Watchmen Kink Meme 2: Electric Boogaloo. Or not.
Alright, alright, I'm back now. Here ya go kids. (You're just lucky the other one didn't run out in the middle of my vacation grumble grumble)
Rules of the meme:
1. Anonymously post a pairing and prompt you would like to see written. Since this is a kink meme, there is supposted to be a kink involved, but normal well-written prompts should work ( Read more... )
When he goes out to skin the two antelope he killed, he’s not surprised when she tags along, and he teaches her about hides and how they come off. He’s a little surprised at what she doesn’t know, but Ghost Rat explains that she’s not like Thinks Ahead, she’s just in disguise. And apparently from the eastern edge of the continent, where uselessness sometimes seems to be enforced by law. He rides out with them the next day at Thinks Ahead's request, getting them started towards the desert. Daniel calls it a sea, and Sick Wolf supposes that makes sense. When they part ways he gives the girl a necklace of mountain lion claws, figuring she needs all the help she can get.
Laurel really has no idea what to say to this sudden gift, and it's just as well that Sick Wolf seems to require nothing. He rides away without looking back, his scalp lock streaming out dark behind him. Daniel smiles, watching him go, and Laurel lightly touches the cruel, heavy claws. "Daniel?"
"It's totemic magic. Don't be surprised if you're a little stronger while you've got that on."
"How much stronger?" She asks as they get moving again.
He shrugs. "Depends. Thinks Ahead is a good shaman, but she might not have made it." He stands in his stirrups, his leg nearly as good as new, and scans the horizon. "By midday tomorrow we should be in Delirium." Delirium is the main port on the Sea of Waking dreams, standing between the wholesome grass of the plains, and the shifting, hallucinogenic sands of the Sea. Their markets are famous for the strange goods sold, and the chaotic exchange rate. People who wake up and sweep a substance that makes you question the nature of time from their floors every morning have a strange and delicate grasp of numbers. The fact that the city contains goods, people, and coin from around the world doesn't help matters any.
Still, they should be able to charter a small ship and make it to Aigyptos in about three days. Ghost Rat mutters darkly about the sands of madness for most of the rest of the trip, and insists on covering his nose and mouth long before they reach the coast. Daniel just rolls his eyes and tells Laurel that she doesn't have to do it until he does. Daniel relies on Archie's sensors and on Horse. They stop when she does, apparently not liking the smell, salty-sweet and strange. It's like a combination of a real sea and candy, and Laurel is almost reluctant to tie the rag Daniel gives her over her face, but she certainly doesn't want to be seeing things the whole way.
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Ghost Rat's sense of beauty is a thousand times sharper than any pallid court artist's, and she can see the craving that rides him as they move through the market where there's cloth in patterns that she thinks would look a little like they were moving even without the sand, and hollow, dried creatures from the depths of the sea, the crystallization of their skins making them sparkle in the hot sun. There are little shops selling jewels that look like candy and vice versa, and a thousand strange perfumes in the salty-sweet air. The place is dizzying, and when Ghost Rat takes her hand and clings like a small child, she's glad to let him.
Daniel moves through the place as though nothing odd is going on at all. Or more as if he feels at home among oddities. She looks at Archie and smiles. And damned if he doesn't seem to smile back. When the green sparks in his eyes crackle into the air in fragments of delicate lightning, she gasps and grabs Daniel's arm. He turns and she can tell he's grinning at her under his own improvised mask.
"Yeah. I see it, too." She giggles and follows him to the edge of the city, where grass turns into ordinary sand and then into the Sea. The tideline is clearly delineated, the Sea several shades lighter than its shore. The ships anchored here are like nothing she's ever seen. No two are alike, and all are strangely organic. She's not surprised that when she keeps looking, she sees that green shimmer around them as well. Daniel leads them into a low stone building that's obviously a sailor's tavern, even in a place as weird as this. It's windowless, illuminated only by the deep blue glow of heatless magical lanterns, and kept cool as a cave by the jugs of water hanging from the support beams.
The woman they need to talk to is sitting at a corner table, her white skin glowing in the dark. She's in black pilot's leathers, undone just enough to sip from a glass not much bigger than a thimble, a small bottle of something that's probably the color of honey in better light sitting in front of her. Daniel sits down across from her and pulls his pendant out of his shirt. "Hollis sent me."
She gives them a reduced rate across the Sea, and delays their departure only long enough for another glass. Laurel asks to try some, and Ursula nods. Dan warns her to just taste it, since it'll knock her flat on her back. She's wise enough to listen to him, and it's still like being kicked in the face. It's so sweet and so cold that it hurts her mouth, and so strong she feels lightheaded. It's made from berries that only grow on the north shore of the Sea, and Ursula drinks it as if it were normal wine. Laurel can't help but stare at her as she finishes her second glass, and she grins slowly, dark eyes looking Laurel up and down.
"And who's this sweet-faced boy?" She purrs as she pockets her bottle and gets up.
"Haven't changed a bit, have you?" Daniel says, and she laughs, taking Laurel's arm and leading the way out.
"No, not a bit."
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This continues to be awesome...and is it sad that I have an urge to make a soundtrack for it, from the dark and dusty and eclectic corners of my music library? Author, would you be up for this?
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Ghost Rat spends most of his time hugging the figurehead with all four limbs like a sloth, whispering secrets into its ear. This is more sensible than it seems at first, since the ship is alive. According to Ursula, they make better time than usual, because it likes Ghost Rat. It hums under and around them, and whenever Daniel comes up to sit with their friend, it purrs. It's a natural thing for living constructs to love him. His hands and eyes shimmer with green, and she knows she'll miss being able to see it when they reach the shore.
They alight at sundown of the third day, which is good since the western sands are killing hot. Dan wrestles with Archie, holding it midair as he straightens out the legs, then letting it stand on its own as he wrenches the jaw open and presses the hidden switch in the mouth. She can hear the hum of a construct left open, on standby. Daniel breathes softly into Archie's open mouth, and she can see the green flowing from his lips and into the horse's eyes. And then Ursula decides to kiss her on the mouth in farewell, and she's a little distracted for a while. As they ride off on Archie, his gait strange now that he's been changed to operate in the desert, she sort of expects Ghost Rat to be outraged, but he just beams at her and tells her that a man-woman's kiss is some of the best luck in the world. Daniel is just glad Aigyptos gets cold at night, because even the setting sun is heavy.
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Laurel is darkening every day, tanning instead of burning. She looks like a desert animal, and she's learning to kill lizards with a sling. Daniel won't eat them, but they're good, and refreshing after all the preserved stuff they've been eating lately. Their tiny bones crunch in his teeth, and he wishes he had one as he sits perched on a high rock, watching the sunrise. He likes to take first watch, just him and Archie in the new dawn, when this place is almost beautiful. And this way he gets to go to sleep before the heat gets truly unbearable. Laurel takes the it the best, and so has the second watch, from the relative cool of late morning into the furnace of afternoon. He looks down into their camp, and studies her sleeping face, pale again in the starlight. She's very beautiful, and he's glad he doesn't have to fear her anymore.
He needs to make her a mask, but something so serious shouldn't be done while traveling. A tiny rustling sound makes his hand dart out of its own accord, snatching a snake. A quick, crunching bite behind the head ends its suffering, and he eats it quietly, musing on Laurel as he spits scales. It's always harder to see what outlanders are. Daniel is an owl, but between his pendant and his goggles, he has totems enough to keep him from ever forgetting it. Besides that, he's only a little younger than Ghost Rat. He knows his path by now. He yawns, and sits up straighter.
None of them sees any pursuit in the ten days they have to trek across the burning sands, but Ghost Rat is still uneasy. He doesn't like the one stop they have to make at an oasis any better than he likes the sour date wine the dealer throws in along with the replacement cog for Archie. And he hates the way she looks at Daniel. She's an eccentric, a noblewoman who decided to throw it all over to be a desert trader. Legend has it that her family actually held a funeral for her after failing to recover her, and Daniel can confirm it.
He doesn't blame them at all. He's not the kind of man who would kill his sister for such conduct, but he would certainly never speak her name again. She reminds him of his mother, selling herself to outlanders for trinkets and liquor. When she touches his mask, all sloe-eyed and smirking like a bad fox spirit, he wants to hit her. He doesn't, because he doesn't have to, and it would make Daniel think less of him. But it's a near thing, and he snarls, "Touch me again and you'll pull back a stump, whore." She laughs as he stalks away, and he and Daniel refuse to speak to each other until they're an hour's ride from the oasis, where Laurel points out, in a friendly way, that they're headed due north. They receive the news in silence, and then burst out laughing too hard to stay angry with each other. They're three days from at least temporary sanctuary, and Dan turns Archie's head to the west again.
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"It's not as close as it looks, but we should be there by morning." The moonlight is picking everything out in silver, and the black and white of Ghost Rat's mask has never looked more stark. He eyes the distant gleam distrustfully, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't know anything of kings or princes. Laurel has pointed out to him that he's riding with royalty, but he always says they don't count. She has to admit that he has a point. Daniel is the least prince-like prince she's ever known, and she's dressed as a boy and running from her political duty, which is only standard for princesses in old stories. Her mother would pitch a fit if she could see how tan her daughter has gotten. Personally, she has never understood the big deal with being aristocratically pale. White without any other color is a damned boring thing, and she smiles, thinking of the speckles all over her sponsor. She's still not quite sure what Ghost Rat really means by that, but it seems to make her sex count for less, which is a good thing.
Daniel is just thrilled at the prospect of a bath and a real bed for the first time in entirely too long. Adrian makes him nervous sometimes, but he's made it clear that if Daniel ever has cause to run from anything, he can run to him. The sun is rising over the gleaming spires, polished marble throwing the red-gold rays back at the sky when they reach the massive gate. They wait for the sentry, and Daniel's heart sinks when he sees the rough, leatherclad figure that comes to greet them, a malodorous roll of smokeleaf tucked into the corner of his shit-eating grin.
"Well hello, Danny-boy! I see you brought friends." He wears a Fool's badge and is ostensibly Adrian's jester, but everyone knows he's probably the deadliest mercenary on the entire continent. He lounges against the gate, his eyes gleaming with lighthearted malice. More than anything, though, it's what Daniel knows about him and Laurel's poor mother that makes him snarl whenever he lays eyes on him.
"Edward, just let us in so we can tell Adrian to have his rabid dog put down."
"Now, now. Baby has to say please or he doesn't get a sweet."
Ghost Rat is still on Archie's back, and can see the back of Dan's neck go red in his irritation. "Baby's going to have you flogged like the sick animal you are if you don't stop grinning like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush and let us in." He can do it, too. For all Adrian's shameless indulgence of his Fool, he is not unwilling to punish him when he goes too far, and although Edward keeps grinning, talking about how his face is just stuck like this because life is so damn funny, but he lets them in, and his eyes linger on Laurel in a way that makes Ghost Rat growl.
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He forgets his own problems when Ghost Rat's whole body locks up beside him. Edward follows his stare, and grins. "Pretty, aren't they?" Daniel prays for strength, and looks over. Really, it could be worse. Adrian has always had a tastefully restrained harem. He says that if you need more than ten, you’re not getting quality, and only two of them are bathing in the crystal clear pool, surrounded by palms. They’re both boys in that lithe, elfin range that could be anywhere from a well-grown thirteen summers or a slow sixteen, completely naked and unconcerned. One is the color of chocolate and the other is like Laurel’s flower, but about five shades lighter. They’re beautiful, and go together like carefully chosen fabrics.
"You know a man who keeps boys?!" Ghost Rat hisses, and the tone of his voice is enough to make Daniel cringe a little, glancing into his friend’s face to see the incredulous horror in those wide brown eyes. It woud be funny if he wasn’t so deadly serious.
“Yes, I do.” He sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache that’s trying to pounce on him. “It’s traditional out here, I’ve never seen him be cruel to any of them, and the last time one of Adrian’s concubines fell tragically in love with a travelling minstrel, he let her go and gave her money to travel on, so I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
“But-“
“Ghost Rat, Thinks Ahead would be scandalous in my country.” Laurel says. “Just let it go.” She puts a hand on his arm and a little of the tension eases out of it.
“Fine.” He says, and Daniel knows that the rest is, “but I don’t have to like it” as surely as if Ghost Rat had spoken aloud. For his part, Daniel is just glad to reach Adrian’s audience chamber. One whole wall is glass, looking out over the harsh beauty of the unmodified desert in stark contrast to the lush flowering vines that were trained over the support columns, perfuming the air. The carpet they walk on is deep and plush, and Daniel smiles to see the toes of Ghost Rat’s rag-wrapped feet curling luxuriously into it when they stop in front of Adrian’s throne.
Adrian lounges at the foot of his golden throne with a massive, magecrafted lynxbeast of some kind. Daniel smiles, because Adrian has always been good at flesh-shaping and has always liked cats, and it was inevitable that the two must come together. Walter eyes it with deep mistrust, and the first thing Laurie does it tell Adrian that it’s beautiful.
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