TIMING: Recent, immediately following this PARTIES: Dīs @disinfernus & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: An abandoned soap factory SUMMARY: Inge is stuck on a wall and calls Dīs for back up. They show and the pair is confronted with something new: vulnerability. CONTENT WARNINGS: None, but it's a little gorey.
They had all left. Siobhan included, leaving her hanging – literally – after having threatened her with some form of poetic justice. Inge was reeling from it, her anger so useless that it had soon been replaced with desperation. After a few failed attempts at getting herself off the sword (slicing open her hands in the process), she gave up and wept. Eventually she'd reached for her coat pocket, her body sliding across the sword and the gash growing wider. She'd scrolled through her contacts, wanting none of them to see her like this — bleeding, with mascara tracks down her cheeks and her failure on clear display. In the end, she'd asked for the person she wanted most. Dīs.
The phone call had been chaotic, her story a jumbled mess of anger and a final, small request: “Please come get me.” She'd sent her location and since then, she'd waited.
Not patiently. Head resting against the wall, eyes on that stupid lollipop that had dropped from her grasp when Emilio had crashed into the scene. The pain radiated continuously and without mercy, her body incapable of passing out even if her glittery blood continued to pour from her. No mercy for the woman who could not die or pass out — just an endless stretch of cold pain in her abdomen.
There was a sound. Inge would have held her breath if she was still mortal, but instead she just said some words to a god she no longer prayed to. And there they were — a sight that made something in her crack. Inge heaved a sob, “Take it out. Take it – take it out. Just — please.”
—
Manat had just lapped up a piece of butter laden potato from their index finger when Dīs got the phone call. She could hear the elevated tone through the speaker, hear the urgency in the woman’s voice and the confused yet appalled expression on the fae’s face. There was an interest in what was going on the moment her source of warmth was removed from under her and the shadow nymph stood with a quickness that rivaled a young snicker-snacker trying to escape her claws.
That is, until she realized that the plate they had been feasting from fell to the carpeted floor below and relinquished the skinned, baked potato that egged Manat to happily consume in full.
Dīs in turn ignored the plate and its subsequent mess, and made a quiet beeline from their office, through the casino floor and out the building. Their thoughts during the trek didn’t do the sight before them, when they did finally make it to Inge, any justice. They didn’t expect what they saw. Maybe they should have. Maybe they wouldn’t have hesitated the way that they did, with their hands stiff by their side despite the curling and nervous twitching of their long fingers. Their breath caught in their throat when they saw the gruesome sight, saw the glittering of thick, dark blood strewn about her feet and on her clothes and her hands and everywhere. And a sword, imbedded deep within her and the wall behind.
Their hesitation came for only a second as they assessed the situation, but it felt like they stood and stared at her for hours. Her desperation settled deep and heavy in their gut; it made them nervous, but it also prompted them into action.
“I will, I will, ” they promised in a soothing, yet absolutely perturbed tone. One of their hands lifted to quickly caress her cheek in comfort, and also to steady themself, but it didn’t take them long for their gaze to drop back to the sword sticking out of her body, as it was quite difficult to ignore.
There was an uncertainty in how to start, in where to start, and it was evident in their eyes despite the seriousness of their expression. She was undead, they couldn’t kill her anymore than she was already — but they could hurt her. They didn’t want that. But what other option was there? Their shadows were useless here. Using the end of their robe for leverage against the blood, they gingerly gripped the sword’s hilt. Dīs’ silent gaze met hers, as if to ask if she were ready, before giving the weapon one good pull.
Nothing happened.
—
She had tried to be enraged. Had tried to cling to that feeling of fury that she was deserving of. Siobhan had left her out to dry and perhaps worse, had let go of two hunters who posed serious problems in this town. This should have ended with two corpses on the factory floor, one disfigured and one having died a quick death, with Inge and the banshee wondering aloud what kind of drink they’d have to celebrate their victory. But in stead it had ended here, with a hunter’s blood stain on the floor and she stuck.
She deserved to be enraged and she had been for a while, shouting for a Siobhan who had gone. But anger was only good when it was fuel and so it was gone now, had left quite some time ago. The anger would not lessen the pain. The anger would not distract her from it if she had nowhere to put it. And so this was left: the tear tracks and the glitter and the continued sharpness of the blade.
And God, it was painful. There was no way to put into art how much it hurt. How limited her body was and yet how unlimited — how she could probably stay here for years and remain largely unchanged. Her face still fine and her hands still young, her legs still nimble and arms still capable of creation. She would not bleed out and even if she did, she would remain. Not to decay, but to be still.
But Dīs was there. They had come. They pressed a hand against her cheek and there was a tremble that Inge met with a trembling gaze of her own. She thanked God for the invention of cellphones, dreaded to think what might have happened if this had happened a few decades back. “You came,” she croaked. I’m sorry. Her apology would come later, if at all, but it existed. That she dragged them into this kind of mess, rather than the fun type. That they had to see her in such an ugly light.
Dīs was trying to keep the blood that wasn’t blood in her body, that astral substance that she barely understood. “It’s fine,” she said, “It will come back to me.” When she returned to that other plane of existence, the one that felt safer and where she was her proper self — where her body was not this limited, so easily rendered useless. She had asked Sanne once why they still felt pain, what the point of it was if their bodies only appeared human but were anything but. Sanne hadn’t known. She still didn’t know. There was no purpose to this kind of pain.
She watched Dīs reach for the sword and watched them tug and she braced herself for naught. Nothing happened. There was not even a shock of movement, a little nudge that seared into her side. “Harder,” she said. “Do what you have to. It’s okay. It’s okay, the blood — it’s not like — just do it, just get it out.”
—
You came. “I couldn’t leave you here.”
Had they not grown so close to her those past few months, they might not have. They didn’t want to think about their past shortcomings or their failings as a leader, but seeing Ingeborg in such a state forced them to face it head on. They remembered a moment like this, remembered the wild, terrified look in the other fae’s eyes and all the blood that seeped out of them. They remembered the absolute heartbreak on their face when Dīs had made the decision to flee instead of help.
The memory made their hands tremble, but their fast attachment to her willed them to fight through it. They didn’t want to lose her — at least, not because of their own cowardice.
It didn’t help that they felt somewhat responsible. They may have not been involved in the slightest and Inge was wholly capable of choosing her own paths — they would never deny her that — but they couldn’t help but to feel that their desire for revenge had been pushed too much onto her, that they somehow goaded her into fighting back and going for the kill instead of wanting peace and making her art. They didn’t like the bout of guilt they felt because of it.
That guilt, though, and her reassurance, gave Dīs a breath of confidence to try again. The hand on her cheek was removed and placed against the wall behind her with palm flat for leverage. Removing the sword from her corpse would, should, be easy — the wall? If that lack of movement meant anything, then not so much. With her okay and a steady breath, they tightened their grip and gave it another college try, this time really pulling with a small wiggle, even, hoping to dislodge the metal from the wall. Though their glamour may have reflected a healthy and somewhat athletic individual, their actual form was best served to hide and to obstruct, not for strength.
Another failure. Another disappointment.
Dīs was frustrated, dejected even, but that was nothing compared to whatever she probably felt. “It won’t — it’s not moving.” They stole a quick glance all around them, looking for something, anything, that might help until they noticed the vaulted ceilings. Their attention had been solely on Inge, not on the immense room that they were in. It gave them an idea. “I have something else to try—”
With their hand still on the hilt, their human form became mottled with splotches of shadow until their skin turned completely black. Their body also stretched and grew without pain, elongating into something lithe, wispy, with hints of thinned opacity at their edges. Their antlers were gone — shed and dropped some weeks ago so they didn’t need to worry about them brushing against the ceiling. But it made them horribly self-conscious, regardless. Their round, golden orbs for eyes, endless in their blinding light, were kept shut tight. They didn’t want to accidentally catch Inge in their rays — not again.
Blind, but immensely taller, the sword felt so much less intimidating now.
—
There had been a hunter who’d used this kind of thing to his advantage once. It was after Sanne had died, in those first furious years of carelessness and indulgence — Inge moving from place to place because there was always inevitably a slayer licking at her heels. This must have been in Switzerland, when she’d carried the name Nika Beinhacker and had accrued international fame that by now ceased to be. That slayer had pressed salt in the wounds and slipped knives into her body and had asked her how she liked such torment, because her victims liked hers probably just as much.
She’d gotten out and licked her wounds by herself and gone on to a different country with a different name and a few more scars. There had been no one to leave her anywhere because there had been no one to come — but things were different now.
Dīs had come, even if the sight and situation were ugly, even if it might have been easier for them to look away. They had come and were trying to pull out the sword. She didn’t want to think of the alternative, of sliding off that sword and ripping herself in near-twos (something that could one day become inspiration for an art piece, surely), she just wanted them to succeed. She just wanted their arms around her, a bed with clean sheets and no sword in her abdomen. She wanted a drink.
As the sword wiggled she hissed, her eyes slanting up and tears of pain jumping into them. It was for naught. The sword remained and so did she. She wondered if Cortez would come back to finish the job.
“Just keep trying,” she whined, her voice ugly and pitiful. Inge was in no state to worry about it, but she did distantly. What would they think of her? What did they make of this? Of her? Tear-streaked and helpless, no longer that vicious thing she had been when repeatedly entering Rhett’s mind to play around with his nightmares. Ugly, even — this wasn’t desirable. This was weakness, on display.
But they gave no suggestion of disgust or disappointment, were trying in a way that seemed determined. In a way that suggested that perhaps she deserved it. She watched them fade into the shape they truly were, the one she’d only seen whenever they’d fallen asleep in a bed they shared. Something beautiful and ominous, something of nightmares and dark evenings. Dīs kept their eyes closed, because they knew by now that those glowing orbs were enough to stun her — but Inge longed to be able to look at them.
They were twice as large now, towering over her with that great dark statue of a body and she braced herself. “Do it.” It had to work. It had to work. She didn’t want to call another to see her like this. She didn’t want to slide herself off the sword and undo half of herself. It had to work. Her voice sounded strained as she repeated herself: “Do it.”
—
It had to come out now. That may have been their confidence talking, but Dīs really felt like they could get the weapon out now that they had height on their side. Third time’s the charm — or so people liked to say. They weren’t sure what else they would do, though, if it didn’t work, but they supposed they had to keep trying anyway. What good was living a long life if you didn’t learn from your mistakes? So they had to stay and see this through, one way or another. Running wasn’t an option anymore. They did have the time to give, after all; Inge was worth that.
Though they couldn’t see her, her determination to be rid of the thorn in her gut was palpable. Determined and desperate. It fueled them to try again, despite the sounds of her pain. Just a moment and it would be over — that was the hope. They fixed their grip on the now comically small sword in their hand; their fingers overlapped slightly around the blade, cutting them, but that didn’t matter right now. They wouldn’t be happy about it, but they would heal. Inge had the worst of it.
With the green light, Dīs started again. Because pulling straight out worked so great last time, they tried to wiggle the tip of the sword out from the metal wall. It was wedged in there deeply by a strength that the nymph would never possess, but after a few too long moments of resistance and small cuts to the inside of her body, there was give. And it kept giving, until that resistance seemed to release suddenly, like the pop of pressure from a balloon. Because they hadn’t expected it, the sword was pulled from her faster than what they would have liked, slicing through her abdomen until it was clean out the way it came.
The nymph staggered back from the continued momentum, but regained themself, realizing that Inge was free. They dropped the bloodied sword and as it clambered to the factory floor, they wordlessly started to shrink and disappear from their shadowed form so they could once again see her — and the blade’s aftermath.
—
They were doing what was needed. While Dīs closing their eyes was a gesture of care and concern, the rest of what needed to be done would seem opposite. But it had to be done. The sword had to be moved to be pulled out, the damage increased in order for her to be released from her place to the wall. There was a metaphor there, but Inge cared little for them in the moment — all she cared about was keeping her wails of pain to a minimum as not to make Dīs stop, as to not make them worry, as to not have them perceive her as weak.
But it hurt. Left, right, left right — the sword moved more and more and while every bit of movement was good news it was accompanied with a cut in that strange body of hers. She was again now, against better judgment, trying to just get through it with her jaws clenched. And then it gave. It rushed out of her, a slash of cold metal through her undead abdomen. It was quick, in the end.
Her legs gave. What pitiful things. Inge slipped onto her knees and clutched her abdomen, putting pressure against the gash. She wanted to disappear, to move into the astral where she had no proper bodily form, where she wasn’t shedding glitter everywhere. If it wasn’t for Dīs, she might have, but in stead she slowly looked up and watched them return to their usual form.
“Thank you,” she exhaled. Her lungs didn’t work but there was still that relief in her voice, that breathy quality to her voice. Inge tried to push herself up, leaving glittery handprints on the stone floor as she groaned. “I thought —” She shook her head, grit her teeth. “We should go. Did you drive? We should go.” She wanted away from here. From the pool of Rhett’s blood on the ground. From the mark of the sword in the wall. She clutched her side, whimpered, “Take the sword.”
—
It was just for a moment. Just one long, agonizing moment. It wouldn’t last, it couldn’t. And it didn’t. For Dīs, small passages of time went by in a blink, but it felt like so long already since they had first arrived, since they had first set their eyes on the mess Inge had managed to get herself into. She was lucky she was already dead. Things would have gone horribly if not and truthfully, they didn’t think they would be able to forgive themself if they did.
For now, they ignored the start of a spiraling thought, kept their mouth pursed but expression softer, as they moved with an affection that most would find uncharacteristic to help Inge from her spot on the wet, dingy floor. Her ‘thank you’ sent a jolt through them and for half a second, they mentally paused while they slipped an arm beneath her own to ease her up. Their skin seemed to vibrate with the temptation. “You’re welcome… But please don’t do that again.” There was the faint whiff of a beg in their tone, one they didn’t even notice — to think of her getting into some sort of trouble made them feel… Uncomfortable.
"I — no, I did not. I don’t own a vehicle, they’re — I can call for one. Where do you want to go, caelesta?” It would be quick, easy, and a necessary evil to get Inge the help that she needed. They looked at her hand that pressed against the fresh, oozing wound. Desperately needed, they surmised. Her want of the sword was not unusual; a trophy, of sorts, one that symbolized her survival — her victory. At least, that’s how Dīs framed it. They couldn’t be sure how Inge felt about the whole thing, other than furious.
They wrapped a hand around the hilt of the sword and picked it up; it felt a bit heavier now that they were smaller, but at least it was out of her. At least the worst of it was over. “You’re intending to keep this?”
—
She realized it only now, what she had done. Those two innocent words, so easily spilled especially to someone you carried gratitude for — she looked up at Dīs when she heard his tone. “I won’t,” she said. But she couldn’t have said I appreciate you dragging that sword from my undead body or that was nice of you to do that, now could she have? She rested some of her weight against them, glad for the support that was a body and not a sword.
Inge wondered how Dīs had come here, but figured they must have their own particular way of travel. She had hers, after all. “To yours,” she said, worried about her own place. Who knew how tightly knit these hunters were. Who knew if someone would come knocking at her door, her address slipped to them by that useless Owen. “I’ll — I’ll go by astral, alright? It’s fastest.” It was least painful. No dragging her feet, no laying in a car driven by someone she didn’t trust while spilling non-blood on the cushions. No earthly body to be limited by.
She gave a glance to the sword, some intricate and pretty thing. Not quite her style, but she’d be damned if she left it behind. It was hers by right. No way that Cortez would get it back now. She’d hang it somewhere in her house, another bit of proof of her continued survival, her stubborn refusal to die. “Yes. The person it belonged to is not deserving.”
Perhaps it was reckless. Petty, that was for certain. But Inge was not above pettiness and she was furious, so it would have to do. “Can I meet you there, at yours? It will — it would be better for me to travel through the astral.” She wanted to remain close to Dīs, yes, but she wanted gone from here. “And then you can stay with the shadows.” Untraceable, both of them. It was a gift she didn’t intend on wasting.
—
I won’t. This might have been easier to deal with, emotionally, if they had locked her into a word bind like their very being willed them to do, but to think back on their own family for doing similar things to them — that would have its own repercussions, ones that Dīs couldn’t give to their kin because they were, well, all dead. They knew what control could do. They wanted it, craved it, but not to Inge. They couldn’t. They hoped they could believe her, but in Wicked’s Rest, there was no shortage of things looking to kill you. No shortage of death.
They offered her hand a squeeze in response, themself thankful for the understanding — at least. A small smile followed suit, just at the thought of her traveling through the astral plane. She truly was a wonder, wasn’t she? “Alright. I think you will beat me there, though.” The shadows were… effective, in their own way, but there were restrictions. They needed a clear path, an expansive and connective line of shadow to pass through.
Dīs knew the sword was going to add a level of difficulty. It was going to be… obvious in certain places. The shadows acted merely as a blanket and as devoid of light as they could make it, it wouldn’t be perfect. Part of them would have to remain solid in order for this to work. “No. No they don’t,” they agreed, relishing in her decision. They had left the sword there, after all — why not keep it? Payment for their stupidity and cowardice.
“Of course you can. Go.” Please. While they held the sword, their free hand graced the underside of her chin and thumb pad ran along the bottom edge of her bottom lip. “I’ll be right behind you.”
—
The contact was warm and grounding and Inge found a kind of certainty in it that she had been unsure of before. She was not a sight worth seeing now, and there were more ugly things in the room. Drying blood. The proof that something better unsaid had gone down here. And though she wasn’t sure what Dīs and her were or what she wanted them to be — she knew that they wouldn’t look at her differently for it now.
With concern, perhaps. With a wish for her not to be hurt again, too. With the softness of their hand on hers and then on her face. Inge didn’t have the energy to search for the meanings within it all and perhaps it wasn’t something that had to be done in the first place. Maybe these things could just be and she could accept them when hurt. “I’ll certainly beat you,” she said, voice a little hoarse, “But I’ll wait.”
She pressed a hand against their chin, the stubble familiar under her fingers. They were mirror images for a moment, holding the other’s face. And though she was ripped open, though the pain was making it hard for her to stand on her two legs, she felt safe.
“Alright,” she said, “Alright. I’ll see you soon.” Inge dropped her hand from their face and waited for them to let her go too, her body finally untethered from all earthly ties. She looked at them for one last time and then went into the astral, where there was no gash in her body, where she could look down at Dīs and make sure they would be okay too.
