The Witching Hour (Closed)

[Duffy]

There were many things preventing Ruby Winchester from just ‘singing them back’. Choice, to her merit, was not one of them. Something had gone awry in her spell song, yet it was not down to her talent, her composure, or her intent.

“I can’t,” she replied flatly. She paused mid-stride, realising she was not walking anywhere with purpose. “We’re supposed to be in Dheathain.”

“Supposed being the operative word,” Duffy added, as if the point needed clarification.

Witch and Daegun came up behind the duo, and looked out across the water. The path, arid ground and dying grass, gave way to a clifface that was a vertical drop. Ahead, a strange land and sea formation littered with makeshift villages and shantytowns. Behind that, the glass dome, though it was energy protecting it, and not sand.

Where are we?

“This is another world,” Ruby whispered. It was approximately six hundred light years from Althanas. Only through her meeting with Mordelain Saythrou had she been able to piece together just why she was able to recognise it, and reach it, with magic from another world altogether. “That is the city of Aileron.”

“…and I have an idea,” Duffy added. He rummaged in his pocket. The cool wind whipping up the cliffs smelt like sewerage. “Have you ever been near a temple of the ancients, or the Fae?” He produced a small stone, marked with draconic, winged symbols. He did not know how to read it, but it was almost certainly a relic from the ruins beneath Donnalaich. He had found it centuries ago, in another life. He held it out to the vampire.

“Duffy, this isn’t the…”

No. What is it? She snatched it from the bard, and examined it.

“If you have…,” Duffy sighed. “Those ‘ancients’ were from the Kalithrism…they were from another world.” Perhaps, just perhaps, the magic that drove them had untapped an unbidden, unrealised dream of the Dheathain resident. Despite the ferocious façade, did she really just want to go home? He turned to the city, and picked out the detail with narrowed eyes. “Whatever lives here now, built the crystal spires and powered the civilisation of the Fae.”

It was a long shot, and despite the telepath's ignorance, he was sure her presence had corrupted their magic.

A bell sounded, and then a horn. It permeated from the city, but rippled out across the horizon, and incited chaos. The people, no more than ants to the trio, scuttled out of the streets, the windmill steppes, and the recycling plants. The sewage pouring from the city formed flotsam and jetsam on the shores below, and children and adults alike fled their pillaging and rummaging to take sanctuary from something...

"I think they know we're here...," Ruby murmured, finally realising what Duffy was getting at. She turned to the city anxiously, and looked to the black dots in the skies.

[Witchblade]

A grin split her face.

It spread from one ear to the next, pulling at those damnable strings, and bringing her pale flesh to life. Witch watched the black things dart off into the sky. Her crimson eyes tracked them as they sailed with a kind of beautiful symmetry across the azure sky. Their forms small, but growing as they appeared to head in their general direction.

Finally, a chance to have some fun.

Daegun butted up against the back of her leg. She looked down at his small white form, the hard scales covering him, and the look that passed in his black eyes; almost like a look of concern.

Nothing to worry about.

Shrugging her shoulders, Witch allowed her rucksack to drop with the ground with a heavy thump and a rattle as the items inside shifted. Reaching up, her fingers deftly undid the clasp of her cloak. The worn, black material slithered down her body and pooled around her scuffed boots. She stepped over it and Daegun grabbed it with his teeth, dragging it back and away to tuck within the sack.

Eyes still focused of those specks of black, she rolled her shoulders and twisted her back. Bones popped and cracked, muscles loosened. Then the skin around her shoulder blades stretched as something moved underneath. Farther and farther out until finally it tore, the sound wet, as tiny droplets of blue blood flew through the air and two black, leathery springs sprouted from her back.

It had been a long time since she'd used them. A long time to forget the familiar and glorious pain.

Extending them out in a quick snap, blood and tissue flying from the thin membrane, Witchblade ran towards the cliff and jumped from the rocky face. The ground swelled up below her, a rush of biege and green and tiny decrepid homes. Wind whipped at the exposed skin of her arms, face and chest, turning her black hair into a frenzy around her face and tearing at her clothes.

As the ground rushed up to meet her, she spread her wings and leveled her flight off, heading towards he azure sky. The black specks had grown in size in the interim, and Witch was finally able to make out detail on them.

She could see wings coming off of a solid, cylindrical body that looked dull a metallic. The wings did not pump and move like her, they were stationary, extending out from the body and ending in a crescent. She had no idea how they were staying int he air, but it wouldn't be for long if she had anything to say about it.

Increasing her speed, Witch watched as one of the vessels fired something white and bright right at her from two little protrusions under a glass dome that glinted in the light. She banked to the side and they harmlessly went right by her, then she flew right through their little V formation.

They scattered, like insects.

Three of them turned around and came after her, the other two started heading towards the cliff where that red head and Bracken were. She scowled and hoped they could handle themselves. She neeed them alive to get back to Althanas.

Turning to face the three crafts, Witchblade reached behind her and wrapped her fingers around the hilt that extended above her right shoulder. Dodging more of those weird white lights with relative ease, Witch ripped The Rot Slayer from it's resting place. Three hundred pounds of Titanium flashed in the light of the sun. Grinning, She brought the sword back behind her, wrapped her other hand around it and slashed down with all her might as the thing went flying by her.

The sound of tearing, rending metal filled the air. She cringed, her sensitive ears protesting at the noise as six feet of blade tore through that black material as if it were nothing more than wood.

Sparks flew through the air, some strange liquid sprayed out all over her, and the vessel itself fell into two pieces and plummeted towards the ground.

The two other vessels veered off and then came back at her with a vengeance. With the added weight of The Rot Slayer, her movements were slightly slower and as they fired those damn things at her again, she miscalculated one. It struck her in the shoulder.

Pain exploded down her left arm. Spiraling through the air, Witch eventually got herself under control. Looking to her arm, she saw torn flesh and muscle and bone as blood dripped down her deathly pale skin.
The two vessels came right back at her.

Growling deep in her throat, Witch used her full speed and flew through the air like a lightning bolt. She came up under one of them and jammed the blade right into it's belly. Smoke billowed out, a strange straining sound of squealing and squeaking echoed from the hole as she ripped the sword out and watched the vessel head towards the ground.

Sheathing the blade, she grabbed a hold of the other craft as it sped by her. Pain lanced up her good arm as it nearly dislocated itself from the sudden force. Grasping the metal, she pulled herself up and over and eventually crawled her way to the glass dome in the front. Inside, she could see what looked like a metal man at some kind of table covered in blinking lights.

Balling her hand into a tight fist, she reached back and slammed down on the glass. It shattered, sharp shards digging into her skin. The metal man looked up at her just as she grabbed his head. With a grin, she pulled and ripped him from his seat.

I once met a man made of metal, are you one of him?

Even though the wound on her shoulder had barely begun to heal, she flexed her fingers, grew out her claws and shoved her hand through the metal of his stomach. A scream issued within the metal suit and Witch ripped her hand out holding a link of entrails that glistened wetly.

Guess not.

She let him go and he slipped down the side of the craft, falling towards the ground as the vessel she knelt in began to bank and dip down as well.

Spreading her wings once more, Witch took to the skies and headed towards the cliff face she'd left the two humans on.

[Duffy]

“Did you know she could do that?” Ruby asked. She sounded genuinely surprised.

Duffy shook his head, eyes fixated on the descending shape. “I can’t say it ever came up in conversation.”

He had been too busy trying to stay alive to give anything Witch gave consideration. He doubted she would have divulged the true extent of her power to him. He pursed his lips, leant on his cane, and tried to reconcile the devastation she had wrought with his conscience. Those men, falling to the sea aflame, were dead because they had made a mistake.

“We should never have come here…,” he whispered.

Ruby turned on a heel, eyes ablaze like the comets of fire that rained down over the shantytown.

“I didn’t try,” she hissed. “Don’t start with that sanctimonious bullshit!”

Duffy did not look at Ruby. Looking at her would give her argument credence. He knew, that she knew, that he meant actions always had consequences. He pointed out to sea, where the last of the debris had settled, leaving rings in the waves and plumes of black, acrid, and lingering smoke trailing through the sky.

“Look down there,” he said, flatly, and without further explanation.

He stepped to one side, hobbling as he went, and made room for Witch to land in dramatic fashion on the Clifftop. Her wing beat thudded in his chest, and her still simmering rage washed over him in six feet tumults. He knew that feeling all too well. It was battle. It was adrenaline.

Problem solved. She half-roared into his mind.

Duffy nodded. “I don’t think we’ll be bothered by the city again,” he said, re-assuring Ruby passively. “However,” he added. He turned to the shantytown, and extended his cane to the shore. This time, Witch looked as well, and the two women watched the scene unfold with equal parts horror and curiosity.

The people of the village had cowered in their homes during the battle. When it was over, and the heady breeze swept the smell of death away, they emerged into the streets, onto the rope bridges, and to the tops of the myriad windmills, which gave them power, and thus life. They crept to the shore, slowly but surely, and all of a sudden, they broke into cheers.

“It would appear,” Duffy began dryly, “that you have just become a hero.” He addressed Witch, but somehow, it was Ruby’s disgust he felt in the air, thick as smoke, uncomfortable as a sandstorm. The crowd, gibbering and running amok, turned to the cliffs, pointed and cheered louder still, and put the bard, the belle, and their cargo in quite the predicament.

[Witchblade]

Witchblade laughed. She watched those tiny little humans milling about below them like excited little insects. They pointed and cheered and called to them. Her sensitive ears could not pick up the words, but she could hear the cadence of their voices nonetheless. It amused her to no end that they thought her some kind of hero. She killed those men, or whatever they'd been, not for them and barely for herself. She'd killed them because they got in the way of her end goal, which was to get out of here and get back to a world she understood, even if she didn't necessarily belong there.

”Pathetic.” She growled out, then went silent as she watched them. The movements stirring old memories that didn't quite surface, fuzzy images she could no longer remember. Just a vague feeling of something Witch knew she should know, but couldn't quite grasp.

”It would not be the first time someone has mistakenly called me a hero.” Witchblade said softly into the minds of Bracken and the the red-headed bitch. ”It will not be the last, but that does not change the fact that it will never be true...”

Her eyes watched them for a moment longer, until Daegun bumped into the back of her leg. Looking down, she found her dragon with her cloak in his mouth and her rucksack resting next to him. When she turned to pick it up, pain lanced up her arm, the thrum of adrenaline having left her system and leaving her vulnerable to the working of her nervous system.

Crimson eyes roamed over the tear in her flesh. The skin was hanging open and slowly knitting itself back together. The muscle of her shoulder and bicep were visible and in one place she could even see the bone sticking through the mass of destruction. Her entire arm was saturated in dark, blue blood, sticky and smelling sweetly of iron. If only it wasn't her blood that smelled of it.

Grimacing, she ignored it, like most things. Pain was just another thing to be pushed to the side and forgotten about. Like friends.

Picking up the dust covered cloak, Witch threw it over her shoulders, covering the enchanted sheathe that held The Rot Slayer within, hiding it's full width, height and girth within the confines of a normal sword sheathe. Then she slipped on her rucksack, though Daegun stayed on the ground for once. Perhaps mindful of the wound still healing on his favourite perch. Either way, she wouldn't have cared. A little pain meant nothing to her in comparison to him.

”So now what?” She asked.

[Duffy]

It was a justifiable question, but all the same, Duffy flinched. Had he known the answer, he would have given it to her. In all likelihood, if he knew how to get them away from Junkyo, their spell song would never have brought them here in the first place. Now, the citizens of the mega-city would never forget her, and the consequences of that would echo through time.

“I wish I knew…,” he erred. He did not believe in lying, least of all in such astute, embittered, and withering company. Ruby glared at him, her eyes boring answers out of him he did not know he possessed. “But…,” he continued, mumbling, “Perhaps we can try another song.”

Oh wonderful…she hissed. She did not attempt to hide the sarcasm, driven to heightened levels of barbed aggression due to her still restacking injuries. That worked so well the first time.

“If you’d been honest with us, we’d never have ended up here,” Ruby spat. Only Mrs Winchester berated Mr Brandybuck. It was her right, and no one else would deprive her of that.

“What she means, I think, is that something untoward happened because we’ve never…,” he trailed off. He ran a finger over his piercings, silencing his thoughts, and keening his calculations. In the glare of the sun, his pale skin danced with ivory light, and then, an idea. “What gives you your…power?” he asked. He looked at Witch in earnest, seeing her as an anti-hero, despite her protections of non-chalant feeling towards the still cheering and adulating crowds below.

[Witchblade]

Witch looked at Bracken as if he had lost his mind, after the crimson glare left the red-headed bitch of course. She had been nothing but honest with them, Witch did not believe in lying. It only wasted time and lying took more effort than telling the truth. “What do you mean, my power?”

He hesitated. “What allows you to do what...you just did?”

“If I had an answer to that, I wouldn't need to go to Dheathain.” She stated.

The red-head rolled her eyes towards the bright sky once more and placed her hands on her hips, turning her full attention towards Witchblade, as if she should be tickled pink to have it. Or run screaming int he other direction.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Witch growled deep in her throat. ”That means I have no past, human!” She spat into her mind, her frustration at her growing every time she opened her mouth. She took a couple steps towards the filthy human, eyes narrow slits, elditch power rolling off her body in waves as she let her anger run free. If she didn't need this woman to get her home, she would have killed her by now. Bracken may annoy her, but this one reminded her why humans were a waste of oxygen.

”I know nothing of who and what I am. I have searched for years and scraped and scratched and clawed at every clue I could find, but nothing has ever come of it besides the scars on my body and the strings that hold my lips together.” She told her, blazing eyes never leaving her face. ”Dheathain is my last chance to discover what I am and why I can't remember anything beyond the day I woke up on the shores of Corone, a bloody mess. It's all I have left.”

Daegun rubbed against her leg and Witch turned her gaze from her companions to her dragon. She reached down with her good arm and he climbed up, claws digging into her flesh to give himself purchase. Perched upon her shoulder, he nudged the side of her face, scales warmed by the afternoon sun high in the sky. His tailed wrapped around her neck and he turned the black pits of his eyes towards the two mages.

”What does it matter about my power? It's your spell song that got us here in the first place."

[Duffy]

“That’s not st-,” Duffy began, but fell silent when Ruby shot him a glare that could bore through steel.

“My spell song brought us home,” she continued. She rested her hands on her hips, a stance she was far too familiar with, and tried to work things through in her head.

Didn’t you hear me? Witch protested. I do not know where home is.

The sun continued to warm the Clifftop, casting the unlikely hero in a golden glow. As the minutes turned into an hour, the trip were no closer to getting to where they wanted to go, and the people down in the village below were denied the chance to shake the hand of their rebellion inciter.

“Perhaps…,” Ruby said, finally free of her mind’s cage. “Perhaps when I sung I sung for a home for you?” she offered.

Duffy shook his head. It said ‘bullshit’ without having to waste his breath. Ruby pursed her lips, shook her shoulders, and stomped a heel.

“Ruby…,” Duffy mumbled.

“No, you’re right. It was a stupid idea. So, let’s just throw ourselves on misery’s mercy and sing a fucking ditty, shall we?”

The tension intensified, until it became so thick Duffy found it hard to breath. Being on another planet was one thing. Watching your rock come undone was entirely another. He began to take deep, dredging breaths, only settling on speaking when he was entirely certain he was not going to vomit.

“I am sorry this has happened,” he said to Witch. “We will do all we can to rectify it, I assure you.” He turned to Ruby. “Sing.”

The simplest of commands oft sparked the greatest activity. Together, they held out their arms, ignoring the pain in back, bra, shin alike, and began to harmonise in wordless music that pierced the skies. Whatever magic power vested itself in the duo, it worked. So much tension, so much anger, and so much self-loathing gave providence to the music and melody, and very swiftly, Witch, Ruby, and Duffy fell from Zhayou, and plummeted…no, catapulted deep into the heart of Dheathain.

It was almost certainly going to be a messy landing.

[Witchblade]

Her feet touched down on uneven ground. Stumbling, Witchblade caught herself on a nearby tree trunk and promptly wished she had a stomach from which she could throw up. Her whole body felt as if it had been turned upside down and inside out then quickly reassembled with a couple pieces missing. Her head spun, her limbs tingled and the sound of a heavy drum, slammed itself over and over again in her head. Somehow, she thought the second time would be less severe, if anything it felt worse.

Groaning, she reached up and wiped the stream of blood that was flowing from her nose. Even Daegun seemed slightly affected by the sudden shift in surroundings this time. Her little familiar was wobbling around, teetering from leg to leg as if he couldn't get his bearing under him. He kept shaking his head and even she noticed the stream of red on his brilliant scales. Finally, he just gave up and with a pitiful noise flopped down onto the moss covered ground. That's when Witch took in their surroundings.

They were walled in on all sides by trees that pressed closer then the dense forest of Concordia. Vines branched between them and lazily drapped down to the moss and fern covered floor. Flowers of the brightest colours she'd ever seen outside Fallien blossomed from large leafed plants that hung close to the ground. The scent of wet earth and rotting wood was prevalent and the humidity clung to the air in a haze. At first she thought her eyes were still unfocused from their spell song, then she actually realized it was a mist that seemed to cling to everything. Even her sharp vision could see no more then thirty feet into this dense jungle before the grey swallowed it up.

And the noise. Either her ears were still overly sensitive, or this was one of the loudest places she'd ever been in. It was like a constant buzzing that permeated her skull, broken by the shrill cry of animals she couldn't see. When she opened her senses to feel for them, she was overwhelmed by the amount of life she felt around her and quickly closed off her other sight.

Her unlikely companions appeared to be collecting themselves as well. She heard Bracken stumbling through the under brush a moment before he emerged from behind the trunk of a large tree. He seemed in slightly better condition than she did, though Witch could only imagine he was more accustomed to the effects of that song. Curiosity be damned, next time someone offered her free passage on a ship she'd take it. The red headed woman appeared next, though Witch would not be remiss if she'd been left in Junkyo. Or lost her head or mouth somewhere along the way.

"Is this Dheathain?"

She tried to move and abruptly lost her balance to her spinning head. Clutching the smooth trunk of the tree for support, Witch growled deep in her throat.

"Damn magic...if this isn't bloody Dheathain I think I'll just walk from here."

[Duffy]

“Oh, this is Dheathain alright,” Ruby, with foreboding, casually remarked. Her hand, delicate wrist twisted and finger pointing shot forwards. Though the mist was thick, she could make something out on the edge of their vision.

“Oh fuck…,” Duffy spat. He reached into nothingness, and pulled a katana from the abyssal realm of the Tap. It sung a little ditty in Fallieni as it emerged, and then fell silent. “Look sharp,” he added, suddenly alive with adrenaline and freed from his misery and pain for just long enough to find strength.

Witch looked up through her dizziness, and saw what they were now all three aware about. The mist, clinging to the creature as it emerged swirled and intensified. It took on the thickness of smoke, and then ooze, and then…

Dragon…

The creature was a dragon, but only in form, not function. Its wings towered above its shoulders, even when folded behind its back. Its head sprouted three horns, two curled, and one long, elongated spire. Its eyes were golden, dancing with colour and hope amidst the drudgery and abandonment of the jungle.

“Friend or foe?” Ruby shouted, perhaps a little too aggressively. She too conjured a weapon from nothingness, though hers was a violin, not a blade.

The dragon smiled, or at least, did what passed for a smile to the draconic kin. Its tail lashed behind him, thumping down weeds and reeds alike. Its hands, clawed on one finger, but still deadly, cupped together. Then contrary to its larger kin, it bowed.

“Greetings,” it slithered and whispered. The long, forked tongue slipped between its deadly fangs, some of which could pierce a man’s skull with little effort. “What business do you have in Luthmor?”

The question posed only more questions to the bard. He eased off his blade, recognising the caste of their greeter, but not the location. He turned, as though she knew, to Witch. For once, it would be she guiding them through the perils of their misadventure, and not they.

“Yes…what is our business here?”

If only he knew where here was and why there was a dragon talking to them. The phrase out of the frying pan, into the fire came to mind.

[Witchblade]

Witchblade stared up at the creature before her with barely a twinge of fear. Perhaps a smarter person would feel something at being presented with a large, serpentine creature that had claws and teeth so powerful and sharp they could end their existence in a heartbeat, but Witch felt barely a tingle of emotion beyond the discomfort from the lingering effects of Ruby's magic. Even that was slowly dissipating.

It was not that she believed herself more powerful than the creature before her, it was that she just didn't care. The only thing that elicited any kind of emotional response from within her was the fact that it spoke. She had come face to face with dragons before, and killed her fair share of them, but never had she crossed paths with one that spoke the tongue of humans.

"We've merely come to explore." Witchblade said with barely a pause.

She eased off the tree that supported her, feeling much more clear headed and in control of her own extremities. The dragon, turned it's golden gaze to her and regarded her in silence for a moment. The nostrils on it's long snout moved as it breathed in deeply, scented the air, perhaps even scenting her. She couldn't help but do the same. All she smelled was a familiar damp forest with, the unfamiliar scents of animals and vegetation.

"Do not lie to me." The dragon grumbled, the words coming out a slurred mess of the common tongue.

Raising her slender, black brows, Witch regarded the beast for a moment in silence, which was quickly broken.

"Are you insane? Just tell the damn dragon what we're doing here." Ruby growled out.

Her crimson gaze flickered to the woman for a brief moment until returning to the unwavering stare of the dragon. She doubted it would let them leave until it had the answers it desired, and though her words were not lies, they did not hold all of the truth. Exploring is indeed what she came to do.

"I lie not. Lying is a waste of time." Witchblade said with an even look.

The dragon appeared to find this amusing. Or at least Witch could only assume the subtle shift upon it's scaly brow as amusement. Daegun took this exact time to appear from the underbrush of the forest. The baby dragon walked forward on unsure legs before stopping short when he saw his full grown brethren before him.

The dragon guard lowered it's head and sniffed at Daegun, who in turned smelled him back. The difference in their size was staggering and Witch could only hope that one day Daegun would grow to be just as large as this one, perhaps even larger. After a moment, the dragon lowered it's head and Daegun touched his snout with the end of his, then he stepped back and darted towards Witch's feet.

Then those eyes swung back towards her and Witchblade found herself once more under scrutiny.

"I've come to seek answers about my past and why I am drawn to this place. That is all."

"Very well, I hope you find your answers."

With that, the large beast moved with surprising delicacy as he turned and lumbered off into the misty forest leaving the three travellers to their own devices. Without looking back at her companions, With began walking into the thick forest.