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.
[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."