Drystan walked into the tunnels, and wound his way into one of the large rooms where Dinah would usually be, hanging out. He looked around for Hunter, but saw no sign of him, “Dinah?” He called out, not having seen her curled up with books off in the corner. “You’re in here somewherrrreeee..” he laughed a bit and finally spotted her. “Oh Hey…I’m not interrupting you am I? I was wondering if maybe you’d help me with something?” He ran his hand through the halfhair he had been sporting now for a bit too long.
Dinah was, as seemed to be most of the time now, in the temple tunnels. though instead of moping around, at least she was sat with a cluster of candles nearby, reading. She was humming an eerie little song, but when she heard Drystan's voice she pushed herself up and smiled.
"I'm through here.. in the King's room.." she settled up onto her knees and she smiled again, nodding as she picked herself up. "You want me to fix your hair? or in the very least, even it out? I can't pretend to be a stylist.." she gestured to the couch nearby, padding across the stones and settling down on one end. "I was just reading. Seeing if there was anything about those bloody mushrooms in any of my books. you haven't been infected, have you?"
He lowered himself down on the couch and let her and Helios have a look at his head, curling himself up so he’d be a bit smaller, “I can sit on the ground…” He kept himself curled up a bit before moving his butt to the cold stone. He didn't really want to sit on the stone afterall. “No …no actually. I dreamed about these things before they ever appeared. They look the same. They sort of stand out to me, have a bit of glow? To them? That make sense? I can see the spore clouds, and all I have to do is avert the air currents…sort of bubble myself when I'm outside…”
Dinah shook her head and she chuckled, sliding forward. She lifted Helios to get a good look at the side of his head, before placing him on top of her own for ease of vision. "No, here is fine. I can reach, you're not that tall." She leaned forward, skimming her fingers over the shorn off hair. She glanced towards where she had been sat, but Clipsy remained upstairs in her room. She did giggle just a little, however.
"Did you want it all doing? or to the same length? longer? " she offered, brushing her fingers through the longer locks of his hair to make sure there were no risk of tangles. "Premonition dreams? Definitely useful, when they are clear enough that you can understand them. I know someone that can help shift the affliction now but I would rather not it be needed."
He lifted his fingers to tangle with hers in that annoying way that of course your sibling is in the way of the things you’re trying to do. “Okay so like…just this part longer and back here, just as long as the rest. Not all one length,..like this here, would go to here, and then back here can just …be the same as here..” He pointed and mussed and used his fingers as rulers, and tried moving her fingers to where he meant. “Oh you’ll figure it out. Just don’t make me look French for Gods sakes.”
Dinah grinned and she nodded, patting at his fingers with her free hand, but she snickered again. "I could make you look as French as I pleased. At least you could get it cut again into a better style if I did, as long as it's too long" she pressed her palm against the shorn off half of his head, the skin beneath her hand beginning to prickle and itch as she coaxed it, teasing it longer in smoothing pinches. Far harder to do this shorter hair than Dorian's had been, it seemed, but she'd manage.
“Oh Di for the love of… just please.” He laughed and tried to keep his head still as she worked, the feeling of hair growing at a faster rate felt very odd indeed. “You know, I guess It has been a while since I’ve had to really catch up with you. Everything has been so ..crazy lately. To be simple about it. You got me out of that hospital and I’ve just been… collapsing from one thing to the next it feels. I never even got to show you my gift.” He waited patiently as she worked his hair into some sort of lump of hair that would suffice.
Dinah kept her focus predominantly on fixing his hair, but as he spoke, she smiled. "I stayed down here quite a lot of the time after the party. That part wasn't terribly interesting." she paused, his hair just long enough on the shorn side now that she could twist it around her finger and she did, curling it around and around as if stretching it from the root. "....your gift?" she asked with interest, tilting her head so the little twin Helios-eyed lamps could see his face. "You have a new gift?" she giggled excitedly.
“I do!It happened…long before the ship even. I’d been praying. Praying for a way to help /ease/ my ahm,..” He was chewing his words but realized soon, he really didn’t need to. Not with her. The ease of familiarity set in and he took a deep breath and let the tension out of his shoulders he’d been holding. “..my issue with needing to run off and do someone in. Can’t do that much, small island, supernatural population, makes things vastly harder than it was previously as you well can understand. So I was praying, asking for help. For a solution. I had visions of a young man..I painted him as vividly as I had been looking right at him.”
“Eventually, I found him. He practically gave himself to me. And..in the process, I was blessed.” He reached down and undid his vest and shirt, and pulled it off and set it to the side, so as to not wrinkle it all up in a mess. “May I stand now?”
Dinah lowered her hands from his hair to her lap, smiling peacefully at his words, even when he spoke of his urge to murder. She nodded silently, but then giggled when he spoke of his vision.
"The gods answer requests they fancy, darling" she agreed, nodding and gesturing with her fingertips for him to stand. "Let me see your gift. Was it from your patron? Another? Sometimes we cannot be too fickle about who answers," she bunched her fingers up in the edge of her skirt, fidgeting impatiently as she watched him through the lens-cameras.
He stood and turned his back to her, making sure there was plenty of candle light to show off what was to happen. “Oh this was from my patron. He spoke through me..I heard him. I have no doubt.” With that, his back, with all its array of black and ashen patterns began to writhe, as if something inside was growing larger. Finally, at eight spots across his back, the tips of tentacles ripped through his skin, and slid out of him and up and up and up till they nearly reached the cavern’s ceiling. He turned around slowly, and they followed suit after a moment, as if they were peering around as well at the insides of the tunnels, but they all were now turned and focused on Di. Two of the arms had clappers at the ends that opened and closed like flowers, or mouths, showing rows of sharp teeth. “They appeared when I heard him.” He smiled as they moved towards Dinah gently, offering themselves up for her to touch, they suckers barely movng along so as to not leave any markings on her.
Dinah watched intently, unsure as to what she would see. Would he be a luminous angel, like Dorian? A deep-dwelling creature like herself? But when the tentacles burst from his skin and writhed into the air around him, she giggled gleefully and clapped her approval. "Drystan, they are fantastic! Look at them! Are they strong? How sharp are these teeth?" she reached for the flower-headed one as it approached her, delicately examining it and pricking her finger on one of the prongs in its 'mouth'. "They are remarkable! And they happened all at once? Did it take you long to learn how they behaved?" she reached for the clapper type, beaming as she studied him "Look at you.. look at them, they are fiendish, darling, and perfect!"
He could not help but to beam under all of her compliments. “Oh quite strong, they can hold my weight, they move incredibly fast, though I've yet to be in the water with them, I can only think they’d move even better.” He laughed as she tickled one of their teeth. Sharp. “They did…I had the young man and … ah well..” He lifted his arms up and sort of shrugged, the tentacles waving out from the shrug. “They appeared and Did …most of the work for me. Di… the young man. He..he regenerates. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t have to. He is a gift as well. No more random people off the street, no more searching for the ragtag of the population.” He had come to kneel next to her and hold her hands in his, the excitement wild on his face as he explained what it meant.
Dinah's glee remained in her face, the crab slithering down her hair to park on her shoulder once more. She nodded as he explained, marvel on her face. "They were a gift. A true gift. You were given a gift, not just some..reactionary mutation like mine.." she paused when he said that the gifted male regenerated, and she smiled again. "I suppose it will definitely quell the urge for blood but will it stop your urge to hunt? I suppose you'll always have to go and find him again after the fact." she clasped his hands, bending to kiss his knuckles. "Who is it? Anyone that would be missed? We shan't have to pay him off, will we?"
“Oh, no. You see he gave himself to me. Wholly. He remains as only …a living torso, he does eventually grow his limbs but then I just adjust him back down…You see the work I had been doing in the attic, …was to fashion him a ..living quarter, a..trunk.” He was trying to explain it, and also not have her be upset at him for having him in the house. Like some kind of hidden pet. “I …used my mind to affect his brain, he is..alive but not entirely himself anymore. He doesn't feel too much other than bliss as far as I see. Far cry from what he felt when I met him. His name is Kiernan. A student I think. No family. No one to pay off, no one’s even asked about him. I guess he was a bit of a hothead…heh… he’s part fae, his blood is..something else. Addictive. But ..You know I …don’t know if it will quell the need to hunt. So far…I’ve been fine. I suppose I’ll have to wait and see.”
Dinah gave his hand a little squeeze when he mentioned that he had the boy in the attic in a trunk, and she pulled a face "...doesn't that smell awful? In the attic, Drystan? What if it leaks? You can't just keep a semi mutilated boy in the attic, what if one of the maids finds him?" she frowned in thought "...we'll have to find somewhere else to put him." she added in a mutter. Her frown deepened, though in concentration, when he spoke Kiernan's name, and she shook her head "I don't think I know him. The name seems vaguely familiar but maybe I heard it around the academy. Just be careful, darling. please?" she asked hopefully, giving his fingers another little squeeze.
“Don’t be ridiculous Dinah! I wouldn’t leave him in some random box, half bleeding and rotting?! Ha!” He laughed hard. “No! The trunk I built, well, refashioned, he’s got spells on him to keep him sanitary and I stop his bleeding. What kind of blood magic nonsense do you think I have to leave my gift just oozing in the attic.” He laughed all the way through it, waving his hand. “No No He’s in the ‘Room’ up there. With the portrait. It’s all perfectly safe. Hells, I was in there when you gave that scream, knocked me and the trunk over. That's when this happened.” He pointed to his forehead, “..and /ng ahagl mgepah fahf/ ability, /Y' ahor ai vulgtmnah llll/ Hunter /hai/.” (then there did this ability, I can speak well with Hunter now). He grinned. “I think it helps in my prayers.”
Dinah's frown faded, and she laughed, shaking her head "I don't know, you might have just left him there. I don't know how your blood magic works other than it means you put a lot of things in your mouth that you probably ought not to." She countered with a tease, though she looked a little unsettled at the notion of him being in the portrait room, she hummed again. Until he spoke the tongue, and she squealed excitedly, giggling and clapping again "you learned the speech! i'm so pleased!" She nodded, biting her lower lip "Aren't we full of surprises today? Here, let me share mine, Though it's not nearly as exciting as yours" she hopped from her position on the bench, setting Helios on the bench where she had sat.
"I wasn't going to show anybody yet, but I think it's ready. I wasn't happy how I looked. and since I've been learning fleshcrafting, I thought that it would be best for me to fix that. I didn't want to refuse the gifts entirely, and after Niles worked so hard at giving me my tail, I didn't want to get rid of that... and I gave myself wings before, but they were too massive and heavy and bulky.. so I changed those too.." she chattered away as she unbuttoned her shirtdress, letting it drop uselessly around her feet in a puddle of polka dots, her glamour following shortly behind. "..and I loathed that stupid chest eye, so I pulled it out..."
He sat himself back on the couch as he retracted the tentacles into his back and listened eagerly at her news as well. It was not till she had dropped her dress and that half second of human nudity that his cheek flared red and he looked away for a moment. Hunter’s facsimile had been too close. He turned and reached for his clothes and sort of resettled them, giving her a moment to fully flesh herself out, before looking back and taking in her new form. “Oh…my Dinah… You look amazing.” He lifted his hand and made a twirl motion so he could see the wings better and the tail.
Dinah didn't seem to notice the redness in his cheeks, Helios cam too busy examining herself to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, before she reached for it again to position on her shoulder once more. She laughed at his reaction and twirled, keeping the long, bladed tail tucked close to herself.
"I managed to get those hair tentacles to look...well. More like hair. it glows, too. I followed some jellyfish once and learned how to do it" she reached up towards her face, the new positioning of her many eyes still something she wasn't quite used to, even if she couldn't see out of them. She returned to her position beside him with a little flutter of the dragonfly-ish wings, winding the tail around herself at the waist.
“You’ve really outdone yourself. You look just as you are supposed to look. Every change just brings more of you to life. It’s fascinating.” He leaned his lips into his fingers as his elbow rested upon his thigh. He just took her in, all her little shining sparkles of gems. He was smiling, mushed behind his fingers. It was a proud kind of smile that would shine through in his eyes as well. “You’re more beautiful than Queen Valene, the cait that Berkshire, the king of the Fae or so he proclaims, took as his other. She came to me, you know. She’d been on the boat with me. She had something she thought I might find interesting.”
Dinah stretched her hands out and turned them over, beaming. "I just wanted to be happier and not like some...monster. This way... i get to have both" she grinned, scooting herself up so she was tucked against his side with a little buzz of wings as she got them positioned behind her properly.
"Valene. I don't think I know that one. Berkshire I know. The king of the fae? Is that what he calls himself? When we spoke of our alliance he spoke of having a 'claim' to the isles, but I see no power, no authority, no kingship." she cocked her head towards him "From the ship? What was it that she had?" she asked curiously.
He scoffed a bit. “I don’t know about Berkshire, and whatever claims he’s made, but Valene, …she helped, she helped me ..on the boat. She explained how she came to be with him ….she took me to the Sithen. I’ve never seen a place like it before. It was beautiful, magic in everything, but…those mushrooms - everywhere. They started there from what she said, but they are different from the ones on the island. Besides, it’s more of an adopted home. Her lands were turned to waste, her whole race nearly eradicated.” He frowned. “Yes…it was a book that the last survivor had on him. Would barely let go of. It's a Book of Shadow.” He looked down at her as she snuggled up to his side. “I made an agreement with her. I got the book, and…she…sometime in the future, will be able to help rebuild the vast bloodlines of the cait, with some fresh blood. So to speak.” He tilted his head from side to side.
Dinah hummed in consideration at his words, trying to imagine the sithen, but she scowled when he mentioned that the mushrooms had originated from the sithen "And what, pray tell, are they doing to stop them? You should have seen how sick the poor kitty was. He looked a moment from death's door. Even I was coughing up blackened chunks of my own lung." she huffed in distaste. "The last survivor... I did not get to meet him. What sort of state was he in?" she paused, the crab on her shoulder rotating to stare unblinkingly at his face.
"....you agreed to sire bastard children with the queen of the fae in exchange for a book that should have been given to us anyway?" she wrinkled her nose. "...are we sure we trust that agreement, darling? She's not going to eat them, or turn them into birds, or something similarly unpleasant? Why didn't they give us the book anyway? We might have been able to read it, I thought that's what the whole point of an alliance is FOR, not getting preferential rates on the baby barter system." she sulked bitterly. Children as ever had touched the nerve, and the peevish irritation was obvious as the whipcord tail thrashed a few times behind her.
“It was my decision to make, my dearest. They are suffering from them as well, as they too search for a reason why they have appeared, and why they are different there than they are here. I didn’t get into every aspect of what they do there, as I was a guest, and I was getting something I knew we needed. I’ve gone to all of the families on Callisto that had men die on that boat. A certain Mrs. Merryweather was quite informative. As was Mr. Schmidt who was in a cell at Eumenedies, a padded one.” He took a breath and shook his head. “We have someone on this island that brought this fog, the thing on that boat, the thing that is coming. They either summoned it, or are summoning it. I believe her name is Grace Sullivan. That book might well be key to understanding how close she and Jacob were to calling …whatever it is. I thought I knew but Hunter…he said the thing I identified was much bigger and more powerful than some random person on this isle could command. ““As far as the barter goes, I have assurances that they would be very well cared for, that I could seek them out or not, and that either way they would grow with others like them, communally. This is better than having some random bastard with a woman 300 years ago and having some part of our family line have died off and rotted. I did actually give it some thought. I’d hope you’d trust that this book and figuring out who is after /US/ was more important than some kittens that will have my blood in them.” He looked down and frowned. “Mr. Scmidt was very clear that this was aimed at me, ..us.. Directly.”
Dinah clicked her tongue and she nodded, sighing. "You know I trust you Drystan. I am just irritated. This is exactly the sort of thing that should have been brought to our attention on account of this alliance we have anyway. If not, what else is the point?" she tapped her clawed fingernails at the cushion cover.
"Grace. Sullivan. Have we found her yet? Because if not, I bloody will. I want her skull, Drystan. I told you, some hack-pot, tin penny sorcerer is doing this. I have said so since the deep ones rose. They don't do that, they are being made to." She hopped to her feet, claws clicking across the stone as she approached the blooded tatters of skin on her scrolls.
"What was it that they tried to call? Dagon?" she asked over her shoulder, trailing her fingers over the scabbed blood on the pages. She knew them all by rote anyway.
"Raised communally with the rest of the sithen, I assume? Any of our blood is important, darling. Who has access to it, as well as the intentions behind such a thing. At least the alliance with Berkshire would cover them too" she turned to give him a sunny smile over her shoulder. "I specified 'any who bear my blood'. There are quite a few of those in the city now, if only via donation and not by offspring. Tell me of Schmidt."
He watched as she went to the scrolls and he shook his head. “No, Not Dagon.” He felt his heart sink. He had looked up exactly what he had said. It was the thing that Hunter said would destroy us all. It's what Schmidt had said too. “The Unnamed Mist.” He said it and put his head into his hand, holding his forehead, closing his 3 eyes. “He has been summoned to stop the ships.” He looked up from under his brow. “These were his words Dinah. The ships, the island, us, all trapped. He thought he was safe, because it let him go. But he’s not with us any longer.” He sighed. “He said Grace could keep us out and drive us away, we’d get burned. I kept asking him about the ships but all he would say over and over again was /You will pay for what you did. He is coming. He’s going to destroy everything you love./ THAT was his answer.”
Dinah felt the blood drain from her face when he spoke the name and she put her hand up to her mouth, finger to her lips. No more mentioning THAT name aloud. She bit her tongue between her teeth and she returned her attention to the scrolls.
"Old. Very old. Very powerful. How can someone that made such a sloppy botch job of the ships manage that?" she shook her head "We will find Grace Sullivan. I will peel every last scrap of skin, and sinew, and muscle from her face and feed it to Yog-Sothoth's pool, and she will see exactly what happens to those who try to tell the Windgraces what they can and cannot do." she said darkly.
"Do you think it is a friend of fathers? Whatever the case. Their motives do not matter. I want to crush her. I want to make an example of her, and we shall. This is our bloody island and I will call down the Yellow King himself before I let some usurper take it from us."
He stood and walked to her and carefully wrapped his arms around her to hold her around her middle. He nuzzled his face into her new hair, that felt silky, but unlike hair, and spoke into it lowly. “Listen. I have been doing everything I can to figure this thing out, and now, we have the book, and we can work together. We need to, because I was right and Hunter told me of him… I felt his fear. We /have/ to stop her. You can rend her asunder as you please. There will be no need to call anyone else. We can handle this. It's a Family Hunt. Hunter wants to be a part of it. I agreed.” He lifted his head some and added, “He gave me my memory back, Hunter? Got right inside my head, and…wow. I recall every bit of my knowledge of wards, everything the tindalos took from me.”
Dinah tilted her head in towards his nuzzling and she sighed in frustration. "But that one? That is..senseless, even for an idiot." she growled in some frustration. "We will tell Dorian then, if this is to be a family matter. I want her in pieces." She snarled. Turning to better face him when he spoke of his memory, that elicited a smile from her.
"You remember them? Good. We'll need it. We know how to break the veil, darling, and I am working with Naoki Sato. He is a necromancer. We are going to break the world. Just as promised. I will need your help keeping the ritual stable. And we will be dragging father's spirit back and forcing him to work for the cause. I need a dead hermeticist." she reached up to his face, trailing her claws over his skin "Naoki asked if we had anything of his remaining."
He was so focused on her words. Breaking the world. Lifting the veil. It was so much after having told her all he had, but her nails on his face made him shudder and he had to step away from her, and close his eyes and cover his face with both hands, rubbing. “AHhh… Yes…Naoki, Ssaah, Hunter’s …womb. Uh, ..” He stopped just a step away from her and took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling of the cave. “I have his watch. The one he gave me..the company watch. You can have that. That’s all I’ve left of him.”
Dinah drew her hand back, watching him back away curiously, testing the sharpness of her claws on her own palm, "Sorry darling. Were they too sharp? I am still not used to them yet...". She did blink, all eyes at once, when he mentioned that Sato was Hunter's womb and she hummed in thought.
"I suppose it will have to do. We could always ask the sea to bring back whatever's left of him but that might distress Dorian more than is necessary. Heaven knows he'll find it hard enough to adjust to the new world, I think" she caught the blade of her tail to stop it from flicking irritably about behind her and accidentally scything into something important.
He shook his head as he turned back around, “Dorian will adjust, we all will. It’s not like we will be any more prepared than we already are, but we don’t know what to expect, other than chaos. I’m deeply prepared for that at any moment but you know that of me.” He waved his hands about and then clasped one arm across himself and held his heart in his palm. “And we will protect him, and help him as much as we will help each other, as we are able to rise, and the others fall away…” He stepped back to her and smiled at her hand on the tip of her tail. “Eventually, we will work our way atop. Where we belong. Dinah..I’ve had visions…glaring visions whilst in prayer. A glowing shining door, graced with Elders signs, beyond it is power untold, just waiting to be claimed. It calls to me. I’ve been having them more clearly since Hunter brought back my memory.”
Dinah nodded earnestly, a smile at her lips "There's a lot Dorian will have to adjust to." she said softly, "But I suspect he will. In time. He's resilient enough, despite his soft edges. As you say, we shan't let anything happen to him and we'll be atop the rest as we ought to be." she paused when he spoke of a door, eyes wide. Reaching out to snatch his hand, she pulled him, partially propelled along by a frantic buzzing of wings, down the tunnel towards the Yog-Sothoth temple.
"You saw a door. marked in elder signs. There is a door in the Gatekeeper's temple, a door that goes to nothing, Drystan, and it's marked. It's marked with his signs" she explained hurriedly, claws pricking into the back of his hand as she tried to tug him along.
He was yoinked away with her as she skittered and buzzed through the tunnels and he tried to keep up with her without getting mauled by her wings as well, “Ah! Hey! Okay okay..I’m with you..” They came to a stop in the Yog-Sothoth temple. The pool there was serene, but he’d never given this room much of a look before. Honestly he’d not spent much time in them at all. He peered around and then there, behind the pool. A doorway. With a glowing symbol above it, behind it was dirt and roots and an ancient wall. A door to nowhere. “This …is it. But it ..it doesn’t look like this.” He walked around the pool, skimming his fingertips along the surface before stepping nearly in front of it, but not quite, craning his neck to look inside and around it, like it was some kind of magic mirror or some such nonsense. “It's glowing, almost on fire… and I feel this pull..” He’s shaking his head and is clearly confused. “Maybe it just doesn’t look like that now…”
Dinah (dollihead) paused in front of the font, skip-stepping up onto the edge. Slicing her palm open with the claws of one hand, she drizzled a scatter of blood into the water until she stood on the back of the pool, watching him.
"Perhaps we need to wake it up. Perhaps we need to wake him up. Hunter will know. Or Niles, perhaps, they know him better. Blake knows him too but this side of things... the boy is untrained." She hunched on top of the point of the statue like a spindly gargoyle, watching the gate.
"I have been feeding him. Giving him my eyes, my blood. It connects to him. Directly to him. I have been praying for my vision to return. He shows me things. Visions. Dreams. Future sight, perhaps, other things that are vague."
Drystan turned excitedly as she perched, and skipstepped to the pool, leaning his knees on the first step layer, letting his fingers grace the water top, watching it reflect back up on his arm. “We should all be praying. Hunter will know, Niles will know details and be happy to share them.” He pulled his other hand up his forearm to his wrist, and pushed his thumb claw into his wrist, big droplets of blood plunking into the clear water, then swirled and pulled downwards, past the point of normal sight. “Our lovely needs her sight, should she not rely upon the machines of man, and open her eyes to a new world…” He spoke to the water, to himself, to Dinah, to his patron, to Yog. He pulled his thumb back and the skin sealed behind itself, bruising a moment before going clear and seamless.
Dinah remained on her little perch with a smile, visibly excitable. She watched him as he approached the water, murmuring a "Careful, it'll take your glamour off" as he did so. She settled herself as comfortably as she could on the point of the statue, though she nodded.
"It might even be that strange machine sculpture thing outside the door. we will have to ask them. It might be that we cannot until the veil is pulled down. Time is not nearly as...continuous as I had always imagined it to be. More like a spider's web" she fluttered her way down towards him, catching herself with her arms around his shoulders before lowering herself to the ground once more. "We have so much to do, don't we? So much to arrange. However are we going to find time for it all?"
He turned as she landed, most of his glamour dropped at this point anyhow, he was able to keep the tentacles from flying out of him at least. “Just a drop, to say hello.” He smiled at her as he lounged on the steps to the pool. “We will figure it out, with help from others. Besides, Time’s always been on our side.” He grinned toothsome at her and reached a hand out to her where she had landed. “Listen.. We should very much ask for Niles’ help. I had a talk with him last night. Mainly, about the two of you.”
Dinah wriggled herself alongside him, occupying the steps that his leggy self didn't. She nodded, smiling. "I should be far more worried than I am. About all of these things. The unspoken one. That whole situation has made me more...cross than worried, though that is no doubt stupidity on my part." she dipped her fingertips into the water, stirring her claws around. The eye on the back of her hand swiveled to look at him though as he spoke, even if the little gold crab was still where she was seeing from.
"He will give it, gladly I don't doubt. Especially when we tell him what it is that's coming," she huffed out a soft laugh at the news that the 'conversation' had occurred.
"I was wondering when that would be. Or if he'd reconsider, or get cold feet. I did tell him, you know. That family always comes first and there is unlikely to be heirs. It must be true what they say, the man is mad." she sighed, resting her cheek against the cold stone and swirling her hand in the pool.
He pulled her in next to him and nodded when she spoke. “Especially when he learns that.” He reached up and pushed some of her petal hair from off her wings. “I sincerely thought he was asking me for my permission. He was so proper and …Well, you know how he is, he chooses his words carefully. But he just wanted to discuss it with me, Seeing as he has a fondness for the two of us, at least.” He leaned forward and put a soft chaste kiss on her shoulder. “He does know family comes first, and he’s no more mad than either of us.”
Dinah wriggled herself closer as he reached for her and she smiled. "I did suggest he might want to talk to you about it. If not from a permissions sake, but because of any inevitable fallout. I have already told Dorian that he asked me. And I have already told Dorian that yes, if he ever hurts me, then he can destroy him but only if I tell him to do so and it isn't up to Dori's interpretation" she made a thoughtful noise at his words of fondness. "He doesn't even hate Dorian, he says. An absolute madman. Still, it's... strange. To be even considered like that. I am not entirely sure that anything will change, in truth. but we'll see." She wrapped her arms, and the bladed tail, around him, curling herself into his embrace.
“I’m terribly glad you already spoke to Dorian. I didn’t want to have to take that on. Gods knows I love him but ..well, you know.” He huffed a soft laugh and looked down at her, his heart starting to beat a bit harder for a few reasons. “You should know what I meant,” he swallowed. “..of fondness. He and I have been close, intimate. Before anything had really happened other than friendship between him and you.” He paused and closed his eyes. “I never said anything because it wasn’t something I go about telling you, whose bed I’ve found, or who has found mine. We don’t share in.. those things. That’s for Dorian, not me. But, It’s better I tell you I think than Niles, he’d make it so …scientific sounding.” He shook his head and opened his eyes to watch her.
Dinah snorted a laugh and she shook her head "When he came to apologize. I told him then. Tactless of me, perhaps, but I wanted it to not get back to him by any other source but me." She paused, listening to his words. Her tail flicked once, then twice, and she drew herself back a little, expression surprisingly non-violent but just...confused.
"Oh" she said quietly, reaching out to grasp the bladed end of her tail to still it, gripping it tight in her fingertips. "I see" she added after a few moments' pause, and she sat up, a little frown on her face as she turned herself to look towards the pool. "Nothing other than friendship HAS happened between him and I, Drystan. I kissed him once, when I was distressed. He kissed me once when I literally...controlled his mind to do so.. but nothing else. Noone ever seems to believe me when I tell them that though." she mumbled, her voice a little...wilted as she peered down into the luminous waters.
His heart sank as she pulled away from him. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out of it. It felt like something inside of him was breaking loose. “No… Not like that Di, I believe you. I know you have that ring. But I also know that you’d like to explore that with him and ..he very much wants to as well. I …I have never had a problem with him, I even encouraged you to make friends with him.” He felt so helpless. He knew he’d be facing down mixed emotions now, that it wasn’t as easy for him as “oh yeah by the by, I’ve slept with him” but this hurt. “Dinah, it is your choice, as I told him, if you’d prefer I not see him. I ..I would gladly do that for you.” the words came somewhat rushed and pleadingly, but he quieted, and added, “I’d do anything for you.” He felt a lump grow in his throat and had to grit his jaw to swallow it back.
Dinah hadn't moved as he spoke, Not a muscle except for the hands that were stilling the bladed end of her tail, which were squeezing. And squeezing. And drops of blackish blood were trickling through her fingers and over the edge, seeping into the edge of the pool.
Her lower lip parted as if she were going to speak, but she frowned a little and closed her mouth again.
"It's fine." she murmured eventually, though her voice seemed somewhat...tired. Almost resigned. "I'm not going to tell you who you can and can't bed, Drystan. And it's not as if you made him. You're both grown adults. I'm not angry." she released her grip on the blade with one hand, dipping her fingers to rinse them, then the other. "I am just... confused I suppose. I had rather thought that...someone might..prefer me for a change. Someone outside of Dorian. I ought to have known better by now. It's no wonder he isn't at all bothered by any such restrictions I suggested."
He watched her blood swirl down the pool, and he just shook his head. “Dinah, ..please.” He moved but didn't dare touch her. He moved down a step so he could look up into her face, near the ground, folded up as much as he could be. “You’ve ..always had that.” His voice was caught in his throat. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. Things he had to shove away and turn off around Niles’ imploded inside him. Finally he croaked out, “You don’t have /any/ idea, do you?” Tears creased out of the outside corners of his eyes. “I’ve kept myself. I’ve distracted myself. All these long years. Because Dorian was who you wanted. And now, I would keep myself again, distract myself again, because you want Niles.”
Drystan was probably wise to not touch Dinah, even with her fingers curled around the bladed tail in her lap, the rest of her seemed taut with tension as if any second she might slash out, or explode. Or both. She turned at his words though, expression twisted in confusion with every word that came from his lips. She did have no idea, it seemed, though she remained silent until he had finished speaking. Her bloody fingers, the wounds already healed, reached to touch the bared, darkened skin of his forearm, sliding fluidly down from the step she was on so she could lie alongside him, winding her arms around him and pressing her face against him.
Drystan watched her like one would a wild animal. To see if it might attack. But he didn’t fear it, if it came. He just didn’t know what to expect. Something he’d held inside of him for hundreds of years, he had just unleashed, and when she touched him he shivered. He moved his arm so that she could wind her arms around him and press her face to him. His heart felt like it might burst from his chest, and his breath was jagged. “Di?” He whispered. “Please say something?” He put his hand down, and the little pinpricks of her crystals spiked in his palm, but didn’t break the skin. “Anything.”
Dinah closed her eyes as he held her close, listening to the sound of his pulse. The bladed tail snaked around them, leaving streaky flecks of blood in its wake, coiling around them both.
"I am sorry," she whispered eventually. "That I didn't see" she pressed her face against his chest, as if attempting to push herself into his ribcage and take a bite right out of his heart. "You had always seemed so... impermanent. With all the rest. I had assumed that we... had been like that too. Impermanent then."
Closing his eyes he finally took a breath, and let it out, letting himself relax, but he was still restrained, still too unsure. “You never have to apologize. Ever. You and Dorian were so entwined, and … he left, I was what was there to keep you company. But he came back, and right back you went with him. Who was I to stand in the way of that? So I would leave, for strings at a time. It was easier that way. My job was to keep you both. Still is. Always will be.”
Dinah pressed her fingers into his chest, feeling the sensation of his pulse jumping against her .
"Dorian and I are the same person, split in two. We'll always be side by side. Never one without the other," she agreed. "But you are not 'in the way', Drystan. You are never 'in the way'. There is not a single thing in this world I wouldn't do for you." she whispered against his shirt, tightening her squeeze with both her arms and her tail. The confusing, Roesler shaped wound pushed aside; her brother, her darling eldest, was distressed and she burrowed herself against him again.
Drystan laid there on the stone and dirt floor of the strange temple room, eyes closed curling up with the creature his sister had become. But the feelings he was letting himself really feel, didn’t care what form she was in. She was always the wild laugh before the rain. She was the soft breath on his ear in the dark. She was mischief and freedom. He leaned his head down and quietly kissed the top of her petal-like hair. He murmured to her, “Thank you.”
Dinah's tail wound around them both, a stripe of blood smeared across her side from where it had been biting her hands. She lifted her chin a little as he kissed the top of her head and she stretched herself to loop her arms around his shoulders instead of his chest, smudgy hand cradling his cheek with a careful tenderness, and she lifted her lips to touch a gentle kiss to his before her face returned to his shoulder. "I love you, Drystan. Don't ever doubt that. Not ever" she murmured, dark eyes shining in the gloom.