tushanshu | fourteen : taken away to the dark side [video]

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fourteen : taken away to the dark side [video]

[The room is dark and Hayley's face is only vaguely visible, lit only by the glow of the console's screen. She sounds tired, posting in the middle of the night. Someone paying really, really close attention might notice the Flash pajama bottoms she's wearing or the Superman cape, courtesy of Jor-El, strung about her shoulders like a blanket.]

I don't know if someone else already said this, but in case they didn't? Bart Allen and Kon-El are both gone. Back home, not missing.

[A beat.] Will someone bring me some food? I haven't really eaten for awhile.

[ooc: Assume Hayley's been ~~angsting~~ avoiding everyone for a few weeks. Feel free to assume check-ins or other interactions. I was hiatused a lot and am still slow, sorry!]

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[It's surprising to Hayley when she opens the door to find him with items in hand. Some part of her expected him to force her out of the house. The effort brings a small smile of relief to her lips.]

Hey.

[She stares at him for a beat before remembering the situation. Taking a step back, she opens the door wider to give him plenty of room and lifts one hand to gesture ambiguously within, a silent invitation ]

Hello.

[He steps inside, looks around, and lifts the brownie in the paper bag.] I'm afraid I'll have to insist on not leaving until you've eaten this.

It's not like I've been starving myself.

[She closes the door and holds out her hands to accept both offerings, if he'll provide them. Hayley moves to the living room of sorts to take a seat on the couch, expecting him to follow.]

So you and Solomon, huh? [Because their living together is way more interesting than her depression.]

[Skulduggery hands over the coffee and brownie.] If I recall correctly, your exact words were 'I haven't really eaten for awhile.' If I'm meant to take that as confirmation of your healthy eating habits, you may need to work on your word choice a little more.

[He very much disagrees about his unique living situation being more interesting than a friend's well-being, but you wouldn't know it to look at him. Of course, that could just be because it's difficult to tell when a living skeleton goes still.]

Yes?

"Awhile"- [She makes the air quotes and everything.] -could be like, two hours or something. Maybe you should ask before you assume.

[Hayley cringes immediately after speaking the words, because she realizes that he's the only one who did ask. And so she gives him the courtesy of dropping the light air of nonchalance for a moment and speaking truthfully.]

I wasn't starving myself. Time kind of blurred together and suddenly it was like a day later and I don't even know if I ate or slept. It's not that I wasn't eating at all? I just.. lost track of time, you know? [A beat.] I don't even know how long it's been since they left.

[He doesn't comment on the first part. He doesn't see a need to.]

I wasn't saying you were. [But then Skulduggery hesitates, observing her thoughtfully.] You lost track of time? Did that happen at the same time as your friends disappearing, or a little earlier?

[Tact can occasionally be one of his strong suits. This is not one of those times.]

[She frowns at him. The candor is refreshing. Hayley prefers the people who might be rude over those who walk on eggshells around her, people like Solomon and Skulduggery, even if she won't admit as much.]

It's not anything magical or whatever, if that's what you mean. [The girl lifts a hand to run along her brow before rolling her eyes.] I found out they were both gone and I just stopped caring about everything else for awhile. Then.. I don't know. I read and slept and hung out and whatever. I don't even know how I filled the time. It just passed.

Ah.

[There are also, occasionally, times when Skulduggery knows he should be tactful and doesn't quite know how to go about being so. It's not very often he has to comfort someone who's been depressed. Usually, the mental illnesses he deals with are much more destructive. Eventually, he just sits down and gestures toward the coffee.]

I have no idea how it tastes, but I have it on fairly good authority that it's good. What do you think?

[Hayley's all too willing to take advantage of the excuse to move on to a new topic. She lifts the coffee, blows on it, and takes a small sip. Not quite her usual, but not undrinkable.]

It's good, yeah. But I want to hear more about you and Solomon.

[A chuckle.] You do, do you?

[It helps in a not-quite-unexpected way. It's the exact sort of conversational turn-around Valkyrie would have used. That, Skulduggery suspects, is why he's a little more amiable about the topic than usual.]

What do you want to know?

[Hayley dons a smile equal parts mischievous and curious, continuing to sip at her coffee while he speaks. She returns the cup to the table in order to take a small bite of her brownie, watching the skeleton without fail.]

Everything? I mean, okay, I know you're a detective and he's.. a creepy sorcerer guy and I think you said something about how you used to work together? But I can't exactly remember and I don't really get why you seem to like each other and hate each other at the same time.

[Skulduggery nods. He doesn't point out that Hayley's genuinely smiling, or that Skulduggery himself could also be considered a 'creepy sorcerer guy,' or that he would hardly have used the word 'like'. He doesn't point out any of it because, as much as he might wish otherwise, none of it is relevant.]

We used to work together over three hundred years ago, yes. A man who could erase memories interfered. Wreath joined the Temple, which I'm sure you've heard all about by now, and the next time I saw him, he was preventing me from taking revenge on the man who murdered my family. Not for my own good, of course. More for his own amusement.

Then why do you like him or think he's a good guy?

[Solomon is, truly, the perfect distraction. With the pair of talking skeleton and shadow magic guy to keep her entertained, it becomes easier not to think about her first real kiss or the only guy who ever understood her disappearing. The subtle interrogation for information feels more like returning to her old roots and less like the over attachment that got her into this chasm of longing in the first place.]

[It takes him a very, very long time to answer that.]

Because victims of circumstance tend to make terrible decisions. It doesn't mean they aren't capable of doing good, if someone shows them a better way.

[He's not referring to himself, of course. Skulduggery has very little patience for digging men out of their own dug graves, and he'll be the first to admit it. Wreath has been a bit of an exception in recent weeks.]

[Just when she thinks he won't answer at all, Skulduggery replies with something that makes Hayley stiffen for a second. She stares at him, eyes narrowing a fraction as she tries to puzzle out what's in that potentially vacant yet working skull of his.]

What's wrong with the way he's doing things?

He hasn't told you about the Temple's ultimate goal, has he?

[Skulduggery shakes his head. Once upon a time, he might have leaped on the chance to tarnish Wreath's reputation in the eyes of someone who didn't know any better, but this time he couldn't quite justify it. After all, it wasn't as if the Temple would be able to affect anything here.]

You'll need to ask him. Hopefully, you can convince him he's wrong.

[Hayley takes another sip of her coffee as he speaks, leaning forward in eager anticipation of a great reveal- only for Skullduggery to chicken out. She frowns at him and shakes her head.]

Mm, come on. Tell me. If he hasn't told me already? That means he's not planning to and I need to know what I'm getting into here.

[Wreath almost definitely wasn't planning to tell Hayley anything. Skulduggery might even have said that, if it wasn't for what Hayley said next making him stiffen. He leans forward as well, skull tilted, immediately intent.]

What are you getting into?

[The tension builds between them, her gaze meeting his. They both continue to lean in towards each other, as if sharing in some great secret, but Hayley knows it's quite the opposite. Neither wants to share information without getting what they want to know. Unfortunately for Skullduggery, the girl has no qualms with lying and has become a bit of a pro.]

Well, okay, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone? But he said that maybe, if I work hard, he might be willing to teach me some of his magic one day. And, I mean, I really want to learn, but if there's something I should know or if it's dangerous or whatever, you would tell me, right?

[Hayley might be used to lying, but Skulduggery has over four hundred years' worth of experience catching liars. He can pick out immediately where she isn't being entirely truthful, partly because of the small cues in Hayley's behaviour and partly because he knows Wreath better than he generally wants to.]

Necromancy is addictive. It's easy power, and that makes it dangerous. The Temple is waiting for someone powerful enough to initiate their version of the Rapture, which involves murdering half of the world's population, and there is something very strange about Wreath being capable of teaching it to you in this dimension. Come to think of it, there's something very strange about his being willing. How much have you learned?

Addictive because of the power or addictive in some other way? [It's an important clarification. Hayley's confident - perhaps falsely so - in her own ability to control her power seeking ways, but the idea that it might be inherently addictive is uncomfortable to her. She doesn't really like being unable to control her own actions or choices.]

And Solomon isn't that powerful, right? Like, he's not the next Rapture guy or whatever? [The idea of a Rapture isn't particularly welcome and sounds all too akin to that cult with the mass suicide, but she won't be drinking the Koolaid. This is an entirely selfish learning experience.]

[She takes another sip of her coffee, staring at the skeleton, before she continues.] And uh, no offense, but it's kind of hard trusting a skeleton talking about the evils of necromancy. But you can relax. He hasn't actually taught me anything yet.

[That much is true, at least as far as she views it. Solomon has given her a shadow sphere to break and she's been interacting with it for months now without success. Mostly because she hasn't been trying. But he's not teaching her anything right now, just waiting for her to teach herself.]

[He's amused despite himself.] Well, to answer your first question first, the power is addictive. There are very few people who would willingly take up magic which feeds off death if it wasn't. It works in much the same way as a drug, complete with all the fun aftereffects of withdrawal.

[Not that many necromancers ever experience withdrawal. Sorcerers aren't exactly known for being able to let go of power even under the best of circumstances.]

Wreath is powerful, but no. [Skulduggery lies through his teeth.] He's not the next Rapture guy. If I'm right, in fact, he's rethinking that particular philosophy altogether.

Oh. [She's pretty sure Solomon left out the part about it feeding off of death. Clearly it wouldn't mean her own death, but she wasn't sure if that was a general thing or if it directly fed off of others. If the latter, could she choose who? There were important nuances to ask about later.

Being a skeleton made reading Skulduggery nearly impossible. His boney form lacked most of the tells and micro expressions of a normal human being. Something in her gut suggested he might not be telling the entire truth about the sorcerer. Hayley had no reason to doubt him, however; she had no reason to believe he would lie about something which might endanger her. Still, her eyes narrowed as she stared at him, searching for truth in the dark hollows of his eyes.]

You genuinely believe that he's rethinking it?

[That part, at least, was not a lie.] Yes. Believe me, it's surprising to me as well. If I were being brutally honest, I'd say he never really put his faith behind the Passage to begin with, but that it took being dragged here to make him realise it. [Head tilt.] So it's probably a good thing I'm not being brutally honest.

Wait- I don't even know what "the Passage"- [Air quotes again.] -is. Why didn't he believe in it?

[There was no better way for Hayley to get over her own misery than to distract herself with someone else's life or secrets. It was her personal addiction, in a way, and something she knew would never run in short supply.]

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