[Introduction: Jack Benjamin] Escape from the living death

[true_n_the_dark]

[Spoiler (click to open)]He'd done it. Jack had asked his own father to kill him, to order his execution. Thomasina had said, "Your father wants for you a living death, to brick you into a wall with someone who loves you - who you can't stand the sight of... until you produce an heir, which Silas will take, and raise right this time

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[lifeinhallways]

It will be night before she sees him.

Michelle will see Jack, but Jack will not see Michelle. Unlike when she met Mordred, this time, she's sure. This time, she will not hide, as there is the safety of seeing him from a window. There's nothing illuminating her, but Jack, the moon, the stars, the way he walks, the way her body clenched in fear, she knows it's Jack.

The last time she saw him, he nearly had her shot. While Rose was wrong about so many things, she wasn't wrong when it came to Michelle's unborn. She would do anything to keep Jack from being near her child, and, for now, that means keeping away from him.

Watching for a few minutes more, she turns to flee, abandoning the room, looking for someone to help her.

[A Michelle post will go up soon about this, if anyone wants to see her.]

[true_n_the_dark]

They stitched him together, put him in a bed, and expected him to do nothing, those two men who got him out of the bloodbath he'd created for himself.

They told him where he was, but for now, he's thinking this is one of Silas' tricks.

Exile, or something.

He's walking under the moon, trying to find his bearings. Trying not to think, if at least he can't sleep. He has no idea his sister has seen him, or that she is even there.

He'll eventually crawl into bed, in the wee hours of the morning, after emptying a bottle of bourbon.

He'd missed drinking himself to sleep.

[All good, just writing him for voice, no interaction yet, as agreed. <3]

[ao_ji]

Perhaps while he's out walking, the moon will black out for a moment as a great shape, darker than the surrounding sky circles before coming in to land.

Temeraire shakes his wings out and bends to take a drink from the lake.

[true_n_the_dark]

This is as close to a OMGWTFHAAAAA icon, so that's what we're using. In effect, though, Jack's reaction is very much more of the staring and disbielief kind, until he realizes this is exactly what he bargained for.

(Or so he thinks.)

And so...

"Well, I guess one of you showed up," he calls to what he thinks is the devil.

[ao_ji]

Temeraire shakes his nose free of water and turns to look at the human.

"Oh! I apologize. I did not see you there. Good evening."

[true_n_the_dark]

"Bit too late to wish me that," he replies. "So. Is it going to be sulfur and flames, pitchforks? What do you have in store for me?"

True: it looked a bit too nice to actually not be hell.

[ao_ji]

What?

Temeraire blinks, blue eyes confused. "I am sorry? I do not know what you are talking about.... I do not know you, nor do I have anything for you."

Certainly not flames or pitchforks.

[true_n_the_dark]

"So even the devil won't have me, huh?"

Jack pads over, more heartily.

"Come on! Burn me to hell, eat me, squash me, or something. Isn't that what dragons do?"

[ao_ji]

Temeraire shakes his head, growing concerned now.

"Perhaps that is what the dragons you know of do, but I certainly do not, unless you are the enemy of me or of my friends. As I do not know you, I do not think you are my enemy."

[true_n_the_dark]

"Well, what if you did me a favor?"

Because it would be really nice to be no longer living, is what Jack means to say.

Also stop messing with my head.

[ao_ji]

That big head with those blue eyes and large teeth comes down right to the human's level.

"If killing you is doing you a favor, then I will have to decline. That would not be right. But, if you wish to think of other things, perhaps I can sit and talk with you a while."

[true_n_the_dark]

"I think you'd be doing everyone else a favor," Jack retorts. "I'm the most disgusting person you'll ever meet. I tried to kill my own father. I'm the reason a good man died. I lied, and cheated, and made my own sister miserable. And I'm an abomination in the eyes of God. So if you could please eat me, roast me, or do something to get rid of me, that would be helpful."

Pause. If negotiating won't work, let's try taunting.

"It'd make you useful, lizard."

[ao_ji]

"Well," Temeraire begins. "I could not roast you, as I do not breathe fire. I am a Celestial and fire is not something I possess.

"Second, I do not see how anyone is an abomination in the eyes of any God, but I cannot speak for a God as I am not one and so cannot pass such judgement. Finally, I am quite useful in my own way and it does not involve eating you."

[true_n_the_dark]

"I just told you that I'm a monster, and you won't do anything about it?"

Jack just...

... starts to laugh.

Because when you've been through everything, lost everything, even your own chosen death, and you're failing at convincing a dragon to kill you...

... how much of a failure you be?

We fear he may be losing it entirely.

[ao_ji]

Temeraire blinks, then leans forward to very, very lightly nudge the laughing man with his nose. "You are not a monster, you are human. And you should go inside where it is warm and light and there are other humans."

[true_n_the_dark]

"I would prefer to freeze to death outside, if it's all the same to you, lizard."

Jack's looking the dragon in the nose, and then pokes at the hide.

"You really should eat me. Not much food for dragons around here, I bet."