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nelllraiser · 3 years

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no good deed | luce & nell

LOCATION: nell’s greenhouse. PARTIES: @divineluce and @nelllraiser SUMMARY: luce asks for nell’s herb supplies to help with her phoenix cleansing. absolutely NO emotional talk or introspection follows. CONTENT: discussion of the lydia plot without specifics, very brief and vague sibling death allusion.

Luce washed her hands in the sink, wincing as the hot water and soap stung the healing wounds. She glanced at herself in the mirror-- she looked like she’d been through hell. Deep purple bruises had blossomed across her skin, but most were covered by winding bandages she’d wrapped over the jagged cuts that ran along the back of her legs. Her back was a mess and it made sleeping a nightmare, but she couldn’t do much about it. A crooked butterfly bandage kept the cut over her eyebrow shut, and the wound was purple at the edges. She looked like shit and she felt it too. But, she couldn’t stop now.

Leaving the bathroom, Luce returned to her room and sat back down at the books she’d borrowed from Rio. The ash had been collected, a piece of the cursed earth for good measure too. The Bloodroot sat in a vase next to the window, the stems dying the water a light pink. Which left… tears, from a phoenix and cleansing herbs. The tears wouldn’t be too difficult-- Leah had said she’d help her with this, so she’d probably be alright parting with a few tears. The cleansing herbs though. Luce couldn’t pretend to know which ones were best suited to a ritual like this. Plants had never been her thing and she didn’t have the coven’s knowledge at her disposal anymore. But… there was someone else who might know. Taking the book with her, Luce made her way out to the greenhouse. And, as she suspected, Nell was there.

Knocking lightly on the door, Luce spoke up, “Hey.”

It was no surprise that Nell was puttering about her greenhouse after everything that had happened over the past week or so. In reality, it wasn’t all that much in comparison to the things she’d weathered before. The mad rush to save someone she loved, the devastating blow of losing that same person merely days later— though it hadn’t been in the way she’d anticipated. Frank hadn’t been the one to fell the curtain between Nell and Bex by stealing her life, it’d been Bex herself that had made the severance. The witch wasn’t trying to throw herself a pity party, it was simply that the only way she could think to keep her storming thoughts at bay was to create something, and to care for the plants she nurtured with a gentle hand. The greenhouse had always been a sanctuary of her’s, a place of peace that was her’s and only her’s where she could be alone with herself. She never needed to find the strength to draw her armor within its walls because she didn’t need it’s defenses between the fragile glass panels lining the perimeter. Here she was free to be happy, or hurt, or whatever else she might be feeling at the moment.

But with the sound of a soft knock that changed, and Nell rolled the softness from her shoulders as she went to the door, setting them into their usual and proud position. “Hey-” she began thoughtlessly when she heard the sound of her sister’s voice. A moment later shock was flitting over her face, brows drawn together with concern as she took in the ugly picture Luce made with her collection of injuries. “Luce- what the fuck. What happened? What the hell is wrong with you? I could have closed whatever cuts you have instead of whatever shoddy job you made of your legs,” she chastised while she took in her sister’s bandages.

A grimace spread across Luce’s face as Nell stared at her, face shifting to an expression of surprise. Maybe she should have put on a jacket or something. Heatstroke would be preferable to getting a lecture. “Slipped and fell on a hike.” Luce said. It wasn’t entirely untrue. She’d been on a hike and she had fallen. Nell didn’t need to know that Morgan had helped with the fall. That Morgan had shoved her down, that she’d thought the other woman was going to kill her. “Yeah, you know me. I’m shit with first-aid.” She said offhandedly, glancing down at the haphazardly wound bandages. “It’s fine, though, I’ll be fine with some time.” Moments like this reminded her of how lucky she’d been all her life-- their mother had always been an option, even if they didn’t necessarily want her help. Now? Mixed messages aside, Luce was never stepping foot in her parents’ home again, not if she could help it. She didn’t need her mother’s help. She didn’t need her pity either. “I’ve got a question for you,” She held up the leather bound book and flipped it open to the page she’d been staring at. “Do you have any idea about what sort of herbs would be used for this sort of thing?”

Nell fixed Luce with a scrutinizing look, arms crossed over her chest as she decided whether or not she wanted to fight her sister on the lackluster answer she’d given. But for once in her life she decided that she was simply too tired, and Luce could give her the answer in due time. Nevertheless, that wouldn’t stop her from mildly calling the fire witch out. “Right. Slipped and fell.” Another disapproving glance flitted over her face before her chastisement continued. “Yeah, but you live with someone who has an entire greenhouse of healing herbs. I’m literally just upstairs in case you forgot. I could have at least scabbed the shit over and lessened the amount of ‘time’ needed.” The mention of a question and the book being presented was enough to spark Nell’s interest, if only for the sole reason that it could provide a distraction from the pity party she’d been throwing herself, wondering how she’d so spectacularly failed at teaching Bex. She should have known. Just because she wasn’t the girl she’d been a year ago didn’t mean she was suddenly equipped to take in a baby witch with her newfound emotional maturity. For a long moment, Nell scanned over the text, lips pursing further the longer she read. “This is about the phoenix that Adam told me he was helping you with? Loved finding out about that from him and not you, by the way.”

Luce wearily rubbed the heel of her hand against her eye, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain that shot across her forehead. “It’s a long story.” She said lamely. She knew that answer wouldn’t be enough for her sister, but hopefully it would do for now. Later. She’d tell her the details later. Right now, she needed to focus. She had the flowers, she had the ashes, she had the dirt. She just needed the herbs and then the hard part-- the phoenix. And the fire. She didn’t have any idea how she was going to get that whole situation figured out, but… she had to try something. Hopefully the ritual wouldn’t be too affected by a couple cans of gasoline. “I mean, no time like the present? Care to help a sister out?” Luce joked weakly.

At the mention of Adam and the phoenix, Luce blinked. Ah. Yeah, that made sense. They were dating, Adam was a decent guy. Of course he would have told Nell about the situation they had on their hands. “Sorry. I’ve been caught up in trying to figure out how to fix shit. Spent a lot more time in the scribrary than I wanted to. Rio-- Winston’s ex? He’s lending a hand with it. Hence the book.” She said, holding the book up again.

A long story. Nell was growing increasingly tired of the ‘long stories’ that seemed to make up the majority of her life since she’d returned to White Crest. How many ‘long stories’ could someone fit over the span of a year and a half, anyway? “I’m sure it is,” she mumbled lamely, once again proving herself to be uncharacteristically not nosy for the time being. Luce had meant her words to be joking, but Nell failed to continue in that vein, unable to find the energy needed for sarcasm in the moment. “Of course I’ll help you,” she said a little too seriously, clutching onto one of the only constants in her life now that she’d lost yet another person in the form of Bex. It was beginning to look as if the only people she’d always have in her life and at her side would be her sisters, and that was a gift she couldn't afford not to treasure. Leading Luce towards a nearby chair, she began to gather the healing poultices she’d made, the ones their mother had taught her. “So you need lavender and sage.” It wasn’t a question as she took another look over the book. “That’s easy enough.” Squinting at the last plant, she was already beginning to search her brain for what the words could mean. “And a white flowered herb?” Of course a ritual wouldn’t be complete without a sufficiently vague ingredient.

“You know I could have helped ‘figure out how to fix shit’.” Nell had failed at making sure Bex didn’t feel alone, she wouldn’t do the same for her sister. “You mean the guy you punched, and then refused to apologize to?” Perhaps she was still a little bitter about the argument she and Luce had following the happening. “Yeah, that makes sense that he’d help. He’s a good guy.”

A wave of guilt washed over Luce at the defeated sound of her sister’s voice. Fuck. “It’s-- just don’t fucking… fly off the handle, alright?” She said before running a sloppily bandaged hand through her hair. She paused, not entirely surprised by how quickly Nell figured out what kind of purifying herbs they’d need. Sage and lavender. She should have known that. But she’d never paid attention to purifying rituals, she’d never really paid attention to the plants they used at the coven meetings. She’d just accepted the bundle of herbs and lit the ends, allowing the smoke to waft through the air and mingle with the combined power of the rest of the coven. How she’d taken it all for granted. “Cool, yeah. You’ve got that growing in here, right?” Luce said as she followed Nell to a chair, looking around at the greenhouse as she walked. She’d done enough lavender tattoos to be able to spot the tall sprigs of purple. But, she refocused on her sister and stared over at Nell. “The white flower-- it’s Bloodroot. It grows at Lyssa’s Peak and I needed the stuff that grew at the top. Lunar cycles, drawing power from the moonlight, you know.” She said. Rip the bandaid. Just tell her sister what happened. No more secrets.

“I went hiking up there to get to it the other day. And I ran into Morgan. She showed me a way up the mountain and we got to talking and I was in a… mood about shit. About… Lydia.” Luce said, wondering if Nell would understand why she was in a mood, if her sister would get just why the killing didn’t sit well with her. “And she kept trying to figure out what it was and I snapped at her. And then she snapped at me. Because she’d cared about Lydia. Even though she was a fucking…” Monster. Murderer. Torturer. “Even though she was what she was. Morgan lost her cool, I lost my footing, I took a tumble down the peak. But, it’s fine. She helped me down the mountain.” She didn’t need to. She could have kicked me off. She could have let the coyote finish me. She could have let me die up there.

Swallowing, Luce blinked at her sister’s words. Yeah. Nell could have helped her. Bea probably could have helped her too. But, again, she’d felt like she’d needed to do this on her own. And where had that landed her? Right fucking here, with no magic to speak of and just struggling to make things work. “Sorry. Old habits. And I’ve said that before, and I’m sorry. I just-- fucking, it’s hard to remember that I don’t have to do everything alone.”

“Me? Fly off the handle? Where would you get an idea like that?” There was the sarcasm Nell had been missing before, but it was short lived as she unwrapped the bandages from Luce’s legs, her frown renewed while she took in the extent of the scrapes and cuts. “Yeah, of course I’ve got those growing. They’re pretty good staples. So the sage is obviously for cleansing…” That made sense, she supposed. They had to rid the phoenix of whatever it was that had made them this way. “And the lavender...it’s for healing.” Healing couldn't take place without the cleansing. After all, you had to clean the wound before it could properly heal. Otherwise you risked it becoming infected, a festering thing that wouldn’t even get a chance to scar, let alone fade. “Sure- the moon. It makes sense.” The great glowing woman in the sky was like butter to a witch’s bread, always ready and willing to lend her strength to those who sought it.

But the mention of Lyssa’s Peak had Nell remembering her own time in the shadow of it, watching the yellow-eyed wolf and Layla attempting to murder Adam while she and Ariana did their best to prevent it. “Lydia?” That hadn’t been a name she expected to surface, and Nell hadn’t heard it since the brief conversation of guilt she and Luce had following her death. Besides, what did Morgan have to do with Lydia? The zombie had cared about the woman who kept innocent people in a basement? Nell wasn’t all that sure what to make of that— especially when paired with the recent revelation that Morgan had befriended Miriam as well. “Her losing her cool was related to you losing your footing or not?” There was a vagueness there that Nell wasn’t ready to let go of. Not when it concerned her sister, and her injuries. “You tumbled down the fucking peak,” Nell hissed, knowing that Luce was lucky to escape with her life, let alone her bones intact.

Nell sighed, knowing it was hypocritical of her to call Luce out for refusing help while she was guilty of the very same. She knew accepting assistance wasn’t so easy as flipping a switch. “I know.” Apparently Nell was in a forgiving mood, too tired to fight in the wake of the heaviness the past few weeks had held. “Why are you helping the phoenix, though?” Nell knew her sister had a decent heart beneath her barb-like exterior, but she’d never much gone out of the way to help an utter stranger. “Obviously I’m glad someone is- I just didn’t expect it.”

Settling into the chair, Luce cast Nell a wan smile as she listened to her sister speak. As she unwound the bandages, Luce could see just how sloppy a job she’d done. Nothing looking infected-- she wasn’t that stupid, she’d done enough tattoo aftercare to know how to wash wounds-- but it didn’t look great either. The roses on her legs were bleeding red angry cuts, the backs of her knuckles were scratched and raw, and she knew her back looked fucked to hell. None of them seemed too serious though, so with enough time, they’d fade away. “Sage for cleansing and lavender for healing.” Luce repeated, wincing as one of the bandages pulled at scabbed skin. “Good to know.”

“Hey. What did I say about handles and flying off them?” Luce reminded her sister. She’d had a brief vision of what would happen if Morgan had let her die up there, if Morgan had shoved her just a bit too hard. And it was that endless cycle of blood and vengeance, one that she didn’t want Nell to continue. It didn’t matter that she was hurt, it really fucking didn’t. “I’m alive, aren’t I? Didn’t even break anything.” She said with another grin, though the motion made the cut over her eye sting.

Why are you helping the phoenix, though? Luce looked down at her hands. The million dollar question. Why. Why was she doing this? Why was she helping them? Because it was the right thing to do? That had never mattered much to her before. “I don’t know. Because I can. Because I should.” But even those weren’t quite right. She’d never been more powerless in her life, she didn’t possess the flames to be able to really help them. She didn’t need to help them, they were nothing to her. “I just… I don’t want more people to burn. You see the news?” She gestured to the night sky through the glass of the greenhouse. “There are fires sprouting all over the forest, burning shit, running animals off their land, threatening people. Adam called me to help him deal with the situation. And I know more about fire than almost anyone in this town.” Except Mom. And Dad. And probably Bea. “And fuck, I have to try and do something.”

While Nell continued to work with Luce’s legs, she nodded in confirmation as her sister repeated the words. “Cleansing and healing- and lavender’s also about serenity, and the peace that comes about healing.” It was clear enough why these herbs had been chosen for a ritual such as this, used to drive out whatever had brought the phoenix to this point to begin with. Cleansing, healing, peace. It was a cycle she herself hadn’t yet mastered, not even sure whether she’d washed over the wounds of the past years. If Beltane was anything to judge by...Luce had taken better care of her spiritual wounds. But the problem with letting wounds heal was that you didn’t remember them as vividly once they were gone, no longer a thorn in your side as a reminder of how they’d come to be in the first place. Healed wounds could make for complacency, and make one forget to be cautious enough to avoid the same cuts and breaks a second time around. Her cuts made her stronger, more willing and ready to take care of the people she loved. More vigilant. Was it right to give that up?

A healthy eye roll later, and Nell was tugged from the stormy seas of her thoughts, all too ready to deny Luce’s words. “You know better than to think that’s flying off the handle,” she teased back. All three of them had more than healthy tempers, though all in their own ways. Nevertheless that didn’t stop them from burning bright and hot when the time called for it. Morgan losing her own temper was something of a surprise, but Nell knew Morgan would have never willingly hurt one of the Vurals— even in the case of Luce and her tendency to push away the kindest of people. Morgan was family as well, and she wouldn’t steal another sister from the Vurals.

Lydia, the phoenix, Morgan, and not wanting to burn others paired with the fact that Nell was more than familiar with the expression on Luce’s face had the younger witch’s sneaking suspicion reaching a boiling point. She knew the look- had seen it and felt it enough in her own features to recognize it in a face that was half her own with their family resemblance. She let loose a long sigh, shoulders deflating while she finished working with Luce’s legs. “I’m glad you wanna help. And you’re obviously right about knowing fire. But it...doesn’t fix it. It won’t fix that way you feel inside about things that already happened.” Bringing food and caring for the families whose loved ones she stole with a rampant shark demon hadn’t fixed it. Hadn’t made it any easier. “I want you to help with the phoenix I just...don’t want you to be disappointed. If it doesn’t do what you think it’ll do when it’s all over.”

The peace that comes with healing. As thought such a thing existed. And maybe it did, but it wasn’t something that Luce was familiar with. But, had she ever really healed from the wounds that she’d suffered this last year? She didn’t know. Maybe this was part of the healing process too. The pain and the anguish and the guilt. Everyone thought of grief as just being sad and healing as just recovering from pain. When her grief had never just sadness-- it had been deep-seated rage and helplessness, frustration and guilt. And so was healing. “Sounds like it’s just what this person will need.” She said with a nod. “I don’t know how much I’ll need but I think a lot? The more we have, the more potent?”

Luce arched her good eyebrow at Nell, nonplussed by the eyeroll. “And that’s not what I’m talking about. Seriously, Nell. I’m okay.” She said, reaching out to grasp her sister’s hand, to squeeze it tight. Her hand was still hot against Nell’s skin, still burning with the flames that refused to listen to her call. She was still here. And she didn’t want Nell to go off and do something that might change that.

Watching as Nell wound clean bandages over the wounds, freshly daubed with healing poultices, Luce reflected on how things had changed. A year ago, this would never have happened. A year ago, she would have licked her wounds back at the safe isolation of her cabin, maybe drowned her feelings away with more whiskey than she ought to have, and have pretended as though she was fine. But, she wasn’t pretending anymore. She was too tired to play those games, to pretend that the world was anything other than it was. But, as Nell’s words continued, Luce’s gaze snapped up, expression shifting. “What do you mean by that?” She asked abruptly. “I know that this doesn’t change anything I’ve done. And I’m not-- What do you think is going to happen? Nell, if this doesn’t work, I’m going to keep trying. I’m not letting this go.” I’m not letting them go.

Nell held Luce’s gaze for a long moment, feeling far too tired to actually address their shared trauma at the moment. They both knew what was on each other’s minds, and that was enough. She was so tired. They’d both been fighting for so long— all Nell had ever truly known how to do was fight. To refuse to give in, refuse to let the day win and simply allow herself a moment’s rest. She didn’t know who or what she would be without that fight, but occasionally she wondered what it was like for those who allowed themselves peace, whether they were truly happy with the battles they’d let lie, or if regrets haunted them as well. Maybe there was no actual winning. You just lived with the path you chose, and that was it. “Yep- sounds like just what the phoenix doctor ordered.” Not that she actually knew all that many details of the phoenix, but all anger stemmed from somewhere, and most often it was a product of hurt. “Sure, the more the merrier. It’s not really like you can over cleanse something when it comes to things like this.”

The feel of Luce’s hand against her was enough to melt a little more tension from Nell’s shoulders, and the distant memory of crawling into bed with her sisters as children to hoard their shared elemental warmth was brought to mind while she let herself feel the momentary salve of nostalgia. “I know,” she assured softly. “I’m glad you are.” Her overprotectiveness wasn’t subtle, and Luce understood the source of it better than anyone in tandem with Bea.

Nell straightened from her place before Luce, standing as she began to rifle through the greenhouse towards her sage plants. “I just mean...I don’t know if this is what you’re thinking or whatever but- helping people isn’t gonna make the past sit right. Not really. And also...saving someone from something you think you’ve gone through isn’t gonna fix you either.” Hadn’t she just finished learning that with Bex? Or maybe they’d just been too different. Maybe the feeling of loneliness wasn’t as universal as Nell had thought, and she couldn’t fix her own by putting love into another person who was caught in the throes of it. “It’s not that I don’t think it’s gonna work, and I know you’ll keep trying. I just don’t want you to expect something of it that’s not gonna come.”

Good to know that burning fuck tons of sage and lavender wasn’t going to create some kind of flower monster-- christ, Luce realized how fucking little she actually knew about magic outside of the flames. But, at least she had Nell here to help. Because she did, even if Luce didn’t often think about it that way. Her sisters were here. They were all here and, ever since they’d been excommunicated, they were all each other had to rely on. She had Nell, she had Bea, they were three and… in the past six months, she’d somehow forgotten about that. She’d drifted back to her old ways, of trying to handle things on her own. But she couldn’t now, it was impossible. She needed them, needed people. She couldn’t do this alone.

“Yeah. Same here.” Luce said, giving Nell’s hand another squeeze before slipping away, pulling the sloppy bandages from her hand to treat the wounds on her hands herself. The poultice stung a bit as she spread it over the open cuts. She kept her gaze trained on Nell as her sister moved away from her, aware of the distance that had just grown between them. “I’m not trying to make it sit right with me. And I’m not trying to fix me, either.” She said sharply. “I know that what I did was fucked. And maybe you don’t think it is, but I do and I’m making… some kinda peace with that.” She wound the bandages back around her hand, covering her raw skin once more.

Staring down at her hands, Luce could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the stress, maybe it was just the crushing weight of everything that she’d been going through that had finally pushed her to the breaking point. Luce cleared her throat. “I just want to do something good, Nellie. I want to be someone good again.” She said, though the words came out as broken and hollow as she felt.

“I didn’t say that,” Nell replied instintcively in a defensive tone, even if she thought Lydia was far better off dead from what she’d heard. Even though she’d shared her own surprisingly introspective conversation with the fae, there was no question of whether or not the woman was doing more harm than good in the world. But she knew Luce wasn’t as accustomed to life and death judgements as she was, not when she’d simply been an artist with a grumpy streak. She didn’t want her sister to become wrapped up in such things anyway, not when it most often led to a life of constant stress, or having a target on one’s back. “But if you want peace...then you deserve it,” she finished stubbornly, her tone not quite matching the well meaning nature of the words.

The hardness in Nell’s voice was washed away instantly as she looked over her shoulder back to her sister, recognizing the picture of a person desperately trying to keep themselves together at the seams. Had Nell been so wrapped up in her own world that she’d completely missed what was going on with Luce? She’d known her sister’s fire wasn’t in the best of straits, and that in itself was a flashing red sign in the direction of emotional turmoil. But she hadn’t thought— hadn’t realized it had gotten to such a point as this. Had Nell been too wrapped up in her own troubles and world to see it? A flash of guilt spread through her chest, and she went back to the other side of the greenhouse, moving to check over the bandages Luce had wrapped around her hands.

I just want to do something good. Nell could understand that— when one got to the place of wondering if they’d gone past the point of no return, and grasped at straws for a win. Nell needed a win, too. The feeling of being unclean after going too far...she’d felt it herself on more than one occasion though it was less centered on the suffering of her victim, and more about the shockwaves her actions had set into motion. Adam with August. Jared with the Ring. Bex with Frank. Dave and the shark demon. She’d made more than enough mistakes to know the feeling of desperately wanting to look for the light in oneself no matter how dim it might be- to know that you weren’t just darkness and sharp blades, as much a monster as the thing you’d killed. “I understand.” If this is what Luce needed to face the days coming, Nell would do anything in her power to make sure her sister got what she needed, that she crossed the finish line with arms raised, and a peaceful expression on her face. “So if that’s what you need...then that’s what you’ll get.”

Luce continued to stare at her hands, remembering the way that the blue flames had spread from them to consume the flesh from Lydia’s body, burning away the sinew and skin until there was nothing left. “Sure you didn’t.” Luce said, tone neutral. “I’ve spent the last six months trying to rationalize shit like… she would have hurt other people if I hadn’t killed her, she would have come back to kill us. But there’s no way of knowing if that’s true because I made a call that took away any chance she had to change her ways. I decided that I knew better. And I’m not… that’s not okay. It’s not fucking okay.” She said.

When Nell took her hands again, Luce let her sister fix the bandages wordlessly. For a year, it had seemed like everything she’d done had fallen into the same cycle of anger and rage and pain-- sometimes on the receiving end of that punishment, other times delivering it to others by her own hands. The anger and rage would burn wild and out of control until everything was dead and charred to dust. And it would lie low for some time, before flaring back to life because someone else was hurt, someone else was hurting her-- and endless fucking cycle. She just wanted to be free of it all. This phoenix situation, it was something... different. It was something that she could do and know, without a trace of doubt, that she had done something good. She just wanted to prove to herself that she was still capable of that. Of being more than just an instrument of death, bringing fire and ruin to the world around her. She just wanted to do one good thing. “Thanks Nell.” Luce said quietly. “Really. Thank you.”

Nell couldn’t rightly say she agreed with Luce— not when she’d been ready and poised to kill Frank in the middle of the Outskirts. He’d been a threat so she was going to eliminate him. It was as simple as that. Except it hadn’t turned out to be so simple as Bex had begged for his life, and Nell had withdrawn her knife. How many chances did people deserve when it came to changing? She’d given Kyle his chance in that basement with Morgan and Bex, even taken it upon herself to help him succeed. But Kyle wasn’t a woman keeping people in his basement. It was different...wasn’t it? “I didn’t know Lydia well enough to know whether or not she’d change.” That was the gamble you took with people, the not knowing. And there was always the chance they could change back if they decided their new route was too hard. Would Lydia have made a 180 turn back to where she’d started if she’d decided ethical eating wasn’t quite the same? What was the straw that would break the back of Miriam’s new life?

“I don’t know if it was wrong,” Nell finally admitted. “I don’t know if it being wrong would have kept me from doing it, too. Probably not. And I’d probably still do it if no one stopped me or you hadn’t already done it.” She was selfish with her wanting to protect the people she cared about. “But I...don’t think it’s fair to condemn yourself with it. Maybe rationalizing it isn’t the answer, but burning yourself at the stake isn’t either.” Nell swallowed briefly, still not all that accustomed to being so open and honest with her sister. “And...I think you deserve to forgive yourself instead of needing to use a phoenix to prove you’re worthy of it. I think you’re worth it on your own. Just because of who you are. I think you can be good without having something to point at as proof.”

But it wasn’t about that. Not really. Why did Nell want to summon the murderous selkie to her? For control. To have just one thing she knew she could do right. “But I think I get it. Sometimes you just...need one thing to go right. Just to know that...that you’re not a fuck up who ruins everything they touch.” Nell didn’t have fire like he sister’s, but she’d always been just as destructive. “There’s one thing you can do, and not burn a hole through. So...we’ll make this work.”

“Neither did I. But Morgan seems to think that she could have. And maybe she’s right, maybe she’s not. But we’ll never really know.” Luce said wearily. She’d spent so many nights mulling over that exact question. “I don’t want to make those calls, Nell. I don’t want to hold someone’s life in my hand and decide that I’m worth more than them. Because that’s exactly what happened to us and I’m… I’m fucking tired of it.” This town, this fucking town. She’d grown up here, been a part of this world but only now had she really learned the price that White Crest demanded of the people who lived here. This town was steeped in blood and suffering and senseless death. She didn’t want to contribute to that anymore than she already had.

“Maybe.” Luce shrugged, before regretting the action as a fresh wave of pain ran down the wounds on her back. “I also think you have to say that as my sister.” She said, a ghost of her old sarcastic grin flitting across her face. Luce stood up from the chair, collecting the herbs that Nell had gathered for her. Sage and lavender. Healing and cleansing. And the promise of her sister to help her see this through. Side by side, they’d be able to move forward. Luce didn’t know how Nell was holding up with all the grief and trauma they’d experienced in the last year and she wished that she did. Once this was all over, once the dust settled and she could finally rest… She’d try harder to be there for her sister. For both of them. Maybe Nell said that she didn’t need to prove herself, but Luce couldn’t believe that. If she couldn’t be a good person, at the very least, she could be a good sister.

Reaching out, Luce took hold of Nell’s hand again, looking at her sister intently. “We’ll make this work.”

#// sisters being siSTERS <3 #chatzy #ch:luce #wickedswriting #no good deed #sibling death tw

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nelllraiser · 3 years

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sealed in | dave & nell

TIMING: before nell was yoinked into the hellscape. PARTIES: @seizethecarpe & @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: nell ‘abducts’ dave with ‘space magic’. CONTAINS: very brief allusion to sibling death (vague reference to the bea plot).

Nell didn’t know when a fucking seal had become her biggest problem. No, that wasn’t true. The murderous party seal wasn’t the most pressing issue in her life. It was simply one of the only issues she felt like she might actually be able to fix. Bex wouldn’t talk to her, and it wasn’t as if Nell could force the other witch to speak. Frank was still out there, and now Nell couldn’t effectively stand between them. She couldn’t help but feel as if she were waiting for the next bad news to fall, and that it would include Frank, Bex, and a knife. But the seal problem was something she could make into a win. And she desperately needed a win. If she’d actually summoned the seal to her birthday party, it’d be easy enough to do it again. She wanted something she could feel successful at, and her summoning had rarely failed her before. Of course the biggest failing had been that of the shark demon, and even though she knew the fluke could be chalked up to Kevin’s interferences, the weight of the victims' lives still hung on her shoulders. And then there was everything that had come after with Dave.

It was perhaps a little too coincidental that Nell had been attacked by him while others close to her had weathered similar selkie run-ins, but there was no way of truly knowing whether Dave was the proud owner of the names party seal, hell seal, and murder seal. Hopefully this summoning would answer more questions. Wiping her hands of the fish blood she’d used to draw the circle, Nell took up position at the edge of, readying her magic. Seal blood would have been better, but it seemed like asking for trouble to summon a selkie with the life force of their kin. She’d decided to do this in her greenhouse, a favorite workspace of her’s, and one where she knew they wouldn’t be disturbed. A string of Latin later, and the circle began to glow bright enough to force her eyes away from it— and when she looked back…

Dave. Fucking Dave? Nell had begun to suspect as much, but it was still a kick in the gut to realize that the seal she’d been looking for had been right under her nose. God- she’d even shown him the fucking posters. Her momentary shock was plain on her features, and then she remembered the very important fact that the last time she’d seen Dave and how he’d left her for dead beneath a weighted net. In another blink of an eye she’d commanded her next spell, chains appearing from seemingly thin air to clap themselves around Dave where he’d appeared in the center of the circle.

Great. Now what? Her stomach was already turning with emotions that were battling for dominance. Anger for the hurt he’d caused, the regular guilt that surfaced as she remembered what he’d witnessed of her, a sense of betrayal after they’d shared said guilt with one another, and once again even more anger and frustration at being unable to distinguish which sensation was the one to act on. She didn’t know what to say. What was she supposed to say?

“Are you fucking shitting me?” Her eyes landed on the pile of skin that was also lying in the center of the circle with Dave. His selkie pelt? That was somewhat unexpected, though she supposed it made sense. Why would a proper summoning only procure part of a person when their whole form was a seal?

It felt like someone calling Dave's name, guilt prickling in his spine as he ignored it, counting out recent magnet fishing finds outside his van, parked at one of the best views in town. No one was looking for him, he hadn’t told anyone he was parked here, and his phone was at his side. There were all manners of monsters in the world that could beckon you somewhere without a sound, and Dave knew better than to follow a siren song. He looked around suspiciously, but all he could see was the quiet of the forest and the churning of the sea. The air tasted like salt and fish and the first budding flowers of fruiting trees, but not like anything animal nearby.

Still, something beckoned. Then it grabbed him, a million hands wrapping their fingers around every inch of him. Dave’s eyes bulged as all the air was sucked out of his lungs and the phantom hands covered his nose and his mouth. He tried to say something, do anything, as the hands smothered his sight last of all. They pushed him inwards, like a potter remoulding clay, and then pulled.

Dave gasped for air as the hands disappeared, the world spinning in his ears. Salt had vanished from the air, replaced with the pungent stench of filleted fish and aromatic herbs. He blinked, suddenly indoors, under light filtered through glass and he was surrounded with what Dave knew was supposed to be greenery. He looked down as his stomach threatened to heave, looking at the large dark stains on the floor, a circle with a dozen unrecognisable symbols, and his pelt, which should have been tucked far from reach, resting against his leg.

He looked up, his shock mirrored in Nell’s expression as he realised she was the only other one there. A spellcaster with the ability to summon demons, who he had helped make summoning circles out of blood before. His stomach dropped, but before he could even move, chains from seemingly nowhere wrapped around him as tight as a vibe, pinching the still healing injuries in his arm. Had he been thinking, he might have flexed to give him space, but the chains bit into his skin when he tested his movement, trapping him all the way down his thighs. If he tried to charge her, he'd lose his balance and crash into the ground.

Dave, all of Dave, was at the mercy of a deadly witch. Icy, spiking terror spread through him like frost. With what the chains allowed, he stepped in front of his pelt, like that would make any difference.

“Where am I?” He asked, his voice stone. The last thing he wanted was to tell her how frightened he was.

So here he was. The seal she’d drunkenly offered a drink to, the man who’d watched her summon a shark-jellyfish demon, and the selkie that had attacked her and left her for dead beneath a weighted net all wrapped into one. “My greenhouse,” was Nell’s simple answer, seeing no reason to deny him the question. “So it was fucking you that was at my birthday party.” To think she wanted to apologize to the selkie she’d foolishly dropped a drink on.

Despite his calm she knew he’d be looking for an out, some way to ensure that he didn’t end up dying at the hands of a witch today. It was simply a matter of preservation, something she understood perhaps a little too intimately, and had the feeling Dave did as well. He stepped in front of his pelt, and her lips instantly parted to tell him that she wasn’t that much of a disgusting excuse for a human being. She wasn’t like the hunters that preyed on the generally harmless selkies. But she stopped midway through, realizing that if Dave was scared for his pelt, he’d be more fearful of her, and less likely to act on any potentially murderous plans he might have in the future. Even as she thought it, the realization left a sour feeling in her gut, an unwelcome guilt trying to make a home there. She shouldn’t feel guilty. Not after he’d attacked her.

But didn’t he have reason to worry? That was the smaller voice reminding herself of the liability she posed, the lives she was responsible for taking. “Heard you weren’t feeling well.” The words dropped slowly from Nell’s lips, thinking of the explanation Adam had given when it came to Dave’s violent streak. “Someone bit you and made you a little hungry. That’s the reason you’re giving for attacking me, my friends, and more specifically my boyfriend?”

This was about that? That was why she’d been holding up a random stock photo of a leopard seal at the docks. This was revenge for her birthday party? Dave stared at her dumbfounded, his pulse pounding against the chains. “You’re the one that had the ice made,” he replied, and made himself as hard and solid as the ice had been, so that when she spoke again, his face didn’t betray him this time.

Boyfriend. The word was thrown at him like a dagger. Like he was just supposed to know who that was. A tiny crinkle formed between his thick brows. There’d only been three men that Dave had attacked. Rio? No, Rio was the least likely, considering his apologies on the phone for hitting him on the phone, considering he hadn’t been hurt by Dave at all, considering how Dave had shared Winston’s brain last summer. Ollie? That smacked closer to the truth, but still, no. Which left Adam, bleeding heavily as he put himself in harm’s way over and over. In reach of sharp teeth, in reach of unforgiving waters. Under his goofy laugh, there was a darkness to that one too.

For a small moment, Dave wondered if Adam wanted this. If the all goods and don’t mention it’s had been as much a mask of his anger as his bizarre jokes were of his fear. That maybe the camaraderie at the portal edge had been a means to an end, nothing more and nothing less. As soon as the thought filled his head, Dave snuffed it out before it could catch. Adam was forthright and honest. He’d deal with his issues himself rather than letting his girlfriend play god from behind the shadows. If Adam wanted Dave dead, Dave wouldn’t have been alive long enough to realise it.

“Versipellis,” Dave nodded, his voice still steady and hard. “Would have been a bad time to succeed in eating anyone.” On land. There were seal corpses that haunted his dreams, but no landwalker would care as much about those. He nodded pointedly down to his arm, to the still healing bite, where the debridement had been done to remove infected and dying skin because while he had hunted, he hadn’t cared for himself. While he had hunted, he had let him lose himself. Still might. Might lose the use of his arm too, and the ability to swim as a seal with it. Her chains dug into the healing would, pain shooting like fireworks all the way down the bone of his arm. He looked her in the eye, a small flicker of contrition. “I’m sorry about your arm, and leaving you to drown, about all of it, for what it’s worth.”

Not much, he suspected. What apology offered at gunpoint ever was?

A frown found it’s way to Nell as Dave mentioned the ice, and she was lost as to why he was choosing this battle while he was tied up in chains in the middle of her greenhouse, pressed under her thumb. “How the hell were we supposed to know there was a seal in a freshwater pond?” Again she was reminded of why she’d been looking for him in the first place. To apologize for the drink she’d tipped over him in offering, to explain that she hadn’t meant it to burn him. But how the hell was she supposed to say sorry with the elephant of their past encounters in the room? She didn’t want to apologize to the man she was interrogating. That would simply steal away form the power she held.

Dave didn’t see fit to address the fact he’d hurt the people she cared about, and that in itself made a fire ignite in Nell’s belly. Her people were all she had, the thing that was most important to her in this world, and she’d demand they get their justice even if it was simply an addressing of the wrongness they’d endured. “You could have killed him,” she hissed. “Dani, too. And I had to basically peel Mina off the ground.” It was something of an exaggeration, but Dave didn’t need to know that. She would have fought for Rio if she’d known his part in it, too. Something about this felt familiar, and it took her a moment to land on the scene of her and Dave marooned in a boat at sea, with Dave hurling accusations of culpability.

The cracks of her careful calmness were slipping, unable to keep her ice-like anger in place when she felt rubbed raw after all the recent trials of her life. “I don’t care about your apology!” She didn’t want one from Dave. Didn’t want to forgive him when she’d already begun to make that choice after they’d talked of guilt, only for it to be thrown back in her face in the form of his attack. But still, Nell was angry to find her words didn’t match the need for validation in her chest. “If you wanna kill me for what you saw on the water-” She bit off the edge of a threat, knowing that would only make things worse in a moment like this. “That’s our business.” She still couldn’t blame him, knowing that she would also be closely watching a person who’d so easily snuffed out the life of two people.

All Nell knew of Versipellis was what Adam had told her, not nearly as familiar with the strange breed of werewolf as someone like Kaden might have been. Clenching her fist, Nell did her best to regain her control. “Someone said it was like rabies. Are you gonna tell me you were as out of your mind as a rabid dog is?”

As Nell’s voice dropped threateningly, it also dropped closer to the edge of what Dave could figure out from sound and lip movement alone, the anger twisting her syllables. Some parts of it

A sickening terror that he couldn’t ask her to speak up while wrapped in chains, and couldn’t respond to her words if he pieced them together wrong.

Killed him, at least, was legible. So was Mina. “Walker took an enormous risk to keep me safe, that day. I’ve expressed my apologies and my gratitude. I know what he risked, and what it cost.” Every other hunt in those awful ten days had lead to new scars. Gouges in his arms, a deep gash running along his nose. From Adam, all Dave had was muscle aches and bruises. In turn, he’d almost torn Adam’s arm out of his socket. It could have just as easily been his throat. Dave still didn’t know if he’d gone for the arm out of some tiny instinct not to kill the kid, or if his shoulder had just looked tastier. Just like he wondered if he’d tried to air out of Mina’s lungs because some tiny part of him remembered that she couldn’t drown. Had he let the girl in the river go because he was injured or because it was the right thing to do? Dave didn’t know. He never would. But he knew there were corpses of those he’d cared about just as much, seals left to the carrion birds and karkinoids, and a hungry zombie with an offer to help. “I owe all of them apologies, just like I owe you. ”

His life, in the hands of a child. Not a child but a tempest. He didn’t need to hear her to know her facade was cracking as her voice raised. He swallowed, thick slime trickled down his arms, coating the chains like motor oil. The air was coppery thick with the blood spilled between them, not just that that she’d used to bring him here. “This had nothing to do with that. I swear.” He’d lied to her face more time than he could count. Sweat ran down one of the gnarled scars of his forehead and into his eye, prickling his fraying nerves.

“No. Do you want to know? Because I’d rather save my breath if this is an execution, if it’s all the same to you.” Dave shifted his arms slightly, but the slime only afforded him a few more inches of wriggle room, and it wouldn’t seep through his clothes fast enough to let him pull a Houdini.

Despite everything, after their last conversation Nell had found herself nearly liking Dave— or at least sympathizing with him. After all, could she be enough of a hypocrite to hate someone that practiced that same reasoning as herself? Eliminate threats. She was well aware the title applied to her after what he’d seen on the water, had always thought as much since she’d started diving in the darker parts of the supernatural world even before she’d turned people into collateral. Again she questioned whether the coven had been right to do away with her, citing the fact that they’d been protecting themselves from an unknowable and unpredictable danger.

Nell felt more like Taki than she had in a long moment, stalking back and forth with narrowed eyes and crossed arms in a way that made it seem as if an angry and dark tail might angrily swish out from behind her in warning. Speaking of her familiar, he’d sensed her heightened emotions and invited himself into the greenhouse despite Nell’s previous instructions to stay away. If Dave got loose and turned violent she hadn’t wanted Taki caught in the midst of it. Now the Ovinikk sat in front of the line she was pacing into the ground, fiery eyes blinking slowly while he considered the man before him. Across their bond, Nell could feel Taki’s curiosity, the way the Ovinikk wanted to know if Dave’s slime tasted like the sea. “No,” she told the pseudo-cat firmly, figuring the last thing she needed was Taki trying to lick Dave to death.

She repeated the word to herself, angry that Dave had admitted to already taking responsibility in a way that made this feel less justified by the moment. “No.” Nell wasn’t sure if she was saying it to herself or the selkie before her, whether it was a reminder that she shouldn’t let her anger control her, or another denial of Dave’s apology. “And you’ll give them apologies.” She hated that he’d keep true to that word, hated that she still knew Dave was a good person despite the incident with the Versipellis. He was a victim as well, wasn’t he? But did that really make the attacks any better? She growled in frustration as she wrestled with her mind, thinking of how she wished this was someone else’s problem. But she’d always taken it upon herself to be the fixer, even more so after the events of Bea and the last year.

“I’m not stupid. I know you look at me and-” And see all the things that could go wrong. She knew because that’s what she saw when she looked at Kyle. He was a fuse waiting to be lit, a stick of dynamite that was waiting to explode in a fan of flames that hurt anyone close enough as well as himself. They couldn’t separate the deeds, and risk from the person even if they’d wanted to. Doing so would be foolish after a lifetime of watching things go south. “I don’t care if you think I’m a risk.” It was a lie, but she didn’t want to admit that there was still a part of her that wanted Dave to change his mind, to have the validation that she was more than that.

Nell wasn’t sure if he’d chosen the word ‘execution’ simply as a method of guilting her or because he truly thought that’s what he’d been summoned for. Either way she didn’t appreciate the way the word left a sour taste in her mouth. It wasn't that she had a problem with striking down those that needed to die, even if it was in cold blood. “I want to know so it won’t be an execution.” Maybe she’d shown her hand a little too much with that admission, and there’d be little reason to believe anything Dave said when he was defending his life, but she was tired of making this choice when her most recent one with Frank had potentially lost her a friend.

Had Dave had an inch of leverage, he might have pointed out that thinking she was a threat wasn’t wrong. He’d have said it wrily, looking down at the chains cutting off blood flow to his extremities, his pelt lying limply behind his ankles. That greenhouses were made to imprison nature and bend it to the glass’s will. He might have even raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at the bloody circle that had pulled him away from safety without so much as a blink. But even though some tiny part of his mind parsed the irony, he kept silent.

A trial, then. Dave blinked the sweat out of his eyes as he slowly pulled at his good arm, feeling the chains bite his skin with every fractional inch he moved it. In other words, she wanted him to beg. Dave jutted forward his jaw. “I was bitten by a wolf after a hunt in the woods.” He began haltingly, not normally one for a whole lot of words. “I told the being that saved me that I would call back up to deal with it. I had watched it kill before, and I did nothing. I never made the call to Walker or anyone else, because I became hungry. Didn’t even realise I wanted to eat Mina until after she’d gotten away.” Dave looked at a point above Nell’s head, at a single joining weld between the panels of greenhouse glass behind her. He might not beg, but that didn’t make the retelling easy. “I told myself it was just the adrenaline. I told myself they were threats. That it was reasonable. That there was nothing wrong with me. As I attacked people, as I killed seals I cared about. Let the injury in my arm rot.” He looked down at his injured arm, at the chains digging into the slowly healing injury.

“I damn near killed a young man that I hold in the highest regard because he got between me and becoming a versipellis. Nearly killed the man I asked to save my life. I wasn’t rabid. But it was like trying to stop the tide itself.” Dave shook his head, watching her intently. “If selkies were as common as humans, I would have never stood a chance.”

Taki was bored with all the talking, apparently not all that concerned about the fact that the man who smelled like the sea was the reason for Nell’s tumultuous emotions. He took a few confident steps forward, apparently quite interested with the pelt that was hidden behind Dave. It smelled even more enticing than the man himself. Nell could sense the familiar’s interest, and chided the Ovinikk. “Taki, stop it.” The words were perhaps a little sharper than she’d intended, but she didn’t much appreciate the familiar seeing fit to turn this interrogation into a taste test. And she could only assume that Dave wouldn’t be thrilled to have a fire-breathing cat poking around his most treasured possession. The oversized cat fixed her with an unimpressed stare before flicking his ears back towards the pelt.

Nell didn’t need her familiar giving herself more to worry about, not when she was doing her best to carefully weigh Dave’s words. By the way Dave told it, it could have happened to anyone, and from what she’d gleaned from Adam’s words it was truly a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn’t begging for his life, just as she’d refused to do so while Montgomery had wielded his machete above her, ready to make the killing blow. But a comparison such as that would place her in the shoes of Montgomery. The thought was enough to make her recoil in disgust, and as Taki took another step towards Dave’s pelt she remembered the sea of selkie skins that she’d found in the hunter’s home. The ones she’d returned to Ricky. She wasn’t like him...right? This was entirely different. Unfortunately the idea had already been drawn, setting her stomach to roll as she continued to listen.

Perhaps she’d turned too soft in these moments, let herself be lured in by the words of someone who desperately wanted to live and a man she couldn’t help but respect when it came to his drive to be a protective force— even if that force was turned in her direction. Or maybe she was tired. Tired of making decisions that came back to bite, and tired of running herself into the ground by making every problem her own. She muffled a sigh instead of letting it fall loose, and let her eyes settle on his arm. “You’ve gotten it looked at?” Nell could already guess at the herbs that would help clear it up, the tinctures her mother had taught her within arms reach. She’d been right in thinking that Dave was also a victim. But she knew from years of travelling the world that the victim didn’t always get a happy close when they couldn't control themselves, even at the end of her own hand. But Dave shouldn’t be dangerous anymore if Adam’d been right. And he usually was.

The kind words about Adam were the last straw, and Nell knew that killing Dave here and now wasn’t something she was ready to act on. If Adam and Dave respected each other as much as it seemed, certainly their goals and natures would be decently aligned. And if he was anything like Adam...she wasn’t sure how she could kill him in good conscience. Hadn’t she done her best to coax Adam back to forgiveness or something of that like after the hunter moon had turned him wild? How was this any different? “He’s a good man,” was Nell’s only answer to the story, knowing her mind had been settled. But that wasn’t the only matter that needed settling.

“So are you planning on trying to kill me anytime soon?” Nell asked in the same tone as if she were asking his opinion on the weather. “-unrelated to the bite and everything. If you do, just leave other people out of it, alright?” She didn’t need someone dying for her again.

Dave’s attention had been on the biggest threat in the room, but as her cat prowled closer, his gaze dropped to it, eyes widening slightly as he shifted his stance, pulled his good arm free of two of the four chains holding it pinned against his body. It wasn’t enough to free him, or even mitigate the threat of falling over, but if the cat made a jump for him or his pelt, it gave him one option more to protect himself if the cat became an issue. At once, his finger joints began to tingle as the blood rushed back into them, while his other, injured arm became more numb by the moment. “I’ve had it looked after. Close enough to a human to risk the doctor’s when I need it,” Dave replied, his eyes narrowing. Maybe he was old and cynical, but he didn’t like the taste of being abducted only to be offered help now.

But Nell’s mood evened, along with her voice. Maybe it was a mite fucked to use her obvious affection for her boyfriend against her, but Dave hadn’t been lying, and she had every other advantage. Dave nodded once, curtly, at her assessment, waiting for the rest with closely baited breath. The tide had turned, the winds shifted. “I’m not a monster. I don’t hurt folks because of who they know,” Dave replied, and cocked his eyebrows. “It depends. Are you gonna threaten my life again?”

He’d queried the same question she asked of him to begin with, and her answer was what she’d only just finished asking him. “That depends- are you gonna threaten my life again?” Nell echoed in an almost childish manner, knowing they could work their way around the circle of violence for hours if they wanted, but realizing they were at something of an impasse. He wouldn’t act on her life if she didn’t act on his, and she wouldn’t act on his unless he acted on her’s. Barring there were a few more stipulations on her end when it came to whether or not he’d attack the people she loved in the future, but the with the way he’d spoken about his grief while returning her jacket...she knew relatively decent people didn’t sound like that when they were thinking of their sins, and relatively decent people didn’t usually attack unprovoked. “But good. It wouldn’t end well if you brought other people into it.” It was the closest to a threat she’d gotten, spurred on by her unwillingness to risk the lives of those she cared about. Then again it wasn’t so much a threat as a warning. “Just so you know,” she finished the sentiment with a shrug, no heat to be found in the words.

Her eyes rolled with his words about his injury, not knowing why he felt the need to assert his human similarities. Did he think her the kind of person that judged someone by how physically human they were? “I know that,” she replied defensively. She chewed lightly on her bottom lip, toying with the idea of dropping her mother’s name as a healer. No doubt it was near offensive to offer assistance after kidnapping him, and she expected his pride would prevent him from taking it anyway. Plus...she didn’t particularly want to give her mother’s information to a recently murderous seal. Just because their relationship was complicated, didn’t mean she wanted to see her mother injured or worse. But this meant there was only one thing left to do if there was nothing more to talk about. She’d have to release Dave soon enough.

Dave didn’t reply to her defensive response, her anxious lip chewing making a sharp contrast to the power she had here. But when she turned his question around, Dave balked at it, stopping his attempts at getting his arm free from the rest of the chains that held it against him. She had him in chains, unsure of where he was, with his pelt unprotected at his feet. He was a great many things, but not a fool. If she walked over to take his pelt, the most he could do was fall on her and hope he could get in a bite. If she wanted, she could have control over him for the rest of her life. Her churlish repetition only highlighted how easy this was for her. How inconsequential. Dave looked down. “No,” He replied firmly. His eyes flicked back up to her when she spoke again, to catch the tail end of her threat. Sweat ran tracks down the scars of his cheek, dripped off his chin and onto his damp shirt. He swallowed, and nodded once. Her message was perfectly clear to him - when he could just be brought to heel at her whim, there was no escaping her wrath. Next time, the chains would tighten until they shattered his ribs.

It would be child’s play.

At first, he did not hear the large cat plodding closer, focused intently on not missing any important words from Nell. But the cat’s tail flicked in the corner of his eye, calmly and confidently as Taki circled, ears pointed at the pelt behind his legs. Dave turned to watch it too, his pulse racing. In this skin, he couldn’t watch both. He took a small step to keep his pelt behind him, out of reach, but overshot, and the metal chains bit into his muscle, pinching on some nerve that had his whole leg give way. He tried to catch his balance, but with his arms still pinned there was nothing Dave could do, barreling to the ground and managing to put just enough of a rolls into it that he didn’t crack open his shoulder. His teeth rattled as he hit the floor, every bone jarring. Dave cursed as he tried to push himself upright with his hand, skin flushing with fresh fear, what limited composure he had slipped away. With the chains pinning his thighs and torso, it was a near miracle he could push himself onto his knees.

Again Nell knew that an answer given while one was wrapped in chains didn’t mean much of anything. She was well-acquainted with what it was to give whatever promises you thought would save your life while it was at risk, had done it enough in her own time. But she hadn’t meant the question as sincerely the second time around, so she could handle his reply being unable to be taken at face value.

Taki, unfortunately, was taking advantage of Nell’s distraction with the selkie in front of her as well as the way her brow had drawn together in concentration. Before she’d realized that the Ovinikk was getting too close for comfort, Dave was tumbling to the ground, and Nell was giving another stern command to her familiar. “Taki, I said no!” But the overgrown pseudo-cat was like a dog with bone now that he saw his opportunity to find out if the pelt tasted as nice as it smelled. In a flash he’d darted forward on nimble paws to seize the pelt between his teeth, already dragging it back towards his bed in the greenhouse. “Taki!” Nell demanded in a louder tone, realizing the situation was quickly getting out of hand. A selkie pelt being taken. Hadn’t she just finished talking to Dani about how she’d never be so disgusting as to do such a thing? “Drop it, now!” The familiar fixed her with a long stare, as if weighing his options while doing his best to stay out of Dave’s limited reach. Finally— he dropped the pelt into Nell’s waiting hands, as if that had been his intention all along, and the decision to relinquish it was his and his alone.

Turning back to Dave, guilt had finally begun to pool into her features, a ugly feeling blooming in her stomach. “I didn’t mean to- Taki- he has a mind of his own sometimes.” This had officially gone too far. She looked onto Dave with his chains and injury, the most important thing in his life clutched between her hands that she’d been an accomplice to stealing...it was hard not to wonder if this was how she’d looked in her cage beneath the Ring, trapped but refusing to break. It was her past experiences with losing her power that drove her to seek to reclaim it however she could, but didn’t stealing it from someone else make her just as revolting as the people who’d done such a thing to her?

“I didn’t mean-” Nell repeated again, knowing an apology most likely wouldn’t be welcome. With a flick of her wrist the chains had disappeared from around Dave’s body, freeing him as she offered the pelt to the selkie in front of her, waiting for him to reclaim it. “I don’t want-” your pelt. But how could she admit to not wanting to hurt Dave without dissolving all the warnings she’d given of how she wouldn’t show mercy should he cross the lines she’d set? “Here- this is your’s.”

“No, no no NO!” Dave barked, twisting to try to push away the cat as it lunged for his pelt. Taki dodged around his falling body, Dave’s teeth snapped around thin air, and his fingers couldn’t catch his pelt as it was dragged away from him. “Don’t!” Like any well behaved familiar, it brought its prize to its owner, and Dave didn’t believe any of her insistences that this wasn’t her plan.

Dave’s terror was naked on his face as she hefted his pelt between her hands. At over seven foot long, one side dragging on the floor, it was comically large in her hands, but she held it, held him. Was this the last he’d see of it? Dave’s voice cracked roughly.

“Please.” Suddenly, he was no long above begging. There was a tiny smear of blood where the creature had bitten it, a smear that he knew would be matched on the back of his hip. The chains dissipated and Dave scrabbled to his feet, but he didn’t dare lunge at her while his pelt was draped over her arms. He found himself frozen, eyes fixed on the pelt and nothing else.

When offered, he snatched the pelt from her hands. Carefully, he ran his fingers over the lightly bleeding bite mark, not looking at her at all as his blood pounded in his ears. Not his, but him. Dave mustered every last lick of composure in him, carefully folding his pelt, his second soul, into his arms and held carefully against his chest so that none of it would drag against the floor. “I’m going to leave now,” he told her, as if he had any real say in the matter. It was meant to be a statement, but his feet stayed rooted in the ground. He was waiting for her permission.

Nell’s own face was stricken with revulsion as a piece of Dave’s bravery and pride chipped away with disgust climbing up her throat. She felt unclean at having been the root of the man’s desperation. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. None of this was what she’d wanted. Her desire to make sure she wasn’t next on Dave’s kill list had certainly lead them here, as well as feeling that a little show of power had been in order in case he got any murderous ideas along those lines— but maybe the problem with exerting your power was that you couldn't always control how far it went, couldn’t anticipate exactly how it might affect the person on the other side of it.

The blood on his pelt wiped away the harshness in her features, an apology in Nell’s eyes and dangling on the edge of her lips. She was certain he hadn’t wanted her help, the sureness coming from the knowledge that she’d never accept an olive branch if the positions were reversed. But she needed to do something to try and prevent the guilt from infecting her chest, the overflow from her gut attempting to find a place to drain into. “I can fix it,” she finally said, already angry at herself for offering, but also mad that she’d been the cause of the red droplets in the first place. Frustration was next on the docket while she was caught between the two places, her desire to fix and desire to be safe and protect those she cared about caught on the edges of one another. “Or even just...put a tincture on it.” She shifted uncomfortably as he spoke again, hating the way it felt like he was asking for permission. Normally she would have reveled in it had this been someone who was the worst of the supernatural, but Dave wasn’t that in the least. “There’s a river not that far,” she mumbled, suddenly a far cry from the hellbent interrogator that had summoned him here. Was that enough to give him back a granule of power in the imbalance she’d created? As if she were giving him the choice to go to it or not? This hadn’t been a win. Not in the least.

Dave shook his head at the offer, holding the pelt closer to his chest. He eyed her warily. The last thing he wanted was more magic touching him. She couldn’t fix this. There wasn’t anything to fix. She had made herself perfectly clear. A pint size murderess not to be messed with. If she needed to, she could destroy him or control him in a minute or less. Message received, loud and clear. Clear as a fucking foghorn.

She mumbled something that sounded like permission to leave, her features deflated and horrified. He didn’t know what that meant, and stalled even longer, trying to decipher her mood, but any answers jarred so much with what Dave now understood of her that he stopped trying. Absent of any attempt to stop his departure, he tentatively took a step towards the door, and then strode out, like he had never been there for anything other than a simple meeting. It wasn’t until he’d turned the corner and her eyes could no longer see him. His legs carried from a walk into a sprint. It didn’t matter whether it was a mile or five, but Dave didn’t stop until he plunged into the the river water. Here, the water held him more kindly than any spell could, and he could pretend, just for a little while, that she couldn’t pull him out of even this safe haven.

#// i plAYED MYSELF #I REGRET MY DECISIONS #IM SORRY DAVE #but also i love immo and dave #wickedswriting #chatzy #ch:dave #sibling death tw #sealed in

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