One Last Attempt {King + Hauntley Crew}
King tries to fight his way into the inn one more time and things go haywire.
@lady-snow-flower @wolf-innsheepsclothing @gem-morey @bones-weary @ahearts-a-heavyburden
July 14
King
King was trying again. Every single time he got thrown out King's demon features came out for a second, a flash of powers as the ghost flung him from the loop.
But all it did was make him want to try again. A burst of power hidden beneath his skin, telling him a ghost could not tell him where he could go.
It threatened to burn, to burn until their was nothing left.
But King wouldn't burn down his home, not with Snow inside.
No he walked in and brought the flowers. He kept his mouth shut. He complimented when he needed to and when he was finally could follow up the stairs he tried to.
Except this is where he was tossed out time and time again.
Each step was like a crack in his amulet. his amour as he followed her up the stairs to when she would realize he didn't belong again.
Lady Miracle
Everything was wrong. Everything was wrong. Everything was wrong. The thought grew with every step Lady Miracle took within the Scarlet Rose Manor, with each terrible creak under the floorboards. How could these stairs creak when they were brand new? Why was it so dark in the middle of the afternoon? Why did her heart feel so heavy in her chest, like a cannonball that threatened to burst through her, leaving nothing but wreckage in its wake?
Something was wrong. Something was wrong. Something--
She whirled around and saw the demon creature creeping on her heel. "Boy!" she hissed. "You reek of smoke-- you think I would not know you are here?!"
The floorboards trembled as the frost eared on the walls all around them yet again.
King
She knew he was there.
Just like every time before. His presence of smoke and fire too much to get him past Lady Miracle's frost.
As the frost creeped up the walls, King's amulet pulsed again and again showing off the little cracks from each of his attempts. His eyes glowed, his teeth extended.
"I don't care that you know I'm here. Let us in! You're stuck, You've made Snow stuck!" King cried out his fire consuming his heart ready to burst.
Lady Miracle
Lady Miracle's eyes flashed and she took a threatening step toward this damnable creature who had stolen away into her home. How dare such a wretched thing bring its filth here? She was not scared of it! This manor was merely an extension of her own soul and it would not be tainted or corrupted by such a fiend.
"Leave. Leave. LEAVE!" Lady Miracle bellowed, louder and louder. The paintings on the wall shook and the door downstairs swung on its hinges.
King
Lady Miracle took a step forward.
Another crack.
King did not falter.
Another crack.
She bellowed.
Another crack.
As the door slammed open, King's amulet cracked down the middle. Smoke gushing out surrounding King. His eyes that glowed already intensified. His horns grew and pointed, nails turning to claws and soot clinging to his fingertips. Black streaked across his hands looking like he had dipped his hands straight into charcoal.
His head tilted and his hair flopped around him, shaggier than before. Hiding his eyes just slightly.
Each finger tip glowed red as he forced each step forward. Trying to get closer. But as the amulet broke,
Even as the fire burned his soul and gave him more control and fire. King could feel himself being pulled and pushed, almost like he himself didn't belong in a ghost loop.
It didn't matter to him.
"LET HER GO!" King roared shaking everything with him.
THE HOUSE
The House was not going to let the monster win.
The House was its own monster-- the boogieman underneath the bed and the skeleton in the closet and the ghost still rattling its chains in the basement. For over one hundred years, the House had stood here while the world shifted and changed around it. The cracking moulding, the loose nails, the worn-down shingles on its roof-- to the mundane eye such ruin meant weakness. But the House knew better. It grew old so it could tuck its grief, its rage, its love, into every crack and rotting hole. It grew old so it could grow strong.
And so the demon charged but the House rose up against it. With a single kick of its floorboards, the demon fell over the unfinished bannister, topping to the second floor. SMACK! Another body spent against its wood. And then out, out, out-- it spat the demon over its staircase and onto its wet lawn. He hit the ground with a satsifying sizzle.
King
Despite the power rushing through his veins. Despite the smoke of his limbs flipping him from tangible to intangible.
The house had the upper hand. They picked him up and threw him around like he was a young boy, grabbed by his scruff and tossed out.
Only so much more violently.
Hitting the grass the sizzling never stopped. The circle he had created a day ago mixed with the hand prints of him now.
But this time when he sat up.
His eyes didn't dim. His horns didn't retreat.
King was a demon.
And for the first time since getting here. There was no mistaking that fact.
Wolfgang Amadeus
Yet again, Wolf was glowering at the house, trying desperately to work out what was hening inside where he could not see. So far his attempts to get in had all been met by the same stubborn resistance, no matter how sweetly he spoke to the locks and bolts he had kept oiled and in working order. And now King was inside again…. until he wasn't.
"King-" Wolf started forwards as the house seemed to hurl him out, smoke billowing about his form and the smell of burning grass. He pulled to a halt a few steps away, staring at the form in front of him. More than ever before he smelled of brimstone, of fire and smoke and something Wolf could not place. "Are you ok?" He threw up his arms as guidance to the others.
Bones
Bones had been keeping his distance for now. He knew there were some that were much more eager to get their turn in the house. And then again, and again. As far as he was concerned, he would take his turn once they'd gathered a fair amount of information and needed to speak with the Lady directly. He was used to dealing with her type.
But then King was thrown out again. And this time, he was roiling, with huge horns, glowing eyes, and smoke pouring out of him. A demon. Well, that checked out. Definitely could see why Snow would want to keep him away from the mayor.
Wolf was acting as a barrier but Bones roached anyway, giving the head of a security a nod to let him know that he got this. Even if it left a mark, whatever way that King could lash out wouldn't hurt him, not really.
"King," he spoke softly, but firm, locking his sunken eyes with the demon's glow. "It's alright, King."
Sophie Hadder
Sophie wasn’t sure she had any expectations of the house anymore, having lived through disastrous iterations of its history. Ghosts and hauntings of the heart were to be expected, but this? A demon inked and pooled into the body of King right from the very hearth of the inn… it terrified her.
Despite the unbelievably calm air around her, Sophie sucked it in and screamed.
The girl stumbled back, away from the horned beast. “KING! There was a demon in the inn! We have to help him!”
Her arm reached out, as if to lend the boy a hand, even though she was much too frightened to edge forward like Wolf or Bones. “You have to help him!” She yelled out, looking to see if anyone was reacting with the ropriate panic.
Gem Morey
Gem was also startled by the sudden earance of the beast like creature. He, also, did not recognize King. His fire eared at once. It wasn’t even a thought.
It burst from him in response to the smoking circle around King and jumped higher at the sound of Sophie’s scream. He stepped in front of her, between King and Sophie—and that was instinct too.
“Stop, don’t get too close,” Gem said and he turned to glance over his shoulder. “I think that…is King.”
The clues of the way Wolf and Bones were roaching him with calm certainty meant they probably had already known.
King
King was confused at first, sure there were a few times when he was thrown out his smoke and fire surrounded him like a friend. A cushion to fall back on.
But his demon features always rescinded. He had never seen himself as a demon. Well not since coming here and forgetting his memories.
Even now his head felt heavy, his vision clear and focused.
He didn't understand Wolf's careful roach nor Bones. King just felt like he was ready to cry having failed again.
Sophie scream and Gem mumbled something and King looked around as tears pooled in his eyes focusing back in on Bones his firm voice something he could lock into as his bottom lip trembled and tears slipped out.
"I failed again! And the house hates me this time too! I can't" King sucked in a deep breath as he tried not to cry. " I can't do anything right." He wailed.
Wolfgang Amadeus
Wolf flinched at the sound of Sophie's scream, which split the still, tense silence that had been building up as they all edged closer to the form who had been thrown from the house. Bones seemed completely unphases by the sight of him, though, and Wolf glanced across to the chef before his eyes went back to the form in front of them…
Who promptly nearly burst into tears, speaking the words that felt so familiar to Wolf's heart he couldn't help but feel he had imagined the whole thing.
"King?" Wolf asked again, tentatively. "What hened in there?" What had brought this strange figure out instead of the King they were used to? Had Lady Miracle done something to him?
Bones
Sophie's scream didn't cause him to wince, though it was becoming clear that damage control was needed to be done. Questions about him and his non-reaction were surely going to arise, but it wasn't worth worrying about now. The highest priority was Snow and the following was making sure they were all in the right space to keep moving on, supernatural abilities notwithstanding.
It didn't seem like King had the wherewithal to answer questions, so he instead plowed forward with his own words. "King," he repeated firmly. "You were the first one to get us in here. We wouldn't have been able to proceed if you hadn't figured out the flowers." He began to move closer to him.
"Every loop will be a failure til we get Snow back. But we're going to need to fail a lot to get through this. Nothing wrong with failing." The smoldering grass was licking at his ankles now, but like everything else, he couldn't feel it. It's not like burn marks would be any more conspicuous than the patches of skin beginning to rot off his body.
Just as he had done in the garden days before, he crouched in front of King to meet him at eye level. The boy who looked back at him now was monstrous, almost unrecognizable if not for the same pain and fear that welled in his glowing eyes. He reached out to put a hand on his shoulder--whatever feeling was supposed to overcome him was instead deadened and he didn't even flinch.
"Snow still needs us, King. She needs us to keep going and keep failing until we can get to her. Everything else, the house, the aftermath--all that we'll figure out later. Right now, we gotta calm down and try again. Alright?"
Sophie Hadder
Sophie hated feeling like a damsel. It was always demons and fire and untamable beasts that threw her life into the protection of a man. This time it was all in one, and little did she know the man shielding her with his body now had been a cause of her great fire.
Gem’s expression was serious, but not afraid. Not like she was. No one seemed to be. “Wha- What? B-but King is… But King is…”
King is just a boy. She wanted to say, to deny the accusation. The horned creature leaking smoke and flames onto the lawn couldn’t be… King was not evil, a bit childish and petulant at times, but he just had big emotions. When the creature wailed, its voice warbled in a cry she recognized. Oh, King.
Her heart sank, realizing she had screamed at the sight of him. To think he was a monster, she was ashamed. Sophie looked back to Gem’s lead. “What do we do? Not an exorcist, surely?” She whispered. The maid couldn’t find it in herself to roach him. A very human fear kept her planted firmly.
While Sophie couldn’t fathom sending the boy back to where demons came from… but they couldn’t very well keep him bawling on the lawn.
Gem Morey
Not an exorcist. But—perhaps.
Gem was sure Snow must’ve known. Protected the demon. Kept him safe. Her big, bleeding heart was equal parts admirable and infuriating. But, whatever hened next, he knew it wasn’t his decision. He had a feeling either Wolf and Bones would manage to calm him and fix him right—
Or…
Whatever. It wasn’t his problem unless King came near Sophie or someone else who couldn’t defend themselves.
“We let Wolf and Bones take care of it, hm? Don’t worry.”
Easier said than done. Even Gem’s flames, billowing with the beating of his heart, betrayed his own words.
King
King sniffled rubbing at his eyes when both Wolf and Bones talked to him. Bringing him back down to earth. Centering him.
Failure had to be part of this. They had failed so much and now they needed to keep trying failure or not.
Rubbing at his eyes soot smeared across his skin and finally king took stick of his hands and claws.
Touching his face and then his horns he looked at Wolf and Bones still sniffling and now very confused.
"I - um- i don't know. I was fighting to stay in the house when miracle realized it was me." King set his hand on his chest to where the shattered amulet was. Smoke holding the pieces together until it all fell into his hand.
But slowly the smoke lowered, the flames stopped licking at his skin.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys what I am."
Wolfgang Amadeus
Bones spoke, and Wolf felt something uncomfortable stirring in his stomach as he listened to those words. He knew how it felt, he knew how hopeless and angry and desperate King felt, he knew what it felt to have the only home he had left reject him with such hatred it felt like there was no place left for him in all the world … but he had never spoken those words out loud. Instead he had said them only in his heart.
"Bones is … is right, King." Wolf nodded. "You have done well." Better than anyone might have expected, and deep down he could only hope that Snow knew how hard they were all fighting for her. His eyes darted to the amulet and back. Wolf nodded, confirming it.
"It is… ok." He still wasn't entirely sure what King was. But crucially, for the moment, he still seemed to be King. Not everyone would see that, though. "We will.." He glanced over his shoulder at how Gem and Sophie were handling it. "We will just have to make sure too many people do not see."
Bones
Bones kept his grip and eyes on King throughout this, attempting to be a steady presence. There was an aura of heat coming from where he held him, and he was sure he was going to pull away with burns, but that didn't matter. He could wear gloves if need be until Snow got back.
He shook his head at King's comment. "It's fine. No one's owed that," he said in a low voice. After all, how many of their secrets did they all actually know? How much were they supposed to? In the end, they were all merely co-workers, although this situation went far and beyond the usual professional affairs.
When Wolf spoke, he nodded in agreement. "It's true. Do you know how to change back into your human self?" It wasn't that he thought he should hide, but the practical reality was that the mayor and his wife were both in this situation. He didn't know where they were now or if this could be seen, but the less people holding dangerous knowledge, the safer they would be.
For now. Sophie Hadder
Sophie's fear melting into a kind of morbid curiosity. She peered from behind Gem looking at each of the men in seeming control over the situation. They knew. They had to have.
The theory got Sophie spinning more. If King was a demon and Bones was decaying… who else had some dark secret in the Inn? Was Wolf an unfortunately named werewolf? Snow an icy sorceress hiding in plain sight? Even toying with the ideas felt ridiculous. If Sophie had stumbled into this cleaning job at the one place that could make her feel like she wasn't the loneliest accursed soul in the world… was it luck or something more?
If the Hauntley Inn could take a demon in stride, should she find a way to express her curse… she would be comfortable telling these friends. Gem Morey
The scene seemed like it was starting to calm somewhat. King wasn't attacking anyone. Instead, he was crying pathetically. And let me tell you: watching a big scary demon crying like a child who had skinned its knee would certainly change your perspective on demons. Not that Gem had ever blanket thought they were dangerous.
After all, once upon a time, he wondered if he was one. Parts of his power were echoed in them. And there had been something ealing about an out of control child having a power that came from somewhere else that was comforting.
His own fire died somewhat and he stepped away from Sophie, now sure she wouldn't do anything stupid. And neither would King. But, he watched warily--just in case, crossing his arms over his chest. King
King shook his head. He could make an assumption on why he was a demon but that all meant thay he didn't know if he could go back without the amulet.
If he could, he didn't know how. He barely knew how to turn into smoke and fire. So how could he turn back into a human on his own.
King couldn't do anything, he was powerless now. He couldn't stay. He couldn't try again. If anyone saw he was this, who knew if he would be here when Snow got back.
He couldn't even go back to Milo's. Not looking like this.
"I'll avoid the Inn for now. Just in case others show up." King muttered, that was all he could do… so much for helping more and not failing.
Wolfgang Amadeus
"King," Wolf tilted his head a little, crouching down to his level. "Let me find you somewhere to go, ok?" He could call in some favours, and find him somewhere. At least he could make sure he had shelter, and food. "I will find you, yes?" He asked again. It was bad enough that they had lost Snow for the moment. He would not let them lose King as well.
"We will sort this out." Whatever that meant to make sure King could come home if they fixed this. When they fixed this.
Bones
Wolf crouched and the three of them were at eye level, low to the ground and surprisingly intimate. It was the closest he'd ever been the head of security, both literally and metaphysically. Whatever differences they had--and there was plenty--they both watched over the Inn and those who resided in it. Bones wanted to offer to stay with the young demon, both for his own protection and those of others. But when it came to connections around town, Wolf clearly had a number of strings he could pull.
So he nodded. "We will," he repeated. "You're gonna be alright. Snow's gonna be alright. We're going to make sure of it." He glanced at Wolf and then back at King. "We'll escort you wherever you need to go and then we'll get you when this is all sorted out. Alright?"
