tunicaintima | Supernatural AU for Roland

Supernatural AU for Roland

[The little hamlet along the forest hasn't had a good time. Surrounded by magical creatures on all sides, they've decided to get a little... proactive in dealing with their problem. When night falls, hunters armed with crossbows and improvised weapons--hoes, shovels, and long hunting knives--come out to patrol.

This time, one of them's squaring off with one of the local werewolves. At this full moon, Firo's completely in wolf form, nearly indistinguishable from an actual wolf when he's not speaking.

The crossbow's been knocked aside, its string broken. The two circle each other, and then the wolf leaps for the hunter's leg to sink his teeth into it.

He's going to make sure that this hunter realizes it's best to leave the business.]

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Sure.

[He pushes himself to his feet and shakes out his joints. He debates changing so as to get there faster, but then there's the problem of his clothes...

And before he sets off, there is another question. Firo casts around the hedges for an exit, then decides that it's easier to just try to wiggle through in any old place. He grunts, fighting the brambles and branches.]

So are you plannin' on comin' with me or what?

What?

[And it still hasn't occurred to the shadow, their little problem. He really does have quite a lot on his mind.]

You can just leave like this, easy as that? You don't feel it?

[He feels it. The pull toward this place. He has always assumed that is a physical quality of this place but this, along with his new memories, whisper a suspicion that maybe it's only him. Maybe it's his own fault, all this.]

[Some of those thought processes might bleed through, bound as they are. Some sense of dismay, a squirming, avoidant feeling, a heavy guilt. The shadow tries to ignore it.]

Feel what?

[But as he tries to navigate around a particularly prickly branch, he feels it. It starts as a tug so faint that he assumes it's just resistance from the wall of plants around him. But when he tries to wriggle forward, it's like he's punching his way through a burlap sack--the feeling is fluid and yielding, but there's still some definite resistance in his way.]

All right, you wanna tell me what the hell's goin' on here?

[He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth.]

You gotta be kidding me. Are we still in that stupid dream?

No. This is-

[Then there's a memory which, likewise, might slip through - it might be familiar, too. A man in ragged clothes, stumbling along somewhere. His skin shines with sweat under the hot sunlight, and then it doesn't. Then it is night and he doesn't have skin anymore, he doesn't have clothes anymore, and he doesn't notice. He notices that it pulls him onward. Or maybe he pulls himself onward. Others hadn't seemed to feel that pull very much at all, had certainly found it easier to cry off, years ago. Years and years.]

[Fear shivers through him. Through what there is of him.]

You have to ignore it. Get back to your family. Now! One's enough for this task. It doesn't need to take two.

I don't even know what you're talkin' about!

[He could sort of formulate a guess based on that memory, but right now he doesn't want to spare the effort--the message of 'this is bad' is enough for him.

Nothing to help it now. He gives his head a shake and feels his bones stretch and crack; fours paws will make fighting this easier. Once transformed, he wiggles out of his human clothes, puts his head down, and pushes back.

Ignore it? Fine. But he's not ignoring this strange presence in his head, either, and he does his best to hold onto Roland. Maybe they could both get free--why not try, when this guy hasn't really done anything to him?]

[The shadow wants to look back behind him. Realizing that he can't is... strange. Curious. He wants to go back inside the clearing, as he always does. But he can't. He can not, at this moment, choose to go back. He can not choose to do anything. A large portion of his situation has begun to sink in. If he gets further from that clearing now, from what grows inside it, that's out of his hands. As are, at this moment, most things.]

[The shadows around the wolf that had been stretching backward, toward the place he's trying to leave, settle down, relax a little. He starts pushing himself outward. Not only a thought in the werewolf's head but maybe in his chest too, his limbs. He does not know what it will feel like. He does not know, really, that it will have any effect at all.]

When I did this before, it's always been fatal.

[He'll pull back if things seem to start going that way. He'll stay away from the boy's lungs for sure, to be safe. For now he'll explore. It does not occur to him to explain what he is doing; it does not occur to him to explain that clearing, or the feeling pulling him toward it, or anything.]

Have you been possessed before?

Possessed? Hell no!

[He doesn't know if he's imagining the tingling that rattles his bones and seems to reverberate through his body. He doesn't like it one bit, but he keeps straining.]

What're you tryin', huh? If you're gonna make this harder for me, just quit it. I'm tryin' to get you outta here too, you know.

Harder? Am I? Cry your pardon. Hm. If I'm right...

[And just like that he pulls his presence - almost a physical thing, not quite, almost - near-completely out of Firo's head. If he's right that it's been him all along, not the rose itself but him, once their minds are mostly separate the boy shouldn't feel that pull anymore. If the shadow's right, this pull came directly from Roland. Back when there was such a man. And it lived past him, pulls at the shadow even now.]

[Nevermind. The point is, once their minds are separate things should change.]

Better?

[The thought is faint, of course. Distant. Just enough to communicate with.]

...I think.

[Firo, true to form, isn't completely satisfied.]

What's happening to you? You sound like you're farther away.

[He sniffs, but he doesn't think you can really smell much of a shadow. And he still sees nothing when he looks around.]

I've left more of your mind, that's all. You'll have to tell me if this suits you any better, because I'm fairly sure I don't know how to leave.

Leave my head or leave this place? ...Don't answer that--I'm not gonna get a straight answer outta you ever, am I?

[Whatever. Firo has bigger problems--and so does Roland, because to Firo they're somewhat in this together. He gives his body a shake and darts forward, expecting to have to fight the pull--

--the pull that is no longer there. Firo crashes through the underbrush and nearly loses his footing on the other side.]

Roland? You there?

[He can't even tell where the boy is like this. He pulls himself a little further back into Firo's mind, curious, just in time to hear that name. He shudders as he hears it, and gods only know what Firo's mind will make of that particular sensation.]

You mean me when you use that name? Why?

[It's uncomfortable, feeling someone else shiver in you, and Firo shuffles his paws on the forest floor to try to get rid of the sensation. Experimentally, he bounds forward a few more steps.]

It's yours, isn't it? It was with... well, everything else you just put in my head. You don't like it? I could make up a name for you, but it's pretty inconvenient not having anything to call you.

[His surprise is probably clear. It's all in that feeling, the one that says if he had eyes he'd be widening them. If he had a face he'd stare.]

Call me?

[There's a memory now, one it does not occur to the shadow to keep hidden. A quick flipping through all the nights over all the years and all the mortals who'd never looked at him, or seen. They only try to speak to him when he's killing them. No point to it then.]

[This is contrary to everything he was expecting. The werewolf must be confused, and tone the shadow's thought is flavored with says as much.]

Why would you need to call one such as me for anything?

[Well, that's... weird. Firo's no stranger to death, but it's no comfortable feeling to have the guy in your head envision past murders.

Firo shakes himself off, as if he could shed the memory like droplets of water.]

Why the hell not? It makes it easier when we're talking like this. And what if I need to get your attention, huh?

[The voice is still there, so Firo starts into an easy jog. He doesn't want to lose his hitchhiker, but they do have places to go.]

You already have it. What else is there to focus on?

[Then he realizes the boy is moving. The shadow knows, of course, where he must be headed. What he doesn't know is why that destination makes him feel so unsettled, all a sudden.]

...Headed back to your pack, are you?

[Firo's tone is completely surprised. Why is this even a question? Roland doesn't even sound excited about meeting his pack, which is absurd.]

Yeah. Why, you didn't wanna come?

I-

[Suddenly, his reasoning occurs to him. He has little choice but think it - out loud, as it were - when it does.]

This is your family, not mine. I had my chance. You're a better man than I, returning to them. Best if you could do it without telling them what you've seen. I wonder, in here, if I could show your mind how to forget.

Hey, watch it! Don't get any funny ideas in there.

[Just the thought of what he's seen in the rose makes him want to sweat. But the rest of the memories are his and he doesn't need anybody's stick paws all over them.]

I wouldn't say I'm better. What else am I gonna go, huh?

You could go back. But if you couldn't remember how, wouldn't that be safer? Better for everyone involved? You, your pack most of all.

[And because, speaking with his own thoughts as he is, it is nearly impossible to lie:]

And the rose. Safer for it, too. If you'd let me try, there's a lot we could avoid before it bites me in the ass.

[If it were just about him, Firo'd immediately call bullshit. At the mention of his pack, though, he feels a twinge of anxiety.]

What would happen to my pack if I remember?

You might lead one of them back there. Or mention it to one who goes back to find it on their own. There's a reason I've been killing anyone who comes too close to finding it, you know.

[Firo snorts as he continues to lope along.]

What's that reason, huh? And don't you pretend for a second that it's for any of us.

[It must be selfish, Firo assumes, though he's not sure why even this weird shadow thing would want to keep the rose to himself. ]

[If he had shoulders, he'd shrug. At this juncture it's possible Firo's own shoulders might tickle - or whatever the equivalent feeling is when someone else inside is trying vaguely to move them, more out of impulse than actual attempt at control.]

You all benefit, don't you? Given that, do my reasons really matter?

You saw me. You know what I am, more completely than anyone living. You know what my- my family. My family-that-was. What they suffered. What risk would you take, Firo Prochainezo, to save them from that? From this?

[At that last word, the shadows around them spread. They race in front of him, slide up the trees and, with the cover of the branches, make a strong attempt at blocking out the sky.]

So if I remember, all that could happen to my family?

[Can he trust this guy? As far as Firo knows, Roland hasn't yet lied to him, and Roland has helped him out a couple times in their short acquaintanceship. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't turn on Firo in an instant, but Firo does have to take it into consideration. Plus, what would Roland gain from lying to Firo on this?

Near as he can tell, the price is worth averting the risk of potentially hurting his family so badly.

Firo stops, raising his face to the shadows above him.]

All right. So what do you need to do?

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