Yarva Demonicus Etrigan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
personaldemon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
taxonomites2013-02-11 01:29 am
personaldemon) wrote in taxonomites2013-02-11 01:29 am
Entry tags:
[Location] (Adventure Zone!!) (Open to any)
Taxon was a terrible place to be stuck with a demon in one's head.
There were few good places; but there was bad and there was worse-- Gotham, for instance, was a city he had lived in off and on for several centuries because it afforded anonymity by its size, and it afforded... opportunities... by its nature, by its strangeness and violence and crime and darkness. There was a madness that dwelt in Gotham City, and had done so long before people had started running around the rooftops in strange clothes and many masks.
When fighting a monster, best to set it against other monsters, and Blood had done so: let Etrigan loose on his chain, to deal with the strangeness that crept through Gotham's streets. Etrigan could be negotiated with, to a degree. He wanted blood, mostly; he wanted havoc and slaughter, and he could be made content with the blood of the violent, the murderers, the would-be necromancers or would-be monsters...
There were opportunities, in Gotham. And there were not, in Taxon.
Surreality, yes. Occasional violence to be sure: the island and the hamsters; the damned dinosaurs. But with each of those threats he'd told himself he could hold out a little longer, and now, several months later, he was wishing he had given in, because the pressure was becoming nigh unbearable.
He remembered a conversation with Bruce, early on in their acquaintance. Bruce had been young. Well, younger. New yet to his exciting self-imposed life of leaping around on rooftops and punching petty criminals in the face. Very new to the sorts of horrors one could not punch in the face. Young enough to quickly judge.
Why would you let that thing out, if you control it? Why would you ever let it out?
Because he couldn't contain Etrigan indefinitely. Enough time, and Etrigan clawed his way out, and the experience was one Jason Blood had enough times to know it wasn't one he wished to repeat.
He knew, from long experience, the warning signs in himself. They were getting worse. It was harder to keep his temper, at the slightest inconvenience: an Extra had opened a door in his face two days before, and his vision had hazed red with a sudden murderous rage; he'd come within a hair's breadth of assaulting someone who wasn't even a person.
He was losing time, as well: ten and twenty minute stretches of which he had no memory, coming back to himself to find he'd shattered plates, slashed a painting to shreds, left bleeding scratches from his own fingersnails on his forearm or belly. Then there were the daydreams he did remember: increasingly violent and depraved fantasies involving Taxon's other citizens, things he/(Etrigan) could do to them, things Etrigan/(he) would delight in saying/burning/breaking/killing.
He meditated. He wore amulets with every protective and calming spell he could think of. He summoned Etrigan, in the safety of the warding circle, trying to escape the building sense of burning in his own skin, but Etrigan was not appeased by these jaunts and would spend no more than a few minutes in the circle before saying the chant to reverse them once more, and it barely took the edge off.
He avoided the others in the city as much as he could. He stayed home.
When the fog lifted and the northern half of the city cleared to reveal somewhere else, he very nearly ran to enter it. It promised something-- anything-- to do, to distract himself from Etrigan's voice. It promised potential opportunities.
*****
And what, my dear, do you think you'll find
Here in this trope of swords and shields?
The answer's simple, although you're blind:
Say the words. Surrender. Yield.
Jason kept his eyes on the books he'd found. It was a wizard's tower, as stereotypical as Etrigan had said: something out of a paperback fantasy novel, utter rubbish, but the books were truly magical however covered in overdone runes and drawings of pentagrams they were. One was actually oozing blood. He supposed he could give it to the damned vampires if nothing in it turned out to be useful.
He flipped through pages, eyes scanning the writings quickly, hunting for anything worth carrying back with him. Most of them were in Latin. And most of them were rubbish. A love spell. Something to ward off bad dreams-- he might have bothered with that one, if not for the fact that he had a broad collection of such spells and they had never once worked on himself. Something claiming to be the famed formula for lead to gold, yes, yes, very good, he'd bloody well owned the Philosopher's Stone for a while--
Teeth bared in an unconscious snarl, Jason chucked the worthless book out the tower's slit window, hard as he could. It vanished from sight, presumably landing somewhere far below, on the grass that surrounded the tower. He turned his glare upon the remaining books, and the candle that burned sullenly atop a skull.
Light them on fire. They'd burn so well. Burn this trash, this useless tripe, this fucking farce of pointless paper, and 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' that didn't fucking help him--
Scorch! Smolder! Singe! Sear!
Bake! Broil! Blaze! Burn!
Immolate all that's here
Then let ME have my turn!
"Shut up," Jason snarled, slamming his fist against the table.
Calm, he needed calm, he needed air-- he wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve, pressed his cheek against the cool, rough stone of the tower wall, and tried to recite meditative mantras to himself.
There were few good places; but there was bad and there was worse-- Gotham, for instance, was a city he had lived in off and on for several centuries because it afforded anonymity by its size, and it afforded... opportunities... by its nature, by its strangeness and violence and crime and darkness. There was a madness that dwelt in Gotham City, and had done so long before people had started running around the rooftops in strange clothes and many masks.
When fighting a monster, best to set it against other monsters, and Blood had done so: let Etrigan loose on his chain, to deal with the strangeness that crept through Gotham's streets. Etrigan could be negotiated with, to a degree. He wanted blood, mostly; he wanted havoc and slaughter, and he could be made content with the blood of the violent, the murderers, the would-be necromancers or would-be monsters...
There were opportunities, in Gotham. And there were not, in Taxon.
Surreality, yes. Occasional violence to be sure: the island and the hamsters; the damned dinosaurs. But with each of those threats he'd told himself he could hold out a little longer, and now, several months later, he was wishing he had given in, because the pressure was becoming nigh unbearable.
He remembered a conversation with Bruce, early on in their acquaintance. Bruce had been young. Well, younger. New yet to his exciting self-imposed life of leaping around on rooftops and punching petty criminals in the face. Very new to the sorts of horrors one could not punch in the face. Young enough to quickly judge.
Why would you let that thing out, if you control it? Why would you ever let it out?
Because he couldn't contain Etrigan indefinitely. Enough time, and Etrigan clawed his way out, and the experience was one Jason Blood had enough times to know it wasn't one he wished to repeat.
He knew, from long experience, the warning signs in himself. They were getting worse. It was harder to keep his temper, at the slightest inconvenience: an Extra had opened a door in his face two days before, and his vision had hazed red with a sudden murderous rage; he'd come within a hair's breadth of assaulting someone who wasn't even a person.
He was losing time, as well: ten and twenty minute stretches of which he had no memory, coming back to himself to find he'd shattered plates, slashed a painting to shreds, left bleeding scratches from his own fingersnails on his forearm or belly. Then there were the daydreams he did remember: increasingly violent and depraved fantasies involving Taxon's other citizens, things he/(Etrigan) could do to them, things Etrigan/(he) would delight in saying/burning/breaking/killing.
He meditated. He wore amulets with every protective and calming spell he could think of. He summoned Etrigan, in the safety of the warding circle, trying to escape the building sense of burning in his own skin, but Etrigan was not appeased by these jaunts and would spend no more than a few minutes in the circle before saying the chant to reverse them once more, and it barely took the edge off.
He avoided the others in the city as much as he could. He stayed home.
When the fog lifted and the northern half of the city cleared to reveal somewhere else, he very nearly ran to enter it. It promised something-- anything-- to do, to distract himself from Etrigan's voice. It promised potential opportunities.
*****
And what, my dear, do you think you'll find
Here in this trope of swords and shields?
The answer's simple, although you're blind:
Say the words. Surrender. Yield.
Jason kept his eyes on the books he'd found. It was a wizard's tower, as stereotypical as Etrigan had said: something out of a paperback fantasy novel, utter rubbish, but the books were truly magical however covered in overdone runes and drawings of pentagrams they were. One was actually oozing blood. He supposed he could give it to the damned vampires if nothing in it turned out to be useful.
He flipped through pages, eyes scanning the writings quickly, hunting for anything worth carrying back with him. Most of them were in Latin. And most of them were rubbish. A love spell. Something to ward off bad dreams-- he might have bothered with that one, if not for the fact that he had a broad collection of such spells and they had never once worked on himself. Something claiming to be the famed formula for lead to gold, yes, yes, very good, he'd bloody well owned the Philosopher's Stone for a while--
Teeth bared in an unconscious snarl, Jason chucked the worthless book out the tower's slit window, hard as he could. It vanished from sight, presumably landing somewhere far below, on the grass that surrounded the tower. He turned his glare upon the remaining books, and the candle that burned sullenly atop a skull.
Light them on fire. They'd burn so well. Burn this trash, this useless tripe, this fucking farce of pointless paper, and 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' that didn't fucking help him--
Scorch! Smolder! Singe! Sear!
Bake! Broil! Blaze! Burn!
Immolate all that's here
Then let ME have my turn!
"Shut up," Jason snarled, slamming his fist against the table.
Calm, he needed calm, he needed air-- he wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve, pressed his cheek against the cool, rough stone of the tower wall, and tried to recite meditative mantras to himself.
no subject
She lounges there because, really, if she's going to play a part there is no playing it halfway. A gold coin runs across the backs of her gloved fingers. Someone's already been around the castle a little bit. "Did they not have any new dark and spooky spells for you?"
no subject
He jerks at the voice, starting upright and staring around until he sees Selina. He gives her a blank, hostile stare for several seconds, just for her sheer presence, before the words themselves process.
He visibly tries to compose himself. Straightening his shoulders, taking a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. His face is still lightly flushed and sweaty, like a man running a fever.
"Miss Kyle," he says woodenly. "No. No new spells. May I help you."
no subject
"Were you looking for something in specific?"
no subject
Sweet pet Jason... this alley-cat is sniffing round
The mouth to hell, with not the wit to flee the reek of sulfur.
Permit me leave, and I shall play the triple-headed hound:
Chase her-- catch her-- gape my jaws wide, and engulf her.
Be. Silent. Jason's hand tightens on the edge of the table, white-knuckled.
"Do you happen to be fluent in ecclesiastical Latin, Miss Kyle? I find it unlikely. Please leave."
no subject
"You're having a hell of a time." The white knuckles are apparent even from where she's sitting.
no subject
Can the cat conceive that your sweet snit may get her hit, and ruinate her sleek physique?
Come. LET ME OUT. The bitch begs to be bitten
I'm hungry-- famished-- starved for meat, and I've always liked
The taste of kitten.
Etrigan's voice is like the roar of a furnace, terribly loud, making his bones hurt with its growl. Jason breathes shallowly through his nose, fingernails digging into the wood of the table to try and help ground himself in the physical reality of the moment. Etrigan can do nothing-- as long as he doesn't give in.
The unintended black humor of her words tears a sharp, shaky laugh from him.
" 'Hell of a time.' Yes. Yes, you can put it like that." Jason steps backward from her until his shoulders are pressed against the rough stone wall. The heat is making him itch, every inch of his skin. No, no scratching, no clawing, no, don't let yourself start that...
"Congratulations on your Latin then, Miss Kyle. That said, you still cannot assist me. You really need to leave." His voice has lost some its usual cool brusqueness; it is hoarse, raspy.
BURN HER
no subject
"You're sure you're going to be okay?"
no subject
The expression of concern, of bloody stupid fucking good intentions, is worse in its way than what she terms 'kidding'. The anger beneath the surface flicks on like a gas range turned to full power; he lashes out with his arm at the things on the table, sweeping books and glass vials and candles and an athame and all the other stupid, absurd, useless props to the floor. Glass shatters; the skull rolls around on the stone like a child's toy.
"Why is it," Jason snarls, his fists balling, "that you people are so damned incapable of understanding go away? You-- Wayne-- the sodding would-be heroes-- completely fucking unable to mind your own gods-be-damned business?"
It's the first time he's used Wayne's actual name when referring to him, the charade of false identities currently forgotten in the grip of his red anger. If Selina's looking, it may occur to her that the eyes of the man before her ought to be blue, instead of their current blood-red.
no subject
Using Bruce's name, well, it is a little jarring but if anything it is a re-enforcement of the sort of thing Jason doesn't want to encourage right at this moment. The red in his eyes makes her want to run, but it also indicates that he is seriously not well.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Was there a spell here or something..." Her voice trails off as she thinks about the rumors she's heard about him on the street. What if this is that, whatever it is, demon possession or some sort of magical stroke?
no subject
He leans over the table, towards her slightly. There's dust on the shelves, empty circles where the bottles and knick-knacks he's just knocked to the floor had once sat, their absence like teeth missing in a smile. With one finger he starts to sketch quick lines in the dust. He offers her a slightly gone smile.
"Your perceptions are so utterly astute, Miss Kyle. How keen your eyes, and your assessment of the scene! The Bat would be quite proud, I'm sure.
"If you won't leave because you see that something's wrong-- please, permit me to simplify your decision for you." The last words are a snarl, his fingers dragging through the sigil of an eye that he's shaped in the dust-- marring it, destroying the shape, erasing it.
Selina's world goes black.
no subject
"Fuck."
Carefully, she steps back from Jason and toward the window she came into the tower through. The door out would mean she would have to go passed Jason and right now that seems like a bad idea. There is a tension in her frame as she's sort of expecting some sort of attack to come from Jason as she does her best to get out of this room as soon as possible.
Preferably without falling out of the window and to her death.
no subject
Oh, look, now she's leaving. He could do more-- oh, the images-- yes, images--
Stomp on her fingers when she grips the window's ledge-- smash bone beneath his heel, feel the shatter and grind of joints and hear the noises of pain and pull his foot back and watch her fall, blind and so extremely out of her foolish, mortal depth--
The smile fades from his face as Selina Kyle edges back to the wall and the window. It's enough, what he's done is enough. Stop it there. Nothing more for Etrigan.
He offers no word of farewell, just stares silently until Kyle makes her cautious, cautious exit.
When she's gone he sits down heavily on the floor, crosses his forearms on his knees and presses his face into them. A jangle of emotions-- relief, she's gone, he can breathe more easily-- and that thread of petty, malicious satisfaction still-- and regret, all knotted together.
He'll lift the curse in a bit. Once he's fairly sure she won't be back anytime soon.
It's about fifteen minutes before Selina's vision clears once more.
no subject
Is it further than she should probably drop? Yes.
And that isn't the only foolish risks she takes after leaving the tower and Jason. Anger is a powerful and strange motivator. Luckily, there are a lot of buildings to climb and a lot of treasures to steal. And more than nine lives to lose.
[Video]
However, her tablet beeps twice. Should Selina look at it, she will find that her credit balance has shot up by 2000ยค.
A minute later, her tablet beeps with an incoming message. It appears to be... well, honestly, the sort of thing you might expect to see on Youtube; a short video clip of a dancing hamster, probably computer-generated. The hamster is decked out in stereotypical bling. It boogies across the screen, then disappears.
[Video]
She really did like the tiara. It was actually a nice piece and not to gaudy - for a tiara. The beeping draws her attention, "Oh. Huh. How about that."