TRACK 13
I don't think you understand
There's nowhere left to turn
Walls keep breaking
Time is like a leaf in the wind
Either it's time well spent
Or time I've wasted
(Telescope- Cage the Elephant)
********
"...What?" Jim asked, quite shocked by the news. For a moment the Trollhunter could do nothing but stare at him in puzzlement. "Why?"
"For general precautions," merely replied Douxie, a decidedly unclear answer to which he bit his lower lip after a short time. "They're not bad. They are just a bit snobby, most of the time."
Archibald made a sour noise, "The kind of snobs that, in case of being humiliated or feeling disgraced, well, there's a chance they'll rip your head off. But, yeah, just that."
Jim stiffened, opening his eyes wide as an icy chill ran down his spine.
"Which is why I'm going to do everything I can to avoid upsetting them," retorted Hisirdoux, returning to the rune bracelet. "We waltz in the Nest, discuss properly, and then waltz out. All as politely as possible..."
"What kind of precautions?" Asked Nari instead. This before suddenly smiling, letting out a silvery high-pitched laugh, snatching confused expressions from everyone. "It has something to do with the Sealed Emblem, doesn't it?"
Douxie froze in place and stared at her in total silence, the expression of someone who had been caught in the act. Then he barely sighed and chuckled in return, bringing a hand to his neck. "...Yeah. Guilty of that," he admitted. "For the Emblem, Nemain's Lair, and everything connected with it... And yes,there are more pressing commitments, but... I'd like to avoid even that one becoming worse than it already is. Cutting a problem almost at its roots wouldn't be so bad, for once. And finding allies would do just as well."
"But why from Vampires?" Claire asked with puzzlement."If there are so many other creatures, why go to them at all?"
"Especially if, precisely, they are ready to tear your head off for so little," Jim added with a blatant grimace.
"Well... we know that they would not so easily ally themselves with a community that intends to kill all of humanity,"replied Archibald simply. "They are Vampires. Logically speaking, fewer humans equals fewer blood bags that can befound in hospitals as survival resources. They appreciate the blood of animals, Mages, and some other magical creatures, but still, it would mean more effort in hunting," a pause. " Emotionally speaking, some Vampires are still connected to the past humanside. Especially among those in Nests, there are rules they cannot abstain from. The traveling ones, often feral, are a different matter, but yeah, they are not the ones we are aiming for."
"Most Mages, at the moment, cannot be trusted,"Hisirdoux's face darkened, but then he shook his head. "And even the ones I do trust, well, they're too far away to request their help face to face," a pause. "And okay, by phone it would be possible. And I could try giving it a shot, but..." he shrugged. "There would still be three, maybe four from Arcadia Oaks, one of which is busy in Greece at the moment... Two from Colombia, one from Japan, and one from England. Eight Wizards total."
"Few if you count the army they are forming," Claire ended by saying in a half-voice in a troubled tone, causing Douxie to nod.
Jim narrowed his eyes. The mental image of a huge army of magical creatures pouncing on a small group of twenty or so sparse members led him to chase away some of his perplexity towards the subject of Vampires. Just part of it. The idea of having someone around who, just out of irritation, could kill you out of the blue... was quite unpleasant.
As creatures in horror movies, he had never liked them. To make matters worse, the idea of bleeding to death was terrifying in his eyes. Not as much as being taken away by a Stalkling again or by drowning, at this point, but still.
"I'll try anyway, but all in all the chance of someone seriously accepting is rather low. Which is pretty normal, all things considered, but you never know. At least I am sure that those wouldn't take the opposite side," another pause, albeit rather brief. "Among the other creatures, there could perhaps be other options... But I would have almost nothing as a guarantee to be held to account by them, except for some nicknames and a little more. The Vampires won't even necessarily do that, let alone the others,"he waved his hand as if trying to shoo away an annoying fly. "But Archie and I will go down quickly, catch up with the Clan, and... whatever. End of the story, at least for a while."
"No, wait," intervened Jim, as if awakening out of the blue, the mental image shattering, catching the meaning of the last sentence albeit with a slight delay, as shock took hold of him again."Are you going there alone?"
"...Yes?" Douxie looked back at him with an arched eyebrow. "It will take a couple of hours at most if there are no setbacks."
Jim could not hold back a contrite expression, feeling a sudden frustration flare inside him. He did not even try to hide it, making his opinion toward the choice obvious, while an upset mood continued to stir in him. He did not know exactly what was feeding it. He only knew that it was there and he drastically rejected Douxie's idea, seeing it as extremely wrong.
...Or, maybe, he did know. He didn't want to make the same mistake as that morning . He really didn't.
The look he gave him was received loud and clear, as immediately Douxie showed an even more confused expression than before.
"You can't go alone!" Jumped in Claire almost instantly, before Jim could comment something akin to a 'no way.' "Something could go wrong."
"What..." Douxie raised his hands in front of him and took a step back. "Look. I know their usual kind of attitude. And I already have garlic, rice, some ash stakes, and hawthorn. I don't have the rosehips and the vervain, but I would say the ones I named previously are enough to defend myself. And Archie is with me," he said, letting a sigh escape. He then repeatedly passed his gaze over both of them. "This kind of thing is nothing new for us. And you already have enough to worry about. Adding problems to your list is not something I should be doing."
"You're adding them to yourself, though," Claire found herself saying with a furrowed brow, crossing her arms. She, too, was showing a lot of disapproval.
"Yes, that's true. But it's not a new thing there either. It's habitual multitasking."
"We can defend ourselves if that's the problem," Jim intervened in a dry tone, the words slipping from his mouth without any kind of brake. They had been so instinctive that they almost caught him off guard. He forced himself to take a couple of breaths to calm down a little.
"I'm not questioning that. Not at all," retorted Hisirdoux with something serious in his tone of voice and at the same time seemingly concerned in his expression. "That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
The raven-haired boy brought two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "It's pretty simple... I mean, if you were to go against every little issue that I go and dredge up out of the blue that doesn't have a damn thing to do with the main mission, you're just going to end up wasting precious time and energy. This is not something you should do. Nari is more important and the Arcane Order is more dangerous than anyone else. Vampires and me wanting to meet them? Nothing you should waste your rest hours for."
"He's saying that you shouldn't follow his example," commented Archie, shifting his glasses up with his paw. "The typical philosophy of if one jumps down a cliff, you don't have to do that too, " a moment of silence. "In all honesty, though, I don't appreciate the idea of going into the Nest either. Not all the leaders are like Bastian, you know. And being there, just the two of us... might be more harmful than being, perhaps, five."
Douxie looked at him crookedly. "Don't start that again, I beg of you," a pause in which he raised an eyebrow. "Besides, you're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am and always will be," Archibald asserted firmly. He rubbed against his neck, already removing the slight irritation from Douxie's gaze, which softened. He went to scratch behind his ears affectionately. "But exactly because I am, I would be also glad if you would avoid putting yourself in uncomfortable positions, especially against such fickle creatures."
The boy said nothing to this sentence, continuing to run his fingers through his fur. The reason why the Dragon resumed speaking almost immediately before anyone else could.
"And remember that I have been instructed to stop you if you come up with potentially nonsense hazardous plans."
"Nope. No, I didn't hear that. You just did not." Hisirdoux said with something like exasperation in his tone, rolling his eyes.
Jim could imagine him-just by looking at his expression-raising his arms and covering both his ears, shouting 'la-la-la-la' like a kid. "It's not funny."
Archie kind of smirked at him. "It is."
Douxie huffed. "In that case, anyway ... Both of you know that you should bind and gag me to stop me. I'm gonna run like hell." He stopped stroking him, lowering his arm. "Still, this is not a nonsense one. And I don't think it would end that badly... We've gone through much worse..."
"If you mean the damn Leviathan, that doesn't count. We didn't have any problems at that time."
"What the heck is a Leviathan?" Jim questioned. And stopped himself by asking which problems they had, too, assuming that he meant the whole 'Arcane Order threat'.
"A Leviathan is a Sea monster," Archie answered."Nothing you would like to meet, I assure you."
"Yeah," Douxie sighed, cringing. "...I bloody agree."
"Let us help you," Claire returned to insert herself into the conversation, causing Jim to nod in turn quite firmly. "We're already involved anyway, aren't we?"
Hisirdoux was silent for a couple of seconds. "Yes, but..."
Nari suddenly approached him, managing to interrupt what he was about to say only with her presence. The half-goddess smiled at him. "I can be your second Guarantee if you need it."
"What..." Douxie opened and closed his mouth, staring at her as if she had slapped him. "But you shouldn't..."
"Yes. I shouldn't leave Camelot for everyone's safety. But you don't need me to have it," Nari first tapped two fingers on the fabric of one of his gloves, tearing him a stunned expression. Then, after a couple of seconds of silence in which they looked at each other without saying a word, she grasped his hand gently with both of her own.
"Pars mihi tecum. Sacramentum." She said softly, totally incomprehensible to Jim, but which the Wizard seemed to understand as he nodded, responding cautiously, almost in a whisper and probably in the same language. "Pars tui mecum. Approbatio."
And a bright green light went to illuminate their fingers, climbing over them in fluid movements, going then to focus on the black cloth alone and only.
When Nari let go of it, over the entire glove was a weird kind of mark that seemed to move on itself, even though it was practically laced to the fabric.
"They will not question your words. And it will increase your impact on them," she asserted then, taking a step back.
Douxie watched the spell for several more seconds. "I... Thank you," he murmured, almost trying to bow, but stopping halfway before he could do it.
The half-deity smiled at him even more, appearing radiant. "It's a pity that my localization is only blocked by the barrier. I would have liked to meet some of them again, too," she said after a while, once again catching them all off guard.
"Have you met any yourself?" Jim asked, every second passing a little less surprised after asking the question. She was a demigoddess after all. Who knew how many creatures she had seen before.
"Several, yes. They are interesting and very intelligent. I don't know how much they have evolved since I last saw them, though."
Hisirdoux looked straight into Nari's eyes unreadably for several seconds. Then he sighed and laid his gaze on them as well, his nose wrinkled, but only briefly. He returned to Archie and the half-deity fairly quickly.
"Master Merlin hates them..." he commented dryly, taking a big breath. "Even just letting him know that I plan to go and meet them... " he grimaced, not completing the sentence. "Let alone if anyone else goes with me. The perfect recipe for disaster," a pause, with a dark chuckle. "Prepare the coffin."
"We simply won't tell him, then," asserted Claire, moving a few steps forward, her arms still crossed. "If he doesn't know, he can't get mad at anyone."
Douxie said nothing to this. He did not make even the slightest sound. Jim almost expected to hear him refuse in short order and have to insist in turn. He was already psychologically prepared to have to do that.
But he rather started to walk around the perimeter of the room, moving around nervously at a quick pace. He had his hand under his chin and the expression of someone who was thinking hard about something, to the point that Jim almost asked himself how his brain hadn't already melted. He followed him with his gaze, his brow furrowed, waiting.
"So?" Asked Blinky, for the first time in the whole conversation. He had remained in total silence earlier, listening and watching each of them. His voice was enough to stop the Wizard in his tracks, leading him to interrupt his restless comings and goings. "What would be the decision made, Mr. Casperan?"
It was strange to Jim that he was calling him by his last name, with 'Mr.' in front of it. It seemed like the wrong term. One to be given to an adult, not to him. Like Mr. Strickler or Señor Uhl.
'But he is an adult,' he found himself thinking, almost surprised by the same thought. ' He hardly seems one. Not even by attitude. He seems responsible enough, but not a centuries-old kind of adult.'
The raven-haired boy -man? No, it was too weird- let slip first a grimace, going to bite his lip, and then suddenly grinning a bit, utterly shocking him by the unexpected change of expression. "Even if I said no, I doubt anyone would listen to me... So at this point, it's okay, I think," a small pause. "Buckets , you lot are stubborn."
"Guess we are," Jim said, ending up smiling back at him. By the look on her face, Claire was cheering internally, too.
"Pot, meet kettle." Archie quipped to his Wizard -making him roll his eyes- before looking at them. "But you're all going to have to listen carefully to what you don't have to do, or this is going to end very badly rather quickly," he said, his expression almost stern. The kind that refused negative answers of any type.
"And not every one of you is coming. Someone has to stay in Camelot to increase security and to warn us if anything happens,"concluded Douxie. "I understand wanting to help out, but going down and leaving no one behind is insane."
"Agreed." Jim and Claire said it in chorus. Nari simply widened her smile and Blinky nodded.
********
"I have two questions," jumped up Toby, once everyone was back in the room after there was yet another Castle jump, leading Merlin to take Nari away from them. And after that they had waited almost five minutes since his disappearance, to be one hundred percent sure before they properly set about recapping the matter, line by line, already dividing up some of the tasks at hand to be done. "The first one is... Why the rice?"
"If you give them a bag full of rice, whatever they're doing, they'll stop from doing it and start counting the grains from first to last," Douxie said in a partially absorbed voice, his hands intent on sharpening wooden stakes with a not-so-sharp magical knife."It's instinct. And part of their nature. They do it even if they don't want to."
"So if they wanted to attack, just throw rice at them to stop them?" Asked Claire incredulously.
"Yes and no. They are much quicker to count than you would think. And by the time they finish doing that, they might be pissed off to death at whoever used this trick. They'll feel humiliated... So it's not something I would recommend doing except in a desperate situation."
"Being on their blacklist is not very nice. They can be quite vindictive," Archibald quipped.
"Oh," Toby chuckled nervously "...Sweet."
"...Jim, how long for the hawthorn?"
"Almost done, I think," he replied, continuing to mix the juice from the fruit and leaves in one bowl. "It's turning yellow like you said..."
"Good. When it gets completely yellow, just call it," Hisirdoux returned to look at Toby. "The second question?"
"What do you mean by Guarantee?" He asked, settling back in his seat a bit better to be fully comfortable. "I can only think of things related to banks."
"No, definitely not financial insurance related," Douxie smirked, restraining himself from letting out a little laugh. "A Guarantee , in this case, is being a recognized figure, enough to be taken into consideration by the audience you interact with. Doing something, good or bad, that you are remembered for. So that you spread your name around."
"For Mages, his main Guarantee is being Merlin's Apprentice," Archie rubbed up against him. "But few other creatures may actually care about it as a fact, counting that he is not Merlin Ambrosius himself."
"Well, thank God," Claire murmured-Almost no one heard her, as her voice was covered by the blond boy immediately after.
"You mean, having it is like being a VIP?" Steve intervened, leading Douxie to arch an eyebrow and stop sharpening his stakes for a couple of seconds. He would never have called it that before, but indeed it was, somehow. Someone with a Guarantee was an important being in the eyes of a species. As a threat or as an ally, even if they had never met properly.
"You could say that, yes," Hisirdoux resumed his work.
"I want to have a Guarantee too, then!" Steve said, enthusiastic to say the least. "VIP Steve, the legendary Creepslayer!"
"Being known by other magical creatures can be both a blessing and a curse," commented his Familiar, waving his tail and sniffing, rubbing against him again, and then going to perch on his crossed legs.
"In this case, we hope it's a blessing," asserted Douxie in reply, placing the twelfth sharpened stake on the table, stroking Archie under the chin, snatching purrs from him, and shortly thereafter making another piece of wood appear in his hands just like he had with the others, using the bracelet storage. A tune played softly in the background. He started to work on the wood rather quickly. "It should be, at least," he muttered.
"What did you do to become known among the Vampires?" asked Claire curiously, then returning to the partially minced garlic.
"... I helped Bastian Kühn, a leader of one of the Nests. He's kinda famous among them. That's all," he shrugged. "We helped each other, to tell the truth. The story is... quite long." A very short pause. He immediately tried to block out the series of questions about the details that would possibly arise. "Briefly said, we both decided to fight against someone who needed to be knocked down a few pegs. And Archie and I lived with his Clan for almost a decade."
He didn't want to go into specifics. He did not want to deal openly with who they had bothered and why the two of them had met, exactly. Or in the second case, he would have to deal with the rest as well, and the questions would have moved more and more dangerously.
They would have headed more and more in Nique 's direction. He did not want to think about him. Not again.
'It was all your fault, ' the little voice whispered in his ear. This snatched a grimace from him.
They had fallen silent for a while with the new goal to accomplish, but they had not disappeared. Touching specific events would only bring them all back with overbearingness.
"And didn't you feel in danger living among them?"
"Sometimes, but not even that much. Being Bastian's friends, everyone was kind enough with us. Some because they were, some because they didn't want to make him angry. Of course, there were a few exceptions to the rule, but... No big deal."
A smile came to his face as he recalled evenings spent sitting in the room behind the library hall in Vienna's Nest, a stack of volumes between his legs and a single book in his arms.
There he had peppered Bastian with endless questions. He had asked him so many things about his species and the past, the distant relationship they had had with the Wizards, even though it had not lasted, it seemed... And the Nest Chief had not been bothered by it. He had responded to everything.
He had offered him and Archie food. A safe dwelling. Protection from members of his Clan even... And from the outside world. The knowledge needed to live in peace with them. A shoulder to cry on in hard times, though he had never allowed himself to open up to him completely.
Not a friend-with-benefits, though Bastian knew a lot about him and accepted it, a fact that was not taken for granted by Douxie. Never a friend-with-benefits, not even on the coldest nights of his life. Not even when the emptiness had set in, oppressive to the point of making it difficult for him to avoid agonizing between the blankets in a sea of sweat, panic assailing him, and the urge to scream locking between his lips.
He had always restricted himself to holding Archie close to him, not wanting to be touched in any way by anyone else. Although one or more allusive offers had been there. Bastian had always passed them off as cheap jokes and nothing more, but Douxie had read them differently. It was hard not to with the languid glances he had given him at times.
Nine years of being there had flown by. Some parts of him had almost wanted to stay, but he had chosen for various reasons not to. Bastian's feelings had been one of them, perhaps the most important. The one that had convinced him completely. Since there had been no cell phones in 1952, he hadn't even had to invent an excuse to avoid staying in touch with him through messages. And they had no telephones either.
'You ran away like a coward. That's the only thing you're capable of,' whispered the little voice in his head again.
It wasn't true. It wasn't true at all. It wasn't . He had left to avoid deceiving him. To avoid using him, since he did not feel the same way, but it would have been so easy to throw himself into his arms to accept the reassurance, affection, and attention he offered. He had been important to him and Douxie had not wanted to -he could not, no. He would have hated himself even more if he did- let himself be lulled by such a feeling, hurting him throughout the whole process.
'You could have sent him letters, at least. It wouldn't be surprising if he hated you for this.'
"It's yellow," said Jim, leading Douxie to stand up. He left the stake on the mattress and looked at the work done with all his attention, putting aside yet another thought. The color of the mixture was right. The consistency, too. The smell was no less.
He found himself nodding quickly, smiling at him. "Perfect. Amazing work. Now let it rest for a moment. The garlic?"
"Finished chopping," Claire replied, showing the well-cut pieces.
"Put it in the bag where the hot water is, please."
Claire did as requested. Douxie went back to grabbing the ash wood and finished sharpening that too rather quickly, setting it down immediately afterward. One of the thirteen leaning against the table was grabbed by Steve, who almost started shaking it right and left. A stern expression from Archie and Blinky led him to lean it back on the table, whistling as if nothing had happened.
"In about ten minutes it should be ready to strain and combine with the hawthorn. Now we have to decide who's coming and..." he looked at his old clothes, rolling his eyes. They did not fit for this occasion. Fuzzbuckets, they truly did not. "Find or create fancy clothes with high necks."
"Fancy clothes?" Jim gave him an incredulous look.
"They're snobs." Said Archibald in turn, with complete nonchalance. "To go there without making a good first impression even in clothing is gonna end by being looked down upon or rather seen as a way to offend them. Those cloaks are fine, but most of them don't have hoods. Armor is no good, but swords can be kept, although they do nothing unless they are soaked in anti-Vampire substances."
"Plus, hair must be in order, possibly lacquered. Etiquette in view. A rune of connection of bodies to be ready to communicate in case of danger..." At the general puzzled expression, he hurried to continue the speech. "I'll explain later what it is before I cast it... " he said, receiving nods. "All the things not to do should be well in mind. And that's how it should go." He shrugged, going to fiddle with the rune bracelet again.
"...Okay," a pause in which Steve seemed to digest it with a rather surprised look printed on his face. "That sounds like a big mess."
"It is," agreed Archibald, taking a quick look at the window. It was pitch black outside. The sky in Shenyang was almost dark if not for the moon, but completely cloudless, totally different from what had been there before.
"You have plenty of time to back out if you reconsider,"said Hisirdoux, mentally focusing on the old stored comb, making it appear in his hands with a couple of notes in the process, resting it beside him.
"Not a chance," blurted out Jim, somewhat even more convinced, at the same time that both Claire, Toby, and Steve agreed with him silently, but expressively speaking. This however did not mean that no small comments were showing their rejection of the offer right after.
"... I figured as much. But we might as well point it out anyway. Just in case. So let's quickly decide who's coming and who's not. Then we proceed in what to do," he paused, going back to the search again, causing a small tune and looking for anything that might have paper in it. The old sketchbook landed in his fingers, almost making him hold his breath.
He gulped, then tore off a few blank pages before kicking it in a second time. He looked around for a feather to smudge in the ink so he could write on it, but Toby handed him a ballpoint pen. He thanked him and almost immediately began to draw a line on the paper that divided it into two columns about halfway down. The whole group went to get closer to him to peek.
"First point, the most important one. Escape,"he said in a half voice, looking at Archie, who nodded, definitely agreeing with him. The others did the same. "Calculating that the possibility of them having anti-magic metals is quite high and that we need to balance the defense in the castle..." he shifted his gaze to Claire. "It would be best for you to stay here with the rune connection."
Before the girl could retort in any way, he hastened to clarify. "It would only be a partial stay here. In a way, you would jump from one place to another smoothly thanks to your portals, allowing us to leave unscathed." a small pause, in which she nodded, though not entirely convinced, but letting him continue. "If they visualize you right away, there is a risk that they will bring out the anti-magic material. They are already likely to do so after they see me. If there are two of us, we raise the odds sky high."
"And the rune you mentioned..."
"It will warn you if we are in trouble, just as you can warn anyone with the other side of it."
Claire looked at him with a puzzled expression. "How does that work?"
"Basically, you and someone from the group that will be with me in the Nest will have the runes of Body, Union, and Perception drawn on the backs of your hands. They will allow you to share feelings of touch in the area to which the rune extends. Using signals, similar to Morse ones, to say danger or all right should be easy... However, there is no need to worry about them afterward, you will just need to rinse your hands with saltwater to remove them."
"Oh." The girl already seemed more convinced, brightening just barely. "All right."
"Wait... Before properly answering... I doubt it, at this point, but it's always better to question this..." She looked at him, confused. "Do you have any kind of problems with seeing or shortly feeling blood?... Not your own," he added, seeing all the Guardians of Arcadia stiffen a bit.
"It is I who create the rune and graft the power to give it life to avoid giving up constant energy, so it is I who must offer it," they still looked at him, though a bit worriedly this time. "A little cut on the finger and we're set."
"...No need for great sacrifices or the kind of stuff you see in films?" Steve questioned.
"Nope."
'Not in this kind of enchantment, at least.'
"I have no problem with blood. I'm in," Claire said, unruffled. He nodded at her, and then he wrote her name in the left column, adding a line with dashes in the direction of the right one.
"Uh... But wouldn't that be a problem with Vampires?" Asked Toby nervously.
"The blood is absorbed by the rune itself, so no. There will be no smell on it," a pause. "Second point... The other side of the connection is someone who can make a definitive judgment about the moving of the situation. There is a possibility that we will be split up in the meeting with the Chief. It would be better not to, but the possibility is there anyway. The second person must be aware of everything that is going on and must consequently have a fairly clear mind and..."
'And the whole Herds Instinct, possibly... No, it would not work. It's been... What, two days and something? Too little... Maybe another rune, instead, then? Or maybe a magical object. Guess I'll ask first about that, later.'
He frowned and laid eyes on everyone in the room. "Jim? Is that alright with you?"
He barely made it in time to see his face tinge with surprise as he opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted before he could manage it.
"Come on, no, why Lake? I wanted to do it!" Exclaimed Steve out of the blue, tearing up a sigh from him and causing the others to assume skeptical expressions.
"Really, Steve?" Retorted Claire in exasperation, glaring at the blond. He pouted.
"I wouldn't be so bad," Steve muttered.
"A very, very high emotional connection would help the rune itself," he told him as gently as possible. "Romantically healthy relationships are one of the strongest connections there are, so it would help further."
He returned to look at Jim. He nodded almost immediately. "I have no problem with blood, either," he said. And so Douxie wrote his name in the column on the right.
"So what do I do?" Murmured the blond, partly in a depressed tone.
That was certainly a good question.
Leaving him at the castle seemed the obvious answer, though... If one stood at full defense, with most of the anti-vampire weapons... Two stood with Claire at the castle... Aaarrrgh's size would have attracted too much attention and he couldn't be sure there was no one around not to notice him -and he had no invisibility potions. The spell, yes, but he would have come out of it with probable momentary physical dysphoria. Using the illusive potion could work, but they couldn't take the shuttle or he'd have to explain the situation to Merlin at least a little, so it was up to Archie to transport them. Aaarrrgh wasn't light to carry- so it was one of the two, sure as daylight. Although defensively he would have been the best one.
That left Blinky, Toby, and Steve. One of the three had to stay on... But who? The easiest solution would have been the blond. It was too dangerous and he was still budding... But giving him a chance didn't seem unfair, though. If he didn't get any, how could he grow and face demigods with them head-on?
Douxie's gaze involuntarily fell on the volume of Red Revelation. He frowned, then he returned to the others.
"You've got my back along with Archie." Almost everyone looked at him with incredulous expressions, as if he had lost a few marbles -he probably did. It was possible- and Steve himself stared at him open-mouthed, so much so that it looked as if his jaw was about to drop. Douxie simply smiled at the group. "You'll have to drink a lot of garlic and hawthorn, though. And let me do the talking."
Steve gasped, then started to nod rapidly. "Aye aye, sir! The famous Creepslayer Steve Palchuk is at your service! I will not let you down! Woohoo !"
"Are you sure, Douxie?" Asked Claire, almost in awhisper as the blond cheered, her eyebrow arched and concern more than evident.
"I don't see why not." He shrugged a bit. "It's all already a huge gamble. Even just myself could be the element that blows everything to hell just by breathing or saying the wrong sentences," he lowered his head and arched his eyebrow while staring at the paper. "The hope is that everything goes well enough that there is no need for anyone to seriously have to defend themselves."
"... I could do both if you need me to," said Jim.
Douxie thought about it for a moment but ended up shaking his head. "Better not. My part of the stage is only one-half of what you'll have to follow. Focusing too much, when you have to have a general point of view, would lead you to neglect the rest of the situation. And if they were to split us into two groups, which hopefully won't happen, you would have to be in the middle of the two," a pause. "And then, precisely, I have Archie, who's as good as a tank if you're talking about fighting and being overprotective, so..."
Archibald sniffed, waving his tail. He did not comment, and Douxie still could not read his thoughts properly, but his look said a lot about what he was thinking. He was between being proud and retorting to the 'overprotectiveness' part.
Jim barely nodded. The Trollhunter after a couple of seconds rolled his eyes and then elbowed Steve, because the blond was continuing to cheer, but being too loud. Hitting him managed to make him go serious again.
"We don't go there to have fun, you remember that, don't you?" Jim scolded him.
"I know, I know! No need to remind me, Lake."
"Mr. Galadrigal... I would like you to stay in Camelot. Both for the castle itself and to continue the reading of the Red Revelation, if it does not seem improper or offensive to you to ask it. If it is, I apologize in advance. I'd like to hear your views on the matter."
The Troll lowered his head slightly in a soft nod. "No offense taken, Mr. Casperan. I accept the request gladly."
Douxie replied with a slight smile. He then went to jot down all the additions quickly and finally looked up at Toby, who was watchinghim expectantly. "Toby, position of total defense," he told him.
"Total defense?" He asked, somewhere between elation and confusion.
"Yes. You'll have almost the entire set of stakes under your cloak and the vervain bomb that Nari provided. There are more details about that, but I'll explain later."
"Okay. Total defense it is," he replied, his tone of voice appearing almost breathless at the first word.
'... They're maybe taking it a little too easily,' he thought to himself. But then he partly had to take that back, because Toby's gaze became quite serious only a couple of moments later.
Douxie then went to address Aaarrrgh, already explaining to him what he had previously thought in its entirety, small details of reasoning included. When he finished, the Troll showed him the same kind and understanding smile he had given him before. "Castle guards," he said. "Aaarrrgh stay with Blinky."
One part of Douxie was soothed by that answer.
The other, instead, kept wondering why they were listening and following his craziness without the slightest problem. Had it been someone else -other than Archie and a few others- probably they would not have allowed him to do so. That same party had also already begun to regret all the choices he had made. Especially the one where he had agreed to let them come with him. If they had hurt themselves because he couldn't stop having worries, thoughts and all -Because keeping himself occupied was his way of running away from other problems- he definitely would have deserved a lot of insults, a slap, and a head-bashing of the kind that would have made his head spin.
It would have been so easy to say 'No, look, I've changed my mind. Let's avoid this thing. It's bloody stupid.' But the percentage of his head that wanted to do that was smaller than the paranoid one, who wanted to have a peaceful dialogue with the nicknamed Cold Fury -even though his name gave really little peaceful feeling- to at least try to start fixing things with Nemain's Lair. Or to have more information to do so later... Assuming there had been a follow-up to that whole situation.
'They don't trust you to go alone and to not mess it up,' the voice jumped up again. 'That's why they are listening to you. No other reason.'
Douxie still hated his brain.
********
"Ew. The weird garlic and hawthorn thing really sucks."
"Stop complaining, Steve. If no Vampire is going to drain you after trying to bite your throat, it's only because of that,"said Claire, waving her hand. And then going back to grabbing the comb, running it through Jim's hair with quick, but still quite gentle gestures.
"I know, but it doesn't change that it really sucks! "The blond's disgusted expression fully testified to that. He even went so far as to stick his tongue out.
Douxie, though a little tense, ended up snorting at this. It forced him to put down the eyeliner to avoid messing up his makeup.
********
"Try tying his hair up," he commented after staring at Jim's mane for quite a bit, looking then at Claire. "It would look good like that, better than with lacquer, probably."
"Mmmmh, maybe you're right," Claire hummed a little, considering it with a small smile forming on her lips. She unfastened her hair.
"Huh?" Jim asked, staring at both of them like they had grown two heads each.
"Well, they are long enough for that," Douxie added, while Claire started to comb them without thinking twice. "If they were even longer, we could go with a proper ponytail."
"I don't think long hair is my thing," he said, still thinking about it. And trying to imagine it. No. "Pretty sure I'm going to look ridiculous."
"To be honest, I think you would have the right shape for it. But, well, your hair, your decision."
"Why do I have a feeling that you had a long hair phase?" Jim commented with an arched eyebrow.
Archie made a choked sound. "He switches from short to medium to long to... very, very long every ten years-ish."
"Define very, very long," said Toby, blinking.
"Remember Thranduil from The Hobbit 2?"
"Yeah?"
"Just like that... If not even more, twice." Archie returned to lick his paw.
"Holy-" Jim gaped.
"Do you have a picture?" Claire questioned immediately.
"Nope. And I probably will never get to that length ever again. Do you fuzzin' know how much time did I need to brush them all? And how heavy and bloody warm they were? Especially during summer jobs."
"Yeah, but you still love them anyway."
"It's a love-hatred relationship."
********
Hisirdoux took back the magic thin-bladed knife in his hands. Without a second thought, he went to run the tip of it into the fingertip of his index finger. Immediately the blood began to slide out, swift and silent.
"May I?" he asked Jim first, dropping his weapon in between and then extending his uninjured hand in his direction. Jim held out his own in return, nodding and resting it on top of it without much thought.
The raven-haired boy immediately started tracing marks with the other, starting at the wrist and going down in the process -not stopping even for a second- on the back of his hand. Marks that Claire could not see well, but she imagined that they would be identical to those she would have later.
Jim, at one point, when Douxie stopped tracing, changed his calm demeanor with a dumbfounded expression, repeatedly passing his gaze from the rune to the Wizard. "What in the...?"
"That's the magical energy in my blood," Hisirdoux shrugged. "It will pinch a little, later, but that's perfectly normal. You will then feel each other's fingers while sending signals, and the annoying sensation is going to fade. The common touch is shared even with ten thousand miles of separation. Already tested it."
"Sounds perfect for long-distance love relationships. You would help many couples in crisis. Ever thought of getting paid for it?" Asked Claire jokingly, slowly approaching and already extending her hand to him.
Douxie blinked a few times. Then he laughed. "I'd get rich, but I'd come close to bleeding out. I don't know how convenient that is for me."
"It isn't. Avoiding it is better," blurted out Archie, fluttering in the air. It took him a short time to change in appearance from a dragon to a large black pegasus. He was not as tall and long as a Shire, but he was bigger than a regular horse. He landed gently on the stone floor, the sound of hooves echoing a little.
"Yes, yes. I know and I won't," Hisirdoux said. "Don't go Mom 101 on me."
The cat-dragon-horse rolled its eyes. And headbutted him softly.
Douxie petted him with the not bleeding hand. Then reached out to Claire and gently grabbed hers as well, lowering his head. He started tracing again almost immediately.
The first mark looked like a sun. A rhomboid one, by shape, but still a sun. One of several rays which were around it was very long, with two subspecies of C, one mirrored near the other, on both its sides. They were attached and connected by a symbol that resembled a horizontal S. From the low side of the Cs, there was born a curve that closed them, a dash in its center, and a much smaller circle with a dot inside it.
Weirdly, the blood that flowed from Douxie's finger was red, but when it went to rest on her skin, well, it turned a pale blue. And not only that. After a while, it gave the same sensation as liquid candle wax.
When he finished, Claire sensed how a rush of heat went through the entire rune, leaving her equally surprised. And soon after, as if something was climbing all over her hand, going down and up again. It was bizarre, but pleasant at the same time. The whole concept of the rune was extremely reassuring, to tell the truth, even though it appeared rather strange to look at.
Douxie glanced first at her and then at Jim. "...Okay," he said. "It should work, I would say. Wait for a tick before you try it, just to be sure."
By the time he said that, the cut on his finger had closed up, disappearing into thin air. Only the blood remained, barely staining his skin.