Monsters Inside [Archive]

[DragonSong]

"How the fuck should I know?!" She finally managed to jerk away from him, but he still had her pretty well pinned against the wall. "What makes you think these things are even related?" she demanded in frustrated exasperation. "You don't even know me."

She tried to slip around him, moving toward her pack that had once agin somehow found itself to a tumbled heap on the floor.

[Magyar]

"That doesn't seem to matter!" He snapped, exasperated, "Two days, it's been, and this happens. And they seem pretty connected. Yesterday, on the horse, when I did that... thing with your hair, right afterward you got all huddled and weird. Then," now he was ranting, flinging his hands in random directions at every third word, "you sit right back up like you saw a fucking ghost!"

He wheeled on his heels, turning his back to her. His shoulders sagged, and he sighed, letting out the battle tension he didn't know he was holding. "You talk in your sleep. There was a him, the first time, and there is a him now. And both of mine have been about family." He faced her again, and rested his hands on his hips, "It's not normal!"

[DragonSong]

"You've lost people you love!" She was shouting now, not even trying to keep her voice down. "Can't you understand that I don't want to talk about it?!"

Her arms were wrapped tight around her middle, claws digging firmly into the skin of her upper arms. She clenched her eyes shut and ducked her head, raven hair falling to hide her face while her horns glinted in the dim light. She was biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Why do you care?" she whispered, sounding almost defeated. "We'll do this job, get paid, and never see each other again. What do a couple dreams matter?"

[Magyar]

"Why doesn't it matter?" He barked, retaliating to her yell, "What happens, if we get into a fight, or we're undercover in the target's apartments, or hiding, and one of use has a fucking spasm because of it?! We're dead!"

"And if it's coming from you," he said as he walked over, "you have to be resolved. It's not like the area is bringing back foul memories. I do this route all the time, and this is the first time in sixteen years that something like this has happened."

He paused, and pried her fingers out of her arms. "Stop cutting yourself."

He drew back a strand of hair, and peered in. He wore a grimace, but his brow also knotted in concern, and he said quietly, "I know what it's like. Certain things only time can heal, but others you have to work through yourself. What happened?"

[DragonSong]

"I'm not-" It was only after he'd pulled her hands away that she realized she was bleeding. She jerked her head away from him but really couldn't get too far.

She twisted her head, trying to keep from meeting his eyes. "Nothing like that is going to happen," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I've been dealing with this for years and I've managed just fine. It's not my fault that you're having nightmares too."

"I've had time, Bolion. There are pains that don't heal, you just figure out how to keep living with them." She tried again to pull away. "And why should I tell you anything? You're a merc, like me. I know your type, why in the name of all the gods should I trust you?"

[Magyar]

"How long has it been for you?" Bolion asked, incredulous. "And what exactly is my type? You're telling me that you've met with and gotten to intimately know a person who reminds you of me? And I very much doubt we do this work for the same reasons."

He let her go, but twisted with her head. "Look at me damnit!"

[DragonSong]

"Three years." She hissed and jerked her head away from him. "It's been three years. And I know what people like us are like- we use information to survive any way we can."

Della kept her eyes downcast, but her stance was more of pain and anger than dejection or fear. "It's safer not to know anyone intimately. You should know that."

[Magyar]

Bolion snorted, and said, "Safer? Harder, yes, but I don't know about safer."

He readjusted his stance, cornering her to the bed. He was tired of chasing her around the room, enough of this. He smiled, but it wasn't mirthful, "I've had twenty. There's a difference between forgetting your pain and healing it. You'll never forget whoever it is you lost, but you can move on with your life. Besides, we both need real sleep... and this issue isn't going away."

[DragonSong]

Della glared at him as she bumped up against the bed and braced a hand behind her to make sure she didn't fall.

"My husband, alright?" Her voice broke on the word and she looked away, taking a breath to compose herself. "I lost-" No, that wasn't right. "He was taken from me."

She straightened up until they were almost nose to nose, lips curled back in a snarl and eyes flashing sparks. Electricity danced between her claw tips and she curled her hands into shaking fists at her sides. "Now will you get the hell out of my face?"

[Magyar]

"No." She stood very close to him, closer than he'd anticipated. The pointed tips of his ears began to heat up, and redden, but he matched her snarl with a tight lipped grimace, "How? Why? Was it because-" he gestured towards her horns, and then tail, "-of this?"

[DragonSong]

It felt like her heart was shattering all over again. "Yes," she hissed, fighting back tears. "Yes. Now will you please let it go?"

Once again her arms wrapped around herself and and bowed her head, determinedly not looking at him.

[Magyar]

"Hey, no! Stop doing that!" Exasperated, Bolion grabbed at her hands, pulling them away from her reopening cuts. He let her pull her hands away, but moved her hair with one hand and lifted her chin firmly with the other, "Look at me! Just tell me, what happened?"

[DragonSong]

She tried to jerk her head away from him. "What does it matter? It happened, it's over, he's gone!"

Her hands dug into the bed behind her, claws ripping through the bedding as she fought desperately to control the magic welling up in her chest.

[Magyar]

"It matters because you haven't dealt with this for three years. You haven't spoken to a single person about this, have you?" Bolion lessened his grip, but kept eye contact, "How did it happen Della? You've gotta tell someone, and I'm your best option right now. Hell, you said it earlier, we do this job and you never have to see me again, but you get it off of your chest. That's what you need, now come on. How did it happen?"

[DragonSong]

An instinct for self preservation warred with her sense of logic telling her that he might be right.

Her grip on the bedding behind her tightened and she kept her eyes tight shut. A face, a smile, flashed behind her eyes and she had to swallow a small, whimpering sob.

"Someone- where we lived...someone convinced the rest of the town that I was...unnatural. I was bringing a curse down on us," she whispered after several agonizingly long moments of silence. "The people were scared, they didn't know what to do. We tried to leave- we weren't fast enough."

She looked away. "They wanted me dead. Adrien fought back, and it cost him his life." Her eyes finally flicked to meet Bolion's, hard as steel. "The village is gone. I burnt it to the ground."

Maybe that would scare him off.

"Now, are we through? You feel better? Because I sure as hell don't," she spat.

[Magyar]

Bolion felt a deep sympathy, for this woman who was little more than a girl when tragedy befell her. He knew that pain. He knew it well.

"Nope. I still feel like shit and I'm exhausted. But" He let her go and bent over his pack, grabbing the teapot in one hand and rustling around in the burlap with the other, "I know what you need. Step one is out of the way, but you're still emotionally repressed. I was for a long time."He stood again, and tossed a metal flask her way, and opened the top of the teapot. "I was saving it for tomorrow, but I'll refill. It's tequila."

He paused, and said, "I feel sorry for the animals," then drank straight from the opened pot.

[DragonSong]

Della stared, unsure how to react. She lifted the flask to her nose, sniffed, made a face, and held it away.

"So did I," she murmured when his comment registered. Her lips curved in a weary, painful smirk. "Now you know what unchecked magic can do."

[Magyar]

"Oh trust me I know. I've blown up my fair share of buildings with the help of magicians. Now drink." He smiled at her face, but urged her anyway, "It gets better once you're drunk. Then it'll be worse for a while, but the end result is good. A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, or so they say."

He sat on the bed beside her and sipped his tea, content to watch. In reality, he was bracing himself for what he was sure was a flood of emotions, that he as the sober one would have to deal with rationally. But Della needed this, so he was willing to assist in the ways he knew how.

[DragonSong]

Della held her breath and tilted the flask back for a swig.

Immediately she started coughing, eyes watering. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and she choked out, "Gods... you like this?!"

Still coughing, she sat on the edge of the bed, scooching away from him a bit.

[Magyar]

"I hate it," he confessed, "But it gets the job done. I only drink once a year, but when I do, I do."

He watched her cough, and urged her again, "Keep going."