What began as 'throwaway names and plot points in threads' has gotten a bit more life the more rp I've done with @hotstuffxhannah / @@mindxthief lately so...
Louisa Manning - Nicola Walker
Daisuke Takai - Hiroyuki Sanada
Liam Sheehan - Jerome Flynn
And, no respect on his same, former Warden Alec Payne- Josha Stradowski
What began as 'throwaway names and plot points in threads' has gotten a bit more life the more rp I've done with @hotstuffxhannah / @@mindxthief lately so...
Louisa Manning - Nicola Walker
Daisuke Takai - Hiroyuki Sanada
Liam Sheehan - Jerome Flynn
And, no respect on his name, former Warden Alec Payne- Josha Stradowski
Elsie took Ayesha's hand, and let the levee break.
---
Its not even really security detail. That's what the others are there for.
Ramirez, Meyers, they all stick close to the Senior Council members. Grey cloaks and straight backs. Yours is upstairs, a heavy encumberancre you're better protected without. Besides. It's not your job to be a show of strength. No, you're here to drift, to watch, to remain beneath the notice of most in this place full of noble immortals. To be the eyes open for sidhe mischief or white court sauciness while your elders and betters did the work of politics. Not that anyone would likely make a problem.
But you're having trouble looking away from the Lachaise table. They're loud, their laughter has a sharp, inhuman hyena quality to it that puts ice in your spine and the chains against your skin beneath her clothing seem to heat in warning.
The Lachaise clan begged for scraps at the Red Court's right hand for a decade of war and look where it had gotten them. A seat at the table and a say on what was to come. Bottom feeders that had come out on top and make you want to narrow your definition of what gets to be considered a person.
Electrical fires started so easily in old plantation houses like the LaChaise's. And the way she barred a door wouldn't leave a mark.
"Careful, kiddo," a voice said, low, the grey cloak of another warden drifting close. "People might start to know what that look on your face means."
You shoot an annoyed upwards glance to the older, very tall man, who moves alongside you with a small, familiar smile,
"Don't patronize me, Dresden", you say,
"I'm not going to do anything."
---
[Everything begins to move faster in the memory. A clip set by the spotty nature of exhaustion. ]
By the time a goddess walks into a banquet hall, it's already too late for any mortal attendants.
You watch a queen of faerie, dispatched from the action in an instant—
The burning coal of Eithniu's stone eye gleams, as she holds the king of something once mighty on a leash and declares war. (War. Always coming, inevitable. The power vaccum. You know, you knew this was coming you just thought you'd have more time—)
War and death, the titan vows, to any that stand against her, and she laughs as the city goes dark.
---
Satellite phone in the lead lined box. Four calls—
Mom I need you to get up to Declan's cabin tonight—
Baby, what's going on, what—
Please trust me.
The phone dies after five minutes. You don't even know why you brought the bag except you always bring the bag. Stolen moments to change clothing. Silver chains and silver rings, knit silk laced with mistletoe fiber, copper hobnails, copper coins, a smear of blue over each eye just for any help against the dark—
—and then it's fall in line. Wait. Follow Ramirez, he's still your direct commander. The senior council is meeting on the roof but the Fomor are at the gates. This place needs to hold. (They'll keep the doors open for civilians as long as they can.)
This isn't your first War. You didn't know what you were signing up for last time. How could you? But you swore you'd be ready next time, you're ready, you've been ready. You planned and trained and prepared, you are better and stronger than you were last time, you—I'm not ready.
But this you know how to do, cut loose from your commanders side long enough to move through this new Baron's stronghold. Lay threads of defenses behind you at every door and window. Ariadne in the maze.
----
This is no shadow war to be fought over years and ambush and skirmish. There is an army moving with a Titan at it's head. Wardens fold in with forces of the summer court and Svartalfheim. A chance to make a blockade, funnel the real battle to a place where those that wielded the most power could have a chance at making a difference, of ending this. Not you never you.
---
Something is stirring in the cemetery. The dead walk in the dark of a blinded city. A brief window to split forces—
"Meyers, Yoshimo, Sinclair, with me."
"No, take Chandler, Sinclair, stay with the Senior Council."
Meyers, Yoshimo, and Chandler don't come back from the cemetery.
--'
Warhorns in the night.
Giants walk the streets, to clash with the Einhejar, the Senior Council show why they've lived this long. And why it's worth the rest of your lives to keep them fighting.
----
The blockade breaks. A titan takes the field. And Chicago starts to crumble and burn.
Before Elsie's help, memory was a riptide, picking Ayesha up and overwhelming her, sweeping her so metaphorically out to sea she'd forget for a little while she even was Ayesha.
Now memory was a strong current: it pulled at her, buffeted her, but she could stand in it. Keep her footing, keep her sense of self.
Elsie took Ayesha's hand and Ayesha let her in and oh, it felt like before again.
—it starts with cold fury at a table full of laughing ghouls and goes downhill at breakneck speed, a blazing eye and four rushed phone calls and death and disappearance and armies marching, forces that move mountains and you have silver and silk and copper and thread, this is war and this isn't your first war and you said you'd be ready for the next one and you've prepared for this and Chicago is burning and you're not ready—
The snatches of images, of memory, flicker past, jerky and burning at every edge like an old projector run too hot. A split second glimpse of any horror you could imagine, there and gone.
[Maybe Elsie was trying to spare Ayesha some of it. Maybe herself. Maybe she couldn't even be sure of the sequence of events, of reality anymore. ]
--
Warden Gibson is like you, competent, but expendable.
The invaders have numbers, but numbers fail when the field works against them. Barricade, funnel, herd. A well placed clot in the arteries of this bleeding city would be worth more than any number of Fomor you could dispatch on your own.
Gibson is yelling at you to hurry up but he can't hear the city screaming.
You know it's in your head, but that doesn't make the pressure behind your eyes any less, stop you from stumbling over your feet because it's all you can do to push up against your mental protections and try not to be swept away. But the harder you press, the tighter something squeezes inside you.
Something equal parts metaphorical and metaphysical that feels like it might just kill you now if you keep struggling, constricting with every breath of will and sigh of power.
And maybe you're supposed to give in, and let inevitability ride, but you scramble, in the spiritual and the unreal, claw inside yourself until you can find the taut cord choking you, and—
"You think you're something special cause of the name?" Sheehan had spit once, years ago. " Your line might have spit out some great wizards in their day, aye, but every one of them went stark raving mad—"
—break it.
The pressure is gone the howling is gone, there's a ringing in your ears but that's —That's just the bullet that carves a slash out of your scalp before taking Gibson through his left eye.
--
Stormclouds roil overhead, a gift from the Summer Court. Your lungs are full of petrichor and you can feel the electricity in the air, ambient power tingling over your skin—
Storm sorcery is the pervue of ritualistic charlatans, your uncle's voice chides. Those with real talent do not dirty their hands—
But you can't push yourself up out of the mud with clean hands.
--
The Fomor forces can't be allowed to pass this way. Even with so much of the fighting elsewhere...
—There is blood on your cheek and in your hair and you smear your hand through it and press it down onto the fractured concrete.
A long time ago, a kind man told you that power was a river, to be directed, to move within, but never truly commanded.
So you commit your sacrilege, press your blood into the ground and whisper to the river beneath.
Remember, you say, in all the oldest tongues you know. Remember that all water returns to the sea, remember when you carved out desert canyons, remember great seas that swallowed the land, remember when you were part of glaciers grinding mountains into sand. Remember remember rem—
You're not the one who splinters a final, fatal crack in the concrete, leaving it too weak to stand against what is roiling within.
How many stories of creation begin with a great flood?
You get to higher ground before the water main bursts like a man made tsunami.
Fomor infantry and human mercenaries are swept back into their own forces in a vicious, indiscrimate tangle. Thou shalt not take a mortal life with thy power —
You don't pause to see what you have or haven't done. Schrodingers war crime. You've never been a better Warden.
--
Gods and monsters and heroes converge. There's nothing you can do there, find what remains of the Council forces and fold in.
--
The heavens open—
--
Your luck runs out.
--
It's a blur, as the Fomor are driven back to the lake. You don't remember the details, leaning heavily against a lamppost because one of your legs just won't hold you up anymore—
The thundering whir of helicopter blades—
--
Dawn—not far off. A cruel reward for surviving, to get to see the aftermath in light of day.
Everything went cold. Numb and frigid, the shock of frozen water. Her shoulder and chest are wet.
Her hair, come loose, is sticking to her neck and she just wants to brush it aside but her fingers are clumsy and‐—cold—
Even with the heat and light of the fire–fire and—
Hannah.
Hannah who shouldn't be here, blood spotted like freckles over her cheeks. Hannah who had promised to come back but shouldn't—
Hannah's eyes, lit amber and honey by her own firelight, were wide, (no point in looking away now.)
And the panic —Elsie's terror had slipped beneath the ice, somewhere she couldn't reach. The fear —horror, desperation —that wrapped around her ribs and squeezed wasn't hers. It's too sharp and hot and alive.
Hannah's not looking at her anymore, calling out. Elsie can't breathe, there's blood in her mouth and—please. Numb, slow fingers try to curl around Hannah's wrist, just look at me.
I'm sorry I'm so—.
Warm hands on her cheeks, trying to hold her still even as she shudders and chokes—four minutes and thirteen seconds ago, Hannah's thumb had brushed over her lower lip before she'd leaned down. —
sorrysorrysorry—
Warmth.
Heat.
The pain that followed was bright, exquisite, and the last thing Elsie knew before the dark closed in.
[ She doesn't hear the footsteps growing closer. Doesn't feel the other hands that lift her out of Hannah's grasp. Doesn't see the Way torn open in a flash by Manning as they all fell back.]
***
Stone held enchantments well. So it was no surprise that out of the list of places the Council could fortify, a 15th century Austrian castle was one of the best choices.
But it was still a cold and solemn place, in the hours after the bedraggled band of Wardens and allies had stumbled back into it's walls and immediately into triage. Wounded to the medical team, the hale and heartier out from underfoot.
Jon had gone with Manning to give the mission report, leaving Hannah, Kayleigh, and Alec to....wait. Kayleigh's arm was in a sling, (tibia fracture, dislocated shoulder. Into the hands of medics and returned to her team an hour ago.)
They certainly weren't all friends. But they were a team, or had least frequently been one over the past three years. A consequence of being in the same place at the same time.
Of course. Three years ago there had been seven of them. Now four.
Maybe three.
A sobering and heavy silence hung there, that had kept even loudmouth Payne almost mute since arrival. Kayleigh had tear tracks through the grey stone dust on her cheeks, (they'd all heard her scream when her arm was set) that still dusted her dirty blonde hair and clung to every crease in her face, making her look decades older in the moment she finally piped up, with a sidelong glance at Payne,
"Should have listened when she said the guide was squirrelly", she muttered, earning her a scowl from Payne.
It was supposed to be extraction. Council allies and some civilians, lightly guarded and off the map.
Something had felt wrong from the start. But with Manning securing their exit and Jon circling to deal with any Red Court guards...it had only been the four of them with their informant, directing them where to go after the hostages. Already there, no ability to contact the more senior Wardens and just having to act...by the time that Elsie had murmured to Hannah that their guide was too nervous.
"We had a mission", Payne grit his jaw, "People are squirrelly, you don't change up orders on bad vibes."
"You should when they're right", Kayleigh kicked at the stone floor. Payne had been the most insistent on pushing ahead, so it was easy to throw this at him. But the trap had been sprung by then anyway. Payne shot a glare between Kayleigh and Hannah, the posture, broad chest puffed and arms crossed was angry and defensive.
"We were balls deep in the shit already", he snapped, "Bug out backwards or bug out towards the hostages and try to finish the job. It sucks about Sinclair but we made the right call, she should have kept up."
Ghouls stank when you lit them on fire. The rotten, burning-garbage smell of the one nearby mixed with the scent of blood made for a nightmarish combo.
And it was the lesser of two evils.
The smell of burning human was horrific in its familiarity. She knew it from the past and from her dreams and here it was now as she worked and apologized and prayed to anybody listening that Elsie would live through this.
She was burning Elsie like she'd burned Sheehan like she'd burned the men who'd put their hands on her. That smell always came with screaming on its heels but Elsie didn't have enough of her throat intact to scream.
Hannah did it for her.
Things got... fuzzy after that. Or sharp, maybe, in a broken-window kind of way, the world only registering in jagged little shards. Rushing footsteps. A man's voice. (Jon?) Hands on her arms, pulling her up, away. Leading her stumbling. Elsie? Elsie! Her best friend a pale, bloody ragdoll in another set of arms. Fresh air, the smell of burning things swept away. Stumbling through a hole in the world, through into the Way, falling, fear-vomiting somewhere in the Nevernever because she's gone, she's dead, she must be, your fire was never meant to heal just to kill and wondering what the point is of getting back up again. Christ, Ascher, get up! in the distance and Hannah, we have to move, here, lean on me closer up. Rising and stumbling onward on leaden legs, through another hole in the world. Castle Frankenstein. Elsie? Elsie! Someone screaming — not her this time. Probably.
Hannah wasn't sure how much time had passed before coherent thought finished piecing itself back together. But when it did she registered that she was in a vaguely-familiar barracks, stone walls lit by torchlight. Only other people in there with her were Kayleigh — when had her arm been put in a sling? — and Payne, his face about as stony as the walls.
(Terrible company to be stuck with. Teammates, sure, but she didn't like Payne for a laundry list of reasons boiling down to Payne is an asshole and she didn't like Kayleigh because Kayleigh and Payne were fucking.)
"Where's—?"
"Manning and VanderNoorde are meeting with the other higher-ups," Kayleigh sighed. Her voice sounded like it was about to give out. "And before you ask again, they're working on Sinclair but no, I didn't see her."
Working on Sinclair. Right. Right. They were at home base, a fortress with the best field hospital the White Council could provide. Magic didn't play well with technology which meant actual hospitals were out of the question for injured Wardens, but there were wizards here at Castle Frankenstein who'd studied medicine longer than their whole squad's lifespans put together — wizards who'd worked out how to treat other wizards without the aid of modern medical machinery.
This place's actual name was Burg Weißerstein; somebody'd called it Castle Frankenstein as a joke once, and it had stuck. It totally fits, Nelly had laughed last year. This is where they stitch people back together, right?
Nobody had been able to stitch Nelly back together. There hadn't been enough of TJ left for anybody to try.
But working on Sinclair meant that Elsie was still alive, at least for now. I didn't kill her. There was still time. She might pull through. Might. Maybe.
Please.
Kayleigh and Payne were arguing, again, they were always fighting and it was funny and it was pathetic because imagine sleeping with someone you couldn't even get along with.
Imagine not so much as kissing someone you did get along with till it's too late.
They were sniping about the mission. Should've pulled out, did the right thing staying, all a fucking waste of breath because it was over now, they'd done what they'd done and there was no going back and changing it even if Hannah would have in a heartbeat. If only she knew how. Thou shalt not swim against the currents of time? Fuck it, I've already broken one Law...
"—sucks about Sinclair—"
Hannah's gaze snapped toward Payne.
"—she should have kept up."
"Kept up?"
Hannah shot to her feet. Hannah shot forward.
She collided with tough-guy Payne, with Alec No-Payne-No-Gain, bigger and stronger than her but caught by surprise, and the sound the back of his head made when it snapped back against the stone wall was almost satisfying. Maybe if it happened a few more times.
"Kept up?" She hit him, and that was also almost satisfying. "You bastard. She saved us!" Hit him again. "We'd all be fucking ghoul chow if it weren't for her!" Again. Again. Fists into his face, into his ribs, knee to his stomach or his dick or wherever, anything she could reach. "Fuck you, Payne. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you—"
If asked, Louisa Manning would say that she intervened immediately.
That she knew how high emotions and physical violence between young wizards could easily extend to the metaphysical. And that it would be on her head if Ascher--
But Payne had this one coming, and either from exhaustion, surpise, or the credit of his macho bullshit, he didn't swing back.The first hit broke his nose and snapped his head back into the stone wall with an audible smack. (At least one of them had taken away something from hand to hand training...)
And then Ascher was on him like a cat, a spitting fury of limbs and hurt as he got his forearms up to block her blows and—what the fuck, Ascher—get off—
She got a few more good licks in before Payne caught one of her wrists and used the leverage to wrench her off of him and stand, tense and furious, —your fucking problem, you wanna be a crazy bitch, save it for the Reds—
But Hannah had more words for him, and the shift in Payne's posture suggested he was reconsidering his twisted chivalry so...Louisa stepped out of the hallway shadow, grabbed all six two, two fifty pounds of Alec Payne by the shirt collar and pulled him back, like he was a misbehaving puppy.
Her people had been people of the earth, and the magic of earth could come with great strength, if only for a moment.
"Cut it out!", she snapped, putting her body between the two young wardens. Payne tried to wrench free from her grasp and she let him...after a second of struggle.
"There's something fucking wrong with you, Ascher!", Payne hissed, jabbing a finger over Louisa's shoulder at Hannah.
"Enough, before I let her knock that last brain cell out of your damn skull", she glared, as Payne spit pink on the ground, blood from his nose and split lip streaking his teeth. "MacMillan, go with him down to the med bay and get cleaned up."
Kayleigh, who had gotten to her feet, protested, "I can stay with—"
"Medbay, then bunks. Now", Louisa Manning had spent most of her adult life a soldier, in one way or another. She knew how to give commands and take them.
And she'd known plenty of men like Alec Payne. Men who had a near fetish for the bonds of brotherhood that came from the simplicity of us vs them. Men looking to fill a missing piece in them with glorious violence and default belonging. And like a lot of them, he thought that comraderie was a given, and was too much a fool to realize that people didn't much care about your common cause if you were a jackass about it.
Payne stalked away, MacMillan behind him, shooting one last glance over her shoulder before disappearing down the hall.
"Sit", Louisa said to Ascher, the young woman was still trembling with rage or just the fallout of the day, before settling down on the bench beside her with a heavy sigh. Hannah Ascher's pretty face was a mess of soot, dust, tears and blood.
I swear I'm trying to do right by these damn kids, Daisuke, but it's hard when we're losing and they're all starting to catch on.
A friend of many decades now, dead three months past . And it almost didn't matter that he'd taken several Red Court nobles and their stronghold with him. The vampires could always replace their numbers.
She glanced aside at Ascher. A black mark against the laws of magic. Warlocks were people who were marked. Because once you bent your power to certain ends, it became a tool at your side. No amount of apparent remorse or confusion would change what you wielded. When things got hard, you would grasp that tool again. Your soul would long for it, an addiction.
But Alec Payne wasn't so much as singed. Which showed that Ascher had a degree of self control that Louisa wasn't sure she could have matched at 23.
"Today was a shitshow, shouldn't have gone down the way it did. But we adapted, followed through, got hostages and the team out. People showed up where they were needed."
Even Payne, loudmouth shithead that he was, had only doubled back to help Jon get the girls out once Kayleigh and the other wounded had made it to Louisa's way point.
She let out a long breath, looking out into the dim central hall of, what did the kids call it, Castle Frankenstein — as she added,
"Everyone did good. You did really good today, Hannah. "
Elsie nodded her inside, awkwardly shifting back to the couch and leaning the crutch up against it. It was pretty dim in the living room with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from candles and a couple battery operated lamps. Something she was sure Ayesha would notice, and probably understand the implications of.
Nox appeared from the shadows with a chirp and barreled into Ayesha's ankles, twining between them between insistent kitty rumbles.
She should have tried harder to call. Elsie knew. But some part of her had just thought...Ayesha knew enough. Enough not to panic, at least. No one was fleeing from the coast just yet. Obviously what had happened hadn't been a mundane act of human aggression. If the Council had been involved, surely-
When Elsie had gotten home two weeks ago, the estimated death toll in Chicago had been over fifty thousand. In one night. And she'd let her friend dangle on that, on whatever the news was able to report. On whatever rumors were flying among the Paranet.
Lot of Paranet members in Chicago. Elsie probably wasn't the only one who hadn't returned Ayesha's calls this month.
Either she's too tired to feel guilty, or the familiar shame of cowardice had slipped into the deep, numb, welcome well in her. Slipped and fell away into the dark. A quiet in her mind that was as welcome as it was worrying.
"Sorry, about....I could either take the time to explain or I could make three more of the same call. So..."
Elsie let that hang. Before she'd completely fried her landline, she had managed one very brief call with her mother. Sorry for scaring her. She was fine. Wiring in her building had issues. They'd be in touch when it was fixed.
What happened?
Elsie had the obscene urge to laugh. What hadn't, where could she possibly begin? What was even the important parts? How could she put the events of that night into words and sense? Something wounded and small snapped at the idea and snarled that she shouldn't have to. She didn't want the responsibility of the story. She couldn't--
"Trust me, I'm not that hurt", Elsie said. Letting out a long breath and looking down at the floor. "Chicago....that meeting of the accords I told you about. Someone decided to start another war. We won."
She did laugh now, one brief, choked chuckle, "That's what winning looks like."
It looked like a shattered skyline, streets of fire and blood. It was more dead wardens and half the senior council in traction and tens of thousands of civilians who never even knew why death had come for them.
Winning looked like limping home bloody to wait. The reward for living was that she got to still be here for the next time. And the next time, and---
"Aye--I don't think I can. I don't know what--"
Nox was on the couch in a flash, butting her head under one of Elsie's hands and it's just enough of a lifeline that she catches her breath. Breathed, pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, and offered her bare hand to Ayesha, not meeting her eyes.
"Leave it all, when you're done. But....fastest way to explain. I'm not sure seeing it will do you any good. Actually. I know it won't. "
It'll live in her nightmares for the rest of her life, because you're too selfish to pull together yourself and use your words.
Yeah? Elsie thought back at the voice of the truth, guess that's her choice.
The daylight spilling in through the entranceway was the brightest the living room got; when Elsie moved aside to let Ayesha in, and Ayesha shut the door behind her, the room fell into shadow. Elsie had candles scattered around, plus a couple battery-powered lamps that, simple as they were, flickered badly.
Elsie sat heavily down on the couch, placing the crutch next to her. Before Ayesha could take another step in, something barrelled into her ankle: a little hard to spot a black cat in the sudden gloom but there was Nox, winding around her legs and chirping. Ayesha bent to offer a scratch on the head in greeting, but even though this was sweet it felt off: that cat had never been this affectionate.
I could either take the time to explain or I could make three more of the same call.
Ayesha had to admit (maybe a little grudgingly) that that made complete sense. That it was the right thing to do, even If you know something bad's coming and there are a lot of people in a potential blast zone, you try to get as many people out as you can.
"Okay. Okay, fine, I get that part," she replied. "But not the part after. You've been back for a couple weeks and I've been calling and just... nothing from you. Or from anyone else. Chicago Paranet's been dark since a little after you called me that day—"
Was it gross of her to be doing this, right now? Doing this after she'd said, more than once, that Elsie needed rest? Probably. But Ayesha couldn't stop herself; all that confusion and fear and, yeah, hurt of the last few weeks had been building up like pressure, and, well, opening her mouth looked like she'd opened floodgates.
Besides, Elsie'd been the one to say she'd been resting and nothing to worry about so if she was going to be that way...
"—there've been some rumors coming out from further away about some kind of attack, but everything's so jumbled. Some people are saying Fomor, others are saying something else. Mortal news is calling it a terrorist attack, but obviously they haven't found anybody to officially pin it on... it's like, no one really knows anything except for people who actually—"
Survived it, she almost said. The little that people did know was that it was a matter of having survived or not. Footage from news choppers showed swaths of the city leveled, the skyline smoking. Reports were coming out that the city had been blown back to the Dark Ages, that in addition to the destruction every electronic in Chicagoland was dead. (Some kind of massive EMP was the mortal news's best guess.) An accurate, official death toll was going to take a long time to calculate, but it was being estimated in the tens of thousands. In a night. 'Multiple 9/11s' was the low end. The most devastating terror attack on American soil by far, was what the mortal news said.
"—saw it firsthand."
The magical community, Paranetters and others in the know, had a little more than that to go on. Ayesha herself had of course brought up Elsie's warning (tried to keep her name out of it, left it at a Warden I know), and had corroborated others' claims that there were supposed to have been some Accorded peace talks happening in Chicago that day. It was a given that powerful enough magic played hell with modern technology, and that might have explained the so-called EMP blast.
But that was about where the for-sure (and even the for-sure-ish) ended, and where guesswork and rumors started flying. Had someone or something tried to drop an arcane nuke on all the signatories of the Unseelie Accords at once? What the hell could knock out all the tech citywide if not some kind of arcane nuke? An elder god? Had fucking Cthulhu popped out of Lake Michigan and rampaged kaiju-style through Chicago?
No way to say for certain.
Elsie said someone decided to start another war. Elsie said, with a bitterness Ayesha didn't have to be an empath to clock, we won. This is what winning looks like.
God. What would losing have meant, then?
And Elsie choked out Aye, I don't think I can, I don't know and the catch in her voice and the look in her eyes finally drove home what Ayesha should have realized all along: Elsie wasn't icing anybody out, Elsie had gone through hell on Earth and of course she wouldn't want to — or maybe even couldn't bring herself to — talk about it.
God, you're such an asshole, Ayesha. She'd gone through a few things that even years on it would be tough to put words to, and those things had been on so much of a smaller scale. What kind of horrors must Elsie have seen on the night that had shattered a city?
Well.
Here Elsie was, offering to show-not-tell, sweater pushed up her sleeve, hand and arm offered. Fastest way to explain. I'm not sure seeing it will do you any good. Actually. I know it won't.
Though she avoided doing it, Ayesha could still look at people's memories. It was easier to avoid doing now, thanks in no small part to Elsie herself. It took conscious intent these days, focus, will; it was share in and not take. No more ripping out pieces of people's minds at the barest touch, or at all.
Ayesha hesitated. Watched Nox (easier to see now that her eyes had adjusted) scamper up to Elsie and headbutt her free hand. She wanted so badly to know what happened. But to see it, to feel it?
No. You don't get to back away now. You fucking asked for this, over and over. Take it.
She nodded once, braced herself, and offered her own hand. The left, the hand of drawing-in, still banded with braided iron and silver.
Elsie took Ayesha's hand, and let the levee break.
---
Its not even really security detail. That's what the others are there for.
Ramirez, Meyers, they all stick close to the Senior Council members. Grey cloaks and straight backs. Yours is upstairs, a heavy encumberancre you're better protected without. Besides. It's not your job to be a show of strength. No, you're here to drift, to watch, to remain beneath the notice of most in this place full of noble immortals. To be the eyes open for sidhe mischief or white court sauciness while your elders and betters did the work of politics. Not that anyone would likely make a problem.
But you're having trouble looking away from the Lachaise table. They're loud, their laughter has a sharp, inhuman hyena quality to it that puts ice in your spine and the chains against your skin beneath her clothing seem to heat in warning.
The Lachaise clan begged for scraps at the Red Court's right hand for a decade of war and look where it had gotten them. A seat at the table and a say on what was to come. Bottom feeders that had come out on top and make you want to narrow your definition of what gets to be considered a person.
Electrical fires started so easily in old plantation houses like the LaChaise's. And the way she barred a door wouldn't leave a mark.
"Careful, kiddo," a voice said, low, the grey cloak of another warden drifting close. "People might start to know what that look on your face means."
You shoot an annoyed upwards glance to the older, very tall man, who moves alongside you with a small, familiar smile,
"Don't patronize me, Dresden", you say,
"I'm not going to do anything."
---
[Everything begins to move faster in the memory. A clip set by the spotty nature of exhaustion. ]
By the time a goddess walks into a banquet hall, it's already too late for any mortal attendants.
You watch a queen of faerie, dispatched from the action in an instant—
The burning coal of Eithniu's stone eye gleams, as she holds the king of something once mighty on a leash and declares war. (War. Always coming, inevitable. The power vaccum. You know, you knew this was coming you just thought you'd have more time—)
War and death, the titan vows, to any that stand against her, and she laughs as the city goes dark.
---
Satellite phone in the lead lined box. Four calls—
Mom I need you to get up to Declan's cabin tonight—
Baby, what's going on, what—
Please trust me.
The phone dies after five minutes. You don't even know why you brought the bag except you always bring the bag. Stolen moments to change clothing. Silver chains and silver rings, knit silk laced with mistletoe fiber, copper hobnails, copper coins, a smear of blue over each eye just for any help against the dark—
—and then it's fall in line. Wait. Follow Ramirez, he's still your direct commander. The senior council is meeting on the roof but the Fomor are at the gates. This place needs to hold. (They'll keep the doors open for civilians as long as they can.)
This isn't your first War. You didn't know what you were signing up for last time. How could you? But you swore you'd be ready next time, you're ready, you've been ready. You planned and trained and prepared, you are better and stronger than you were last time, you—I'm not ready.
But this you know how to do, cut loose from your commanders side long enough to move through this new Baron's stronghold. Lay threads of defenses behind you at every door and window. Ariadne in the maze.
----
This is no shadow war to be fought over years and ambush and skirmish. There is an army moving with a Titan at it's head. Wardens fold in with forces of the summer court and Svartalfheim. A chance to make a blockade, funnel the real battle to a place where those that wielded the most power could have a chance at making a difference, of ending this. Not you never you.
---
Something is stirring in the cemetery. The dead walk in the dark of a blinded city. A brief window to split forces—
"Meyers, Yoshimo, Sinclair, with me."
"No, take Chandler, Sinclair, stay with the Senior Council."
Meyers, Yoshimo, and Chandler don't come back from the cemetery.
--'
Warhorns in the night.
Giants walk the streets, to clash with the Einhejar, the Senior Council show why they've lived this long. And why it's worth the rest of your lives to keep them fighting.
----
The blockade breaks. A titan takes the field. And Chicago starts to crumble and burn.
At least not by a junior warden with less than five years of arcane study under their belt. And not alone.
And Elsie was alone. The other Wardens voices had disappeared beyond her hearing, Hannah's footsteps, long gone. Alone in the ways that mattered. But decidedly not alone in the manner of nightmares.
The first minute---(oh she'd counted every second. Felt silly not to, when they'd likely be the last of her life. She should know, in the end, how long she'd made it. That was important, wasn't it? To know?)
The first minute felt impossible. Elsie focused on the copper nails in her boots (an experiment, no time to really test it), calling to the cthonic power within. Pleading with the metal to remember being part of the earth, unbreakable, all the weight of the planet's crust. Told it that the copper nails were an extension of the ground itself, and Elsie was part of the same flow, the same conduit. She could no more easily be moved across the ground than a mountain could be pushed aside.
For the first minute, it worked. Holding the shield felt like breathing in comparison to that, keeping herself upright as hundreds of pounds of snarling ghoul struck the other side of the door.
72 seconds. The door splintered, only held intact for the moment by the metal fittings and the force pressing it against her shield.
86 seconds. There's cracks forming in the bricks on either side of the door frame. Cracks spreading out from the place she had forced her shield into the ground.
91 seconds. Elsie felt every impact now, the referred shockwaves of the assault ran through her shield, into her arms.
168. Her legs were starting to shake. The power of the earth is loaned, not given.
190. The lights in the hallway are gone. The door is shattered, and long claws are reaching the spaces between the wood and scraping at her shield.
236. The ghouls had been laughing for a while now. Hyena cackles between the snarls. Not pushing against the shield full force anymore. Playing. They knew. Knew what Elsie knew. That she couldn't hold for much longer and when the magic failed--
249. Elsie wasn't sure when her nose had started bleeding.
254. If she tried to hold any longer, she would black out. (And that would be it. Hold, buy a few more seconds for the others, for Hannah. Hope they had gotten clear before the ghouls caught up. That would be best, wasn't it? Let the dark trying to creep into her vision swallow her whole. Darkness had no teeth. You won't feel a thing.)
255. If the others weren't out already, they'd be cornered when the ghouls got through. Hannah--
256. All a shield was, in the end, was will. It became force because one willed it. Some of the strongest armor was woven from silk. Silk to thread, thread to wire. Wire, conduit---
257. A storm ripped through the shield. Flesh crackled and for one moment, the laughter stopped.
258. Elsie dropped the shield, staggered back--
259. Maybe this was what a death curse was. Something unbound in you when there was nothing left to give--
260. She kills three. Her knees buckle before the fourth pounces.
This darkness had teeth.
261 seconds. Shame no one would know.
The ghoul is crushing weight, rotten breath--gone and away, thrown off her, but not before--
It's too dark to see the spatter her blood makes on the wall.
Only a half-second's view of Elsie on her knees on the ground, drained and drawn, before WHAM a snarling shape sped out of the dark and slammed into her and SPLASH blood on the wall and
"No!"
Hannah dove forward, grabbing for the ghoul on instinct, but the light in her hand was a weapon, sizzling on contact. It spun toward her, snapping and spitting, speckling her face with hot droplets of blood, but Hannah held on, pulling it away even as she poured her will into her hands, poured fire into both hands. Screamed rage and terror and the ghoul shrieked back, and the ghoul burned.
She shoved the flaming wreck of the thing away from Elsie — Elsie. Oh, God. — and didn't stop to watch it hit the deck, spinning back around and dropping to her knees next to her friend. When she raised her arm she was very, very dimly aware of scorch marks chewed into her sleeve revealing angry reddened skin, and that was going to sting like hell any second now but she couldn't focus on that when all she could think about was lighting that hand back up. Had to get a look at how Elsie was doing. Blood on the wall... but maybe it wasn't that bad?
Oh, it was that bad. It was worse.
Elsie was on the floor, on her back, and the ghoul had laid her throat open. The blood leaking from the wound looked black in the light Hannah'd conjured and it soaked into Elsie's shirt and out onto the concrete below her. Her mouth worked silently — maybe trying to speak, maybe just spasming. She was alive, thank God, but oh, Hannah watched her try to pull in a breath and it rattled, came out a cough with blood on its heels, staining her lips.
Her lips. God, but Hannah should have kissed her before this. Kissed her that first night in Cabin C and every every every night after.
She was alive but with a bite like that she wasn't going to be for long.
"Help!" Hannah called out, top of her lungs, not giving a damn if she drew other ghouls their way. She'd burn them too. It didn't matter. "H-help! Jon, Kayleigh, Payne, a-anyone! Elsie's down! Please!"
The silence felt like it was going to crush her.
They were all outside by now, far from earshot. Just Hannah and Elsie, and Elsie was bleeding out, Elsie couldn't breathe, Elsie was going to die if Hannah didn't fucking do something—
And what the hell could she do? She wasn't a medic. She was barely a fucking wizard, even after all her training just about all she could manage was fire and...
Okay. Okay, maybe.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. She wasn't sure Elsie could hear, but she had to say it anyway. Sorry she hadn't come back sooner. Sorry she'd left Elsie's side in the first place. Sorry for what she was about to do. And she said it again. Again, again, again, a low, frightened chant she found she couldn't stop: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorryimsorryimsorry—"
She tried to set the frayed edges of flesh back together with shaking hands, to hold them closed. Close it up. All she could do. All she could maybe do; how hot did a flame have to be to cauterize a wound and not do more damage? She didn't know. Elsie would know. Elsie knew things like this.
All Hannah had was a best guess. A shot in the dark.
She gathered whatever scraps of her will left that she could, and set her fingertips alight.
Everything went cold. Numb and frigid, the shock of frozen water. Her shoulder and chest are wet.
Her hair, come loose, is sticking to her neck and she just wants to brush it aside but her fingers are clumsy and‐—cold—
Even with the heat and light of the fire–fire and—
Hannah.
Hannah who shouldn't be here, blood spotted like freckles over her cheeks. Hannah who had promised to come back but shouldn't—
Hannah's eyes, lit amber and honey by her own firelight, were wide, (no point in looking away now.)
And the panic —Elsie's terror had slipped beneath the ice, somewhere she couldn't reach. The fear —horror, desperation —that wrapped around her ribs and squeezed wasn't hers. It's too sharp and hot and alive.
Hannah's not looking at her anymore, calling out. Elsie can't breathe, there's blood in her mouth and—please. Numb, slow fingers try to curl around Hannah's wrist, just look at me.
I'm sorry I'm so—.
Warm hands on her cheeks, trying to hold her still even as she shudders and chokes—four minutes and thirteen seconds ago, Hannah's thumb had brushed over her lower lip before she'd leaned down. —
sorrysorrysorry—
Warmth.
Heat.
The pain that followed was bright, exquisite, and the last thing Elsie knew before the dark closed in.
[ She doesn't hear the footsteps growing closer. Doesn't feel the other hands that lift her out of Hannah's grasp. Doesn't see the Way torn open in a flash by Manning as they all fell back.]
***
Stone held enchantments well. So it was no surprise that out of the list of places the Council could fortify, a 15th century Austrian castle was one of the best choices.
But it was still a cold and solemn place, in the hours after the bedraggled band of Wardens and allies had stumbled back into it's walls and immediately into triage. Wounded to the medical team, the hale and heartier out from underfoot.
Jon had gone with Manning to give the mission report, leaving Hannah, Kayleigh, and Alec to....wait. Kayleigh's arm was in a sling, (tibia fracture, dislocated shoulder. Into the hands of medics and returned to her team an hour ago.)
They certainly weren't all friends. But they were a team, or had least frequently been one over the past three years. A consequence of being in the same place at the same time.
Of course. Three years ago there had been seven of them. Now four.
Maybe three.
A sobering and heavy silence hung there, that had kept even loudmouth Payne almost mute since arrival. Kayleigh had tear tracks through the grey stone dust on her cheeks, (they'd all heard her scream when her arm was set) that still dusted her dirty blonde hair and clung to every crease in her face, making her look decades older in the moment she finally piped up, with a sidelong glance at Payne,
"Should have listened when she said the guide was squirrelly", she muttered, earning her a scowl from Payne.
It was supposed to be extraction. Council allies and some civilians, lightly guarded and off the map.
Something had felt wrong from the start. But with Manning securing their exit and Jon circling to deal with any Red Court guards...it had only been the four of them with their informant, directing them where to go after the hostages. Already there, no ability to contact the more senior Wardens and just having to act...by the time that Elsie had murmured to Hannah that their guide was too nervous.
"We had a mission", Payne grit his jaw, "People are squirrelly, you don't change up orders on bad vibes."
"You should when they're right", Kayleigh kicked at the stone floor. Payne had been the most insistent on pushing ahead, so it was easy to throw this at him. But the trap had been sprung by then anyway. Payne shot a glare between Kayleigh and Hannah, the posture, broad chest puffed and arms crossed was angry and defensive.
"We were balls deep in the shit already", he snapped, "Bug out backwards or bug out towards the hostages and try to finish the job. It sucks about Sinclair but we made the right call, she should have kept up."
Elsie knew she'd made excuses, given vague answers, and generally been a shitty friend in the weeks since the battle in Chicago.
She hadn't been fair to Ayesha, who had earned more trust and honesty by now than most people. One vague, apocalyptic warning, followed by days of sporadic, brief phone calls, and then a myriad of reasons why Ayesha didn't need to drive up to Seattle.
Elsie just...didn't want to see anyone. Didn't want to feel their anxiety or worry or hope scratching at her tenuous protections. Didn't want to choose her words carefully, or pretend to be okay so someone else could feel safe. Couldn't bear the aching responsibility of being the person she was for Ayesha. For anyone.
But Ayesha was here now, being helpful. Being Ayesha.
Elsie knew she looked like hell. You could still see the stitches just above one ear through the regrowing hair, and there was no hiding the visible limp she needed a crutch for. She was healing, sure. And with time, would heal better than most. Physically. At least.
"Resting's about all I've been able to do for the past three weeks", she said, "So...nothing to worry about."
Three weeks ago Ayesha had gotten a call from an unknown number, which she of course hadn't picked up. There were so many damn scam callers these days; the rule was if it's important, they'll leave a voicemail.
They'd left a voicemail.
Ayesh— 's Elsie. (She almost didn't need to say her name: the staticky, wavering signal gave her away.) Not much time. If Chicago isn't on the map to— row, get out of large cities and away— dies of water. Stay safe.
And of course she'd called back right away... but no answer. Straight to voicemail.
"Elsie? Hey. It's Ayesha. What's going on? Why are you in Chicago? Why might it not be on the map? Are you okay? Call me back as soon as you can. Please."
And Elsie hadn't called back.
Ayesha'd kept trying to get in touch, with increasing frequency and increasing fear as news broke about a terrorist attack on Chicago. Tried the new number and Elsie's home phone too, hoping someone was watching her place and would pick up there.
No one did, for days, and then there was Elsie herself on the other end of the line, I'm fine, I'm safe, you— and then a fizzle out into static and the line had gone dead before Ayesha could ask what the hell had happened. Days turned into weeks and she still didn't find out: tried calling a few more times, but the connection was always so bad she could barely get a word in. It always died, quick. The most complete sentence she ever managed to get was going to have to pause— ic lessons for a little.
Forget magic lessons — that wasn't even sort of what Ayesha was concerned about. She just wanted to know what was going on, and it was starting to feel like Elsie was avoiding her.
So she stopped calling. She just drove up to Seattle instead: straight to Elsie's place, where she banged on the door till it opened. And when it opened...
"Oh, Elsie. Oh my God."
She answered the door looking sick and exhausted, and she was leaning on a crutch. Worse, the tilt of her head showed Ayesha a section of hair that had been shaved away above one ear, stitches visible there.
And even though Ayesha had been the one to do the I'm-not-leaving-till-you-open-up routine, the first thing she could think to ask now was what the hell was Elsie doing on her feet? She needed to be resting.
And Elsie told her it was nothing to worry about, told her she'd been resting for the past three weeks.
"Yeah, right. Maybe you haven't been up and about, but you don't look like you've slept," Ayesha pointed out. She wanted to extend Elsie some grace here — she'd been through hell, after all, surviving this so-called terrorist attack that she'd apparently seen coming — but Ayesha was too hurt to keep a rough edge out of her voice. "What's going on, Elsie? What happened to you, and, and what happened? You leave me this freaky, cryptic voicemail and then you just ice me out for weeks? When you're this hurt? And you've, what, been here alone? I could have been helping."
Elsie nodded her inside, awkwardly shifting back to the couch and leaning the crutch up against it. It was pretty dim in the living room with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from candles and a couple battery operated lamps. Something she was sure Ayesha would notice, and probably understand the implications of.
Nox appeared from the shadows with a chirp and barreled into Ayesha's ankles, twining between them between insistent kitty rumbles.
She should have tried harder to call. Elsie knew. But some part of her had just thought...Ayesha knew enough. Enough not to panic, at least. No one was fleeing from the coast just yet. Obviously what had happened hadn't been a mundane act of human aggression. If the Council had been involved, surely-
When Elsie had gotten home two weeks ago, the estimated death toll in Chicago had been over fifty thousand. In one night. And she'd let her friend dangle on that, on whatever the news was able to report. On whatever rumors were flying among the Paranet.
Lot of Paranet members in Chicago. Elsie probably wasn't the only one who hadn't returned Ayesha's calls this month.
Either she's too tired to feel guilty, or the familiar shame of cowardice had slipped into the deep, numb, welcome well in her. Slipped and fell away into the dark. A quiet in her mind that was as welcome as it was worrying.
"Sorry, about....I could either take the time to explain or I could make three more of the same call. So..."
Elsie let that hang. Before she'd completely fried her landline, she had managed one very brief call with her mother. Sorry for scaring her. She was fine. Wiring in her building had issues. They'd be in touch when it was fixed.
What happened?
Elsie had the obscene urge to laugh. What hadn't, where could she possibly begin? What was even the important parts? How could she put the events of that night into words and sense? Something wounded and small snapped at the idea and snarled that she shouldn't have to. She didn't want the responsibility of the story. She couldn't--
"Trust me, I'm not that hurt", Elsie said. Letting out a long breath and looking down at the floor. "Chicago....that meeting of the accords I told you about. Someone decided to start another war. We won."
She did laugh now, one brief, choked chuckle, "That's what winning looks like."
It looked like a shattered skyline, streets of fire and blood. It was more dead wardens and half the senior council in traction and tens of thousands of civilians who never even knew why death had come for them.
Winning looked like limping home bloody to wait. The reward for living was that she got to still be here for the next time. And the next time, and---
"Aye--I don't think I can. I don't know what--"
Nox was on the couch in a flash, butting her head under one of Elsie's hands and it's just enough of a lifeline that she catches her breath. Breathed, pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, and offered her bare hand to Ayesha, not meeting her eyes.
"Leave it all, when you're done. But....fastest way to explain. I'm not sure seeing it will do you any good. Actually. I know it won't. "
It'll live in her nightmares for the rest of her life, because you're too selfish to pull together yourself and use your words.
Yeah? Elsie thought back at the voice of the truth, guess that's her choice.
Elsie knew she'd made excuses, given vague answers, and generally been a shitty friend in the weeks since the battle in Chicago.
She hadn't been fair to Ayesha, who had earned more trust and honesty by now than most people. One vague, apocalyptic warning, followed by days of sporadic, brief phone calls, and then a myriad of reasons why Ayesha didn't need to drive up to Seattle.
Elsie just...didn't want to see anyone. Didn't want to feel their anxiety or worry or hope scratching at her tenuous protections. Didn't want to choose her words carefully, or pretend to be okay so someone else could feel safe. Couldn't bear the aching responsibility of being the person she was for Ayesha. For anyone.
But Ayesha was here now, being helpful. Being Ayesha.
Elsie knew she looked like hell. You could still see the stitches just above one ear through the regrowing hair, and there was no hiding the visible limp she needed a crutch for. She was healing, sure. And with time, would heal better than most. Physically. At least.
"Resting's about all I've been able to do for the past three weeks", she said, "So...nothing to worry about."
How many times had she thought about kissing Hannah Ascher? More than enough to feel guilty about, that was for sure. Enough to feel silly, shallow, and like part of her was betraying the trust and friendship Hannah had put in her over the years. But never in those brief imaginings had she ever dared to picture Hannah being the one to start it. That the only way it would be possible, even once, was if Elsie was something she wasn’t. Very brave.
Hannah ran warm, always. Now, her fingertips, her mouth— felt impossibly hot. There was cold dread racing through Elsie’s veins, ice crawling down her spine and she thought she’d never relish being burned more. Maybe she would have, if the kiss had lasted a second longer. But it didn’t. And the second Hannah pulled back from her the panic rushed in to fill the empty space between them. The immediate regret at having frozen in shock. Of having squandered the precious heartbeat of opportunity to pull Hannah in closer, to drag fingers through her hair, make it count.
But maybe the fear would have made her cling, beg. Don’t leave me. I don’t want to die in the dark. So maybe it’s better, for the last glimpse of Hannah’s back to disappear around the corner when there was still time to find some resolve.
The shield Elsie summoned to block the door, cracked the floor as she secures it into earth. With precious seconds, she wove threads of power back and forth, stitching into the mortar of the wall and back out. Imagined threads becoming roots, ever branching, dense and strong.
A heavy, snarling body hit the other side of her barrier, then another. It held. For now.
The way out was blocked. Maybe a trap, maybe somebody throwing force around had collapsed the building's entranceway — who knew, and who cared? Point was, Hannah had to make them another one.
She found a clear space of wall and pressed a finger to it, gathering her will, muttering a word. That fingertip lit up, concentrated power, a superheated blowtorch that chewed through to the outside. A much trickier bit of magic than she could have hoped to do when she'd first been recruited; back then she hadn't been good for much more than throwing fireballs around, but Elsie had helped her master the subtle stuff, to come up with things like this.
Elsie. Elsie's lips and her wide eyes in the dark and—
Focus, she told herself. Focusfocusfocus. Quicker you get this done, quicker you can find her.
(Or she'd find them. Come jogging up any second all, hey guys, I'm back, ghouls just splattered against my shield like bugs on a car windshield, we're good to go. Right?)
Slowly, carefully, Hannah traced out a person-sized oval and scorched it through the wall; when she connected the end to where she'd started, that section came loose with a crunch. She let the fire dissipate, pressed her palms flat to that piece of the wall, and pushed.
It... budged. Hannah was not exactly the picture of physical strength on a good day, and that spellwork had taken the wind out of her. But Jon stepped up next to her, shoulder to the wall, and the two of them together (okay, mostly Jon) knocked that cutout away into the street.
Home free. No ghouls outside.
No Elsie running up to join them, either.
Hannah turned and sprinted back the way they'd come.
She heard someone — Kayleigh? didn't matter — shout, Ascher, where the hell are you going? "To get Elsie!" she called as she ran, not sparing a look back.
It had taken minutes to carve that door out. Hell of a long time to hold that door if they were still being followed.
She'll be okay. You've seen her fry a ghoul with the electricity from a fuse box.
That had been a ghoul. Not however many had been on their tail.
So what? She'll be okay. She has to be okay.
She plunged further into the building and oh, it was dark-dark here. It hadn't been before; Elsie had pulled some moonlight through a window as they'd come in, and shaped it into a handful of little lamps that hovered around the room to light it a little.
They'd gone out.
That doesn't have to mean anything.
"Elsie?"
No answer.
Further into the dark and it started to smell like ozone and the ever-more-familiar and unpleasant odor of fried ghoul. A fight.
"Elsie?"
Hannah lit one hand up, a makeshift torch, and held it aloft. Shapes on the ground came into view, twisted and heaped on the floor. Dead ghoul, dead ghoul...
At least not by a junior warden with less than five years of arcane study under their belt. And not alone.
And Elsie was alone. The other Wardens voices had disappeared beyond her hearing, Hannah's footsteps, long gone. Alone in the ways that mattered. But decidedly not alone in the manner of nightmares.
The first minute---(oh she'd counted every second. Felt silly not to, when they'd likely be the last of her life. She should know, in the end, how long she'd made it. That was important, wasn't it? To know?)
The first minute felt impossible. Elsie focused on the copper nails in her boots (an experiment, no time to really test it), calling to the cthonic power within. Pleading with the metal to remember being part of the earth, unbreakable, all the weight of the planet's crust. Told it that the copper nails were an extension of the ground itself, and Elsie was part of the same flow, the same conduit. She could no more easily be moved across the ground than a mountain could be pushed aside.
For the first minute, it worked. Holding the shield felt like breathing in comparison to that, keeping herself upright as hundreds of pounds of snarling ghoul struck the other side of the door.
72 seconds. The door splintered, only held intact for the moment by the metal fittings and the force pressing it against her shield.
86 seconds. There's cracks forming in the bricks on either side of the door frame. Cracks spreading out from the place she had forced her shield into the ground.
91 seconds. Elsie felt every impact now, the referred shockwaves of the assault ran through her shield, into her arms.
168. Her legs were starting to shake. The power of the earth is loaned, not given.
190. The lights in the hallway are gone. The door is shattered, and long claws are reaching the spaces between the wood and scraping at her shield.
236. The ghouls had been laughing for a while now. Hyena cackles between the snarls. Not pushing against the shield full force anymore. Playing. They knew. Knew what Elsie knew. That she couldn't hold for much longer and when the magic failed--
249. Elsie wasn't sure when her nose had started bleeding.
254. If she tried to hold any longer, she would black out. (And that would be it. Hold, buy a few more seconds for the others, for Hannah. Hope they had gotten clear before the ghouls caught up. That would be best, wasn't it? Let the dark trying to creep into her vision swallow her whole. Darkness had no teeth. You won't feel a thing.)
255. If the others weren't out already, they'd be cornered when the ghouls got through. Hannah--
256. All a shield was, in the end, was will. It became force because one willed it. Some of the strongest armor was woven from silk. Silk to thread, thread to wire. Wire, conduit---
257. A storm ripped through the shield. Flesh crackled and for one moment, the laughter stopped.
258. Elsie dropped the shield, staggered back--
259. Maybe this was what a death curse was. Something unbound in you when there was nothing left to give--
260. She kills three. Her knees buckle before the fourth pounces.
This darkness had teeth.
261 seconds. Shame no one would know.
The ghoul is crushing weight, rotten breath--gone and away, thrown off her, but not before--
It's too dark to see the spatter her blood makes on the wall.
jacobvanloon
baratheonpilled
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
annaxmalina
