Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 31

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Star quickly discarded most of the plans. 1 or 3 were the only ones that made sense to him. “I should be the one to go to the flooded track,” he declared. “Yeah, Dandelion can, but it’s not his territory or anything, and it is mine. I’ve already run it while it was flooded once already, and I think I’ll be the fastest in and out. So I figure, anything else is up to you two. Dandelion will have to work on the circle in here. Dom, do you want to be out there standing watch, or do you want to stick together? I can see pros and cons in both.”

Dom made a face at that, slowly nodding. “…Listen, I get that it might be useful to have a warning sign if something were coming, sure. But… frankly, I don’t want to stand watch alone. I’m just a human dude and the thing we’re dealing with is a demon, right? I might get off a warning to Dandelion, but… like, what’d happen to me after? This is how the Black guy dies first in horror movies.”

“That is… that is a good point,” Star said. “Yeah. Please stay with Dandelion.”

Dandelion gave Dom a quick smile at that. “I’d be glad for the company. This situation is frankly making my skin crawl.”

Shoulders relaxing a little, Dom nodded. “Okay. Then… Dandelion and I will stay here and work on the circle here. Dandelion plays communicator. And… you go out to the track, Star. But… promise you’ll try to be safe? We don’t know if the nixie stayed behind or went with the demon to go check on things. Like, it’d be fantastic if she did. But…”

That wasn’t Star’s favourite thing to think about, but it was valid. “Good point. Dandelion, can you spare me some glamour? Nixies can’t use it well against each other.”

“I’m sorry,” Dandelion said, brows furrowed. “I want to and wish I could, but I’m going to need everything I have while working on this, especially if I’m going to try to communicate with you in the meantime. Which I’ll have to do.”

“Which you’ll have to do,” Star echoed, resigned. “Well, I’ll apply my own glamour and move quietly.” He couldn’t even use his bardic abilities, not until a fight broke out, because stealth and song did not go well together. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Dandelion said, and stepped closer, kissing him slow and long and deep. “Come back to me safely,” he said, when it broke. “I couldn’t endure losing you.”

Then he stepped back and, of all things, looked toward Dom like he was expecting him to take a turn on Star. Dom immediately flustered, grabbed Star’s hand instead, and squeezed it. “See you soon.”

Star licked his lips, unable to quite help it, and then pretended not to notice Dom’s eyes flicking to that. “See you,” he agreed, and peeled himself away before he wouldn’t be able to convince himself to go.

It was just around the corner and down a short hallway to hit the side door they’d crept into originally, and from there, not so far to the north end of the flooded track, the far turn. He was fairly sure he was moving stealthy, pale and quiet, barefoot across the dirt.

Yet, the moment his foot hit the edge of the water, a hand shot out of it and wrapped around his ankle, trying to drag him in.

Had he been unaware of the possibility, he’d likely have been swept off his feet. As it was, he nevertheless yelped like a dog whose tail had been stepped on, swinging a panicked kick at the hand. It connected, and he hauled back as the grip slackened.

He didn’t free himself, but he did haul the other nixie out, naked and furious. She bared her teeth at him—teeth that were more familiar to him than the rest of her face after the bite, a tragedy he decided was best left for his therapist to dissect—and growled, “You.”

“Me,” Star said. He drew a shaky breath. He didn’t have time for this. “You’re my younger sister.”

“Hah,” she laughed, a sharp tone. “You don’t get to claim me as any kind of kin, whatever your birth-herd and whoever your dam. Not when you altered the herd forever with your fracturing of it.”

She was posed with hands up and fingers curled into claws, ready to fight and grab, though the real risk would be her feet, especially if she transformed and came at him with hooves. Her flank when transformed would also be bad; if she stuck him to her, Star wasn’t sure he’d be able to fight her enough to change the circle underwater. He raised both hands as if trying to assuage her, though he was calculating his chances of getting around her and underwater fast enough to get anything done. “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t fracture anything. They fractured me, by torturing people in front of me, by forcing me to eat those I wanted to release. I’d have stayed forever if they’d just let me choose who not to eat.”

“Humans are prey,” she spat. “And you didn’t just walk away and leave us unchanged, did you know? Every single colt and filly raised after you were under extra scrutiny. Constant judgment. There was no interaction with anyone outside the herd, only each other and prey. Should we get away long enough for a solo hunt and not come back with a feast, we’d be grilled and questioned and made to go to sleep hungry, no food shared to us. Any interactions we had were always suspect.”

Star could see how that would happen, admittedly. He licked his lips. “Okay, but,” he said, “that’s not my fault. You see how that’s not my fault, right? I left. I didn’t turn a hand or a hoof or my teeth on any member of my own herd. I simply left. What they decided to do after it was on them.”

Another laugh at that, bitter. “Blaming them, really? You made yourself into a cautionary tale. You were a loss. A grief. A horror. A fear. You stood for all the dangers of letting humans tame you, letting other fairies own you. If we feared bridles before, now we feared wilful submission. You did that. I thought I’d never escape it.”

And yet… “But here you are?” Star pointed out. He tried taking a step to the side, but she moved to block that too.

Any luck? It was Dandelion’s voice, not in his head but crawling through his brain and blood. Even being alright having Dandelion in those places didn’t make it easy to take. He could see why communication magic might be a bit odd, and tried not to visibly react to it. He sort of thought back the exact scenario he found himself in, unsure how else to communicate, and Dandelion responded with, Okay. Understood. But Ramullin just crossed my spore circle and the jig is, as they say, about to be up, if it’s not already. Hurry, if you can. If not, I’ll try sending Dom out with a halter.

Don’t, he thought back quickly. Not after what she’d just said. I’ll deal with it. “You’re here,” he said again; only moments had passed since his last words aloud. “You’re in Branwin’s Valley and have been for a while. So you must have got out.”

“I met Ramullin on a solo hunt,” she admitted. “They… cared for me. As much as they’re able, at least. They saw my resentment and met it. We talked about the things others can do to you by getting away, and our anger and fury found a home in each other. It did. So I went with them, and—”

“Wait,” Star said. “Hang on. You’re just like me, then. That’s what happened with me and Dandelion. I met him, and he offered me empathy to what I was going through, and I just went with him.”

“I’m nothing like you,” she shouted, and launched herself at him.

Star began singing to himself as he dodged, trying to increase his own speed rather than his strength, dodging and weaving. But even so, she was forcing him back, away from the water, and he found himself looking around wildly as he blocked and ducked and punched in return, as he kicked out, as he took a foot to the knee, and then she was changing, her weight increasing into her equine form as she slammed into him, and he thought, Fuck, she’s going to stick me—

But before she could, she was torn away from him.

He looked around wildly at the blur of black fur forcing her away from him, and realized that it was Georgio, forehead set into her neck rather than her side. She’d barely avoided getting gored by his horns, which were on either side of that neck, but he was forcing her to sidestep unsteadily up the slope to avoid being taken down under his bulk.

Star could have cried. “Georgio!”

“I GOT YOU, BUDDY,” Georgio panted. He was slick with sweat—how long had he been running? “Whaddya need?”

“Keep her occupied!” Star yelled, running for the water. “I’ll explain later!”

The water was miserably dirty, though not as cloudy as it had been earlier, but he felt nothing but relief as he broke through its ice-cold surface. He swam for where he remembered the center of the track to be. There’d been a tree there, he recalled, so it may have marked the spot.

Sure enough, at the base of the tree was a structure carved into the flooded turf. It had been cut out, but Star grabbed the tree, planting his feet on the trunk and throwing his weight back to haul a pointed branch off it.

Star— he felt/heard.

I’m here, he yelled back to Dandelion in his head. Hurry! What parts?

The next part, as Dandelion had implied, was relatively easy. Dandelion described a line, and Star used the branch to scribble it out, break its structure. Then another, and Star did it again. A third, and—

Star felt the growing energy just release, draining out like a plug had been pulled. He thought a tone of wordless celebration at Dandelion. While they still had the rest of this to deal with, at least the demon couldn’t activate a city-wide attack at a moment’s notice.

Dandelion did not return the celebration. Instead, crawling through Star’s blood, was: I need you back here, now. Then, as if he’d just changed his mind. No, maybe you’d better run away. It’s not safe. Ramullin must have set up a teleportation circle elsewhere in the building. They’re here now. Get away while you can. I’m sorry.

Star, obviously, was not going to get away. That wasn’t even a choice to him. Both Dom and Dandelion were in that room. He would never just run away.

He pushed off the tree with both feet, speeding through the water until he hit ground, and ran up the bank again. As he did, he saw that his sister and Georgio were still fighting; Georgio was stuck to her side now, but pound-for-pound was stronger than her, the same way he was stronger than Star. They were currently having a horrible tug of war over their own skin, while trying to kick and pummel and headbutt each other.

Star wished he could help, but the less time he gave the demon to work, the better. “Keep it up,” he called to Georgio. “I’m sorry! Keep her busy! There’s a demon in there, I have to deal with this somehow!”

Georgio let out a bellow instead of an answer, and Star sang him a brief bar from All Star as he passed, trying to increase Georgio’s stamina. 

As he passed, he saw up the road in the distance and noticed a large group of people, lit up by starlight and moonlight. The Twilight Council was on the move, and was on their way here. But they were a good ten minutes away, still, at the gentle walking pace in which they were moving. Star wasn’t sure that they’d make it in time.

Star slammed the side door open again, then switched to a jog, and a crawl, as he approached the office. He wasn’t sure what he could do—get the jump on the demon, maybe?—but he was sure he’d have less of a chance to do it if the demon saw him coming.

As he rounded the corner, he saw that the office door was open. He pulled all the glamour he had available to himself to hide himself in shadows, creeping up and peeking in.

Dandelion stood in front of the office desk, the magic circle currently deactivated, his arms spread. Star couldn’t see Dom from here, but could hear him, feel him; Dandelion must have shoved him under the desk for cover. If Star could tell he was here, though, the demon could too, if they bothered to have eyes for anything but Dandelion.

Whatever hopes Star had of getting the jump on this demon shredded in his chest as he looked at Ramullin for the first time. Black hair cascaded down a long back; they were a good seven feet tall, with an additional foot in horns that nearly touched the office ceiling. Their arms were bare, and they weren’t arms. It was like some sort of clay mannequin that cracks had appeared all over the surface of. Inside was a mass of eyes and wings, glowing brightly, dripping in and out of the gaps like lava bubbling. Star had met plenty of demons before down here, and even had met Ferthur when they cut through Abyssal territory a year ago. But Ferthur was untitled, and Ramullin was titled. Ramullin of the Wastes, who had legions under their command. Ferthur was just some sort of border guard, from what Star had seen of him.

This was nothing like Ferthur. There was an ancientness to this one that felt like perhaps the humans were right and that demons were fallen angels. Star had never seen an angel or heard of a way to a celestial realm, and didn’t know if they were real or not. If they were, this was whatever happened when one of them went wrong.

“The city is safe, Exile, but you are not,” Ramullin was saying, in a desiccated voice that sounded like wind that was too hot to breathe. “I can do quite a bit of harm here regardless of having that circle up. For example, Exile, if I were to dehydrate that human you’re hiding. I can take every bit of moisture from his body slow and steady so he feels every moment of it before it kills him.”

“Grotesque,” Dandelion said. He was keeping his tone conversational, trying not to goad Ramullin, most likely, but Star could detect the trembling horror and outrage behind that. “You could always not do that.,”

“I could always not do that,” Ramullin agreed. “My associate Seerose is likely killing your nixie right now, as we speak. That he got into the water there doesn’t mean he’ll ever get out, not by himself. But I can have her spare him. I can spare the human. I can not set fire to this building and all those around us. You could just come with me and accept the torture I’m owed for the things you’ve done. I believe it’d come with interest, at this late point.”

Dandelion said, “You understand that I’m reluctant to do that.”

“I understand your reluctance will have its costs,” Ramullin said evenly. The room heated up by a few degrees, near instantly; Star, who’d been soaking wet from his swim at the track, found himself dry.

Dandelion was trying to delay, but—it was obvious the moment he gave up on that, his shoulders sagging. And why would he delay further? He’d told Star to run, not to come here—and for good reason. What could Star do against this demon? And Dandelion didn’t know if or when the Twilight Council was coming. There was no indoor window here to show that they were a mere, what, eight minutes away now from surrounding the building and starting a banishment, was there? He had no reason to keep fighting.

“All right,” Dandelion conceded. “I see the point you’re making. But I won’t consent without setting terms.”

“That’s fair and valid,” Ramullin said. “Though you understand that I won’t let you put protections on yourself.”

“I understand that. But there are threats you made I will need to negotiate,” Dandelion said. “If I go with you, will you still harm this human? Any other nearby human? Will you reset the circles and damage the city? Will you call Seerose off or keep her attacking my nixie? These are the things of concern to me, and which my health will need to be traded for.”

Dandelion might be able to buy a little time with this, and having the demon agree to these things would be useful, but Star didn’t think he’d be able to buy a full eight or nine minutes of it. Star swayed back against the wall outside the office, trying to think.

Compared to a demon lord, Star was largely powerless. He had his own ability: His weak glamours, his bardic buffs and debuffs, his ability to transform into a horse and stick something to his side. He could kick and bite. That was not enough to deal with this power, not by itself.

So what should he do? He wasn’t strong enough to take this demon on in a mano-a-mano fight. He could think of several possible plans, yet again:

One: Should he let Dandelion barter himself away in the hopes that he was doing it because he secretly had a plan, and then try to rescue Dandelion before Dandelion could actually get taken away?

Two: Should he jump in right now and interrupt somehow, try to get that last few minutes of time back through his own actions as a decoy and if so, what should he do, what should he say? It’s likely they’d all get a bit hurt, but it might give time for the Twilight Council to get here.

Three: Should he get the demon out and away from his boys? That was possible, actually. He could stick Ramullin to him, and then drag him somewhere. But if he did, where? And Ramullin surely would be doing their best to get away and harm him back, and he’d just have to endure it.

Four: He could try to offer himself up instead of Dandelion. He wasn’t sure if this would work—Ramullin seemed pretty fixated—but it’d hurt Dandelion to have Star get taken more than it would hurt him to go himself, and pointing that out might win Ramullin over. It wasn’t a safe plan, but it might do something.

There was also the ambiguous fifth option which is that he’d somehow magically think of something he hadn’t already considered in the few seconds before he’d have to act. 

[Which plan sounds good, and how should he execute it?
Or do you have another idea in mind?
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