Cantaloupe 13, Rocky Road 26, Blue Raspberry 5
Title: Darkest Hour
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Prompts: Cantaloupe 13: quicksand, Rocky Road 26: unholy place, Blue Raspberry 5: a cunning plan
Extra: Malt (stocking prompt: subluxate: "crushed under heavy chest / trying to catch your breath / but it always beats you by a step, all right now," - A Fine Frenzy, "Hope for the Hopeless")
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Or, the plot hits the fan.
Recap/to be noted: Pre-story, Cyprian fought in a war on opposing sides to Ragnar Merridan, who gleefully killed and tortured many of Cyprian's fellow soldiers and countrymen. Ragnar was recently sired during the night of a solar eclipse, and since, vampires have been acting odder. The last time I wrote the main story, Cliff revealed that he dreamed Cyprian would die in that city. Or actually, Jaida and Cyprian compared gaydars at their inn's diner, but that's not really plot-relevant and was more of an interlude.
Waking was an unfortunate affair made humiliating by having been stuck in the same room with an insomniac while I dreamt pleasant, dirty dreams very vocally. I know they were pleasant and dirty, despite my recollection of rather a lot of blood, inappropriate use of shears, and fiery explosions, because Cliff complained loudly at the breakfast/dinner table that I always had the kinkiest, most disturbing wet dreams and that he was going to need to borrow money from Jaida for extensive therapy.
"Oh, please," Jaida said, "Guy like you, you could use a little crazy. And by the way, do us all a favor and pick a side."
"Side of what?" Cliff said, his forehead wrinkling.
"I'm not sure I'm up for this conversation a second time," I said, "or at least while I'm eating. Or present."
Jaida snorted. "Oh, come on. Aren't you interested in finding out your chances with a young, pretty blond adventurer? I bet he has some pretty wild uses for his...sword."
"Side - wild uses-" Cliff said, and whimpered. "I'm straight! What the hell, you guys?!"
"Your lips say no," Jaida sing-songed, "but your adorable strappy heeled boots and shiny, silken locks say, "Mm-hmm, girlfriend.""
"You can't trust a word my hair says," Cliff said. "Every strand is an dirty pathological liar. They'll say anything to a pretty face. A pretty girl's face. Don't believe them."
"Believe me, honey," Jaida said. "Those locks don't lie."
"You know," Kristen said thoughtfully, "I did wonder why Cliff never tried to...ah, make contact after the first time."
"Kristen! I - you - you're not supposed to - don't go telling people about that like that!" Cliff said, horrified. Jaida cackled. "Sweet, naive little Cliff. The more you protest, the more obvious it is."
"Okay, both of you shut your ungodly, slack-jawed maws, and Kristen, don't encourage them," I said. "I just woke up-"
"Lazy old man can't even find the strength to get out of bed before the sun sets," Cliff muttered, then reddened when he realized everyone had heard him - nothing as pleasant as a ripe tomato, but more of a mortified lobster that's just realized it's in a very hot pan.
"-And I'm still hearing piano and guitar feedback over a wailing banshee from the arcana I made last night, and until you have to deal with angry clients married to their bank statements with power to back up their close-fistedness and until you have your first arcana hangover, I'll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself, Cliff," I said. "I've procured slaying jobs for all of you. I very unregretfully will not be joining you, as I had to rig about forty-some high-stakes card games in this city while resisting the urge to make a great fool of myself, notably failing, and keeping track of Mena just to find Jaida, Kristen, and I new weapons."
"Ah, swag with warning labels! Don't mind if I do," Jaida said. "I think it's only fair to tell you, by the way, that if you tell me to say please I do have some rather sturdy, workable senbon in my hair this night, and I feel like a good fight."
I shuffled around in my pockets for what I was looking for. I set the weapons down on the table. There were more than two.
"All right, here. The battleaxe is yours, Jaida, and the bags marked yuriang, mismar, and worchester are spell components for restorative magic. The yuriang and mismar are instant spell powder - for blood clotting and bone-stitching, respectively. The worchester is a magic enhancement compound that will work with any component-based spell."
"The falchions are for you, Kristen, since I noticed you seem to do better with small blades than you do just your hands. This is me, not commenting on that and being very mature, and I suggest you do the same, Jaida, so close your mouth. I bought these cheaply, but I cast a few enchantments on them to make them stronger, and prone to random bouts of intense heat on the business end, kindly close your mouth Jaida, which is useful here because there are even more vampires in Soonah than I remember there being."
The girls took their weapons, Jaida with scrutiny and Kristen with a sort of blindly accepting, guilty awe. "It wasn't any problem at all, Kristen. Whatever you're thinking, stop."
She looked at me, startled. "Um, it's just - nothing, I guess. I'm - thank you. Self-made gifts are the best."
"Like I said, it was nothing," I said. "I was in a casting mood, anyway. Soonah's got a negative magnetic thaumatological field, so it made sense to do it now."
"What about you?" Cliff said. "You must have a new weapon, too, right?"
"I have flowers," I said neutrally. Jaida laughed, and said, "Right, because when I think badass, demon-slaying weapons of ultimate destruction, I think of posies and baby's breath."
I smiled, half to annoy Jaida and half because I knew what sort of flowers I had up my sleeve. Some of them were invented the night before.
"Kristen and Jaida," I said. "You have a job exterminating bunyips."
Bunyips," Jaida spat. "Somebody tie my hands behind my back. Maybe I'll actually have fun fighting."
"You'll be giving Kristen tips on using her falchions," I said. She glared as if she had a choice in the matter, and I said, "Unless you like the idea of having an untrained woman at your back with every excuse to pretend she didn't mean to stab you. I haven't ruled that possibility out."
"You guys suck," Jaida said. "When the world comes to an end and I am the warrior queen of all I survey, I'll order your deaths to be messy. Except yours, Cliff. You'll have a special place as my second concubine. Hey, where're you going, Pinky?"
"Thrilling as your collective presence may be," I said, "for about three minutes after the alcohol takes hold, I've got things that need doing."
"And since when have I been a thing, huh?" Jaida said, looking at me from under eyelashes thicker than Cliff's skull. I didn't bother with a reply, just waved a little as I turned heel and walked out of the hotel.
Soonah was a holy place for the Buillaisians who found favor with the god Adanvari. But places sacred to shadow gods are typically unholy for most of the populace. This is good to keep in mind if you're fond of breathing.
The thing about being even the slightest bit magical and alive in a town like Soonah, where the magical field draws dark magic to it like a dehydrated man drawing water from a well, is that it gets you down. It's in the air; you can smell it, hear it, touch it. The town is alive, and it consumes your happiness for sustenance. It's like being followed around constantly and everywhere by that certain relative that you're convinced will one day drive you to homicide. Thus, most people who lived in Soonah were generally as magical as a backwards cap, the angriest bastards in the world, or not, technically speaking, alive. Vampires mostly, but a few halfbreeds and a smattering of demons. Some clever mages had found a way to keep their happiness without resorting to pricy potion brews and pills, but they tended towards not sharing. Yet they had no problem sharing their misery, when the mood struck them. Often. I tended towards believing their cures didn't work, because if those mages were that pissy without any sort of logical reason, then I fear for the world when Soonah's stranglehold takes effect on them. The world would end with a bang and a whimper.
I was on my way to a highly recommended curse specialist of the area when I saw him. I'm not really a fan of crypticism, but that was the word that popped into my brain first: 'him - that's him,' replete with unnecessary italics and dramatic disbelief. My brain sometimes, I swear to Christ.
It was the man who occasionally wandered into my dreams. Another mystic.
Living on Anharo as a mystic would be like, for the average fully-human human, living on a planet of intelligent apes. Maybe they would have the psychological capacity of a human, and they might be structurally similar, but they would never be human, not like you. You'd live, maybe, but you'd perhaps find yourself on some days willing to kill for another human to interact with. I wondered sometimes if housepets or flowers felt the same. I have seldom had a flower which didn't know its own kind, so I've never had the opportunity to know, and the not knowing was always annoying. I had my dreams to pretend I could meet one of my own, and they were becoming fewer and farther in between. There was this man - this mystic - and there was seldom anyone else now.
So of course I walked over to talk to him without even knowing his name.
Stupid, stupid move. I know. And me without my flower seedlings.
Should I have been the one to speak first, I might have embarrassed myself worse than I needed to. As it was, it was the man who spoke first:
"Ah," he said, and now I wanted to cry or cry laughing, but now I wanted to kill him like some people wanted limitless wealth. I'd had a blindfold on when he tortured me and issued the ultimatum to save myself or my squadron. The only other time I'd heard his voice was in a dream, while every thought and image in my head vanished as if sunken in quicksand. He smiled and bile rose in my throat. He said, "Good of you to make it in time."
And oh, but that line was so loaded for maximum dark portent.
"Had to skip out of Strathclyde to make it," I said. "It definitely wasn't worth it. Clearly, someone vetoed the strip poker without consulting me or someone misadvertised."
"Is strip poker really what brought you here?" Ragnar Merridan said, and began a campaign against my personal space. He was quicker and more subtle about it than any innocent man should have been; I didn't notice until he had me pinned against a wall. I stared him in the eyes; he was hardly anything special. Just cold. It was eighty three degrees out and past sunset. So he was a vampire, then. I said, "Doesn't really look like you've got any better ideas."
He was too close and the magic field was too strong; I couldn't set him ablaze without getting some of the fire. But the minute I managed to get away from him, I swore, there would be nothing left of him but ashes and dust.
Hell, maybe I wouldn't even wait.
"You're unarmed," Ragnar said, "I could kill you now."
"Too quick for you," I said, and wondered if his face might possibly be less of a creepy blend of amused, angry, offended, and turned on if I cursed his blood to boiling. Wondered if it would be worth the nosedive in karma, then decided against it. Ragnar said, "And you know me, is that it?"
"Well," I said, "from personal experience, I know what you did to my men and I know what you did to me, and that's pretty much all I need to know."
Then I realized my mouth and heart were not the only things still working. I kneed Ragnar hard - he would appreciate the classics, and I could appreciate the pain. Apparently, sensitive nerve endings work just as well dead as alive. I put some distance between us and cast the most terrible fire spell I could think of - the one I used for burning enemy encampments in the war - and ran.
I may hate running, but damn, is it an effective way to put distance between person A and person B. Provided of course that A is the only person that B is running from.
Yeah. It wasn't as simple as A and B, as it turned out.
There wasn't any running to be done, as it was; a golden haze surrounded me and I, uh, lost consciousness. I woke up some time later, dazed and tied down with rope to something uncomfortably hard and cold. If I opened my eyes and discovered I was tied to railroad tracks, I'd do me in myself. A man can only take so much trite in a day before he snaps.
"You're free to go," a voice said. I opened my eyes. Pale as a corpse - probably was one - yellow eyes and long inky hair. Not Ragnar. Ragnar was next to him, nightmarishly disfigured - there may have been parts missing - from my magic and silent as he watched the moon. We were on a hill overlooking Soonah.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll just get going then. I'm sure I could get halfway across the globe tied to this pole. Out with it. There's a catch. What is it?"
"The solar eclipse the other month was a sign from Adanvari to his vampire children," the pale man said. "The Butcher Downs vampires found a book among the ruins of the Draconian city of Cressecant that was never there before the eclipse. We've found a way to reverse the sun's curse on us. What the sun does to us, it will do to you humans and humanoids, and we shall walk in light again and hunt you down, as is the right of the sun's holy people. You're stronger magically than Ragnar and you show a reluctance to lay down and die - not so much now, of course - so we had to dispose of you. But Ragnar had the idea to use your power, so you're going to help us."
"You should know that you have no choice," Ragnar said. "I'm the only reason you're still alive. The golden marble I gave you in your dream was something Mashiro here made for me - they called it a dominabule a very long time ago. As long as you have it with you, you will do as I say, and you will never get rid of it - that's how it works."
Mashiro untied me while Ragnar yammered on:
"You can run, if you like, but I'll find you - I'm in your dreams, in your head, and your soul is sharing a space with mine. I have all the time in the world, and you have very little of it. You can run and hide, but it's really only your time you'll be wasting. You will come when called. That's an order. You will not harm us. That's an order."
I tried to make myself coax the grass to rise up and strangle them both, anyway, but I couldn't form the thought. Mashiro and Ragnar walked off without a glance back at me. Figuring I'd lost this round and glad, but not especially thankful, that for the moment I wasn't wounded or breathing through a hole in my neck, I walked back to Soonah. There just wasn't a finger middle enough for this type of situation.
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Prompts: Cantaloupe 13: quicksand, Rocky Road 26: unholy place, Blue Raspberry 5: a cunning plan
Extra: Malt (stocking prompt: subluxate: "crushed under heavy chest / trying to catch your breath / but it always beats you by a step, all right now," - A Fine Frenzy, "Hope for the Hopeless")
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Or, the plot hits the fan.
Recap/to be noted: Pre-story, Cyprian fought in a war on opposing sides to Ragnar Merridan, who gleefully killed and tortured many of Cyprian's fellow soldiers and countrymen. Ragnar was recently sired during the night of a solar eclipse, and since, vampires have been acting odder. The last time I wrote the main story, Cliff revealed that he dreamed Cyprian would die in that city. Or actually, Jaida and Cyprian compared gaydars at their inn's diner, but that's not really plot-relevant and was more of an interlude.
Waking was an unfortunate affair made humiliating by having been stuck in the same room with an insomniac while I dreamt pleasant, dirty dreams very vocally. I know they were pleasant and dirty, despite my recollection of rather a lot of blood, inappropriate use of shears, and fiery explosions, because Cliff complained loudly at the breakfast/dinner table that I always had the kinkiest, most disturbing wet dreams and that he was going to need to borrow money from Jaida for extensive therapy.
"Oh, please," Jaida said, "Guy like you, you could use a little crazy. And by the way, do us all a favor and pick a side."
"Side of what?" Cliff said, his forehead wrinkling.
"I'm not sure I'm up for this conversation a second time," I said, "or at least while I'm eating. Or present."
Jaida snorted. "Oh, come on. Aren't you interested in finding out your chances with a young, pretty blond adventurer? I bet he has some pretty wild uses for his...sword."
"Side - wild uses-" Cliff said, and whimpered. "I'm straight! What the hell, you guys?!"
"Your lips say no," Jaida sing-songed, "but your adorable strappy heeled boots and shiny, silken locks say, "Mm-hmm, girlfriend.""
"You can't trust a word my hair says," Cliff said. "Every strand is an dirty pathological liar. They'll say anything to a pretty face. A pretty girl's face. Don't believe them."
"Believe me, honey," Jaida said. "Those locks don't lie."
"You know," Kristen said thoughtfully, "I did wonder why Cliff never tried to...ah, make contact after the first time."
"Kristen! I - you - you're not supposed to - don't go telling people about that like that!" Cliff said, horrified. Jaida cackled. "Sweet, naive little Cliff. The more you protest, the more obvious it is."
"Okay, both of you shut your ungodly, slack-jawed maws, and Kristen, don't encourage them," I said. "I just woke up-"
"Lazy old man can't even find the strength to get out of bed before the sun sets," Cliff muttered, then reddened when he realized everyone had heard him - nothing as pleasant as a ripe tomato, but more of a mortified lobster that's just realized it's in a very hot pan.
"-And I'm still hearing piano and guitar feedback over a wailing banshee from the arcana I made last night, and until you have to deal with angry clients married to their bank statements with power to back up their close-fistedness and until you have your first arcana hangover, I'll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself, Cliff," I said. "I've procured slaying jobs for all of you. I very unregretfully will not be joining you, as I had to rig about forty-some high-stakes card games in this city while resisting the urge to make a great fool of myself, notably failing, and keeping track of Mena just to find Jaida, Kristen, and I new weapons."
"Ah, swag with warning labels! Don't mind if I do," Jaida said. "I think it's only fair to tell you, by the way, that if you tell me to say please I do have some rather sturdy, workable senbon in my hair this night, and I feel like a good fight."
I shuffled around in my pockets for what I was looking for. I set the weapons down on the table. There were more than two.
"All right, here. The battleaxe is yours, Jaida, and the bags marked yuriang, mismar, and worchester are spell components for restorative magic. The yuriang and mismar are instant spell powder - for blood clotting and bone-stitching, respectively. The worchester is a magic enhancement compound that will work with any component-based spell."
"The falchions are for you, Kristen, since I noticed you seem to do better with small blades than you do just your hands. This is me, not commenting on that and being very mature, and I suggest you do the same, Jaida, so close your mouth. I bought these cheaply, but I cast a few enchantments on them to make them stronger, and prone to random bouts of intense heat on the business end, kindly close your mouth Jaida, which is useful here because there are even more vampires in Soonah than I remember there being."
The girls took their weapons, Jaida with scrutiny and Kristen with a sort of blindly accepting, guilty awe. "It wasn't any problem at all, Kristen. Whatever you're thinking, stop."
She looked at me, startled. "Um, it's just - nothing, I guess. I'm - thank you. Self-made gifts are the best."
"Like I said, it was nothing," I said. "I was in a casting mood, anyway. Soonah's got a negative magnetic thaumatological field, so it made sense to do it now."
"What about you?" Cliff said. "You must have a new weapon, too, right?"
"I have flowers," I said neutrally. Jaida laughed, and said, "Right, because when I think badass, demon-slaying weapons of ultimate destruction, I think of posies and baby's breath."
I smiled, half to annoy Jaida and half because I knew what sort of flowers I had up my sleeve. Some of them were invented the night before.
"Kristen and Jaida," I said. "You have a job exterminating bunyips."
Bunyips," Jaida spat. "Somebody tie my hands behind my back. Maybe I'll actually have fun fighting."
"You'll be giving Kristen tips on using her falchions," I said. She glared as if she had a choice in the matter, and I said, "Unless you like the idea of having an untrained woman at your back with every excuse to pretend she didn't mean to stab you. I haven't ruled that possibility out."
"You guys suck," Jaida said. "When the world comes to an end and I am the warrior queen of all I survey, I'll order your deaths to be messy. Except yours, Cliff. You'll have a special place as my second concubine. Hey, where're you going, Pinky?"
"Thrilling as your collective presence may be," I said, "for about three minutes after the alcohol takes hold, I've got things that need doing."
"And since when have I been a thing, huh?" Jaida said, looking at me from under eyelashes thicker than Cliff's skull. I didn't bother with a reply, just waved a little as I turned heel and walked out of the hotel.
Soonah was a holy place for the Buillaisians who found favor with the god Adanvari. But places sacred to shadow gods are typically unholy for most of the populace. This is good to keep in mind if you're fond of breathing.
The thing about being even the slightest bit magical and alive in a town like Soonah, where the magical field draws dark magic to it like a dehydrated man drawing water from a well, is that it gets you down. It's in the air; you can smell it, hear it, touch it. The town is alive, and it consumes your happiness for sustenance. It's like being followed around constantly and everywhere by that certain relative that you're convinced will one day drive you to homicide. Thus, most people who lived in Soonah were generally as magical as a backwards cap, the angriest bastards in the world, or not, technically speaking, alive. Vampires mostly, but a few halfbreeds and a smattering of demons. Some clever mages had found a way to keep their happiness without resorting to pricy potion brews and pills, but they tended towards not sharing. Yet they had no problem sharing their misery, when the mood struck them. Often. I tended towards believing their cures didn't work, because if those mages were that pissy without any sort of logical reason, then I fear for the world when Soonah's stranglehold takes effect on them. The world would end with a bang and a whimper.
I was on my way to a highly recommended curse specialist of the area when I saw him. I'm not really a fan of crypticism, but that was the word that popped into my brain first: 'him - that's him,' replete with unnecessary italics and dramatic disbelief. My brain sometimes, I swear to Christ.
It was the man who occasionally wandered into my dreams. Another mystic.
Living on Anharo as a mystic would be like, for the average fully-human human, living on a planet of intelligent apes. Maybe they would have the psychological capacity of a human, and they might be structurally similar, but they would never be human, not like you. You'd live, maybe, but you'd perhaps find yourself on some days willing to kill for another human to interact with. I wondered sometimes if housepets or flowers felt the same. I have seldom had a flower which didn't know its own kind, so I've never had the opportunity to know, and the not knowing was always annoying. I had my dreams to pretend I could meet one of my own, and they were becoming fewer and farther in between. There was this man - this mystic - and there was seldom anyone else now.
So of course I walked over to talk to him without even knowing his name.
Stupid, stupid move. I know. And me without my flower seedlings.
Should I have been the one to speak first, I might have embarrassed myself worse than I needed to. As it was, it was the man who spoke first:
"Ah," he said, and now I wanted to cry or cry laughing, but now I wanted to kill him like some people wanted limitless wealth. I'd had a blindfold on when he tortured me and issued the ultimatum to save myself or my squadron. The only other time I'd heard his voice was in a dream, while every thought and image in my head vanished as if sunken in quicksand. He smiled and bile rose in my throat. He said, "Good of you to make it in time."
And oh, but that line was so loaded for maximum dark portent.
"Had to skip out of Strathclyde to make it," I said. "It definitely wasn't worth it. Clearly, someone vetoed the strip poker without consulting me or someone misadvertised."
"Is strip poker really what brought you here?" Ragnar Merridan said, and began a campaign against my personal space. He was quicker and more subtle about it than any innocent man should have been; I didn't notice until he had me pinned against a wall. I stared him in the eyes; he was hardly anything special. Just cold. It was eighty three degrees out and past sunset. So he was a vampire, then. I said, "Doesn't really look like you've got any better ideas."
He was too close and the magic field was too strong; I couldn't set him ablaze without getting some of the fire. But the minute I managed to get away from him, I swore, there would be nothing left of him but ashes and dust.
Hell, maybe I wouldn't even wait.
"You're unarmed," Ragnar said, "I could kill you now."
"Too quick for you," I said, and wondered if his face might possibly be less of a creepy blend of amused, angry, offended, and turned on if I cursed his blood to boiling. Wondered if it would be worth the nosedive in karma, then decided against it. Ragnar said, "And you know me, is that it?"
"Well," I said, "from personal experience, I know what you did to my men and I know what you did to me, and that's pretty much all I need to know."
Then I realized my mouth and heart were not the only things still working. I kneed Ragnar hard - he would appreciate the classics, and I could appreciate the pain. Apparently, sensitive nerve endings work just as well dead as alive. I put some distance between us and cast the most terrible fire spell I could think of - the one I used for burning enemy encampments in the war - and ran.
I may hate running, but damn, is it an effective way to put distance between person A and person B. Provided of course that A is the only person that B is running from.
Yeah. It wasn't as simple as A and B, as it turned out.
There wasn't any running to be done, as it was; a golden haze surrounded me and I, uh, lost consciousness. I woke up some time later, dazed and tied down with rope to something uncomfortably hard and cold. If I opened my eyes and discovered I was tied to railroad tracks, I'd do me in myself. A man can only take so much trite in a day before he snaps.
"You're free to go," a voice said. I opened my eyes. Pale as a corpse - probably was one - yellow eyes and long inky hair. Not Ragnar. Ragnar was next to him, nightmarishly disfigured - there may have been parts missing - from my magic and silent as he watched the moon. We were on a hill overlooking Soonah.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll just get going then. I'm sure I could get halfway across the globe tied to this pole. Out with it. There's a catch. What is it?"
"The solar eclipse the other month was a sign from Adanvari to his vampire children," the pale man said. "The Butcher Downs vampires found a book among the ruins of the Draconian city of Cressecant that was never there before the eclipse. We've found a way to reverse the sun's curse on us. What the sun does to us, it will do to you humans and humanoids, and we shall walk in light again and hunt you down, as is the right of the sun's holy people. You're stronger magically than Ragnar and you show a reluctance to lay down and die - not so much now, of course - so we had to dispose of you. But Ragnar had the idea to use your power, so you're going to help us."
"You should know that you have no choice," Ragnar said. "I'm the only reason you're still alive. The golden marble I gave you in your dream was something Mashiro here made for me - they called it a dominabule a very long time ago. As long as you have it with you, you will do as I say, and you will never get rid of it - that's how it works."
Mashiro untied me while Ragnar yammered on:
"You can run, if you like, but I'll find you - I'm in your dreams, in your head, and your soul is sharing a space with mine. I have all the time in the world, and you have very little of it. You can run and hide, but it's really only your time you'll be wasting. You will come when called. That's an order. You will not harm us. That's an order."
I tried to make myself coax the grass to rise up and strangle them both, anyway, but I couldn't form the thought. Mashiro and Ragnar walked off without a glance back at me. Figuring I'd lost this round and glad, but not especially thankful, that for the moment I wasn't wounded or breathing through a hole in my neck, I walked back to Soonah. There just wasn't a finger middle enough for this type of situation.