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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[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.]

The Passage. The necromancers' version of the Rapture.

[Skulduggery would have thought that was obvious. But then, people always seemed to get stuck on the more obvious points.]

I don't know. This is all conjecture on my part. If you want the specifics of his belief, you'll need to talk to him, not me.

[Hayley tilts her head and rolls her eyes as if to say: 'oh, duh, that's obvious' in response to his first clarification. She takes another bite of her brownie to make herself feel better for missing something so obvious. To the latter, she gives a modest and almost entirely insincere smile.]

Yeah, of course. I will. [Despite her false smile, her words are honest. The girl has every intention of talking to the Necromancer to learn more about him, his beliefs, and the church or whatever that he serves. She'll also take everything Skulduggery says with a healthy dose of skepticism, given that he's a talking skeleton. Fair or not, Hayley was biased towards the attractive magician over the skeletal detective.]

So you think the Temple is the wrong way of doing things. [She takes a sip of her coffee, holding up a finger for a second to indicate she wasn't finished.] Mm. You think the Temple's the wrong way, but you wanted to murder the guy who killed your family, right? Why not go to the police or whatever?

[For better or for worse, Skulduggery's still amused.] What police? The ones who fly in on broomsticks with flashing lights on their tails? I am the police, Hayley. I'm the closest thing to law enforcement sorcerers have. When cold-blooded murder occurs, I'm the one they send in.

[It wasn't true, strictly-speaking, but it was true enough. Skulduggery was the only one who could have done anything about Nefarian Serpine - especially since, by the end of the war, he was the only one who cared.]

My employers granted him immunity once they signed their peace treaty. I appealed to them many times to change that decision, but they had this very strange notion that I might be ever-so-slightly biased. I can't imagine why.

[His attitude doesn't perturb her in the slightest and, instead, she wears the same false smile. Hayley takes another sip of her coffee as he talks about the peace treaty and being biased, unsure what to make of him really.]

You don't agree with Necromancy, but you're all for cold-blooded murdering a cold-blooded murderer? [She tilts her head in a mixture of genuine curiosity and slight mocking. It's hard to tell whether Skulduggery is being hypocritical or not when she continues to know so very little about the pair of them overall and to believe even less.]

[There are many excuses Skulduggery's used over the years - and there are even more he could use with Hayley. She's never had loved ones murdered in front of her, as far as Skulduggery knows - she has very little right to be making judgements.

But she isn't making judgements. She's asking a question.]

In my defence, I tried to arrest him. But he tried to kill an associate of mine, and I was forced to kill him to save her. There are people who are completely irredeemable, Hayley, and that man was one of them.

[In a rare glimpse into Hayley's often unspoken views, she responds by simply taking another bite of her brownie. With very little change in her nonchalance, she looks up to meet what should be his gaze, eyes burrowing into the dark emptiness of his skull. What was a fake smile seems ever slightly more sincere now.]

I think it's cool, that you can do what's needed to make sure the monsters aren't allowed to hurt anyone else.

[He has to admit, he wasn't expecting that.]

You're a very wise young lady. Don't let it go to your head.

[Hayley's smile slips into something modest and yet amused, covering for a very well hidden arrogance that the average person would miss entirely. She dips her head in a subtle gesture of acceptance.]

Thanks. Not everyone here would agree. I mean, about the killing.

Which is odd, don't you think? I've been given to understand that the magic which brings us here is incredibly discerning, but it seems to be the exact opposite in practice.

[It's also, however, just as odd that Hayley holds an attitude like that, given her age. Did she have direct experience with the choice, or with someone who had to make it? Skulduggery might have asked, if Hayley's state of mind wasn't as delicate as it was.]

[She shrugs, her smile fading into something softer. The thought of what causes that kind of hypocrisy brings her back to why she has been feeling so awful in the first place.]

A lot of the heroes are delusional. Most of them believe in fighting, but they like to think there's another option besides killing. Only, this time, I don't think there is.. and I don't know where that leaves them.

[Her gaze drifted down to her coffee at the memory of Bart and Kon, trying to think what they might have done. Bart would have insisted there was another way. Kon would have agreed with Hayley in wanting to kill it. She was pretty sure about both. That she knew them well enough to guess only hurt more.]

Unless there is another way. But I don't think the magic's really that discerning, you know? Or else why would people like me be here? I mean, not that I'm useless or anything, but I'm a teenage girl who didn't have any superpowers or magic or anything.

Really? Wreath agreed to teach you necromancy on a whim, did he?

[Skulduggery points it out casually, like no big deal has to be made out of it. If the magic is as discerning as he's been led to believe - well, then there has to be a reason each individual is taken. And if that's the case, then that reason wouldn't have anything to do with magic or ability to fight. It would have more to do with potential, with attitude, with willingness to fight.]

There may well be another way. If there is, I'll consider it. If killing this thing were as easy as... well, as killing it, then I'm sure someone else would have managed it by now. We may be forced to get creative.

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