Dani hissed softly, the rush of power and knowledge that came with knowing a name. It wasn't quite the same amount of energy it might have been if Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy had offered to her herself, but it was more than enough. Dani closed her eyes for a second, fleeing a flutter of magic around her, around the name, spoken with a knife of love stabbed into the vowels and consonants. Even the way Shosh had said the name - like a desperate offering. It was tooth aching.
Dani was always happy with her abilities to hide rather than fight, to provide passage, and to duck into pockets of space only she could navigate.
She was, after all, a self-professed coward. Her Maman said there was no shame in it, in staying alive and safe, in keeping your loved ones alive and safe. Fighting back was good, but as Maman said, it was better to leave a thievery gone wrong than follow a sinking ship to the gallows or, worse, the depths.
But she could admire someone who fought back, as the tears and scraps on Celmentine Mei-Ling Priddy's body professed to them both. The panicked, terrified way that Shosh guarded the body told a story of love and desperation that Dani found a new respect for in her bandmate.
But love, desperation, and fear had no place when someone's life was on the line. Shosh surely couldn't handle her weight nor the speed at which Dani needed them to move, her head aching with pressure to keep the magical corridor open.
"Ya better hold tight to her then, an' don't fucking' scream either; I'm takin' ya both myself."
Dani crouched and pushed Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy's body into Shosh's lap, hurriedly arranging them like a babe carrying a kitten, and with a soft grunt, she lifted them both. Her frame didn't quake, nor did it bend, but she trembled with the combined strength of not dropping two bodies and keeping a bloody portal open. Shosh was sputtering and moving, but Dani growled, low and short in her throat.
Dani tossed her head back and ran straight through the corridor, thighs burning with the excess, blood dripping down her neck like beads of pink sweat. It was a short ten steps, but the moment each foot left the ground, it closed behind her with enough magical force to not just splinch Dani but send her flying through space and land in all manner of realms and places in the world. Two bodies hefted in her thin arms while her fingernails turned claws to keep a grip on Shosh's clothes and stop her from falling, which would inevitably kill all three in a gruesome manner that Dani would not think about.
Then she cleared the corridor, feet scraping to slow her momentum, and nearly rammed all three into the Clinic Door like a bad children's cartoon.
"DELILAH!" Dani hollered, voices pitched high, and a bit of blood dripped into her eye, "OLLIE! HELP!" Windows up the street slammed open; Dani's voice usually meant Aurors and people were made to run at her bellows. But instead of Val's little bird or the comforting face of Ollie, she came face to face with the She-Bitch herself, "Major Grey," Dani instantly recoiled, her least favorite person in the Den, a denizen part-time, a Healer always, an Auror with enough badges and kills and arrests and ambition to lead the Department. Not quite enemy number 1, but Dani harbored the same fear of Aurors for all of them, non-discriminatory.
"Healer Grey," came the correction with an exhausted huff. With a wave of the Auror-Healer's hand, weight was lifted from Dani's arms as Shosh was plucked like a squalling babe midair and pulled into the Clinic.
Dani began to babble, fear bubbling in her chest as Grey's med-coat flapped open and an Auror badge gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, "It's real serious-- I had to rush them here; it looks worse than those riots two summers ago--"
Grey's pale eyes snapped to Dani, who clammed shut. "Sit down and get some water—Delilah!" Val's bird poked from a room. "Use that silly little persuasion power you've got to calm the uninjured one down and get the other into the bed. I know you can manage levitation charms. She isn't bleeding out. We have a few moments before I begin. Now Royce, explain to me everything."
Dani whimpered under the eyes of an Auror, mouth snapping shut. Grey narrowed her eyes, "Don't you fuckin' dare Roy—" Dani sunk back into the wall and nearly wailed as Grey reached to grab her half-corporeal form. The Auror glared at the newly emptied space, except for a set of eyes glaring at her from a freshly made crack in the brick.
Grey stood there a minute examining the clinic room. Dani was sticky with blood and corraled quite literally into the wall. Shosh was a mess in Delilah's arms, cooing and snapping with her honeyed tongue in equal measure. Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy lay on an operation table, breathing a miserable hymn of blood in her lungs for an instrument. With the most pathetic sigh, Beatrice Grey pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and wished desperately for her own bed.
"This is the last time I decide to run Ollie's little pet project so he can take a blasted vacation. This is a mummer's farce, this entire settlement. Stay in your wall, Dani; you're of no help. Delilah, for fucks sake, shut her up and get in here. I need your hands. They're steady. So help me, Morgana. If this is cause you got into a spat with Aurors and dragged these two into it, I'm taking you in Danika Adeline Royce, see that I fuckin' won't."
Grey strode into the operation room, magic swirling around her right hand as she raised her wand, eyebrows knitting together at the collection of wounds. "Now, what in the fuck mauled you?"
But Dani knew, she could taste it on her blood and mixed with her magic - cat, big fucking magic cat, big magical fuckin' werecat. The scent soaked into Dani's jacket, shoes, pants, and boots, the curse already mixed with their blood. No stopping time, no magic could fix this. Permenant.
"I sure hope she ain't allergic to herself."
@clem-priddy @virtuoshosh
