#darius does NOT know what he’s talking about. raine is a great liar they’re a great actor and they can improv their way out of anything

[rhpsdys]

raine had to play so many violin concertos while they were in school && they hated every second of it

[sergeantsporks]

Whatever It Takes

Rating: Teen and Up, Gen

TW: Self-harm, attempted suicide, emotional manipulation

“While I’ve got you here, want to hear the complete history of wild magic? I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting, considering that you’re old enough to have lived through it.”

“I am not, you little brat. Shut your mouth, I don’t want to listen to your voice.” “Yeah? What if I don’t want to shut up? What if I feel like singing?"

Hunter is a difficult prisoner to keep, and Lilith and Eda are about to find that out the hard way.

Ao3

Ch 2/4: Prisoner

Ch 1

Eda perched on a chair, watching her new prisoner. “When do you think he’ll wake up?”

Lilith finished tying Hunter to a chair with a roll of her eyes. “If I hit him hard enough, not for a while.”

“Should we… try to wake him up?”

“Titan’s veins, Edalyn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this anxious before.”

“I’ve never kept a coven head tied up in my basement before!” Eda peered at him. “What does he even eat?”

“Nothing. He photosynthesizes. I don’t know, Eda, probably the same thing we eat. He’s a witch, after all.”

“He’s a powerless witch. What if they have human diets?”

“I—this is ridiculous. Keeping prisoners isn’t that scary, I’ll walk you through it.”

Eda squinted at her sister. “Oh, yeah. Sometimes I forget that you were…” she rolled a hand. “A horrible person.”

“Hmph.”

Hunter groaned, and Eda grinned. “Guess you didn’t hit him hard enough.”

Hunter’s eyes shot open, and he glanced around wildly, kicking his feet and straining against his bonds. “Wha—where-?”

His kicking knocked over the chair, and he fell backwards with a crash. “Ow.”

Eda snorted. “Behold, the mighty head of the emperor’s coven.”

“Oh, great. It’s you.”

Eda picked the chair up, flicking Hunter’s head. “YYYYYep. Nice to see you too, nerd.”

He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Ugh—Darius! What happened to him?! Where’d he go?!”

Lilith studied her nails. “He left you high and dry. He didn’t care if we captured or killed you. You know how it is.”

“Is this the part where you try to convince me to, as we say in the coven, pull a Lilith, betray the emperor horribly, and end up sad and lonely?”

“They do not say that!”

“I don’t want you on our side,” Eda interrupted, shooting her sister a “don’t react” look, “I wouldn’t trust you for a second. I want you to tell me what happened to Raine Whispers.”

Hunter leaned back as best he could while tied up, looking bored. “The emperor killed them slowly and painfully. Next question?”

Eda’s heart stuttered dangerously in her chest. “Liar,” she snarled, “Your precious emperor hasn’t appointed a new coven head yet—so Raine’s still alive. Where are they?!”

Hunter clicked his tongue. “Let’s see… coven head prisoner, coven head prisoner, mmmmmm doesn’t ring any bells.”

Lilith put a hand on Eda’s shoulder as she growled. “Oh, Hunter. Your bravado isn’t fooling anyone. You know how the emperor’s coven works as well as I. No one is coming for you. There is no holding out until rescue, because there will be no rescue. Don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be—who are you even keeping quiet for? An emperor who doesn’t care enough about you to come for you? Just tell us what you know about the bard coven head.”

He rocked back and forth in the chair, looking up at the ceiling, unconcerned. “Or what? You’ll torture me?”

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “If that’s what you want.” She turned to go. “Excuse me. I need to gather a few things.” She strode back up the basement stairs, leaving Eda and Hunter alone.

Eda rocked back and forth on her heels. “So… how’s that portal coming along? Got enough titan’s blood?

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Mmm.” Eda clicked her tongue. What did Lilith need that was taking this long? “Soooooo… what now?”

“This is the first time you’ve taken a prisoner, isn’t it.”

“No!”

“Uh-huh. Alright. While I’ve got you here, want to hear the complete history of wild magic? I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting, considering that you’re old enough to have lived through it.”

“I am not, you little brat. Shut your mouth, I don’t want to listen to your voice.”

“Yeah? What if I don’t want to shut up? What if I feel like singing? Oh titan’s heart, oh titan’s heart,” he started howling in an off-key voice, “we the covens are loyal to thee!”

“UUUUUGH,” Eda groaned, “Stop that, or I’m going to gag you!”

“We pledge our lives, our magics, our hearts to yours! When you call, we heed your voice!”

Eda stormed up the stairs, slamming the door behind her. “That kid is the most annoying creature in existence!” Her sister was lying on the couch, reading a book, and Eda leaned on the back of the couch, looking down at her. “What are you doing? I thought you were getting something?”

“No. I just want him to think I am. Let him sweat and squirm. Let him think about all of the horrible things I might be planning to do to him.”

“Let him freak himself out. Devious, Lili.”

“Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Let him imagine the worst. But now that you’ve come up, too, we can just… leave him.”

“I’m not sure how that—”

“Leave him alone long enough, and he’ll start to wonder if we’re coming back. He’ll start to wonder if we had to leave for some reason, and we left him. He’ll start thinking that if we did have to leave, there’s no one to let him out. That he’s trapped down there. At first he’ll tell himself not to worry, that we’ll come back down for him eventually. Then, as time wears on, and he has no idea how long it’s been, he’ll start calling for help, thinking we’re gone.”

“And that’s when we go down?” Eda interjected, “When he’ll be happy to see us?”

“No, Edalyn. We wait for him to stop calling. We wait for him to give up, thinking that no one will come for him. We let him wallow in the fear that he’ll starve down there, tied up, and then, then we return.”

Eda scooted away from her sister. “… have I ever mentioned how incredibly glad I am that you changed sides?”

“You could stand to mention it more.”

“You’re not gonna… actually torture him, are you?”

“Physically? I wasn’t planning on it, no, why, do you want me to?”

“Titan! Lilith, no!”

Lilith shrugged. “To each their own. He’s probably not feeling too well—a blow to the head is no joke, and neither was that spell he took for Darius. He’ll spill.”

“He seemed fine to me. Just as annoying as ever.”

“It’s an act. Bravado. He’s hurt, he was just flat-out betrayed and abandoned by the person he was protecting, and he’s captured with no hope of rescue, because he knows that’s not how the emperor’s coven works. He’s a resilient pest, but all of that will take its toll quickly. Give him a few hours, and he’ll crack.” Lilith hesitated. “But… Eda… about rescuing Raine, should they still be alive…”

“What?”

“I’m just… not entirely certain it’s the best plan.”

“I can’t just leave them!”

“I know you don’t want to, but… we have the upper hand over Belos at the moment. We have his right hand, a coven leader, in our grasp. We’ve put his day of unity plans to a grinding halt. We go running off on a hare-brained rescue mission? If one of us gets caught, it’s all over.”

A new plan quietly clicked into place in Eda’s head. “We have the coven head. We have the right hand of Belos. Why not make a trade? His precious golden brat for Raine! Either way, we end up with a coven head, so we won’t be giving up our advantage, but this way, we’ll have Raine, who will fight with us, instead of the brat tied up in my basement!”

Lilith sat bolt upright on the couch. “Are you insane?” she hissed, “You want to try to ransom him back?! Edalyn, an attempt to negotiate with the emperor will go very, very badly! Let’s say we achieve the best case scenario, let’s say Belos agrees to the trade and we get Raine back. The emperor will not stop hunting us down. When I was attempting to capture you, it was just that—capture. If you try to make a deal, trade hostages? Belos will want you dead. Even having kidnapped the golden guard is risky—for now, Hunter could be anywhere, no one knows we took him. But if Belos finds out? We may as well start writing our obituaries now.”

“Fine.” Eda growled in frustration. “It’s just—I don’t want to leave them, if they are alive! It just doesn’t feel right.”

“I know. We just have to be patient. And after the Day of Unity passes, we can go after them. I promise I will help you retrieve Raine.”

“Helloooooo?” Hunter’s voice called up from the basement, “Are we gonna get this interrogation going, or what? I’ve got places to be!”

Lilith motioned for Eda to stay quiet. “Here we go,” she whispered.

“Traitor? Crazy owl lady? You there?”

Eda head a scraping noise, as if Hunter was dragging the chair he was tied to across the floor. There was a pause, then, “Titan, there’s stairs. Helloooooo?” Another pause. “Okay, I’m going to escape now! Anyone up there to stop me? No? Okay!”

“Should we go down there?” Eda murmured to Lilith. Her sister shook her head.

“He can’t get out of that chair, you heard him about the stairs.”

“I mean it! I’m breaking out of here! Oh, look, I’ve got the ropes off! No? Nobody?” Then, a little more quietly, “Guess they’re gone.”

Eda heard a lot of thumping, and then an ‘ow.’ She snorted softly. “Sounds like he’s knocked himself over again.”

Lilith pulled her away from the basement door and into the kitchen. “Give him a bit.” She started flipping through one of Eda’s potion books. “Any chance one of these has a truth potion recipe in here?”

“No, but I think there’s a knockout potion somewhere. If he keeps trying to sing, I might use it.”

Lilith snorted. “Right. I’ll go ahead and brew that. Forget feeding it to him, if I have to talk to him for much longer, I’m going to want it for myself. Where do you keep your sleeping nettles?”

“Cupboard by the trashcan, do NOT let Hooty know where they are.” Eda paced the kitchen. “What if he is in the middle of escaping?”

“He’s concussed, has short little legs and no staff. He won’t get far.”

Eda snapped her fingers. “No staff! Where’s his little palisman, I didn’t see it!”

Lilith stopped mid-stir. “Palisman?! Him?!”

“Yeah, he has a little cardinal palisman.”

“Belos hates wild magic! Do you know what it took for me to keep a hold of my palisman?! You’re telling me that Hunter hasn’t just got a palisman, he’s hiding it from Belos?”

“I guess. What’s the big deal?”

Lilith laughed. “Oh, he is in for it when Belos finds out! See if he’s still the favorite then!”

“…Lili, you’re not in the emperor’s coven anymore.”

Her sister resumed stirring her potion. “I know that.”

“And we aren’t going to use Hunter’s palisman as leverage against him, okay? I want more info about Raine, but I’m not going to threaten an innocent palisman to get it.”

“Fine.” Lilith set her spoon down. “I think it’s about time we check in on him. Let’s see how much he’s panicking.

When they got down the basement stairs, Hunter was asleep. Eda snorted, setting the chair upright again. “So much for that idea.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Lilith growled.

Hunter opened his eyes with a smug look that Eda was relatively certain meant he’d never actually been asleep. “Oh, hey, when did you guys get here? Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”

Lilith lunged towards Hunter, and Eda had to hold her back. “You are a horrible, conniving little brat, and if I never saw you again, I could die happy!”

“Oooo, might want to watch that temper, Lilith, isn’t that how you got beaten by your sister so many times?”

Lilith’s nostrils flared, and she stopped trying to get past Eda, taking a deep breath and smoothing her hair. “Laugh all you want, brat. I may be out of the coven, but at least I chose to go. Unlike you.”

“I’m not leaving the coven. I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to go back, and y’know what, I’m going to drag both of you with me, and this time we’ll finish the petrification process.”

Lilith chuckled. “Oh, Hunter. You don’t really think you can go back, do you? Not after you failed like this.”

For the first time since he’d gotten here, fear flashed in Hunter’s eyes. “I didn’t fail,” he said defensively, “Darius got away—I protected him from your assassination plot. I completed my mission—you failed.”

“But you were captured,” Lilith said softly, leaning in close to him, “Of course you carried out your mission—but you’ve still failed the emperor. You lost. To us. How humiliating.”

“I only lost because that coward Darius used me as a meat shield,” Hunter snarled, “It wasn’t my fault!”

Lilith laughed softly, pulling away. “Do you really think the emperor will accept that excuse? You know as well as I that you cannot blame others for your own mediocracy.”

The shift in Hunter’s attitude… Eda wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Lilith had gone from dancing to Hunter’s tune and rising to his taunts to playing the flute herself. Hunter was a marionette on her strings. She grabbed her sister’s arm. “Hey, Lili? A word?”

She pulled Lilith upstairs, shutting the door so that Hunter couldn’t hear them. “What was that?!” she hissed.

“I know how the emperor’s coven works. I know how Belos works. I know how he treats people—you could hurt Hunter physically all you wanted, and he wouldn’t give up anything.”

“So you play mind games with him, Lili? That’s just cruel. Did you see his face when you said he’d failed Belos? That wasn’t just worry, that was terror. You really freaked him out, and I don’t like how you’re going about this.”

Lilith pointed at the door. “I’ve seen hardened demons break down at the idea that they’ve been left locked up with no hope of anyone ever coming for them. Do you want to know why it didn’t work on him, Eda? Because he was trained in the exact same torture methods I was. He’s the head of the emperor’s coven at age sixteen. Do you know how you get there? It isn’t by being an innocent kid, I can tell you that. Neither of us could kill him. But he’s dangerous, and Belos is the only one who could ever keep him in control. You heard him! He would drag us to our own petrification in a heartbeat! So if I have to invoke his fear of Belos to keep him from hurting you or I, I will!”

“Lilith—”

“When you first met him, he threatened King to get you and Luz to do what he wanted. He is not some cute little witchling who will roll over for belly rubs, he’s a lethal, dangerously unstable individual who is dead loyal to Belos and will stop at nothing to please him.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. It still doesn’t feel right, Lilith. And I don’t think it’ll make him crack.”

“Oh, please, he was about to be putty in my hands.”

“You make him scared of what Belos will do to him because he failed? He’ll just start thinking about how much worse it will be for him if he gives up information. No more head games, Lilith. I don’t like it, and I don’t like how much you’re acting like you did when you were in the coven.”

“Yes, because it’s effective. Good luck getting any information out of him.”

Eda grabbed her sister’s hands. “I don’t want to win by losing you. I’m not going to risk you reverting to your coven ways like that—you’ve come so far, and it’s not fair to put you in a situation where you’ll backslide.” Eda squeezed her eyes shut, turning her face away. “You were right. Raine will have to wait.” It felt like a betrayal just saying it, but she couldn’t say anything else—Raine had risked everything to make sure that she, at least, could get away. Throwing that away based off of information they got from Hunter of all people would be disrespectful of their sacrifice. “We just need to ride out this storm. No more interrogations—we’re not going to just let him go, but we’re not going to hurt him, either. Okay?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Eda plucked a feather off of her sister’s arm. “This isn’t helping you—it’s making you worse. So trust me, Lilith—it is what I want.”

Xxx

Darius growled, kicking at a burned clump of vines. Of course the Golden Guard wasn’t here—he hadn’t really expected him to be, but it would have been nice. Right. Well, he could do a grueling search of the area—or worse, call in Eberwolf to help track the Golden Guard down.

Oooooor he could interrogate the last people to have seen him—his would-be assassins. He hadn’t seen their faces—the smokescreen had ensured that. But he had thought he’d heard a familiar voice.

Darius turned towards the Clawthorne estate. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Ch 3