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Day 25 : After the dissection, there were parts of him everywhere, organs divided into jars of formaldehyde and stored haphazardly, scattered across the lab. It was gonna take ages to put him back together.
Tucker: Man... I have to study for the test tomorrow...
Danny: Oh Im SoOoOoO sOrRy! I will make sure to request they wait untill the weekend next time!!!
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fixed point
“Would you like to know how much time you have left?” Clockwork asked.
Danny had never wished more that he’d died in something with pockets so he could hide his shaking hands. The endless ticking in the lair—hundreds of hands TICK TICK TICK -ing in perfect sync—had never sounded so ominous.
“I—” his voice rattled his throat, a raw thing “—I didn’t think you gave spoilers.”
With an absent spin of their staff, Clockwork shifted from adult to child and said nothing. Dread hung heavy in the air, Clockwork’s unblinking stare piercing through it all. Danny pointedly did not make eye contact. Instead focusing on the oscillating hands of the wall behind them.
He took a breath.
“Will it make it easier, knowing?”
Clockwork blinked once, face betraying nothing.
Dammit.
He wasn’t an idiot. There was really only one outcome of this conversation. Just as there had been the day he’d first pulled on his jumpsuit, walking—tripping—through the threshold. Life snuffed out of him in less than a second.
He brought his shaking hands together and met Clockwork’s even gaze.
And answered.
Ectoberweek Day 24: Graveyard Shift
Ancestral 11
The elaborate tableaux and plays that would generally be planned for the Moon Masque… hadn’t been. For obvious reasons.
Obvious reasons being that said planning was what the family had been about to do when most of their older members were killed. Moon Masque continuing in any capacity was nothing more than an attempt to ensure that all requirements for the trials were fulfilled.
Opinions on whether or not that was necessary varied.
"Mom," said Danny, leaning backwards over the arm of the chair he was sprawled in, "if you're really that worried about it, and hate the idea of it that much, we could just… not go."
Gwensyvyr, standing just behind Maddie, made the near universal hand gesture for are you crazy?
Danny scowled at her. As far as he'd been able to determine, there wasn't anything actually vital or fundamental about the Moon Masque.
Now, Danny did plan to sneak out to it, regardless. So much of the family together would be a tempting target for the murderer (or murderers).
Maddie sighed. "I might not see eye-to-eye with my cousins, but I'm not going to abandon them to some murderous ghost."
Right. Sometimes it was easy to forget, but he had learned his morals from his parents.
"That's right! Especially with us being the ghost wrangling experts! No one better to protect everyone and show that ghost what-for!"
… ghost-related biases notwithstanding.
"Why are you so sure it's a ghost in the first place?" asked Jazz, resting her elbows on the back of the couch. "Humans commit murder, too."
"Of that many people all at once, with no method immediately apparent? Don't be ridiculous–"
"Of course it isn't a ghost," said Iris, entering the sitting room with a pronounced frown on her face. George followed in her wake, holding an open book in front of him.
"Why, because ghosts are so well known for their benevolence? Nearly all cultures agree–"
"No," interrupted Iris. “Because ghosts don’t exist.”
“Pardon,” said Maddie, “what?”
“I mean,” said Iris, sitting down on the couch. “There have been so many studies, so many tests and experiments, and how many ghosts have people found? None. It’s a scam,” she finished, staring directly at Maddie.
“Haha,” said George. “Yeah, evidence of absence isn’t absence of– No, wait, I’m saying that backwards. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.” He nodded and sat down next to iris.
“Huh,” said Jack, emerging from the little side room whose original intent had been to serve as a butler’s nook but which currently contained a large amount of coffee-making paraphernalia. “I thought all you people believed in ghosts! Got an awful wrong idea about them, though.”
Jazz bit down on her lower lip. “Dad,” she said, finally.
“What? It’s true! Now, who wants some FUDGE espresso? It’s a Fenton family specialty!”
Danny had never heard of FUDGE espresso before. Then again, both his parents had seemed rather sleep deprived lately. Not that Danny was doing much better in that department, what with being constantly haunted.
Your ancestors (hopefully your ancestors - it’d be even weirder for unrelated ghosts to be doing this) silently staring at you while you lie in bed is not conducive to peaceful sleep.
Oh, well. Danny was used to it.
“I don’t drink coffee,” said Iris. “Caffeine is a drug.”
“A delicious and legal one! If you guys don’t drink coffee, then why’s all this back here?” He hooked a thumb towards the nook.
“Martin,” said George, shortly.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by Jack sipping his espresso.
“Have you heard from Cousin Alicia?” asked Iris.
“Not yet,” said Maddie. “But Alicia has always been… very independent. She’s– She’s probably fine. Running would-be bodyguards all around Spitoon and all that.”
“Spitoon?” asked George.
“The name of the town,” said Maddie.
More silence.
“So, what have you two been doing?” asked Maddie. “How have you been… holding up?”
“Fine,” said Iris, hands clasped tightly in her lap, back entirely straight.
“We’ve been working on finishing our premed requirements,” offered George. “We’re taking online courses to fill in the gap, since we’ll probably be out for the rest of the semester.”
“Oh,” said Maddie, “that’s nice. Are you planning to become surgeons, general practitioners…?”
“Pharmacologists,” said Iris. “Medicine is Avlynys’s biggest export, and we want to contribute.”
Not said, but heavily implied: the Fentons weren’t contributing.
“What about you, Danny, Jazz?” asked George. “You two must be thinking about what you’re going to study in college.”
“I was also thinking about going into the medical field, but I hadn’t decided which part,” said Jazz, picking at one of the couch’s seams.
“We could make it a thing- a family thing, then,” said George, attempting a smile. It didn’t quite fit on his face. It dropped quickly into something more contemplative as his gaze shifted to Danny.
Danny fidgeted. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said.
“Maybe you could go into security,” said Iris.
“What?”
“You noticed the poison.”
“I was just lucky to be paranoid and right,” said Danny.
“Hm,” said Iris. “Lucky.”
Danny turned his flinch into forward momentum and stood up. “Speaking of schoolwork, I’ve got some things to take care of.”
He fled.
.
The costumes for the Masque were simple, and the same for both sexes. A white domino mask and layered white robes over black clothing.
Wearing this in the woods in the middle of the night was going to make them look like cultists.
Still, it was better than past costumes. Danny looked at the album Jazz had unearthed from somewhere, and the elaborate, almost Venetian, and completely anonymous masks that had been popular at previous events.
No, that wouldn’t be good to wear now, when recognizing each other, and keeping out others, was so important.
There was also, of course, the ritual knife. Six inches of steel forged with traditional - and traditionally secret - techniques. Members of the royal family, unlike everyone else who would be attending, were expected to be armed and dangerous. Danny rather expected that Matthew would also be bringing a gun, and that his parents would have ecto-weaponry, even beyond Spector Deflectors (that Danny absolutely wasn’t wearing, even if it would ‘be invisible under the robes’).
Danny put away the album, and started to figure out how much of his first aid kit he could carry under his robes.
.
Part of the original idea of the Moon Masque - overgrown as it was by decades and sometimes centuries of cross-cultural exchange and superstition - was that it gave citizens the opportunity to speak directly to the nobility without fear of being recognized, censored, or punished.
That, of course, wasn’t happening this time. Not physically, in any case. What was being done instead was a sort of anonymous social media mailbox that would be randomly drawn from at different points during the Masque for the royal family to read and respond to.
The elder generation seemed positive it would be a hit.
The younger generation was equally sure it would simultaneously be a hit and a disaster.
Danny, for his part, eyed the cameras dubiously. Matthew had made the members of the press who were attending undergo even more rigorous checks than at the aborted coronation, but they made Danny feel uncomfortable anyway. He knew that the papers, in absence of other information, even their English names, were calling him and Jazz ‘the mysterious young Lord Dannyl Ymaz’ and ‘the mysterious young Lady Yazmyn Roz,’ and, well, speculating a lot.
The woes of being a public figure. He probably had another wikipedia page at this point, to match his Phantom one. He’d been too shy to check.
Beyond the cameras… The Masque was sparsely populated by Assembly members, members of the College of Heroes, Avlynys’s few non-royal nobles, and security personnel.
They really did have to be pulling people from the police force to staff these things. That was the only explanation.
Simple decorations - lengths of white cloth, mirrors, and lights - hung from the trees. There were small tables and chairs, also white, set up wherever there was enough room. The largest clearing was set up for dancing. Music played over high-quality speakers. There was no food, due to concerns about another poisoning attempt.
It was all sort of surreal. The sort of environment that made everyone look like ghosts. Except the ghosts, who, for the most part, were wearing regular clothes.
Matthew and Irene were making a good show of dancing, although they were the only ones. Joanna and Eugene were also dancing together, but… it honestly couldn’t be called good. Jack was bouncing on the sidelines, looking like nothing so much as a giant, jiggly marshmallow, while Maddie stood watch, arms crossed.
Everyone else was… around, Danny supposed. The identical costumes actually made everyone much harder to recognize from a distance than expected.
Danny skirted the fringes of the party, trying to keep an eye on everyone while staying out of the cameras’ line of sight. Nothing seemed out of place, despite the eerie atmosphere, but… Danny couldn’t help but be on guard.
Rather, he had to be on guard. He wasn’t going to let any more of his family be hurt. No matter how ridiculous they were being about ghosts, traditions, language, or loyalty.
A not quite natural flutter of white caught Danny’s eye, and he spun to see Gwensyvyr, and, behind her, Vivian, with a long-suffering expression on her face. Gwensyvyr had used her… Could Danny call it shapeshifting when she only used it to change her clothing? Anyway, she was dressed in the same clothing as the living, which would probably do wonders for public perception of his sanity if he mistook her for someone else.
She smiled and made finger guns at him. Because of course that’s what she’d picked up over the centuries. Finger guns.
Other than that, though, she looked as uneasy as he felt.
A bell tone rang through the woods, making Danny jolt. He was going to destroy his neck at this rate.
Reluctantly, he walked back to the central clearing, where the news crew had set up. The interviewer, a black woman with red-dyed hair, beamed at the family, then at the cameras. “Hello,” she said, “and welcome, everyone, to the first round of questions with sy Hys Dyryse! With us, we have Regent Matthew and Lady Irene, their children, Iris and George, Lady Sophia and her children, Lewis and Leo, Princess Joanna and her son, Eugene, and Princess Madeline, her husband Jack, and their children Jasmine and Daniel. Say hi, everyone!”
Danny waved desultorily.
“Thank you,” said the interviewer. “Now, every half hour of the Masque, we are going to have a question and answer session! If you have a question for the members of sy Hys Dyryse, please send it to our website, listed at the bottom of the screen.” She raised a finger and pointed down. “And onto our first questions!”
The interviewer accepted a tablet from one of the producers, and her face instantly froze into something that couldn’t more clearly indicate ‘this has swearing in it’ if she’d written it on her face in sharpie.
“Ahem,” she said, after a too-long pause. “The first question is, what is your…” a pause to edit out a word, “stance on gay marriage?”
“On- I’m sorry, what?” asked Matthew. “Is that- Is that a joke?”
The producer who had handed off the tablet made a slightly dismayed face. Danny couldn’t help but wince as well. This was… not off to a good start.
“Did an Englishman write that? Do we have the English writing in? No, you wouldn’t know,” said Matthew, making a short, dismissive gesture. “Marriage is a religious affair. The institution isn’t recognized by the government of Avlynys in any official capacity. People can do what they want with their free time. Why should I care who is married?”
Joanna, Danny noticed, sent Matthew a mildly affronted look at that.
The next three questions (‘Princess Yazmyn, are you single?’ ‘What is your quest?’ and ‘Can your country answer for the damages done by offshore oil drilling?’) didn’t go much better. As the interviewer retreated, Danny heard her asking the producers if they could limit the website availability to people actually in the country and, possibly, put on a profanity filter.
Danny felt like he was retreating, too. But he needed a moment to gather himself. He leaned against a tree and closed his eyes.
His moment was interrupted first by a spectral hand on his arm, and then by the cold chill of his ghost sense. Gwensyvyr had her hand on his arm, and was staring back towards the central clearing. If his ghost sense was going off, that meant there was someone here who wasn’t before. Someone stronger than the dozens of silent spirits that had haunted him since the plane landed.
He reached inside his robes, fingers finding the hilt of the ritual knife.
And then there was a scream. A shout. A “No!” and the sharp zing! of an ectoblast and a grunt of pain.
Danny sprinted back to the clearing, and, oh, if anyone wanted a tableau–
There was Maddie, there was Jack, blasters in hand. There was Matthew, standing in front of them, arms outstretched, a greenish, smoking singe on his shoulder. Behind him, Sophia, who was, in turn, shielding–
Vivian?
No, definitely not Vivian. Vivian was standing next to Danny, looking absolutely horrified, Gwensyvyr gripping her arm with teeth bared and sharp, eyes glowing fiercely.
The cameras were watching.
“Move, Matthew!” said Maddie. “I know what you think, but that’s not Vivian!”
Matthew barred his teeth, looking, for a moment, remarkably like his ancestress. “Can you not accept the proof of your own ey–”
“She’s right!” shouted Danny. “That’s not Vivian!”
Matthew’s gaze snapped to Danny, widening in shock, and he started to twist, taking a step to the side and away, but the thing wearing Vivian’s face was moving, too. A long, narrow knife flicked first across Sophia’s face, then dove for Matthew’s side.
Danny threw his knife, then wished he hadn’t a split second later. Something physical like that would just pass through–
But it didn’t. The thing was hit in the lower chest and wrenched sideways, its knife skittering across Matthew’s shoulder blade. Dark green dripped from its wound.
It looked up at Danny with sharp red eyes, face warped into something unrecognizable, then melted, ectoplasm sublimating in seconds. Danny’s knife hit the ground with a ringing sound.
“Ancestors!” hissed Matthew.
Sophia started to wail.
Ectober Werk 2022. Day Twenty-five
"Forest"
He thinks about the body in the woods sometimes.
Hard to forget where you are buried.
Ao3 FFN
Summary: The Amity Park forest is haunted, in many and varied ways.
Warning: Implied death, murder, drug usage and sexual situations among minors.
- - -
The Amity Park forest is haunted, you need only hear the screams coming from the thick darkness of it.
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ectober week day 5: echo vs circus
just an echo of a person
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Ectober Day 3! Burial/Cobweb
The angst train continues my friends!
Should have postes this one yesterday, but my mom nd my nieve are sick and someone's gotta help my sister with her new baby too, so I didn't have enough time before my bed summoned me and kept me there, any how, for day
29
Echo
