His brother sees him through the dozens of warm bodies separating them. In the dim, cloudy, darkness of a school bus at 6am. Wes watches as a stray street light shines in through the window.
Kyle’s eyes reflect a solid, piercing silver.
The windchimes, faint at the start, are nearly deafeningly loud now.
He blinks, and offers Kyle a small, if nervous terrified, grin. A too-sharp grin flashes back at him, Threatens back at him.
Fuck.
This is a comic I did a while back based on the end of Chapter 1 of "Into the Infinite Mists", by @kawaiijohn!
I shared it with kawaiijohn a while ago - but I hadn't posted it anywhere! His phic is so cool, and so evocative, and I'm so excited for where it's going!
I'm also excited to submit this work as line art for @green-with-envy-phandom-event! The line arts and colors were so cool last year! And I'm so glad we're allowed to submit old line arts that weren't used previously for the event - otherwise I'd have nothing to submit!
For @kawaiijohn: The plan to take down Pariah goes differently; Clockwork is the one who ends up in the sarcophagus of forever sleep, while Pariah Dark is the one to help/mentor Danny. (PR239)
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This place was creepy, Danny decided as he slunk past another dead, silent clock. Part of him wanted to touch it, put the hands in the right place, make it go, fix it, help– But even Danny wasn’t that stupid. He left the clock as it was and floated over a landslide of tiny gears.
He tried to imagine what it would have been like with everything working. Constant sound, probably. Ticking. Chimes. Would that be creepier, or no?
He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had entered. Time seemed almost wounded, here. Stretched. Beaten. Wrong. He should fix–
Why did he keep thinking that? He didn’t even know how to fix clocks. He knew Obsessions got more insistent under stress, but…
Was he stressed?
Probably. Probably he was stressed.
He turned a corner into a long, vaulted gallery, a great hall. There was glass all over the floor, shining mirror pieces. At the opposite end, an impossibly huge figure, a figure crowned in fire, loomed over a carved sarcophagus.
“King Pariah?” called Danny, softly. He didn’t want to speak loudly here, but he also felt that it would be… unwise to approach.
The man, the ghost, the king, turned, craggy face set in a deep scowl until he spotted Danny.
“Child,” he said. He almost never used Danny’s name. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” said Danny. “The cold ones are on the move again.” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms. The way the ice in them called to the ice in him… it disturbed him. “I saw one in the Wastes. Chased them off, but…”
Pariah Dark had flown closer, and now he was leaning over Danny, tipping his chin up with his hand. It was a bit comical, really. Pariah’s hand was big enough to crush Danny in his palm.
“But?” prompted Pariah.
“I think they’re recruiting,” admitted Danny. “They were near where Vortex was last seen, and I’ve lost track of Ember and Skulker. They haven’t been in their haunts for at least a week.”
It hurt to admit, but he couldn’t keep track of everyone in the Wastes. He could barely act as a guard between the physical plane and the Ghost Zone. People were always escaping into Amity, terrorizing the humans there so they could try and scrape together enough energy to stay out of the Ghost Zone a little bit longer.
Pariah stroked back Danny’s hair, almost absent-mindedly. “A week is not that long a time to ghosts, child, but in light of the rest… Yes, you were right to bring this to me.”
Danny tried not to preen, but he knew he hadn’t entirely succeeded when Pariah chuckled at him.
“However,” continued Pariah, more gravely, “you should not have come here. This is not a safe place for children such as yourself.”
Danny nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “But… what is this place?”
“Long Now,” said Pariah. His features twisted into an emotion Danny couldn’t track. “The lair of Clockwork.”
Danny blinked and looked around. “There’s certainly a lot of clockwork around,” he said.
“It’s the name of a ghost,” said Pariah.
“Who was he? Is he?”
Pariah turned back to the sarcophagus at the end of the room. “My betrayer.”
“Your betrayer?”
“You have not heard the story.”
“I guess not,” said Danny, shrugging. He hadn’t been a ghost all that long. Well, half ghost. He got most of the privileges of a ghost, anyway, and he was strong enough that no one really bothered him about the privileges he technically didn’t have. Especially once the king himself took an interest in him.
His family had been thrilled. So proud of him after all, even though he had managed to screw up in both the fields of staying alive and dying at the same time. The transition had been rough, though, especially when he had been newly-dead and too weak to even control his powers, only useful, only helpful in that extended time in the physical plane didn’t drain him.
Last he’d heard, the lord governor was looking into making more half-ghosts, running tests on volunteers. More border guards. Danny didn’t know how he felt about that. He’d sort of liked being special. He was one of Sam’s two best friends. Some of her viewpoints rubbed off.
“Hm,” said Pariah, straightening and clasping his hands behind his back.
“You don’t need to tell me, if it’s, um. Painful?” He cringed. Implying that the king was weak was not the thing to do.
“It is an old wound,” said Pariah, dismissively. He glanced down at Danny and, after a moment of silent contemplation, picked him up by the back of his shirt.
Danny squeaked at the unexpected movement, but settled quickly when Pariah deposited him on one of his spiky pauldrons, his ghostly tail reflexively wrapping around one of the spikes to steady himself.
“He was once my most trusted advisor,” said Pariah, floating closer to the sarcophagus. “One of the very few I would call friends. He had the power to see through time and, on rare occasion, even walk through it.”
“He was a seer?” asked Danny. All the seers were gone, now. The elders of their order had rebelled, even going so far, stooping so low, in their defeat as to destroy their initiates and other innocents with the potential to learn their craft. Even Danny, many years later, knew that.
“Nothing so quaint. Nothing so… limited. He had the title Master of Time.”
“An Ancient,” said Danny. At this angle, Danny could see the top of the sarcophagus, and was puzzled to see that it was carved in Pariah’s likeness.
“Yes,” said Pariah. “While he was yet true, before the poison of ambition took root in him, he guided me to many victories. Where Fright Knight was my strong right hand, he was my subtle left. But he grew jealous.” Pariah ran a finger across the top of the sarcophagus. “Greedy. No longer satisfied with serving at my side.” He finished with a snarl, great hand curling into a fist.
Danny stayed quiet, waiting, slightly hunched. It was entirely possible that was all Pariah wanted to reveal, and when he was angry… Well, Pariah had never hurt Danny, outside of training, but he’d seen the aftermath of Pariah’s rages.
“He conspired with Nocturne, Vortex, and other traitorous trash even while he still smiled at me and called me friend. They built this thing to imprison me. The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.”
“That’s terrible,” said Danny.
“Is it not? A terrible thing, to be forced to sleep, to not even be given the courtesy of an end in battle. But it was not I who was imprisoned, in the end. Those still loyal to me found them out, and I was ready for them. It is Clockwork that sleeps here, now. Clockwork, whose future is unmade and whose works lie ruined. Are you loyal to me, child?”
“Of course,” said Danny, a bit surprised. “If I’ve done something wrong,” he started, trying to shrink into himself.
One of Pariah’s fingers found the top of his head, and Danny leaned, slightly desperate, into the stroke, shivering as Pariah gently brushed each bone of his spine. He was good. He was helpful. He fixed things and kept them safe and did what was asked of him.
“He would have claimed you,” said Pariah.
“What?” asked Danny, confused. Had he missed a sentence? “Sorry.”
“Clockwork. He would have claimed you. I had my doubts, but now I think you are the one.”
“I don’t understand,” said Danny. He squeaked as Pariah petted him again, and tried to suppress his pur. Other ghosts tended not to like it. There was too much of a heartbeat in it, they said. It sounded too Earthly, too mechanical.
“Too much like a clock?” murmured Pariah.
Danny flushed as he realized he’d been projecting his thoughts through his aura.
“I’m sorry,” said Danny. “It’s just… it feels strange here. Something’s wrong with…” He trailed off. Whatever it was, it seemed to lean in, now, tasting the words on the air.
“Tell me,” said Pariah, tones of command in his voice, prickling at Danny’s ears and core, “if you had the powers of the seers of old, how would you use them?”
“The way I use any of my powers,” said Danny. “To keep Amity Park safe, the border secure, and to serve you. I mean, I guess if you wanted me to help somewhere else, I’d do that, rather than the border, but… It’s all the same, isn’t it? It’s keeping your empire and your citizens safe.” Serving was a kind of helping, after all, and Danny could do that.
His hands itched. This was a stressful situation. He wanted to pick up the gears and start sorting them.
“Perhaps,” said Pariah, speculatively. He ran his fingers over Danny again, then plucked him from his shoulder. His eyes probed Danny, and Danny repressed the urge to squirm in his grasp. “You have never met Clockwork.”
“No, my lord,” said Danny. “I’m– I don’t think I would have even been born.”
“And yet…” Pariah tapped Danny’s chest and Danny flinched. “I wonder if it is only because of his powers, because he saw you.” Pariah’s eyes narrowed. “Something he wanted.”
Danny didn’t understand what was going on, but from the way the ectoplasm seemed to charge and still, he didn’t have strong hopes for his continued existence. Well, it had been a good run, overall. He’d gotten a second chance at it, and that wasn’t something everyone could claim. Pariah probably wouldn’t take whatever this was out on his family, at least, so there was that.
“You will learn how to be a seer,” decided Pariah.
“What?” managed Danny
“You can feel it here, can’t you, child? Clockwork’s power. In another existence, he may have claimed you, and that mark is still there. Lingering across possibilities.”
Danny blanched. He didn’t like the idea of being marked by a traitor.
“You can take his power,” said Pariah, unconcerned about Danny’s discomfort, “learn it. Make it your own.” He stroked Danny again. “Use it for me. In my name. For my eternal empire as it spills through shadows and across stars.”
“Y-yes,” said Danny, trembling. He core felt like it was about to shake itself apart, to say nothing of his heart. There was something shaking behind him, too. Something large and made of stone. “For your glory, and the good of the empire.”
“You will be my advisor and aide,” said Pariah. He seemed to be enjoying this. “Clockwork’s replacement.”
Danny nodded vigorously, Obsession reaching out little greedy hands at the word aide. Aide. Someone who helped. He wanted that. He wanted to do that.
“But you will not betray me.”
“No, my lord,” said Danny. “I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”
“Clockwork said that, too,” said Pariah. “But that’s alright,” he continued, soothingly. “I know you will not follow in his footsteps, my child.” He reached up to his burning crown and pulled a single tongue of fire from it. He brought it down in front of Danny. “Take it.”
Danny reached out with both hands. As soon as made contact with the fire, it sunk into his gloves and then, in a split-second flash of agony, his skin, his muscle, his bones, his core.
His core did not care for fire. It spasmed. But with a motion from Pariah it grew quiescent, calm.
Danny stared at his hands, feeling dazed.
“And so, all that Clockwork desired is mine,” said Pariah, softly. “As it always has been. Now,” said Pariah, “you will stay in Long Now. You will learn. You will absorb. You will stay loyal.”
“Yes,” said Danny, still not feeling entirely present. He raised his hand to his chest as something shifted inside him. A binding? Was he bound? He’d thought it was supposed to be more violent. “You said it wasn’t safe?”
“Few places are, child. Learn quickly. Do not disappoint me.” He put Danny down and, without another word, left.
Danny was… staying here, he guessed. In the lair of a sleeping Ancient that betrayed the king he served. And Danny was supposed to miraculously learn how to see through time, somehow?
He was… how long was he supposed to stay here? Would Pariah send someone? What about his other duties?
His Obsession pressed at him, urging him to give in to wild frenzy and mania, like a ghost freshly formed. Fixhelpfixhelpfixhelpobey.
(He was freshly formed, to be fair, but people rarely were.)
Under the circumstances, it might not be a bad idea.
He reached for one of the glass shards on the floor. Learning had to start somewhere. Might as well start with cleaning this place up.
