SPRING BREEAKKKKK;

[howtheyshine]

He's in the dark. He's in the dark again. A pocket of alive-darkness that he can feel the edges of, he can feel the void that waits.

Well hello there, Yellowhead. We haven't been formally introduced. I'm....

Call me Carmichael.

The laugh that bubbles through the name makes Yellow's soul creep.

You're Kayne.

A silence ripples outward from the nothing-space the voice takes up, a silence deeper than the emptiness of John's unoccupied body. Yel-- Edwin, Edwin curls in on himself, tightening into a tiny knot of spectral energy.

He said the wrong thing, he said the wrong thing, he's going to get hurt--

And how, my little poppet, did you know that.

I-I...

Actually. Know what? Doesn't matter. Sorry to pull the plug on that little experiment so abruptly, but see, I made a deal with your better half--

John!

He can't stop himself. He realizes how stupid the flare of hope is a moment later, when that oppressive empty cold bleak dead cold silent dark silent dark comes creeping back up between him and the voice of Kayne.

I made a deal with him to get him back to Arthur, which means you needed to clear the way.

Of course, I can't be bothered to babysit you.

So you've got a couple of options, here, kid.

Well, two. Which is more like one. Unless you want to go back to the Dark World, in which case--

No-- No, please, I don't care what you want, I'll do it, just--

Okay, okay, Jeeee-sus, stop groveling. It took John a few good centuries to get to that point.

Yellow goes quiet, cowed.

There's this guy I want you to meet. He's like the worst version of Arthur got all the color sucked out of it and given eternal life.

Wh... What?

Well, technically you did meet him. I guess now he gets a chance to meet you, since he's so fucking eager to lick the feet of a god.

The unhinged laughter rings in Yel-- Edwin, Edwin, Edwin's ears as he feels the world get abruptly smaller and his senses get stripped back to shadows.

Comments

[lestercraft]

It's hardly Larson's fault that he passed out. He'd watched Arthur Lester get dragged across his dining room floor raving like a lunatic about John, gave the gesture to Jack and taken no small pleasure in watching his boy's ham-sized fist slam into Arthur's face and shut him up, and drop him like a limp rag doll into the pit.

He'd survive the fall. Probably. If he didn't, at least he wouldn't have to feed his damn pet for a while.

He'd turned to walk away, back to his seat so he could finish eating - they'd already prepared the meal, it'd be a shame to waste it - when his ears had suddenly started ringing, the world spun as he swayed...

...and when he comes to, he's being carried in the arms of his boy, cradled to Jack's chest with his glasses askew and a migraine that sizzles behind his eyes like a force against his skull, and it throbs as he presses the heel of his palm into his eyes.

"Put me down, Jack," he grunts, and with more care than anyone might expect from his brutish-looking son, Larson is put down and supported with a hand on his shoulder, until he can stand on his own two feet, straightening his glasses and then the rest of his expensive suit. "What in the hell was that...?"

[howtheyshine]

Edwin doesn't say anything right away. He can't see, really, can hear by virtue of the way things echo through human heads. Can feel nothing. Can only sense the world like a shadow beyond the mind and emotions of the man Arthur wanted so badly to kill.

He's scared. He's terrified. Larson stayed conscious enough until he fell that Y-- Edwin could guess where Arthur had been discarded, Arthur and John, presumably. John wouldn't let Arthur die. If he can get to them, maybe, if he can find a way to convince Larson to speak to them face to face, he can talk to John and...

And... and what?

[It was me.]

[lestercraft]

Larson goes very still, when he hears that voice.

And it's like an iron wall goes up in his mind - he can't trap the presence, he doesn't have that skill, but it will get no more of his emotions, of his mind than he will let it.

It's not even a conscious thought. It's just a reaction, to dealing with these beings and knowing that this could choose to melt his brain if it so wanted and he could do nothing to prevent it.

So, he had. Pre-emptively. No matter how much the boys in the damn Order tried to scorn him for it, for thinking that he was naive, or worse - stupid for it.

So the voice in his head gets nothing. Until Larson speaks, and his tone is everything.

"And to whom might I have the... honour of speaking with?" Simpering, soothing, placating - but not without a spine. And when Jack looks at him, a curious tilt of his horned head, Larson holds up a hand to dismiss him.

[howtheyshine]

Edwin doesn't know how to do that. The wall, the words suddenly stripped naked of the emotions he relies on when he can't see anything else. Larson can feel it, if he cares to try: Edwin's muddy cocktail of fear, desperation, hope, anxiety.

[My name is-- I'm--] For some reason it's harder here to introduce himself. It's harder when he doesn't know he can leave, it's harder when he doesn't know he has friends who will help him. This John and Arthur... This John and Arthur don't even know he exists. Not yet. [My name is... Edwin.]

A pause, and with more confidence: [Edwin Buck.]

[lestercraft]

"Edwin... Buck."

His drawling accent overenunciates the short name, nearly doubling the syllables with how hard he clicks that surname, because he needs a moment to process what an absolutely asinine lie that is.

"With all due respect, Mr. Buck." With a tone that, to anyone more skilled in the art of Southern Passive Aggression, implies none. "I've never heard of a being with such a, uh-" he gives a soft chuckle, as he finds the energy to move again, trying to move carefully while he's still on an uneven keel - Jack follows him and he can't say he minds all that much. "A common name. Surely there must be something more... impressive I can address you by, something fitting for a being that has the ability to communicate in such a unique way."

FOR JOHN....?

[howtheyshine]

Larson is asleep. Even in the quiet dark, the wall he made is still in place. It would be impressive if it didn't make Yellow feel so trapped. He's left with his imagination alone to create the room around them, left to repeat poems to himself in silent mantra to try and make the time go faster.

Except somewhere in the middle of “Hope” is the thing with feathers he can't take it any more.

He calls his brother. He tries. With everything in him, as silently as he can.

John!

Re: FOR JOHN....?

[greatoldjohn]

They've never tried this before, not at a distance. When he gets back, they probably should but that time is not now and that John is not this one.

This one is helping Arthur navigate through the mines, chatting with him excitedly about this curve or that when he hears his name in what sounds like his own voice.

But it isn't him.

And the only other option is-

Yellow?

[howtheyshine]

There's a moment of shocked silence when he realizes it worked, disorientation at hearing John's voice say that name.

Yes. Yes! I didn't know if-- Are you okay? Is Arthur?

[greatoldjohn]

There's a few lines of parallel processing going on where John is. For one, he has to keep track of where Arthur is, be his eyes, communicate with him accordingly. This speech, a strange sort of muscle memory reactivated, he can maintain it at the same time but he does need to pause every so often to focus.

The other problem going on here is that what Arthur said about Yellow and how Yellow sounds- he can practically feel his emotions pulling into a sympathetic shape around the thought of Yellow, this other part of the King who like him had his identity taken and who was probably confused out of his fucking gourd by everything. There's a third feeling, a flicker of anxiety, but he's the one in Arthur. Arthur was so happy to see him.

Yellow won't be a problem unless Arthur finds out about the Dark World.

Why are you- where are you? How are you still here, in the material world?

[howtheyshine]

I want to get to love you, John said.

(“Hope” is the thing with feathers -)

He experiments while Larson is unconscious, sinks him deeper into sleep the same way he drove off the headache. That doesn't take access to Larson's mind--sleep is a thing the body does, with or without dreams.

But it's something he can't stop Larson from waking out of, either. Not unless, maybe, Larson doesn't want to wake up. Or it doesn't occur to him to try. Edwin is terrified, uncertain, and clumsy at first, but he weaves Larson dreams he won't want to leave. He can't get past Larson's wall, maybe, but he can make a siren song of adoration that can lure Larson through it. Simple at first, basic feelings, half-formed images, but... but it works. It works, he can feel the inkling of Larson's consciousness, and he finds those threads and pulls to draw him in.

[lestercraft]

Putting Larson into deeper sleep is the easy part: his body's already yearning for it, so taxed as it is by the fractional King's presence. He could sleep for a week and it wouldn't be enough to recover the damages. But this, pushing his body to relax more, breathing slower, easier, the soft hum as his body settles into itself - technically it's easy.

Luring him is harder. But it's not like Larson is subtle about what he wants, after all, and when those gentle hooks grate along his guard, tugging for his consciousness, well... he's only human. He is, still, accurately, nothing to a god. Not even half of one.

His breath hitches quietly, as his unconscious self follows those glowing will-o-wisps of hope, of desire, into an underground hall, ornate and geometric and huge, a temple to something that no longer, or perhaps never existed, crowded with people in dark scarlet robes and ornate masks, parting way for him, finally respecting him, fearing him. Exquisite in its simplicity.

[howtheyshine]

Once he sets the subtle hooks of the emotions, Larson does most of the work, really. He conjures the images that mean those things to him, constructs the walls and corridors and robed figures. Edwin finds himself able to see it all, even if he's also outside of it all, somehow. Drifting at Larson's right hand as the ranks of people who smell like old money, an idea he never knew about before this, part and bow and whisper to each other in a mix of fear and reverence.

It all strikes Edwin as oddly petty. Boring. Familiar, somehow, a piece of memories he has no access to.

[lestercraft]

Perhaps the true King would have been at least amused by his aspirations. Certainly he would have found Larson an easy, primitive mind to manipulate, if it weren't for those barbarically strong defences.

There's a space in the dream for Edwin, though - there and not there, in the usual way of dreams, a looming presence behind Larson, filling him, through him like a shadow cast on the world around him, that he basks in as the weak cower, as the powerful bow. None of them have true names or faces, in the sense of recognisable people, but there's no denying how they're drawn from a very real group.

There's a quiet thump, somewhere in the empty reality of the estate. In the dream it manifests, retroacted by Larson's mind as the sight of double doors opening in the middle of the wall that weren't there before as the crowd parts, and a face Edwin recognises very, very well stalks out of the emptiness and into the reality of the dream.

Arthur Lester.

[howtheyshine]

Larson is asleep again, finally. Larson is asleep, and Yellow is exhausted from anxiety and enervated from use of powers he barely understands. Can't properly use without direction.

If John has tried to reach out to him, he's ignored it, too paranoid about Larson listening in somehow.

But Larson is asleep, and Yellow might not dare influence that again, but he needs to tell his brother something important.

There's no hiding his fatigue, but he can at least hide, he hopes, the way the day's work left him feeling stretched thin in places. Like bits of him are going to come away and disappear if he's not careful, pieces squeezed out and used up.

With no preamble, no hello:

Larson hired someone to kill you. To kill Arthur I mean. Because of Jack--Uncle. Probably also because of the creature in the caves. But more because of Uncle.

[greatoldjohn]

There's no answer for a few moments before-

You should have told me about Uncle.

There's a strange sort of despair in that tone, evened out by a huffiness that tapers off near the end. He knows it's unreasonable. He trusts Arthur.

...about most things. It's been a rough day or so.

But he's upset about that death, maybe because it seemed to calm Arthur somewhat.

Arthur didn't see what he saw. He doubts it would have calmed him if he did.

Maybe because it feels like the problem isn't done with. Maybe also because he has gotten Arthur to go to New York and he hates all the bullshit he has to do to avoid getting their fucking head exploded, or their deal nullified.

Though a little rebellious part of him wonders if even Kayne could pull him away from Arthur without their say so.

But not enough to chance it.

But thank you.

Does he know I'm in here? You said he wanted both of us.

[howtheyshine]

Silence greets the first statement, undercut by the flare of hurt and fury that bursts into existence and as quickly get stamped out. Still, Yellow's response is terse.

You're welcome.

He heard Arthur say your name before he got thrown into the mines. He put two and two together before I figured out when to shut up.

I told him I would only help him if he left you alone, but apparently he doesn't consider trying to kill your 'vessel' an actual risk to you.

[greatoldjohn]

There's a little flare of fussiness that meets the fury, as if to say 'what, I'm not supposed to be upset about that?!' but he doesn't say anything else about it. And he's going to move on.

...the hurt makes him feel something else, something warm and soothing and almost seems to be sliding towards Edwin on the connection, like he wants to take his hand.

Delightful. Ugh. I'll figure out some way to tell him. Do you know anything about him?

He considers it for a moment before-

Don't be too hard on yourself. You were... not at your best in that moment. It happens. It's happened to me too.

Thank you again.

[howtheyshine]

When he reaches for John this time, there's no hiding the way his presence feels... sick. Worn through, diaphanous as a rag that's been used until it starts to come unspun.

I can't talk to you again after this. Not--

He made me bring something here that can hear me. Us. That can speak using the human it attaches itself to. If I... It will hear. It will tell him everything.

[greatoldjohn]

There's a surge of frustration and anger, not directed at Edwin but for him. He has to be careful because Arthur might be confused or concerned what he's getting defensive for... but it's there regardless.

I... okay.

Okay.

There's a longer pause, because he wants to ask more questions, wants to spend more time talking to him. He's frustrated, so very frustrated, and he wants-

He wants this not to be the last time they speak. But he knows very well it might be, and that means he has to say what needs to be said. He takes another moment to be sure, absolutely sure. He can't, won't, say the words without meaning every single one.

Then... then remember that he falters a little and shifts the words a little more. Yes, this is it. Remember that your brother loves you.

[howtheyshine]

Warmth rushes through the fatigue, a ghost of an embrace.

And I...

I love my brother.

[greatoldjohn]

Keep yourself safe. However you have to.

He'll wait for Edwin's answer, but after it comes, he'll break the connection. He doesn't want Edwin to have a chance of getting caught.

RescAUe

[deuceoftears]

There are multiple reasons, he muses, not to burn the place to the ground. Edwin might need a living host. There might be prisoners. He double-checks the compass lens - yes, the trace of the barge's ripples in this spacetime is emanating from inside this building, not something beyond it, or some tunnels in the mountains themselves, which is a relief. Jedao does them the courtesy of knocking, once, before he opens the lock mechanism from the inside.

[howtheyshine]

Edwin is tired. He's tired, and he misses being able to see. See, touch, feel the emotions of his host. The steel wall Larson put up around his mind wouldn't be enough to trap Edwin if he knew even half of what he can actually do, but he doesn't.

What he knows is that Larson lets him hear as little as possible, feel nothing at all, and today is in the room where Arthur murdered Uncle when he speaks to Edwin for the first time in hours.

"Now, then, your highness. I think it's time we start to experiment with what you're capable of influencing on this mortal plane, limited though you might currently be."

Edwin doesn't say anything, a sullen, defiant presence.

Larson's voice goes measured and even. "Your highness. I can't properly serve you if you don't acknowledge me when I speak to you."

The threat in it makes Edwin feel sick.

[...I heard you. What do you want me to do?]

[deuceoftears]

Planets have so much stuff on them. Picking out the density of flesh while skimming on the surface of a vast accretion of metal and rock is a little bit like trying to see a firefly on the surface of the sun. Edwin's ripples are all over this place, though. He follows the least dusty hallways, footsteps soundless, until he smells blood and hears a voice.

Hears voices.

He wonders if this man could hear him if he spoke in mothsong. Very possibly, and Edwin probably couldn't keep his reaction secret even if he can't. Jedao listens, draws closer.

[howtheyshine]

"You're going to call something for me. A few somethings."

Larson moves around the room, the sound of his voice getting farther away from Jedao then closer again. Somehow Edwin's answers don't change in volume regardless. "They're called Elders. Creatures of vast knowledge, loyal to the Elder Gods such as yourself."

[Why? Why do you want them?]

"We want them, highness. To help prepare the way for you, ready the halls of the Order for your arrival and share their knowledge so we can free you and your better half."

Better half, Larson keeps saying that, better half. It twists little spikes of resentment through Yellow and he's smart enough to know that's exactly what Larson is trying to do, but he can't help it.

[Why do we need help?]

"With you in such a weakened state and the taxing nature of your presence on my body, we need to make up the difference somewhere. Now, have you ever... projected yourself before? Used Arthur as an anchor and spread your being beyond him, into our material plane?"

[N... No. I can-- I can do that?]

"There's a place to start, then. You need to be able to see the sigils to summon the Elders, and given Arthur's own situation, I prefer not to share my own eyes for the purpose."