INT to EXT to INT - Windgrace Manor, grounds and house; day
Dinah: Sometimes, self control worked to repress certain parts of yourself. Sometimes, a terrible habit would eventually become less of a problem if you didn't indulge it for a while.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the blessed touch of ancient gods did not work quite the same way.
When Dinah's eyes opened that day, her pupils were blown so wide her silvery eyes appeared wholly black. She had remained blank faced and mostly unresponsive as her maid had dressed her and as the young woman turned to leave to fetch an unbidden cup of tea, Dinah wandered to the glass of the window.
Her fingers skimmed across the glass, as if unfamiliar with the concept of the door handle, tracing the different sensations with her fingertips before pressing her palm against the cool, flat surface and blowing the entire thing away with a pulse of telekinesis, padding barefoot across the glass onto the balcony without flinching and stepping up onto the railing, staring out across the city, the woods, the gardens...
Dorian hadn't long been out of the bath. He was dressing again after returning home in need of a wash up, just pulling on a shirt to button up when he heard the sound of glass shattering. He got one button done before he peeked out and saw his sister walking out onto her side of the verandah. Atop glass.
Opening the door in more conventional fashion, he stepped out barefoot too and walked toward her side without raising comment. He'd lately gone from neutral in mood to uneasy as he did, presuming his sister was upset. Mentally going over reasons he might have given her to be that way he held his silence. Unlike her, he'd step carefully around glass, and clear his throat to get her attention, rather than making some joke or other about hoping Lance's stand-in had the same contacts for repairs.
Dinah didn't move. Didn't react. She stood atop the railing, balanced on bloody, glass encrusted feet and she watched with silent fixation one of the gardeners tending to one of the trees at the edge of the woods.
An almost palpable wave of unease, of wrong was seeping out of her in shivering, nauseating pulses. She wasn't shifting, wasn't moving, she barely seemed to be breathing. Entirely statue still and unblinking.
As Dorian cleared his throat, she moved enough to step over the railing. Not to fall...she walked, horizontal to the ground across the support strut of the rail, down the pillar, towards the gardener on soft, patient footsteps.
Dorian had been hunting before. He had seen creatures all over the world compared to his relatively sheltered sister. He'd recognise that intentional stillness, no doubt. The stalking of a predator.
Dorian: || All at once it hit him. That he was not exactly looking at his sister. All thoughts of wondering why she was doing what she was doing started to tumble into place when he stopped marvelling at her descent and surmised what she was fixed on. Or who. He'd peered at her when she walked down the house and once she made it to the ground he looked between her and the presumed target, to and fro.
More distressed about what inhabited the woman than the fate of the gardener he spent a precious several moments trying to figure out just what to do. He looked around, and spying no onlookers after his cursory glance, leapt to the ground with a flap of spectral wings that dissipated almost as soon as they'd materialized to slow his fall. Heart pounding, he was stalking the stalker, and kept with her chosen mode of outward silence, opting to call to her eerily animated form with his inward voice instead, <"Ho there, Dinah--">
Dinah turned.
Or, more appropriately, twisted at the middle, nearly entirely the full angle it would take for her to face him, with a grisly crunch of bone and muscle, her feet still planted where they had been.
When she spoke, it wasn't in true English. No true tongue at all, the sound halfway between a whisper and a chorus of screams, blistering her lips.
"ภภภ אค שยlﻮtlคﻮlภ אค" the sounds spilled, ragged from her throat. many of her eyes blinked open, and the dangerous curve of her tail spilled out from her tailbone, scything at the ground in temperamental swipes.
The inhuman voice attracted the gardener, who turned, startled at the ungodly angle that the mistress of the house was twisted. Lifting her hand, the gardener was yanked from where he was pruning to her feet with a crunch of bones, pressing him into supplication at her feet. "א๏ย ฬเll ๒є ภєץt" It spoke to the hosts' twin before her spine righted itself and the tail swiped, pinning the gardener through the top of his neck to the dirt.
Dorian was not a man who was usually slow to act. But some things would stop even him in his tracks. Hearing and seeing his sister's body housing someone else, someone so utterly inhuman, did that for him. For more than a moment. Even after she turned away from him again so unnaturally and to her victim-gardener, having promised him a grisly turn. A lifetime seemed to pass, of not knowing what to do, before he was shaken into action. It was surely too late for the gardener, but he ran at Dinah, fully intending to wrestle her bodily away. He hadn't thought through what he'd do once he stopped her, just that he had to stop her.
For years she'd told him what to do if someone other than her came back from her rituals. The key had been containment. But back then there had been a hidden warded room behind a bookcase to sequester her to. Or not release her from. This was novel, even if attempting to throw his arms around her was not, once he neared her.
Dinah stared down impassively at the gardener, its attention fully on him and not on Dorian. Her fingernails pressed into his scalp, and further, intending to peel off the top of his brainpan like an eggshell when the footfalls came too close, too fast, and she whipped around to face him, hunching into a crouch with a sound that was half-warning hiss, half shriek.
As he grappled it, and he would with it not attempting to move, it lashed out. sharp teeth were bared and snapped at his shoulder and his throat, the tail curving up to slash and swipe at them both indiscriminately. "๔๏ א๏ย ђєคг tђє ฬђเรקєгร ๒г๏tђєг tђєא єςђ๏ Ŧг๏๓ tђє รђค๔๏ฬร קг๏๓เรเภﻮ รєςгєtร t๏๏ tєггเ๒lє t๏ ๒єคг."
Dorian had just gotten clean, too. The last moment he would be was the instant where she was shriek-hissing. The very next moment, his fresh pressed shirt and trousers were getting rendered into slashed and bloodied versions of themselves. Dorian didn't heal as quickly as his sister did so wounds that opened up on him from gnashing teeth and slashing tail bled freely. He also was trying to pin her arms and get behind her. The voice which was not Dinah's distracted him into listening for a moment and he lost his grasp on her. He'd have to try again. As they were disengaged, he argued, "No. I don't hear that. But he was a bloody good gardener, Jim was." The guy had always given him trimmings of things horses liked to take to Irene.
That said, and disregarding the blood that was turning his grey clothing red, he'd lunge in again, once more trying to grab hold of the arms first. Getting her subdued with that tail free was going to be some business.
Dinah would mourn for Jim if she were in her right mind. She'd mourn the fact she was hurting her beloved brother too. instead, the hunched, hissing, blooded thing wearing her skin cackled a gravelly laugh. "๒๏ฬ ๒єŦ๏гє tђє אєll๏ฬ รเﻮภ ๏г ๒є ς๏ภรย๓є๔ ๒א tђє ๔คгкภєรร tђคt lยгкร ฬเtђเภ" she flexed her fingers, nearly bearing him down too but he grabbed her before her telekinesis could crush him down into the dirt like the gardener had suffered. He could grab her arms easily enough; even ridden, she was still feeble compared to him, but she kicked and scraped with her feet, the knife-tail slicing and swiping towards his back.
Dorian grappled, flinching when the tail got to him, but this time did not let go. He'd resigned himself to understanding this was going to be a bloody affair, and so he fought through, until he could get the arms pinned, holding onto both wrists behind her back with one of his hands. The tail with all its prehensile mischief was a tempting next goal, but he instead fought his instincts to be gentle and tugged on a fistful of hair to pull her head back enabling him to get an arm around her throat. He'd stand her up all along him and start walking them backward out of view of anyone who might have heard the fracas and looked their way.
When he felt he had a grasp on her, despite gaining fresh cuts to his abdomen, he answered in a growl between pressed breaths "Thank you, but no. I am sorry Di." He'd then begin to apply pressure around her neck using the arm he maneuvered there, he was going to have to put her out. He was gentler than he should have been as part of his psyche rebelled against doing violence to his twin.
Dinah was easily manouvered, despite her thrashing and writhing, twisting as if she was trying to throw him off, but he was stronger. She snapped her teeth, trying to bite at him but unable to get her chin down dipped enough for her to catch his skin in her teeth.
The more pressure he applied, the more she fought. Though even with her prodigious healing, she, and the creature inhabiting her, needed to breathe when occupying her form. Moving more made her breathless quicker, her pale face turning purple, and she didn't stop until every last scrap of fight was sapped out of her, falling limp in his arms.
Dorian held on, resolved to go about this the gentler, hard way, rather than snapping her neck or konking her noggin. As a result he took his lumps. Or slashes. And the time that elapsed while she struggled against him. At a certain point he stopped seeing anything and lost a few moments to an overwrought psyche balking at what his body was doing.
But that iron bar of an arm around her neck only relented when she went truly limp. With only a tightly clenched jaw betraying his deep distress, and increasingly bloody crimson in several places he'd put his sister over one shoulder before he went to pick up the gardener with his other arm. Grimly he'd take off where he stood and after flying to the flat center of the manor's roof, put the corpse of Jim on the there, until he could dispose of the man properly. Then he'd carry his sister inside the house, after touching down by the door he'd left open. His first step was to put her limp body gently onto his bed. His second step was to undo his robe's sash and to bind her wrists behind her back. Step three was watch her while he tried to figure out what to do about the ankles, and use his wrecked shirt to start wiping some of his blood off of himself. A few of his cuts had already stopped bleeding, others had been deeper or fresher.
Dinah was a fast healer, but when she was tied, at least, when her wrists were bound, the eyes on her hands were open and watching him even if the rest of her remained flat and limp. Her jaw worked first, opening and closing a few times in a quick little snap or three of clacking teeth.
She sat up, staring at him, twisting at the binding.
"it wont work" her voice was soft, more like 'her', but her eyes were still dark, still hunched in that predators crouch even with her arms twisted behind her. She slipped and tugged, pulling at the robe belt.
"what do you think you are doing?"
Dorian watched her reanimate, and backed up enough to close the glass door he had left ajar, and left the bloodied rags of shirt on the floor in front of it. Nearing her again, he sidled to the door and locked it, explaining logically, out of joint with the situation in a flat version of his voice, "All due respect, but you are where you should not be." He'd knotted the silk sash fairly firmly after looping it around her wrists.
He was still barefoot as he also crouched, ready to strike first if he had to. But it was his sister's body so he really really really did not want to. One arm was up in front of a wound that had only recently announced itself it was there by smarting, and the other also warily in front of him. He offered, though he was sure he wouldn't be successful, "Can I get you a drink, maybe a sandwich if you are hungry?"
Dinah laughed, a harsh, grating, mirthless sound and she slipped her legs backwards, bringing her bound arms beneath them. her tail coiled around herself, petulant as a cat.
"If I wanted to go out into the world again, do you really think you would stop me? do you think you could stop me?" it watched him, catching her tongue between her teeth at the scent of the blood in the air. "you would have to kill me." she quirked a lopsided smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"you wont" it added, slipping off the bed onto her knees and rising in a smooth, liquid motion "you will be consumed. You will wander but a player upon the stage, doomed to enact its tragic script"
Dorian watched this nightmare he'd never dared to dream continue paying out with his expression shedding uncertainty as she both moved as she did and he was challenged. He kept himself in a loose crouch, just watching and listening as Di's body was puppeteered by an alien will. And by the time the taunting dare was done, he was resolved once more. His first answer was in his eyes flaring yellow like flame in the instant before he pounced.
The instant after he was flying at her, aiming his hand for her neck so he could knock her head against the wall. He moved quickly and with force, because if he had to do it, he had to be swift about it, while the will held up to continue this fight to the ends that needed to be met and exceeded. Words weren't where his strength lay, anyway.
Dinah: As he dived for her, the knife-tail scythed up but missed him; he was faster than she was, stronger than she was. The knife would have stuck straight through his abdomen had it not skewered the air by his kidneys. She was still bound, at least, so as her legs brought themselves up to kick and strike her best at him in the brief interlude before he snatched her and her head collided with the wall. Thankfully she was quickly unconscious again, reeling and concussed, eyes rolling as the being fought the fragility of the human casing it had found itself in. Limited, at least, in that respect. She hung like a puppet in his grip, fingers twitching in their bonds.
Dorian was not unaware of the danger of severe harm that he was in. It was one of the main reasons why he was able to level physical prowess at her when every bit of his character was otherwise concerned with protecting her. And when he stopped the brief brutality, because she was manageable again, he wrestled her to the bed and at the same time began to unbuckle the belt he wore. He had to at least make this difficult for the supernatural force he was ill-matched against. He moved quickly, putting the ankles together and cinching the belt around them in a few loops until he could get back to the buckle and then jammed the leather in there, and the metal through the hole. Rigid leather being what it was, he found it altogether too shoddy a job to be sure of it, when she'd recovered as she had before, "I am sorry for this." he grumbled as he backed off of the bed again.
He'd leave her there as he went looking for something else to use as a rope, he was sure he had another robe somewhere in his wardrobe.
Dinah , of course, healed quickly. there wouldn't be any sort of lasting damage; any bruises and marks would have healed up already as he twisted the leather belt into place and she remained bound. Wrists caught up in the silk robe belt, ankles now taken care of, she remained in the position she'd been manouvered. Again, her eyes were open and watching him as he backed away, this time there was no taunting. just that staring, blank-eyed observation.
with him rummaging again, her wrist bindings were raised to her mouth, chewing those sharp teeth at the silk with the sound of tearing threads. One little slip at a time. No rush, no hurry. The tail, still unbound, would have been easier but she was happy to gnaw.
Dorian had to leave her unattended while he worked on an improvised method of grounding her. There was nothing for it. He didn't hear the chewing or anything as his heart was too busy beating a fevered rhythm in his ears. He found his other robe and a kimono sash and before he turned again he beat his chest with his fist twice. Gathering fortitude. When he turned he named the entity, "Hastur, right?" The mention of the yellow sign had not escaped him.
Upon seeing the gnawing taking place he'd waste no time and leap once more into action, going to take hold of her by the chewed up sash. He'd rip through the remaining shreds himself, so he could eventually reposition those wrists behind her again. All the while, he had to keep an eye out for that tail, for those teeth, so his focus was split at the best of moments.
Dinah didn't answer his direct address, though her chewing paused briefly and she stared up towards him. There wasn't any violence this time as he wrangled and twisted her, remaining pliant and almost agreeable as he bound her again. Perhaps to keep him on his toes, to panic him and set him on edge. She closed her eyes, the tail lashing against his bed though not with the intention to whip and slash. She seemed almost pacified after the saying of its 'name', though each of those visible glittering eyes opened again to study him, lips moving in whispers in a speech that Dorian did not know.
Dorian would, upon being left with silence to contend with, go on about repositioning her wrists behind her, flicking his eyes or tensing as the tail moved. As he did, he explained, "My sister holds you in high regard, so you also have my respect. You have that of my family. And our gratitude. I wouldn't expect you to understand why I have to do this."
He looped his improvised rope around each arm singly, and then both and then through, leaving just enough slack for what came next. Even when he had to be stern, he was conscious of not harming her extraneous eyes, possessed or no, the body was best beloved to him. Moving on to the legs he so admired, wary yet of the tail given his open wounds, he'd continue, "I am sure even gods love, though. With everything available to you, you must have tried it. So maybe you do understand." He intended to tie them better with suppler material.
Dinah continued to watch and stare, her lips twitching in an almost amused grimace whenever he reacted to the swish of her tail. She curled it, positioning it against herself to trace a few thin red razors against her skin which healed instantaneously. He was allowed to bind her, watching as he did so, until he spoke of love. The word she spoke was cold. hollow.
"ภ๏." the garbled, scream-whisper was back, echoing through the room despite the size and the opened doors. Words as fully formed as spheres instead of the usual flat single-tone of human-speech. Without warning, the tail scythed out again, pointedly close to the angle of his cheekbone, but missing. Perhaps, again, just to see him flinch once more
Dorian was unsettled by passivity, coupled with erratic tail motions. He was unsettled by the entire situation. At whiles he would pause in looping up her legs in his kimono's sash because of a certain flicker. The answer of no had him ready to say something that probably wasn't wise, which was fortunate timing given that his ducking the tail startled it out of him. He went with being earnest instead, answering that eerie voice, "You should try it. It's one of the best ones. And at its best sates better than any food. But that is why. Yes."
When he was done she'd be bound hand to foot with that very lethal tail free. But he was handling things as they came to him to the best of his ability.
Dinah giggled. This one wasn't the monstrous cackle from before, but Dinah's own laugh as he flicked away from the tail lashing out again. she curled, twisting and rolling onto her side. She watched him again, unsettled, staring, but the fighting and exertion, the healing was beginning to wear her down.
Instead, behind her, the cabinet where the still-beating heart rattled. Shook, and lifted. teeter-tottering this way and that, as if toying with the notion of tossing it towards him, the sound of the silver platter and glass cloche sliding delicately against the wood on the inside.
Dorian's adrenaline was thinning out in his bloodstream too, so he was starting to really feel what he'd been through. Watching her get hurt and then heal. Being the arbiter of those hurts. Getting gnawed and slashed. The laughter didn't put him at ease, though it sounded familiar. He would move pillows so that she looked a bit more comfortable given her limited mobility, and was doing that when the butsudan that held Dinah's heart began to move. He watched his sword rack fall from it with a few thuds and moved around in front of her. "Don't, please. Look, look, let me show you something." He had both hands up as if to show he wasn't planning on doing anything to render her unconscious.
And perhaps it was his faith in his sister, or his folly in wanting to protect her, but he'd lean closer, nearer, until he was near enough to give her/it/them a kiss on the cheek. He knew it was a bad idea, but he was trying to distract. So his silver eyes were wide as he closed in, rather than shutting them as he usually would to better feel the skin of her face against his own.
Dinah twitched and shifted, watching him with that same dead eyed stare as he reacted so desperately to the shifting sounds. Moreso than the gardener outside. the tail twitched and lashed, feeding on the intensity of his sudden concern right then for the part of the body that remained in that glass jar. another little shift and shake of the butsudan, even as he leaned closer, leaned in to kiss her, she didn't move. the simple, sweet gesture that would have quelled even the worst of his sister's normal rages earned her lips parting, teeth baring, as if planning to take a chunk out of the nearest skin to her own. it was only the binding that kept her restrained enough to make her movements jerky enough to snap closed next to his ear.
Dorian flinched away a few steps backward from the bed when she seemed ready to take a chunk out of him with her teeth. His heart was pounding hard and again and so he was treated to a fresh rush of adrenaline. The gash in his side oozed forth fresh blood from the twisting motion he'd engaged in by doing so. Given the fact that furniture could be hurled at him he suddenly understood--remembered maybe that he was also up against telekinetic powers. He just looked at her for a few moments, denying the questions that were surfacing to question him internally about what he'd done. About what he had to do.
He didn't have the luxury of time for such questions. So... he pounded his chest again, once. Twice. A third time. A glass of tears had arisen and been blinked back through all of that. One fell from a grey eye. He was an instant from springing at her once more to do something more drastic.
Dinah didn't react as he thumped at his chest, the tears went unbidden or unresponded to. She snapped her teeth again, even when there wasn't anything close to her. she sagged against the bed a little, weary with the exertion, but she still stared at him with that dangerous glint and gleam. The tail twisted, curled and struck out towards him again, albeit likely not fast enough to swipe at him with any real damage. another giggle, and an almost contented wriggle against the bonds.
Dorian didn't dodge the tail this time, so it did make contact, scoring a fresh wound upon his bare torso that sprang open to reveal all of the red that was underneath in several layers of rent tissue. He had quite literally leaped so after being tagged it was likely he might even land upon it. That was his aim. Pin the tail with his body and then maneuver one arm under her head. He was positioning himself to break her neck, but his heart was only half in it. He needed more time than her rapid healing had given him so far. His mind needed more time to accept the lengths he was telling himself he needed to. Instead once he got there he just pulled her toward him, pressing her bound arms between them, as he awkwardly reached for her chin. He meant to be doing so anyway. Instead he found himself closing his arms around her, one around her shoulders and the other her waist, and growling a final plea while he clung to her in a desperate embrace, "Leave her be."
Sure that was leaving more time to get furniture smashed on him, but he had his limits. Or he thought he did, until today.
Dinah thrashed as he landed against her. her tail was dangerous but it was also whipcord thin and fragile, so as he trapped it, it was disabled at least for now, albeit with a splintering of one of the bones that would inevitably heal up nicely anyway. She jolted and jerked, squirming once more, and falling still as she was enwrapped in his arms. It wasn't his plea that had helped, but the exhaustion helped her sag, defeated beneath him, as the sharpness left her, the tension slowly slipping out of her. at least when she came to next, she'd be able to help him with those ragged marks she'd torn into him, but for now, she was dead weight against his mattress.
Dorian had moved his hand to her chin, ready to try to make himself twist her head at a gruesome angle, such as the one he'd seen the body do it's own earlier. But just as he was readying himself to do that, she went limp again and his breath caught. She'd gone still and he listened to hear if that was going to be followed up by some awful crashing or mockery from a preternatural voice. He let loose a big exhausted breath and pulled her half atop him when he sagged too and fell backward to his back, bleeding into the bed linens. Through them, really, to the mattress. They were going to be a total loss too.
He lay there, thinking and not thinking at once, holding onto her. That wasn't new. He had been out of his mind with bliss while holding onto her numerous times since they'd lived on Callisto. This was not altogether different, given he was also spent as he lay there. He'd pull her close to kiss the back of her head and then unwisely, as soon as he felt he had a moment of relief, his brain seized on it and blanked while he reveled in no longer sensing the broad malice and unknowable motivations of the other. It wasn't sleep, not exactly. But some long moments of reconciliation and repair.
The golden sash from his robe looping her arms and the white one from his kimono about her legs made poor accompaniment to the dress he'd bled on, but, he was unlikely to set her loose until he heard her voice aloud, in his mind and saw eyes that matched his own again. Just as soon as he was able to rouse himself.
Dinah was, despite her restraints, limp as a ragdoll. she remained soft and enfeebled, pinned and for now, safe. her mind returned to her slowly, not quite sleeping until she blinked blearily, eyes reddened but silvery once more. The sight of the blood, the injuries on her twin, caused a slight frown and she tried to reach for his face but her hands were tied, and that made her frown again. She bowed her head instead, the healing magic pulsing out of her. Weaker than normal, with her already exerted, but steady and slow in constant heartbeats. she didn't move beyond that, didn't speak. She didn't remember what had happened, why she was tied, but she was here, with him, and she curled a little closer against his bloodied chest.
Dorian didn't explain it to her even once he was sure she was herself again. He didn't really have words. And his faith in untying her would need a few more minutes of her willingly being near to him anyway. He tried not to think of how brutally he'd smashed her head against his wall, nor of the feeling of her struggling against being choked out. When he was ready to sit up again, some time later, the first thing he did was wipe his face. There must have been something in his eye. In both of them.
At almost a heartbeat after that, the cool feel of her magic closing his wounds pulsed through him. That was when, without even thinking of it, his hands moved to free her legs from where they were bent back, the better for the ankle ligatures to reach the slack from her wrist's ties. Wordlessly he'd work to unbind her for a while. When he'd done with her legs and the belt and sash were undone, and was tugging on a knot from the silk sash that tied her arms, he murred a question, "What did you call the spider we saw who had all her hatched babies on her in the garden at Cheriton?" That was the only shibboleth he could think of at the moment. Bringing them back to a time when they were actually young and had seen it together. It might have been late for such a question, but he let it ride.
Dinah remained silent as he untied her. she had no memory of getting here, and the state of him, even if she was by now unscathed, meant that something had happened. When her hands were free, she rubbed at her wrists a little to ease more circulation into them, but returned herself against his chest. The question caught her off guard, not expecting something from their past, not the spider, and she shifted one foot against her ankle, then the other, to coax the blood flow as she had with her wrist.
"Amelia" she murmured in a whisper muffled against his chest, another slow pulse of healing cooling from her. "her name was Amelia. And we tried to name her children but there were so many," she sighed tiredly, reaching her arms to loop around his arm and hold it to herself.
Dorian smiled at the answer, and deliriously actually laughed too as he flopped back down. When she pulled herself onto his arm he looked at her and smiled. It was a relief to see eyes like his own again. He'd press himself against her to let her know she got the answer right, answering right as he let his arms flop loose under her and on the far side of himself, "Barnaby, Barbara, Berenike, Bernard, Bertrand..." Those had been among the first names they'd given.
He laughed again and as that sentiment chased its way out of him, he grumbled, "You weren't quite yourself. But you're back. I am so glad. It was Hastur, I think." The butsudan rested off kilter from where it had been, but it hadn't been flung and its contents entirely ruined, so he'd have to take that as a win. He'd spare her the details about Jim. That would be another secret for him to share with the jikininki once he brought Sato the remains of Jim to dispose of.
Dinah hummed as he laughed, curling herself closer to him as if she could burrow into his bared chest. "there was a Betsy too. Itsy Betsy spider" she mumbled "I definitely remember a Betsy," she trailed off when he said she'd not been herself, almost shamefaced and she reached a hand to one of the gouges in his skin
"I'm sorry I hurt you" she whispered, tilting herself to press a kiss to one of the marks."i didn't mean it. it...i don't remember" she trailed off, sighing shakily. "...was it bad?" she asked in a small voice, reaching towards the blanket and pulling it from underneath them to wrap around them both.
Dorian found himself at a crossroads. He would consider answering her before he said a word. That was why the first thing he said was, "Definitely Betsy. I remember her, she was the first to put her feet on the ground."
There was another hug as he curated his way through the experience, another kiss to the top of her head. She'd brought up the blankets and thankfully hidden the places where his blood stained the linens. He pulled it up and then planted his arm atop it, atop her, not wanting to think about it. In certain places there was yet an itch where skin had recently knitted itself back together. For her, though, for the sake of her questions, he'd relive it, and explain, "It was not ideal. Jim is gone. But we got you in time, before you made it off the grounds." He didn't say 'before there was any damage out in town,' but his silent voice nestling against hers mentally had that much relief to it as he said aloud, "Of course you didn't. It wasn't you."
Luckily he'd had some practice in sundering versions of his sister from others. So the woman in his arms was not, to him, the being who was inured to Roesler or anyone else. He had to believe, in moments like this, that he held against him who she really was with the arms of who he really was: one being together again.
Dinah wound the blanket up under her chin, pulling it up to cover them so everything from her nose upwards was visible but nothing else. She smiled faintly at the recollection of the tiny spiders "...do you think any of those spiders...the descendants are still there?" she burrowed down further into the blankets to tuck herself beneath his arm.
When he spoke of the destruction she'd wrought, she became still, and her voice became softer, sadder.
"...o-oh. I... I killed Jim?" she mourned in silence for a long few moments. "..I'm... sorry. we should... bury him somewhere. properly. I am sorry. he was always so sweet to me" she sniffed, clinging onto his arm. she sighed, closing her eyes.
"I am not sure what it is. whether it's them or something entirely different. but...i don't remember..." she closed her eyes again. "I..hurt you too, didn't i?"
Dorian shook his head when she tucked against him, asking if he was hurt. Her own fingers had found their way to closed wounds and he wouldn't admit to being hurt. That was a limit he'd newly found. He'd shaken his head where it lay on one of his pillows in immediate answer to that question, because his own person was nothing compared to her own. He'd gotten off easy by comparison to Jim. His bloody shirt by the door and remnants of blood on his abdomen would tell a story he could not. He answered in a sleepy grumble, as, without challenge from a god, his brain began to shut out all but the most necessary functions, "I will take care of Jim. We will take care of his family. Don't worry about that.. Just.... be you."
It wouldn't be the first nor the last family to find themselves handsomely compensated for having run afoul of THIS family. A story about the gardener heading for greener pastures off the isle and a chunk of money usually sufficed. As it was, Jim had few relatives.
Dinah, on the other hand, had one whose breathing was going tidal beside her, having relaxed that much. He was tired. And he knew he needed to talk to his brother and maybe even Niles about what he'd seen, after he'd spoken to her, but higher function was steadily making itself less and less available to him.
Dinah wilted against him, distressed at the loss of the gardener. maids came and went, runners were practically ghosts, but Di loved her garden, and the gardeners were extensions of that. She rested her head on his chest beneath the blankets, though when he spoke of Jim again, and taking care of his family, she nodded and squeezed his arm again.
"somewhere nice, Dori? He doesn't deserve somewhere dark" she pleaded quietly, but she sniffled beneath his blanket. As he started to quieten, started to become tired, she softened too, wriggling enough that the gold of her hair peeked out from the sheets and her silvery eyes peered up towards him, and she kissed his chest again. She didn't speak, resting herself against him, silent and troubled in her thought
Dorian was pretty sure it didn't matter where Jim's bones wound up. A quick calculus had him answering a sundry truth, "I will make sure his passing is appreciated." He didn't speak further on it, other than what he had to explain to her once he saw those eyes like his own peering up at him from his barely cracked open orbs.
The arm beneath her pulled her close again, fingers grasping at her hipbone until he could feel every inch of her along every inch of him. He didn't speak any more to the grisly dealings that needed cleaning up, he just began to sing. His voice wasn't fulsome, it creaked in bluesy fashion, not unlike the rough and tumble singers whose music had just come back to him in fresh recordings, he hummed the parts between the vocals, drifting ever further from being present,
"Don't go, baby
If you go, take me with you
You got me way down here
You got me way down here
Now ’fore I be your dog
And make you walk the log
Now baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go--"