IC: The Dark Hunt
The light is beginning to fade as evening draws closer, and the paths in the forest are growing shadowed.
Despite this, the gleam of a white cloak can easily be seen moving through the trees and away from the bar.
Despite this, the gleam of a white cloak can easily be seen moving through the trees and away from the bar.
The winds slam into him from all directions, slinging him this way and that. And the harder the Doctor tries to remain upright, the more determined the storm seems to unseat him.
The first temptation is fear!
But Peter was right about one thing. She needs the anger, the hatred, and the fear. She thrives on it. Which just might mean....
I offer you fear in a handful of dust.
It was a trick he learned long, long ago when dealing with another similiar force. The Mara used the power of fear, of hate, of belief, in order to manifest.
I do not fear. I spread my fingers, and the dust trickles away.
The Doctor defeated it on the Federation world of Manussa by denying it that which it needed, by refusing to succumb. The mystic Dojjen had shown him how to find the still point within himself that could defeat the Mara.
I know that whilst I live, my hand is clean, my eyes are bright.
He closes his eyes and holds out his arms. It had taken a snakebite to bring him into the trance state the first time, but once shown the path, it could be walked again. He finds the still point, that core of inner peace. Time and circumstance have battered it, chipped and scarred the surface. But the core remains.
That is enough.
He feels the winds pull him again, and he yields to them. His feet leave the ground, buoyed up by the power. No fear, no anger, no emotions at all can be detected from him. No name, no past, no future. He is just the Doctor.
That is enough.
The spiraling winds push him higher and higher until he reaches the limits of the storm and is thrown clear of it, landing a few feet away on the other side. The Doctor picks himself up and stares impassively in Blodwen's direction.
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Using you like a goddamn battery, Venkman...have to stop it. Get yourself squared away here. You know the mind. Now get your shit in gear, and do something about it! Part of him berated himself.
Right. Focus, concentrate. It's not just blanking out the thoughts. It's blanking out the emotions. Ignore the wind, ignore all of it. Still, calm. Just let go. Let go...
The PKE around him seemed to have abruptly shut off, and any ghost in the area would have a hard time seeing him.
One moment he was shouting and angry, now he was still kneeling on one knee, still and silent. Almost in a light trance, but still had awareness of his surroundings. The wind still howled at him, but it seemed more muffled, distant now.
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He closes his eyes and steps forward into the blizzard, towards where he last saw the Doctor. If she wants to cut them off from him, then he'll try to stop her.
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Chokingly close and blinding, with bitter deadly cold and stinging ice in its high winds, the blizzard surrounds Jay and begins to tear at him, ripping at clothing (feathers) and seeking to freeze the very air in his lungs.
Outside that blinding white spiral, the shadows continue to press in around the Doctor and Venkman with a near-physical weight. Nothing beyond the small glade can be seen now, not even the path-- save only a flicker of white just beyond the trees.
There are voices in that darkness, gibbering insane voices that scrape at the edge of sanity and wail of things no mind was ever meant to know -- and they are growing stronger.
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"Now, now, Mrs. Rowlands," the Doctor chastizes gently. "I had thought you were a civilized woman. I admit, my young friend back there is rather brash and, let's face it, something of an idiot, but what's that to ones like us? We spoke without these parlor tricks before; we can do so again, can't we?"
He follows the flittering scrap of white through the dark, only the pale blue light keeping him from tripping over roots or bushes.
"What you're looking for here won't come easily, if at all. Vengeance never does, and is never as satisfying as you hope it will be. This from one who knows. But there are alternatives."
The Doctor takes a deep breath and plunges ahead.
"You want a way out, and I have one. But you'll not get it from me by force or coersion. You have to decide what's more important to you. Your freedom, or your quest for revenge. Because you only get to choose one."
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But then he had to focus on getting up, and pressing forward against the shadows.
Those mad voices pressing on him. He had heard their like before. That brief time when that pissant lackey of the Governor who had him and the guys committed. And before then, the mental hospital that his mother was at. So, he was mostly focused on carefully walking, and trying to ignore them. Ignore the memories they were summoning.
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Head ducked into the collar of his cloak to shield his eyes, he takes a careful step and then another, trying to orient himself, trying to find his way through the storm.
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The wind is no colder than her voice when she says to the Doctor, softly and yet bitterly clear,
"Do not try to be clever, dear-- not with me. You are not one to dictate anything, and you know nothing of what I truly want, and why I seek it."
One hand is hidden in a fold of her cloak, but she throws her other hand out at the other two, crying aloud,
"Look at them! Ffyliaid, fools, both of them-- the bird nearly choking on his own fear as the Dark closes in, and the other with his temper and his hatred and his bravado -- they mean nothing but harm, them and others like them, and you cannot change that!"
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The blue light flickers, and the Doctor dials the frequency down without looking.
"And that's what waits for you at the end of this path. No power, no Dark, just the nothing. Just the emptiness. It won't ease your anger or your hurt at being wronged. It won't undo the damage done. You will find nothing. You will become nothing. Because these people will never stop, will never cease, until that is so. They will hunt you down, cariad. They will run you tired and sore and weak. They will run you until you can run no longer. You can't stop them all; you can't even come close. Every one you hurt will send another two into the hunt for you."
He points the screwdriver at her like a weapon, orienting not on her head or chest, but on the hand inside her cloak. His voice becomes still and calm when he continues. Conversational, almost pleasant, even, but his eyes are steel as he fixes them on her.
"Let them go, Mrs. Rowlands. Just... let 'em go. Come with me, sit and talk, and we will see about getting you clear of this place, away from those who mean you harm. I don't want to be your enemy, but if you persist, you'll leave me no option."
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Peter then said to the Doctor, "She doesn't care. She's not gonna listen to you." He then remembered some things about what Giles had said, what he had learned from Merriman.
"White Rider of the Dark, what about your hatred? The harm you're causing, huh?"
He then blinked as something popped into his head.
"Wait, wait...I get it...Oh you are good. You want to hurt us so we'll get pissed off and that will just pump you so you can go boom and get us all, is that it?"
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He's shivering from the bone-deep cold, and barely keeps his feet as he comes to a halt at the edge of the glade, just clear of the storm wall.
He does not like being enclosed. And as he looks up at her with eyes more of the Wild thing than the man whose form he wears, flickering to the Doctor at her side, he can feel the power coming from under her cloak.
Weakened still, but not overmuch, he raises his spear and comes at her.
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Everything freezes about them, an unnatural ringing silence in which not even the still-blowing storm can be heard. In this moment, Blodwen's gentle laughter is clear, and she smiles-- sweet and warm and yet oh, so knowing as her ice-blue gaze meets the Doctor's.
There is a flatness to that glance, and behind it and utterly clear, nothing at all of humanity -- nothing but an all-devouring black pit, the void that is the heart of the Dark itself.
"Too late you are, cariad, by thousands upon countless thousands of years," the White Rider tells him, still smiling. "And yet if you--"
And then as Peter interrupts, her blade-bright glance flashes to him, in time for her to see Jay's charge. With a high, chilling shriek, Blodwen spins to the side, as a sudden gust knocks the trickster's spear askew.
That same gust blows her cloak aside, freeing her hand and the hidden weapon in it, a weapon which she now brings up, having used her own power in those stolen moments to trigger that of the Wild Magic stored within it. With a whickering slice through the air, the White Rider buries Coyote's tomahawk in Gray Jay's back as he stumbles past her, hard enough that blade grates into bone and sticks there, pulling the handle from her hand.
The storm whirls around her then, everything coming home to center upon her-- and the White Rider leaps up on the wind of her storm and vanishes with it into the darkness.
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"What the hell was that for?!" he screeches at them. "I had it under control! I could have talked to her!"
He bends down and shoulder's Jay's weight under him, lifting him to his feet and turning back toward the bar and the infirmary within.
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He went over to the other side to help Jay, and looked at the trickster spirit with concern.
He then added to the Doctor, "Bitch would have gotten along with Gozer I bet. Hell, for all I know, he copied off her notes in Evil Overlord school."
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Also, he's not called the Mouth of the Ghostbusters for nothing. Even if he knew, he probably wouldn't have given it much thought anyway.
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