NaNoWriMo Begins!
Yay! I can officially start NaNoWriMo right now. I've got my background all switched around and everything. (The Demon mentioned that maybe she'd try to keep the same wallpaper up for the whole month of November. I think that's a cool idea, except lately I've been using the same wallpaper for long stretches of time. So I think I'll try the opposite. A new wallpaper - one I've never seen before - every day. Today's is http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/12911101/ courtesy of deviantart and someone who knows how to do far, far spiffier things than I will ever be able to understand.))
That said...
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part One
Rating: PG-13 for general angstiness and some self-inflicted wounds
Genre: Blasphemous. Just not yet.
Word count: 1,606
Author's Notes that no one will probably read: Anything in between *'s in italics is a telepathed conversation. Simple italics are thoughts, and anything that comes between *'s in italics and bolds indicates a telepathed conversation on a different mental plane.
Unconscious, he was just a boy. A little big for his age - he had a man’s height, though he had yet to fill it out with a man’s musculature - but a boy nonetheless. He didn’t look like he warranted the amount of attention he was getting.
Van ignored the uproar and watched his niece instead. Sophia needed to work on her poker face, he decided. Everything she felt flitted across her face, uncontrolled and unchecked. Watching the lines of her face shift was like reading an open book.
Tonight he could read mingled guilt and concern, the desire to help overwhelming his niece’s common sense. He knew before she did that she’d try to help the boy - and sign her own death warrant in the process.
*Don’t even think about it,* he warned her silently, opening up his mind just enough to brush against hers.
*Uncle Van-* she protested.
*He’s Nephilim-born,* he reminded her.
*But-* Sophia bit her lip, then shoved a jumble of images at him.
Someone shoves her on the stairs in their haste to get away from the flames, sends her tumbling roughtly down the last eight steps. Her ankle gets caught on something - someone else’s leg, most likely - and wrenched sharply. Pain. She cries out, unheard in the chaos and fear. She took in too much of the increasingly smoky air and hacked, doubled over close to the ground in the effort to get cleaner air. She knows she’s in danger of being trampled. She has to get up, she just can’t stop coughing. Fear. Someone grabs her hand - she pulls back instinctively, but he doesn’t let go. She finds herself hoisted abruptly into the air, a damp shirt flung over her head. “It’ll be okay,” her rescuer shouts in her ear. She has no concept of him except dusky skin and hazel eyes that seem oddly yellow in the half-light. Demon gold, she thinks uneasily. She reaches out to brush her rescuer’s mind, just to learn his name so she can thank him later. She gets it - he’s Grigori Alan Antrobus - but that’s all, because he locks her out and whispers “Natsar.”
*I think,* Sophia said unnecessarily *That he’s one of us, too.*
Van agreed with her assessment, unlikely as it was. A Natsar and one of the Nephilim-born? Producing a child together? To say that it went against everything he knew was an understatement. Such a union went so far beyond Romeo and Juliet it wasn’t even funny. The Natsar and the Nephilim-born might have been descended from the same basic stock, but they hated one another on sight. It was instinctual. Unquestionable.
*He saved your life,* he said instead, the statement not quite a question, but demanding of an answer nonetheless.
*Yes,* his niece said.
*Then I can save him.* Van slipped unnoticed through his arguing fellow Natsar and the Priores, heading for the doctor standing guard over the boy. Dr. Richards eyed him with distrust, brown eyes measuring. The good doctor cared little for the Nephilim-born, but he took his oaths very seriously. And there was no one fiercer in the defense of a patient.
Or more skilled at lifting your intentions from your mind.
*He won’t thank you for that, Riordan,* Dr. Richards said.
Van hadn’t expected the boy to. He groped for the right words in the Old Tongue. Improperly spoken, they meant death. “I come in the power of Light,” he murmured.
“Donovan!” snapped Priore Tobias.
Van ignored him in favor of continuing the ritual of binding. “In the name of the father, you are bound, Grigori Alan Antrobus. In blood are you bound, in body are you bound, and in soul are you bound.” He paused, dark eyes flickering to Dr. Richards, silently questioning. The man offered Van a scalpel, nodding in quiet approval. Van nodded back in thanks, and used the blade to draw a circle on the palm of his left hand. He dabbed a spot of blood on the boy’s forehead, just over his Third Eye. “You are bound,” he said clearly, taking care to get the intonation exactly right. He re-wetted his finger and pressed it to the boy’s lips. “You are bound,” he repeated, praying that this would work. There was no other way to keep the boy alive. He tugged the boy’s collar aside and pressed his bleeding palm against his chest, over the boy’s heart. “You are bound,” he said again, and the world disappeared in fire.
The furious background noise faded into silence as Van continued speaking. The words were heavy and hard to say; they required all his concentration. Soul-binding rituals were no better than slavery, and never undertaken lightly. This was a poor way to repay the boy for saving Sophia’s life.
A life for a life, he thought, though he knew it wasn’t - could never be - so simple.
The sensation of heat heralded his success, slow and overwhelming. It wasn’t true fire - Van could have withstood that. Anything but this. But, God, it burned. Within and without, fire in his mind and taking root in his soul. No matter how many times he got close to the Prime, he could never get used to this. Not the heat, or sheer presence of a mind that made Dr. Richards look like a babe in swaddling clothes.
*Who are you,* someone asked *to bind him?*
Van found himself kneeling - an instinctive response in the presence of the First among them all; his father, in a sense - and looking up before he was aware of what he was doing. *Your son,* he said steadily.
The man looked dryly amused. *So you are,* he agreed. *And so is he. So. I ask you again. Who are you, to bind this boy, your brother in spirit and in arms?* The heat in his voice called to the heat taking root and spreading with ivy tendrils in Van’s soul. The heat flickered and got stronger - a reflection, Van thought, of the Prime’s ire. It would not do to rouse the temper he had inherited in full.
*James Donovan Riordan,* he said carefully. *One who hopes to save the boy’s life.*
*Could you do otherwise?* the Prime asked.
Van didn’t even need to consider the issue. *No,* he said. *He needs helping.*
The Prime nodded. *The blood of Samiazaz is strong in him,* he murmured. *To control him will cost you.*
Van nodded. That was expected. Every sorcery - especially something like this - had to be paid for.
The Prime took his silence for assent. *Five years. From the one you care for most.*
*No.* Van’s answer was immediate. *I can’t ask Sophia to pay my prices. I, and I alone, will pay.*
*That will cost you more,* the Prime observed.
*I don’t care.*
Dark eyes pinned Van in place. The heat roared up and left him gasping, then subsided. *No,* the Prime murmured, his voice low and thoughtful. *I don’t believe that you do. Ten years, Van.*
To miss ten years of Sophia’s life, and all for a boy he didn’t even know…
*Done,* said Van.
*And done,* said the Prime. *Take this, as a symbol of your pledge. The boy must wear it, or your ten years will be for nothing. Eldest Tobias will instruct you in its use.*
*Thank you,* Van murmured. The Prime dropped a heavy silver ring into his still-bleeding palm. Van’s fingers curled around it in reflex, despite the heat the metal retained.
The Prime looked, Van thought, a little wistfully sad. *Take better care of your little brother than ever I did mine, Van.* His eyes were so solemn it hurt to see. *Please.*
*I’ll try,* Van said, unwilling to make oaths he wasn’t sure he could keep.
*Then go, and with my blessing.*
Van opened his eyes, aware of the noise once again. He reached out and slid the silver ring on the boy’s left ring finger, murmuring “You are bound” one final time.
“Riordan,” Priore Tobias snarled. “Just what have you done?”
It was dangerous to cross any of the Priores. Especially Tobias, who was both the oldest and strongest of the living Priores. Van was almost at a Priore’s strength - might be nominated to stand in on their Council sometime in the near future - but not strong enough to challenge Tobias. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It would be better to answer carefully, to avoid any unpleasantness that might result.
Except he couldn’t. The cut on his hand had been healed - seared shut in the Prime’s Fire - and matched the ring on the boy’s finger. That was all it had taken to make the boy a slave. His slave. Van knew relatively little about the precise nature of soul-binding, but he did know that what he had done was considered an abomination by the Natsar for a reason.
It was such a pity that it was considered a perfectly acceptable method for dealing with the Nephilim-born. Most of the Natsar considered the only good Nephilim a dead one. Van wasn’t wholly opposed to that theory himself, but Grigori wasn’t entirely Nephilim-born.
“I saved him,” Van crooned softly, brushing dark hair away from the boy’s forehead. “And I have damned us both.” He looked away from the boy and met Priore Tobias’ eyes. The Priore was the one who flinched first; he gestured for the others to proceed him out of the hospital room.
I’m sorry, he thought. Unconscious, the boy wouldn’t hear him. Waking, the boy wouldn’t believe him, but it had to be said, nonetheless. I’m so sorry. Sleep a little more, he prayed.
You’ll wake to nightmares soon enough.
Yay! I feel all accomplished now.
I also feel the rather strong need to go murder my upstairs neighbors. Who the hell needs to play their music that loud this early in the morning? I can hear them all the way from my office - which is no where near their apartment space, due to the crack!architecture of the complex. I can only imagine what it's going to be like in my bedroom...
I'm thinking happy thoughts. Homicidal happy thoughts. Somebody get me some pixie dust. I want to go to freaking Neverland...
That said...
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part One
Rating: PG-13 for general angstiness and some self-inflicted wounds
Genre: Blasphemous. Just not yet.
Word count: 1,606
Author's Notes that no one will probably read: Anything in between *'s in italics is a telepathed conversation. Simple italics are thoughts, and anything that comes between *'s in italics and bolds indicates a telepathed conversation on a different mental plane.
Unconscious, he was just a boy. A little big for his age - he had a man’s height, though he had yet to fill it out with a man’s musculature - but a boy nonetheless. He didn’t look like he warranted the amount of attention he was getting.
Van ignored the uproar and watched his niece instead. Sophia needed to work on her poker face, he decided. Everything she felt flitted across her face, uncontrolled and unchecked. Watching the lines of her face shift was like reading an open book.
Tonight he could read mingled guilt and concern, the desire to help overwhelming his niece’s common sense. He knew before she did that she’d try to help the boy - and sign her own death warrant in the process.
*Don’t even think about it,* he warned her silently, opening up his mind just enough to brush against hers.
*Uncle Van-* she protested.
*He’s Nephilim-born,* he reminded her.
*But-* Sophia bit her lip, then shoved a jumble of images at him.
Someone shoves her on the stairs in their haste to get away from the flames, sends her tumbling roughtly down the last eight steps. Her ankle gets caught on something - someone else’s leg, most likely - and wrenched sharply. Pain. She cries out, unheard in the chaos and fear. She took in too much of the increasingly smoky air and hacked, doubled over close to the ground in the effort to get cleaner air. She knows she’s in danger of being trampled. She has to get up, she just can’t stop coughing. Fear. Someone grabs her hand - she pulls back instinctively, but he doesn’t let go. She finds herself hoisted abruptly into the air, a damp shirt flung over her head. “It’ll be okay,” her rescuer shouts in her ear. She has no concept of him except dusky skin and hazel eyes that seem oddly yellow in the half-light. Demon gold, she thinks uneasily. She reaches out to brush her rescuer’s mind, just to learn his name so she can thank him later. She gets it - he’s Grigori Alan Antrobus - but that’s all, because he locks her out and whispers “Natsar.”
*I think,* Sophia said unnecessarily *That he’s one of us, too.*
Van agreed with her assessment, unlikely as it was. A Natsar and one of the Nephilim-born? Producing a child together? To say that it went against everything he knew was an understatement. Such a union went so far beyond Romeo and Juliet it wasn’t even funny. The Natsar and the Nephilim-born might have been descended from the same basic stock, but they hated one another on sight. It was instinctual. Unquestionable.
*He saved your life,* he said instead, the statement not quite a question, but demanding of an answer nonetheless.
*Yes,* his niece said.
*Then I can save him.* Van slipped unnoticed through his arguing fellow Natsar and the Priores, heading for the doctor standing guard over the boy. Dr. Richards eyed him with distrust, brown eyes measuring. The good doctor cared little for the Nephilim-born, but he took his oaths very seriously. And there was no one fiercer in the defense of a patient.
Or more skilled at lifting your intentions from your mind.
*He won’t thank you for that, Riordan,* Dr. Richards said.
Van hadn’t expected the boy to. He groped for the right words in the Old Tongue. Improperly spoken, they meant death. “I come in the power of Light,” he murmured.
“Donovan!” snapped Priore Tobias.
Van ignored him in favor of continuing the ritual of binding. “In the name of the father, you are bound, Grigori Alan Antrobus. In blood are you bound, in body are you bound, and in soul are you bound.” He paused, dark eyes flickering to Dr. Richards, silently questioning. The man offered Van a scalpel, nodding in quiet approval. Van nodded back in thanks, and used the blade to draw a circle on the palm of his left hand. He dabbed a spot of blood on the boy’s forehead, just over his Third Eye. “You are bound,” he said clearly, taking care to get the intonation exactly right. He re-wetted his finger and pressed it to the boy’s lips. “You are bound,” he repeated, praying that this would work. There was no other way to keep the boy alive. He tugged the boy’s collar aside and pressed his bleeding palm against his chest, over the boy’s heart. “You are bound,” he said again, and the world disappeared in fire.
The furious background noise faded into silence as Van continued speaking. The words were heavy and hard to say; they required all his concentration. Soul-binding rituals were no better than slavery, and never undertaken lightly. This was a poor way to repay the boy for saving Sophia’s life.
A life for a life, he thought, though he knew it wasn’t - could never be - so simple.
The sensation of heat heralded his success, slow and overwhelming. It wasn’t true fire - Van could have withstood that. Anything but this. But, God, it burned. Within and without, fire in his mind and taking root in his soul. No matter how many times he got close to the Prime, he could never get used to this. Not the heat, or sheer presence of a mind that made Dr. Richards look like a babe in swaddling clothes.
*Who are you,* someone asked *to bind him?*
Van found himself kneeling - an instinctive response in the presence of the First among them all; his father, in a sense - and looking up before he was aware of what he was doing. *Your son,* he said steadily.
The man looked dryly amused. *So you are,* he agreed. *And so is he. So. I ask you again. Who are you, to bind this boy, your brother in spirit and in arms?* The heat in his voice called to the heat taking root and spreading with ivy tendrils in Van’s soul. The heat flickered and got stronger - a reflection, Van thought, of the Prime’s ire. It would not do to rouse the temper he had inherited in full.
*James Donovan Riordan,* he said carefully. *One who hopes to save the boy’s life.*
*Could you do otherwise?* the Prime asked.
Van didn’t even need to consider the issue. *No,* he said. *He needs helping.*
The Prime nodded. *The blood of Samiazaz is strong in him,* he murmured. *To control him will cost you.*
Van nodded. That was expected. Every sorcery - especially something like this - had to be paid for.
The Prime took his silence for assent. *Five years. From the one you care for most.*
*No.* Van’s answer was immediate. *I can’t ask Sophia to pay my prices. I, and I alone, will pay.*
*That will cost you more,* the Prime observed.
*I don’t care.*
Dark eyes pinned Van in place. The heat roared up and left him gasping, then subsided. *No,* the Prime murmured, his voice low and thoughtful. *I don’t believe that you do. Ten years, Van.*
To miss ten years of Sophia’s life, and all for a boy he didn’t even know…
*Done,* said Van.
*And done,* said the Prime. *Take this, as a symbol of your pledge. The boy must wear it, or your ten years will be for nothing. Eldest Tobias will instruct you in its use.*
*Thank you,* Van murmured. The Prime dropped a heavy silver ring into his still-bleeding palm. Van’s fingers curled around it in reflex, despite the heat the metal retained.
The Prime looked, Van thought, a little wistfully sad. *Take better care of your little brother than ever I did mine, Van.* His eyes were so solemn it hurt to see. *Please.*
*I’ll try,* Van said, unwilling to make oaths he wasn’t sure he could keep.
*Then go, and with my blessing.*
Van opened his eyes, aware of the noise once again. He reached out and slid the silver ring on the boy’s left ring finger, murmuring “You are bound” one final time.
“Riordan,” Priore Tobias snarled. “Just what have you done?”
It was dangerous to cross any of the Priores. Especially Tobias, who was both the oldest and strongest of the living Priores. Van was almost at a Priore’s strength - might be nominated to stand in on their Council sometime in the near future - but not strong enough to challenge Tobias. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It would be better to answer carefully, to avoid any unpleasantness that might result.
Except he couldn’t. The cut on his hand had been healed - seared shut in the Prime’s Fire - and matched the ring on the boy’s finger. That was all it had taken to make the boy a slave. His slave. Van knew relatively little about the precise nature of soul-binding, but he did know that what he had done was considered an abomination by the Natsar for a reason.
It was such a pity that it was considered a perfectly acceptable method for dealing with the Nephilim-born. Most of the Natsar considered the only good Nephilim a dead one. Van wasn’t wholly opposed to that theory himself, but Grigori wasn’t entirely Nephilim-born.
“I saved him,” Van crooned softly, brushing dark hair away from the boy’s forehead. “And I have damned us both.” He looked away from the boy and met Priore Tobias’ eyes. The Priore was the one who flinched first; he gestured for the others to proceed him out of the hospital room.
I’m sorry, he thought. Unconscious, the boy wouldn’t hear him. Waking, the boy wouldn’t believe him, but it had to be said, nonetheless. I’m so sorry. Sleep a little more, he prayed.
You’ll wake to nightmares soon enough.
Yay! I feel all accomplished now.
I also feel the rather strong need to go murder my upstairs neighbors. Who the hell needs to play their music that loud this early in the morning? I can hear them all the way from my office - which is no where near their apartment space, due to the crack!architecture of the complex. I can only imagine what it's going to be like in my bedroom...
I'm thinking happy thoughts. Homicidal happy thoughts. Somebody get me some pixie dust. I want to go to freaking Neverland...