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(I'm hoping that posting my reworking is okay and doesn't both anyone, ^^'
Viewer discretion slightly advised; cosmic horror is squishy! Wheee, fun!
If you want to compare, this is the shambling mess it used to be.)
https://s26.postimg.org/ahfs9etm1/Da...nt_Mansion.png
”To the scientist, there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.”
- H.P. Lovecraft
Crickets chirped at the fierce morning sun. A hay wagon came to a gentle rolling stop at the foot of a hill, under the looming shadow of a large house.
“This is the mansion you spoke of,†the driver said aloud, her Tradespeak honeyed and sweet.
A sharp-eared boy popped out of the hay, nodding at the young elfin woman at the fore of the cart. His verdant gaze, buggy and pupil-less, turned to the dark-furred direwolf snoozing in the sunlit cart besides him. Fearlessly, he poked the slumbering beastie in the side with a grin. She grumbled at him and rolled over -- right off the side of the cart and into the road. Not the most dignified way to disembark. Sneezing up clouds of dust, Daugi was now awake enough to blink the crust from her bloodshot eyes and give her tiny companion a disgruntled growl. Fenn merely laughed -- a soundless quivering of his chest -- and hopped off beside her. Though he felt a little sorry about the rude awakening, he felt it was justified by the fact that she had gotten the nap at all. It had been a good choice to let them hitch a ride rather than lope all the way over here.
“You do know, that no-one in their right mind would ask to be taken to such a place,†the puzzled cart driver called over to Fenn as he patted his grumpy wolf on the head. “Do you not? What business do you have here? It is a cursed grounds. The last person who cared for it did not do kind things to this place, and they paid a price for it.â€
Fenn shrugged amicably and glanced at the shamble of a house. If anything, her words of warning bolstered him. How many times had he found objects of fascination in the places no-one had the courage to go?
The little fae fished around in his satchel and handed her a fistful of tarnished coins for her trouble. She scrutinized them a moment, then tipped her hat at him and snapped her reins, prying questions quieted by the payment. The hefty elk hitched to her cart tossed their heads and started off. “You’re welcome then, mute one. Take care,†the driver said as she shrank into the distance. Fenn bobbed his head cheerfully and waved good-bye before turning to face his destination.
This was no simple haunted abode that he was visiting. This was the mansion of the deceased Darcy Clemonts, a human researcher of strange magics and faerie beings. That which had fascinated her were cryptids which most in their right minds didn't even want to touch; things which were not beholden not to humanoid will, nor the Thaynes, nor quite even the rules of nature. Sadly, one of her last works, an unfinished documentation of frost fae culture and physiology -- his elusive people -- was said to remain in this house. Fenn couldn't fathom as to why none had thought to take it from these creaking premises and get it published posthumously for her. It would have saved him quite a bit of research and trouble if someone had.
It was probably those “haunted house†rumors that kept people at bay. Fenn sighed and agreed that the abandoned grounds certainly looked a good place for unsatisfied spirits to roam. Oh well. At least he would bring back something new to add to the Tarot library. Wouldn't Vince be pleased?
The abandoned mansion was squat and squarish, the bristly lawn as high as Fenn’s thighs and the walls overgrown with ropey vines. Boy, he was glad he had arrived here during the day. He couldn't even imagine what it would look like at night! The boy eagerly started across the eroding stepping stones, making a game out of not-falling-into-the-deep-grass. Daugi padded after him like an attentive mother hen. She didn't seem to understand the game, so Fenn decided that he was the winner in the end. He landed on the porch with a light thump, rattling the decaying boards. A quick nudge from Daugi saved him from falling over.
The door was unlocked, its hinges loose and rattling. Opening it let out a front of humid air and old-lady smell. Fenn’s nose crinkled at it. There was a quiet dripping in the background. Together, the two peered into the gaping dark inside. Did someone leave the faucet on? Was the faucet actually still functional after a century? Such important questions.
Inside, the place was as ugly and tasteless as the out. Thick, velveteen drapes mouthed the windows, devouring the sunlight into a muggy dimness. Daugi snuffled and licked experimentally at a dark patch on the carpeting, only to gag on the thick dust that collected on her tongue. A giggle welled up in Fenn’s chest at the sight of her shaking her head back and forth, her tongue lolling in disgust.
It was an odd house to be certain, cluttered with old-fashioned furniture in ghastly disrepair. One could hardly walk three paces without discovering a melted puddle of a candle tucked into a corner or guarding a tabletop. A metallic smell clung to them, and their wax was tinged black. It was a wonder that the house hadn't burned down before Darcy died. Fenn inspected one placed precariously on a windowsill. The sill itself was greasy with lines of congealed white dust. He dabbed a finger in and tasted it with only a little hesitance; salt. These measures spoke of ritualistic magic, even holding a bit of leftover magic-brightness to the touch. The feeling was unmistakable.
Perhaps he didn't study that particular brand of magic, but he had read a thing or two. Salt was sometimes used as a ward, to keep things out -- or in, as need be.
Fenn snorted and pressed on through the halls, Daugi trotting behind him with pricked ears. He wasn't sure what sort of spells had been cast in this house, but it probably hadn't helped those haunting rumors. It was said that Darcy had been declared dead “under mysterious circumstances”, and none had been brave -- or stupid -- enough to investigate these circumstances.
The boy combed through the crooks and corners of the house, piece by piece. First, he ducked into a large bedroom to the right of the first hallway. Its floors were in brittle condition, straining with every step of the sleepy wolf behind Fenn. All that was left standing was an empty bookshelf, a battered wardrobe, a matching pair of bedside tables, and the musty bed itself. Pasty fungus had taken over the water spots on the ceiling.
Fenn surveyed the room in quiet appreciation of the victorian design before turning to his canine friend. In absence of a voice to speak with, he made rough gestures and shapes with his hands. The first was a rough square, followed by a motion that was reminiscent of turning pages. Book. Need to find. Search?
“Wuff.” Daugi trotted out of the room, bright-eyed with the anticipation of helping her tiny charge. Confident that she'd be up to the task, Fenn was free to explore the room as he needed.
Fenn crouched by the bed, lifting up the covers to peer underneath. No stone could be left unturned, no reach unexplored, no door unopened. That manuscript could be anywhere. The dark underneath the mattress unnerved him. There was a skittering sound, like a small animal moving about on spindly legs. A shudder ran through the small Fae. All the same, not really knowing what he was or what he could do was unnerving him a lot more these days. None of his excursions into the frozen wastes of Salvar had given him any insight into his kind. The lack of understanding about his heritage caused complications. Fae were very different from the other races. He didn’t understand how his magic was supposed to work, he wasn’t sure how -- if even if -- he would grow up, and he was just dying to know if they were all voiceless, or if that was his own flaw entirely.
He hoped that it wasn’t just him, but he wasn’t holding his breath on it.
Either way, Fenn reasoned to himself, he had escaped senile dragons, kidnappings, and the judgemental eyes of bloody corpses. A haunted house with no ghosts and lacking hygiene wasn’t the worst thing he had ever encountered. The dark under the bed? Pffft, nothing. That thought was reassuring. His magic subdued by the unsettling atmosphere and muggy air, the freckles of frost on Fenn’s face partially melted, making him uncomfortably sticky. Wiping back a slick of damp hair from his face, Fenn sucked up a deep breath and stuck his hands under the bed, searching by touch for anything roughly book-shaped. Naught but squishy, bulbous masses met his prodding fingers. Whatever it was became gummy under his cold touch.
Eight beady white eyes emerged from the blackness, glaring vehemently at the boy’s straying hand. Fenn blanched at the brown, bird-sized spider that the eyes were attached to, yanking his hand back before it could strike. His hands were speckled yellow and white with broken egg sacs.
Chirp chirp.
Whoops. Omhym nest.
He jumped onto the bed and flung the covers back over the side, muffling the irate chirping of the singing spider as it charged against the quilting that trapped it underneath once more. His body was all jittery now. A sharp “Auf!” greeted Fenn from behind as he gagged and wiped the residual spideregg and webbing onto the bleached pillows. Daugi! He turned around expectantly, brightening when he saw the old tome clutched between her teeth. Excitedly, he leaned over for a closer look. It was…
A greasy brown cookbook, its pages yellowed by time.
It fell from the wolf’s jaws with a good thud, a noise not half as loud as the happy thumpthumpthump of her tail against the floor.
Fenn sighed, and shook his head at his partner, sorry to burst her bubble. He signed resignedly at her. Wrong book. Thanks, sorry. The direwolf drooped in disappointment. That was okay. There was still more to explore.
At no point since he had stepped onto the premises had any ghost made itself known to him. Even so, there were all these little things that sent his skin crawling when he found them. The boy combed through the crooks and corners of the house, piece by piece. He ventured into rooms with ominous fungal growths on the ceiling, clambered up into unsteady wardrobes, and stuck his head under more spider-infested furniture.
That mysterious dripping sound was indeed a faucet, an old-fashioned pipework in the kitchen that leaked scummy brown water. Ick. Fenn grimaced and hastily plugged it up with a crumbling washcloth. It was starting to grate his nerves. Once that was taken care of, the fae took it upon himself to clamber onto the kitchen counters and inspect the cupboards. One cabinet was host to a jar of salt and a jar of noisome black mushrooms. The mushrooms had grown out of the jar to fill the whole of the cabinet, except for a wide circle around the salt. When he poked them with a finger, spreading a dapple of frost, they shrank away from that too. Wrinkling his nose, Fenn closed the drawer again, leaning away from the bitter smell that seeped from the mushroom jar. Ugh. He stuck his tongue out and pulled open the next cabinet.
A rotting skeleton greeted his sight. It sat curled up in an awkward position, stale bones leaned away in a manner suggestive of someone hiding, the neck snapped at an unnatural angle. Fenn blankly stared at the tattered clothing, which gave one the impression that the bones belonged to a woman. A very, very dead one. Darcy Clemonts? Or someone else? More black fungus festered from within the skull. Misshapen stalks bugged out of the eye sockets.
Holy mother of FUCK.
Fenn slammed the cabinet shut and bounded out of the room, his arms flailing in terror. Daugi bumped into him as he made his panicked exit. He bounced off of her bulk, landing smack-dab on his ass in the middle of the floor.
“Wuff?” The direwolf huffed and cocked her head down at her little charge, her ears flattening in an almost motherly concern, questioning this hasty retreat. With a sheepish trembling building up in the pit of his stomach, the boy reached up to hug her. It briefly smothered his heebie-jeebies under a facade of consolation, though not the rapid thudthudthud of his heart. Daugi made a deep grumble in the back of her throat and leaned gratefully into the embrace. She was being pretty well-behaved today, doing nothing more than sniffing uneasily at the grime and sitting down whenever Fenn stopped to look at something. Something about the atmosphere subdued her. Something about it unnerved her. Staggering back to his jelly-kneed legs, Fenn sighed and promised himself that she’d be rewarded for her patience later. He had just the thing to give to her.
But right now, it was about time to check the second floor. If only to leave that skeleton far behind...
Fenn hopped up the creaking stairs, internally pondering a cheery song. It kept his mind off of the creepy nature of the mansion for a moment, at least. Skeleton? What skeleton? He had seen no skeleton! Behind him, Daugi padded up hesitantly. He swung open the door at the top of the steps and took a cautious peek around. Nope, no spooks here. Just a lot of rooms attached to a long, broad hallway. There was wide windowed wall at the very end; this window was sprinkled with salt like the rest of them.
The first room to the left gawped open invitingly. Fenn bounced over and peered inside, preemptively checking the room for any spooky skeletons or such unhappy things before entering.
This had to be Clemont’s study. A glut of sour rot-smell smothered the air. The source of it; thick tomes and curling stacks of paper. They weighed down sturdy oak shelves, shelves which matched a scarred desk. Fenn could hardly take a breath in through his nose without wanting to gag. Daugi tolerated it a little better, twitching her nose perplexedly at each gob of fuzzy fungi. The little fae made a face and wrapped a length of his tattered cloak over his mouth. Truth be told, it made him more than a little antsy. If it weren't for all the books, he might have considered skipping the room entirely.
Taking care to restrain his squirming gag reflex, Fenn stepped inside, scanning the shelves for some clue as to where the frost fae research might be hidden.
He attempted not to squint at the confusing aspects of the room, instead opting to inspect the furniture. What caught his eye immediately was a curious item on the desk. A statue of a mangled fungus-eel thing squatted on an unbalanced pedestal, both dusted with looping characters. Surrounding it like a halo was a circle of salt. A slip of paper fastened to the statue simply read ”Rothaerh-Shash” and odd scrawlings in another language. The look on its face was ghastly. Odd creature! Fenn made a ghastly face back before he set to work pouring through the shelves. Half of the books and loose papers piled onto the planks were spotted with hairy mold. Many were written not only in foreign tongues, but alphabets entirely alien to the little Fae. The covers felt fragile and crunchy under his frosty touch, like dry leaves. He tried not to destroy anything as he searched the titles.
A Guide to the Great Unknown, Blight of Wychcraft, The Art of Runes, A History of Raiaera, Protection Charms and You, Summoning Ancients, Beyond the Tap Eternal, The Outer Ring, Jungle Folk; the Fae of Dheathain, B’gnu-Thun Alack, A Manifesto on Magicyte Use…
Some of them were written by Professor Clemont herself. She had some interesting tastes in literature.
It wasn't until Fenn had found himself at the desk that he made some headway into finding what he needed. There was a thick stack of paper bound by leather cords set at the farmost corner, touched by rot like everything else. He hadn't noticed it initially in lieu of the grotesque statue sitting nearly on top of it. The title sent his heart soaring, and he jumped up in delight.
Needle in a Snowdrift; The Elusive Fae of the North.
Fenn grabbed for the script with a near squeak of excitement, only to stop short as he found its corner to be trapped underneath the ugly statue’s perch. He sighed and took hold of the pedestal. It radiated a creeping warmth that was normally reserved only for magic, but he wasn’t sure why someone would enchant such a thing. It must have been used in whatever rituals used to take place here. Disturbing it felt wrong, and yet, what other choice did he have? There was no way he was leaving without what he came for. Carefully, he lifted the pedestal up and slid the manuscript out from underneath…
The statue toppled off the desk and out of the salt circle with a great WHUMP, splintering the floor under its weight. Daugi bayed in fright at the disturbance. Fenn skittered back a few feet from his mistake, clutching the manuscript in hand. He ran a hand over his friend’s hackled mane, shushing her as she snarled and snapped at the fallen idol.
They waited a moment, holding their breath, listening.
An distorted drippy sound had started up in the distance. Fenn slumped in shaken relief. The washcloth must come loose from the faucet. It was that, and nothing more.
Fenn hung there a moment with the manuscript tucked under one arm and his wolf still bristling, both their ears twitching towards the echoing drips. His paranoid survivalist side was suggesting they leave, under the eerie impression that moving the statue had made... something happen. More importantly though, the manuscript was weighing on him. He feared that if he didn't read this crumbling paper [i]right now[i], it would break apart later. It was too old to risk taking into the elements, too fragile to risk dropping or bumping, and too precious to leave behind without taking a peek inside.
Catching Daugi’s attention with a tap on the head, he strung together a few specific hand gestures. You, guard? Stay by me.
A disapproving growl escaped from the cage of Daugi’s teeth. She itched at her ears, staring at him in an eerie, distracted way. Fenn bit his lip and gently pleaded again.
Please?
Her disapproving glare lingered a moment before she reluctantly gave in. “Wuff…” The wolf dropped to the floor next to him, keeping her trembling, agitated red glare fixed on the door. It reassured him a bit, hushing his itchy paranoia. Thanks. Fenn smile as he curled up against her bulk and painstakingly untied the cords locking the papers together. Many places between the pages were sealed together or fuzzed over with mold. If he wanted to learn anything useful from this, he had to do it fast, but he had to do it carefully. The damp cover frosted over under his hands and the binding peeled. He turned to the first semi-readable page.
Frost fae share many attributes and beliefs with their forested kin. For instance, all Fae have immense lifespans, far beyond the scope of a human. The average age that faerie beings reach seems to be of seven hundred years, a number comparable to that of elves or dwarves. Fae reach adulthood near their first half-century of life. A frost fae is only considered an adult after they hav…
Waitwaitwait. Fenn blinked down at the writing and reread it. So, that meant he was probably more a teenager by his kind’s standard’s than an adult. So if by the standards of his race, he was technically that young… Damn it. He stuck his tongue out glumly. There went his smug sense of superiority over the adults in his life. The boy sighed, wondering faintly if thirty years old was too early for Fae to drink. Whoops.
Slurghhhshhh… A shudder wracked Fenn, and he placed a hand over his ears, uncertainty rising in him with each gasp of water from downstairs. Holy shit, those drips were distracting; they made his head faintly ache. Better meditate more on his age later, and get back to reading.
Daugi whined through chattering teeth, folding her paws over her ears as she kept an eye on the door. Fenn soothed her with gentle scratches behind the ear as he read, trying to still her fidgety unease. Was it just him, or were those noises getting louder? Despite the pervasive squelchy gurgling that ran claws down the inside of their skulls, the boy kept hunkered down, skimming through the text.
Much like the Fae scattered throughout the rest of the world, frost fae often organize themselves in rough communities known as… Several Courts are known to exist within Salva… ordian forest of Corone…
...utterly unfettered by the cold; one could stand naked in the most bitter of snowstorms and be perfectly comfortable…
Frost fae blood may be well worth the study. It is apparently non-magical in nature, hence, it must be composed of a natural combination of elements that could theoretically be recreated and replicated. Imagine all the potential uses for a liquid incapable of freezing…
...reamers find themselves longing for faerie revels. As one girl put it, they were practi…
Possessing a gift for “dream walking”... itchment”...
…paired rituals to create new life… an exhausting process, hence any Court must think carefully befo... initiation…
…believed that a frost fae’s appearance is an indication of the properties of their soul, especially once… with cruel features is probably cruel as well. Likewise, one with a more bestial appearance might… result, Fae children born with severe physical defects are believed to have spiritual ones as well, and thus are often abandoned or cas…
The last paragraph stood out pretty starky to Fenn. Oh. Ohhh. Pieces to a puzzle he didn’t even realize he was putting together clicked into place. His hand went to his throat, unease crawling under his skin. As far as he knew, he had always been voiceless, and it certainly seemed to be a defect to him. If this book was accurate, then that gave him a faint idea of why he had never known where or who he had come from. His birth Court had probably ditched him the first chance they got. While that answered a few unfortunate questions, it wasn’t quite what he set out to learn. Where did it talk about magic? Did it have more information on what Courts might be hidden in Corone? Or Salvar?
What were Fae supposed to be like and how did one find them, damn it?
The dripping in the background seemed louder, somehow. Fenn flipped a few chapters back to a section he had initially skipped, desperate to learn more. The tome was especially fuzzy here, and his frosty fingers weren't helping matters.
…adolescent met... formation… awful and wonderful to behold…
Damn these mold blots; the knowledge was literally rotted away. This bit felt important to him. Fenn seethed in snowy uncertainty and scrutinized the useless page for words that no longer were there. Adolescent what? What happened then? When did his adolescence end, even?
Fenn glanced up suddenly as Daugi uttered an abrupt growl at the door. The ghastly drippings were starting to take on an eerie quality...
As it came louder, the sound became very, very wrong. They struck Fenn's ears as a deep black. A bleeding, noxious obsidian. Festering and drying, the sound of withered teeth scraping against flesh. Of scabs sloughing off skin. Rotting and consuming, hollow and ravenous.
Fenn grip on the manuscript loosened and it dropped to the knotty floorboards and hunched over, pressing his hands to his ears. They were sticky with a thinly trickling seepage of his tarry blood.
It was a melody, almost. Green gurgles sung their roots into the mind, growing like an unwanted infection. Mushy. Crusted. Of bitter and bile. Warm. Dripping. No cure was on hand to the fester, the seething. The noises slithered past the study and down the hall.
Fenn collapsed, wishing to drown it out with a cry of his own. Tears stung his eyes. A song, a scream, it didn't matter. He could see Daugi howl, but her cry was swallowed up by the static.
The voice, black and green all over, whispered to the soul in worldless languages. Telling it of a need. Pleading for space to encompass, to overgrow. Gangling vines, frothing teeth, and the gnashing eyes, an inutterable whisper. The things it asked for; insatiable. Expanding. Devouring. That the sound alone caused Fenn to perceive such a disjointed picture of reality was impossible. And yet, there it was, blinding him. He could see nothing else but it.
As the chromatic sounds bled into Fenn’s ears and stained his vision, as he lost grip on reality and body, there was Daugi at his side.
She let loose a quiet whine, prodding him in the back with her warm snout. Her boy-pup did not stir. He did not react out to her for comfort, nor move his hands in his wordless language to ask her for aid. Pressing her ear to his back assured her that he was still taking deep, shuddering breaths, but that was all. Naught but twitch and bleeding came from him, curled up with his hands grasping his ears, his gaze broken and staring at a fixed point in space. He did not seem conscious of anything around him.
Her fur prickled and stood on end. The wolf barked, and shook him, and nudged him, and licked him. None of it caused him to shake out of the paralyzed stupor.
From the moment the unholy song had started up, she had known that it was wrong. Her senses were much keener than that of Fenn’s. The hideous burblings of whatever beast had been unleashed had assaulted her with great power at first. Wanting, grabbing, a foreign consciousness trying to worm their way into her mind. It was the feeling of a seed trying to push through solid marble but finding no purchase. Eventually, she had gotten uncomfortably used to the sensation. However, they only seemed to have become stronger in their effect on the tiny Fae the more of it he heard, and this distressed his friend to no end.
What had her boy-pup unleashed on them now?
Daugi paced around him, her claws clicking on the soiled wood. Many times now, he had demonstrated a distressing inability to sense danger when it loomed over them. He walked into dragon lairs boldly, he allowed strange men in bright armor to catch him with his hands in another’s pocket, and he had a complete unflinching fearlessness toward the unfamiliar. Whatever her pup had come here for, it was no use to him if he was dead.
She was in charge now. And under her charge, they would leave. Under no circumstances was she going to lose her only packmate, nor herself, to whatever crawled through the bowels of this evil house.
The bulky lupine backed up to the end of the study, readied herself, and gave a great running charge at the door. It tore from its hinges and toppled to the floor, the bang echoing around the house. It wasn’t the way the door was supposed to open. Human architecture was simply too befuddling, and Fenn was in no state to figure out the knob for her.
She took the leg of his fusty, dusty breeches and dragged him over the shattered door, moving around splinters were she could. Much like the study, the walls of the upper hallway now were a veritable jungle. Daugi pawed at the new vegetation that had webbed over everything in dark, gooey lumps. Fungoids thrived in angry flowered bursts. This was not this same hall she had walked through before. Spacially, it was no different. But in its very nature, it had been reborn.
Her ears turned to the door leading to the stairs. Something from inside bumped against the door, slamming it shut. Fear prickled at her haunches. Her air stood on end. The closed door strained and groaned under the weight of something pressing up against it. Cracks formed in the wood only to be filled in with fungus and ooze, and it tore apart like a thin web. The wolf had witnessed many things as she traveled with her odd pup. Biped corpses, the maw of fey dragons, slavering draves... None of them struck with the same nameless terror as what pushed through the door like some twisted tree. Its tendrils had a grisly stretch to them similar bare tendon and muscle fiber, tapered and gaping at the ends like an eel’s mouth. Heads of green-grey fungus sprouted and withered from the smooth crevices. Black stalks shifted like primitive eyes, rippling in all directions before coming to a focus on the dog and the boy sitting in the center of the hall’s narrow space.
Daugi was silent now. Her fur stood on end as it turned their way. She dropped Fenn and stood between him and the beast, challenging it with a growl.
What was it?
It twisted, an unfamiliar motion of consideration, intentions unclear. It seemed to regard her -- no, Fenn, he who had foolishly revived it -- much as one would stare a cockroach that had wriggled out of the floorboards. The song devolved into shrieks and chattering clicks that cause her to wince and shake her head. No more a song; a sharp note now, a battle cry.
Ravenous. Vexed.
Though she had no understanding of the writhing beast before her, Daugi implemented the same plan of action she always did when faced with a great foe and no Fenn to do the thinking; run baying at the beast, accosting it with all the strength her bulky body held.
Her teeth dug deep into the fungoid flesh of a tendril. If it was hurt by her biting, it gave no indication. The mass between her teeth shivered and split in two, one half a new freed tentacle, the other still pinned by the direwolf’s futile tearing jaws. Rearing up into the air, rapid thrashing wracked the beast. It swung the stubborn direwolf through the air in wild loops, breaking several paintings and nearly running over Fenn in the process. Daugi smashed into side table. Her grip slackened, and the beast freed itself of her. She yapped in pain and rolled over the splintered furniture, struggling to get her bearings.
As she worked to shake off her dizziness, the beast turned to Fenn with a thousand beady stalks. A slither of the tendrils wound around his wrists and chest, lifting him up for viewing, for inspection. The boy stared back with bleary eyes, still blinded by its song.
It began to pull him in opposite directions at once, as if it was judging how easy it might be to snap him in half.
Daugi had often recognized his magic as almost a separate being from the boy. There were many instances where he seemed a bit off-put by its machinations. It was him, but not him. Even as he lay prone, it prickled around him, the spikes of an urchin. The foreign touch stirred the frost. It crept up the boy’s sleeves and collar, to crawl curiously onto the tendrils grasping him.
Chittering screams echoed through the broken mansion. It dropped Fenn, drawing away from the source of the frost with shriveling tendrils, a snail from salt.
Just as it was about to come down, a snarling streak of black fur bashed into the beast’s side. It hollered another hollow brown note and swatted the furious, tearing mass of black away, throwing her again. Sharpened claws skidded for a grip on the wood planks, shredding splinters and rot alike. Daugi panted, getting to her feet again to growl down the beast. One of her paws throbbed immensely as it supported her weight, twisted during her rough landing. She was coming around to the fearful realization that she did not have the means to defeat it. The longer they stayed in the room, the more fungal blooms appeared. Spores were thickening the air. Fenn coughed, his breathing labored.
Her boy-pup was going to be in a lot of trouble for getting them into this.
Daugi’s gaze snapped between the abomination and her vulnerable charge. Diving for Fenn, she snapped him up by the collar, almost giving him whiplash as she streaked away. Her throbbing paw was ignored for the moment. The creeping abomination receded into a blur behind them, letting out nails-on-chalkboard screeches as it slithered after. It was strong. She wasn't sure where she was headed. Into another room? A closet? Out a window?
Out the window.
Drapes tore, salt scattered and glass exploded. Fragments tore into Fenn’s face and her side, watering the grass black and red.
Time seemed suspended to the wolf as they fell out the second story. The jump blurred into her fall, and then the ground was upon them.
Daugi landed on the bristled lawn with a heavy groan, Fenn landing partially on top of her. The air was knocked clean out of her. She panted into the quiet, shivering, feeling instinctively lucky that she and her boy-pup were still in once piece. The wolf rolled over and looked back at the house, barely breathing for fear.
It was at the window above, tendrils slurping at the shattered glass, leaving oily tufts of spores behind. When it found a spattering of salt at the sill, it hissed and retreated back into the dark of the house. Daugi rasped for air and struggled to her feet, staring into the dead black. She understood that they hadn’t defeated it. It was probably only a matter of time before it found its way out of the wards placed on the house. Hopefully, a very long time.
With the retreat of the beast, the noises had ceased. Silence rang loud in Fenn’s ear. He sat up ponderously and glanced about, not entirely certain he understood what had just happened. The boy looked rather bewildered as he stanched the black oozing from his cheek. Glassy green eyes stared back at the house with confusion before he was yanked away from it unceremoniously.
Still dragging her stunned little friend by the sleeve of his cloak, the direwolf limped in the opposite direction from whence they came.
Fenn was very, very confused.
It took crossing three bridges, four dirt roads, and one scraggly signpost before Daugi decided it was safe enough to let the fae out of her protective grip. That gave him time to lament the mold spores and slimy bits of fungus he was still coughing out -- they were wiggling -- and mull over what the fuck just happened in that mansion.
His memories of the encounter were... vague. Everything went fuzzy after the noises had gotten to him, most of it obscured by the jarring colors of the song. He did have the faint impression of a muscle-like, moldy tentacle monster staring into him though. That freaky image still left his bones as weak as jelly. What happened to the manuscript? It must have been left behind in the confusion. A bit sad, though not exactly unexpected. He could live with losing that so long as, you know, he was still living. At least he got a little out of the text before shit hit the wall.
A far more frightening thought pierced his skull. If that bile being inside Clemont’s house had stirred her curiosity, then what did that say of the Fae that she also studied? Wasn't that a funny thought? He shivered. This called for more research. But, next time, maybe in a less dangerous area…
The prolonged dragging stopped abruptly as Daugi flopped over with exhaustion on the side of the road, whining. Her paw hurt, her lungs burned, and she was still just the littlest bit scared out of her wits. The warm sun beat down on them. Flaxen grass prickled at their sides. Fenn gently slid his sleeve out of her drooling mouth and threw his arms around her head in a wordless hug. A fed-up grunt escaped her. Yet, she licked his face, wiping off the dirt and blood that had dried to his forehead. It brought a grin to him, a grin that she snuffed with a stony stare.
Mad? he signed sheepishly.
She snorted, still glaring.
He hung his head sheepishly, and thought a moment. Book important. Sorry I made problem. Make it up to you? he signed excitedly. Daugi perked up and watched Fenn rummage around in his bag a moment. After a bit of exaggerated looking, he pulled out a thick bone, one he must have picked up at the butchery in the last town. The boy presented her the treat with a proud flourish of his hand.
The wolf lit up and took the bone from him gladly, gnawing and slobbering over the flavor, happily anticipating the marrow inside. What a just reward for an awful day.
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