spare himself from knowing that Karen had seen him cry.
She does not even bother to follow him as he stomps over to the front door, opens it and then slams it closed behind him. His knuckles gleam white as he clutches at his bag and starts to walk. Where, exactly, he has no idea; the destination is less important than simply not being here.
Not that he ultimately had anywhere else to go. Unlike Robin, he hadn't made any friends here, nowhere he could hide, and so he would have to return eventually. But he could delay it as long as he could, could wander the neighborhood until he found a few scraggly bushes and trees at the edge of a neighbor's yard that could shield him from view as he sunk down and let the angry tears fall.
At least he could cling onto his pride. It was the only thing he could cling onto when it felt as if he was all alone in the world.
The elevator doors slide open with a soft ding as Daniel makes his way up to the workroom. Though calling the cavernous space a 'room' was honestly a bit of a stretch; it was more like the entire apartment floor had been given over to the collection of strange artifacts and esoteric bits of equipment that any mage worth their spellbook would drool over.
He skirts around the edge of one of the inlaid ritual circles, heading over towards the collection of books and scrolls. He has not had nearly enough time to peruse them as he would like (they have been far, far too busy), but he had given the room enough of a cursory once over that he knew that there had to be a few spare scroll cases lying about. And sure enough, there was one, conveniently sitting on one of the shelves.
He picks up the leather cylinder, the corners of his lips upturning in a knowing smile as he spots the runes already inlaid on it; spells of protection, of containment. Perfect. Letting it rest on the worktable, he then gets out the scroll which he had hastily put into his bag for the short walk up here.
It was old, yellowed, and now with burned and blackened edges. Since it was rolled up he could no longer see the writing that had scrawled across it, but he doesn't need to; it was hard to forget the words, how they had hurt his head to even look at. How the last of them had tapped into a deep fear that he couldn't even place.
Even so, it took much of his willpower to not reopen the thing, to ask more questions that he knew would only hurt. And honestly, the fact that he knew that there wouldn't be proper answers was the only thing that stopped him. Asking about the local Engine was one thing; asking about the schemes of the Host was, apparently, another.
Though even that thought is enough to make his stomach roil. For he did not understand the significance of the words, but it didn't matter; it was connected to Samuel and what he had done to him, and that alone was enough to bring up those barely suppressed feelings of anger.
But that wasn't an uncommon feeling for him these days. More and more he felt like he stood at at precipice, and all it would take was one stray thought to send him hurtling over the edge. And in a way the fall was tempting, if only so that he could lash out with the turmoil of feelings that raged inside of him.
But no. There was no time for falls, for break downs, for trying to process years of betrayal and lies. The world was ending. And they had to do something about it.
So he slips the scroll into it's case, snaps it closed, and turns on his heel to head out of the workroom. It was time to get to work.
It was common knowledge amongst those inclined towards the study of magic that blood was a powerful medium. Runes, sigils, rituals--all potentially benefited from the application of sanguine power.
Even a young warlock, eighteen or nineteen at most, whose teachers had been stolen grimoires and hidden sites on the dark web, had figured out that fact: blood was power.
And so it was the medium he went to when designing a new spell.
Lines and whorls spread across the ground as he uses his blood as ink, the tip of one finger seeping crimson. And when the groundwork is done, he sits back on his heels, and draws in a deep breath. He begins to chant, in a language once used everyday on the streets of ancient Rome, and the runes blaze to life.
And keep blazing, their light burning brighter and brighter until it is near blinding, and Daniel has to stop and turn his head away as he covers his eyes.
Of course, this breaks the spell. The smell of soot and sulfur fills the air as he looks towards the circle and the ashes contained within it. But that's not surprising. No, instead he stares down at his hands.
Blood held power, yes. But it had never held that much power for him.
"So what the fuck was that?" he breathes as he looks over towards his work. But the crimson runes just lay still and silent.
