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likethecities · 9 days ago

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the thing with feathers (it isn't hope.)

Trapped and tortured in the Ossuary, Lucanis finds a possible means of escape. It'll only cost his soul. 2244 words, whump, torture, angst, Lucanis + Spite in the days leading up to Rook's rescue. Lucanis and Spite POV.

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A vast creature with fins and a massive, sweeping tail blots out the distant sunlight, drifting lazily through the open sea above him. Lucanis watches it move on its way, his vision blurring. Pain pulses with every heartbeat.

It is not the pain of blades or poisons, nothing so inelegant as beating or whipping. It’s something in his blood, Zara’s magic invisible to his eye but writ deep in every limb, every breath, every thought. He lies limp on the cold stone table, the leather restraints unnecessary; the searing pain eats at muscle and bone. He couldn’t move if he tried, and oh, he has tried.

Determination flares within him. He cannot move, but he can stay alive. Crows are patient, and as long as he lives, there yet may be a chance to end her. He breathes in -- jagged fire -- and breathes out -- the taste of ashes.

What day is this? What night? It doesn’t matter. Zara’s voice grates at him, each word a pinprick that makes the pain coruscate brighter. She is dictating her research notes again.

Another reason to kill her. She is insufferably arrogant.

“... a rarer demon, more fragile than some, but with true malevolent potential. Yes. I believe this will be a fine match for our Demon of Vyrantium.” A sneering laugh colors her words, and her hated face swims into view. She wears a sick, sly smile that does not reach her cold eyes. “Ah, you’re awake. Tell me, Crow, are you afraid?”

He tries to hiss out an insult. He is not afraid. Crows are never afraid.

Hiding in the secret tunnels of Dellamorte Manor -- how he’d run from voices in the hall -- Mama and Papa in their bedroom, spilled wine on the floor -- tongues swollen, faces purple -- they wouldn’t wake up --

(Almost never afraid.)

He struggles. All that escapes him is a strangled groan. Zara smiles icily. “Oh, you should be.”

She raises her arms to begin the ritual, and his blood boils in his veins. He has seen what happened to the other prisoners after this - found dead in their cells, or mutilated and destroyed here in the lab. He shudders, every muscle twisting, spasming, roiling. Zara’s voice deafens him, cruel and evil words in old Tevene, words that carry a power that crushes him to the table. He can’t breathe through bloody foam rising up in the back of his throat. He opens his mouth, gasping for air. He is choking, he is dying, death has come for him at last --

And then there’s something forced into his mouth, foul and sticky and vile, pouring into him. He gags, retches, but he cannot move under the weight of the magic, and it’s swallow or suffocate.

Lucanis swallows filth and poison, and everything goes red.

Violet.

Black.

A small SHARP claw

Twist it into the gut, rend and tear

Hate, hate, hate

Cannot get out. Cannot see. World solid. Unrelenting. Scratch scratch rip

Scream!

Scream into dark, into cold, into empty! No Fade!

Must get her. Get enemies. Get who did this.

Feeling... stronger. Eating growing waking up.

Can start to see…

Water. Magic in the bones, in the sand. Prison. Smell of blood and tears and sweat and sick.

Trapped here. Trapped in --

“What’s happening to me?”

Sounds like fear. Confusion. Don’t want. Need spite!

“Get out of my head!”

This prison moves. Made of flesh. Alive and red. Fingers claw at skull, get out, get out, can’t! Fear, fear, fear --

“What did she do to me? Leave me alone!”

Reach. Try. Ah! Flesh moves! A toy, a tool! Legs drag, sssstep sssstep fall, pain, yes.

Breath. Needs it. Tries. (hate this.)

“What are you?”

Gasp. Tired. So tired. Mortal. Can’t even see the Veil. lost! lonely!

Take tongue and teeth. Another toy! Strange and clumsy. A voice like blood.

“Spite. No. YOU. Get out.”

“This is my body!” Rage. Tasty. sustaining! “I am Lucanis Dellamorte. I am Lucanis Dellamorte. I am Lucanis --”

“Lucanisssss.”

Tastes like determination. Dissssssappointing. Find the way OUT! Out of Lucanis!

You can’t be possessed. You’re not a mage. You can’t be possessed.

Lucanis mutters it under his breath. Runs it around his head. Tries to wear it as a talisman.

He can almost believe it in the quiet of his cell. The thing skittering around in his mind could be a hallucination. He has heard of prisoners talking to themselves after solitary confinement. Perhaps his Crow training in this regard has failed him and he has simply gone mad. It would be shameful, but it would make sense.

Except he has never heard of a hallucination walking a body around like a marionette, running it into walls until it bleeds and bruises, stealing a mouth to moan and growl in garbled speech. Every time, Lucanis wrests his body back in a sick game of tug-o-war. Every time, he dabs at any blood with the edge of his cloak, licks it from his fingers, removes as much trace of injury as he can. He has been lucky that the guards have not yet realized something is… wrong.

“You are Lucanis. Spite is here! Spite needs to get out!” The voice is getting stronger. Clearer. Easier to understand with every passing day, more and more complete sentences, a sense of a… personality.

He distracts himself in every way he can. He dreams of killing Zara and her cronies in loving detail, picturing lacerated kidneys, punctured lungs, torn throats, poison, asphyxiation, drowing, crushed larynxes, broken necks. When that grows dull and he has mapped out every plausible and implausible cause of death he could visit upon them, he dreams instead of Treviso. The scents of the canals, the sound of water lapping against stone, night-blooming jasmine, coffee rich and hot, paella and pasta and stews, cioccalata calda, roasted branzino, fine cheeses, delicate chocolate pastries --

Then he falls asleep again, and wakes up with new scratches and bruises in the opposite corner of the cell from where he fell asleep, and an insidious little whisper in the back of his mind spits mine. Mine. Mine.

But Lucanis is not possessed. This thing calling itself Spite, speaking with a voice filtered through the Fade, it is only his imagination. It has to be.

It is unfortunate that he has always been a poor liar.

The laboratory again. They need the restraints this time. Leather rubs against his wrists and ankles hard enough to leave ulcers. Lucanis struggles -- he’ll kill them all for whatever they’ve done to him -- but it isn’t until Zara cuts his arm and twists the beading blood into her magic that the lie shatters.

“Enough is enough, Crow. Where is my demon?”

Something flows through him, unblocked at last by Zara’s spell. It’s powerful, intoxicating, a terrifying loss of control. A shower of violet light erupts from his body, formless, shapeless -- and then wings, gusting fiercely --

Zara steps back, fear in her eyes, then greed. “Ahhh, Spite, there you are.”

The lie in his heart dies with a whimper. There is a demon trapped within him, a monster. Zara knows its name; she put it there. His body sags against the table.

I am an abomination.

His efforts to stay in control fail him. Lucanis’ mouth opens, speaking with a voice that isn’t his, equal parts glee and malice. “You know me?” Spite rasps. “Let me OUT!”

Zara’s lip curls in disgust. “I’ve done my part. What’s keeping you from doing yours? He’s just the incubator. Erupt out of him and be done with it. Come, I’ve work for you to do.”

Don’t listen to her, Lucanis pleads, hoping Spite can hear him. She’s the reason we’re trapped like this! She did this to you! To us!

You believe in me? Understand now?

Yes. Yes, I understand what you are, Spite.

Lucanis’ head lifts as he and Spite both regard Zara. “You did this,” Spite accuses.

“Of course I did,” Zara sniffs. “Now, come.”

She deserves to die for this. Don’t give her what she wants! Don’t --

The world is lost in a haze of violet light, and for a time, he knows nothing.

“I’m alive.” Lucanis. Surprised. Confused. Waking in the cell, waking after Zara. He was gone for such a long while. Spite does not know how to count it, but he knows it was not sleep.

Spite used the time well. Studying. Exploring. Understanding that the world is different here. Rules -- mysterious but there to be discovered. Always choices. He made his, back in the laboratory.

He will show Lucanis what he has learned.

Spite stretches. Reaches. Claws out of the human prison now that Lucanis is awake, takes a shape, familiar.

Lucanis recoils. “Mierda!”

What does that mean?

“Take a guess,” Lucanis says. Suspicious. Staring. Face pale, wary, hunted. He steps around Spite, examines. Smells like shame. “You look like me.”

A shape. Your shape. Easy to take. I know you.

“You do not know me.”

Hate Zara. Hate prison. I know that. You know that.

“True.” Lucanis, sighing, sitting down, eyes searching. “May I ask about the wings?”

No wings now. He wears a Lucanis shape now, and Lucanis does not have wings in the physical world.

“From earlier.”

She called us Crow.

“Yes. I am a Crow. You are not a Crow.”

I want to be a Crow! Flying, fierce, deadly, strong!

“Fine. Keep the wings, if you must.” Crossed arms. Closed face. Looks sick. Hurt. Zara did things to the body, see it still in winces, bruises. Not like the Fade, there and gone; lasting, lingering.

Spite could not stop her. Blood magic held them still. Hate. Hate!

“What? You are staring.”

Zara hurts us. We hate her!

“I thought she was going to kill me.” Lucanis waits. Pauses. Curiosity. How do mortals hold so many spirits? So many emotions? “Why didn’t she? I thought she was trying to get you… out of me.”

Prisons. I am trapped here. You are trapped here. We! We are trapped!

“You… listened to me, when I asked you to stand against her. That is what happened, isn’t it?” Touches face, touches purple-blue flesh, dried blood on lips. “You didn’t leave.”

Not for her! She would use chains of blood! She bound us, she stole me, she put me here!

“That is two of us.” Dark eyes, hollow, twin voids. “We could… work together.”

Crow contract?

“Not like that. But a deal. You don’t do what she wants, and you help me stay alive. And I will make certain that we kill her and escape.” Determined. No. Not determined.

S p i t e f u l !

Yes! To stay alive only to kill, delicious!

More time. More toys. Trial, error, how to use hands and mouth, legs and feet, speak run leap. And better, to hold blades, rip tear kill, blood on the hands, taste it!

It is a deal. Let us make the deal!

“I will work with you, Spite.” Lucanis reaches out a hand.

What is it?

“A handshake. It means we have agreed to the deal.”

Reach back. Translucent purple on olive flesh. Agreement. Understanding. Spite lets the shape go, retreats back into the mind, curls up and waits for opportunity.

Lucanis paces the cell, tracing step after step. The wounds from Zara’s attempt to extract Spite have largely healed, and he takes advantage of feeling better by staying on his feet. It keeps him awake. If he is awake, he is himself. Mostly. But when he sleeps…

The weight of the deal sits uneasy on him. He has heard mages in the Crows talk of their temptations, the way demons stalk them in the Fade and in places where the Veil is thin, how a deal with a demon can create an abomination. But his deal with Spite came after abomination. None of it makes any damn sense.

He must worry about that later. It is a lifeline, even if it was made in desperation; it is still a blade he didn’t have before. Like any blade, it could kill the wielder just as surely as the target.

It is the best he can do.

Spite chatters in his mind. The wards can fall. I can take them, Lucanis! I see the tricks and the sneaky locks!

Spite has been telling him this for the past day or two, eager and brash, ready to go. But the guards on them have been doubled since Zara’s failed attempt to take Spite, and Lucanis has to keep forcing Spite back. There will be a chance, but they will only get one. Lucanis knows it in his gut.

When do we escape? When do we kill her? Spite asks, impatient at being ignored. In the few days since their deal was struck, he speaks more easily, more insistently.

More annoyingly, Lucanis thinks to himself. It gives him a shred of comfort to think of Spite as an irritant, an illusion of control he clings to readily. He is aware this time that it is purely illusory, but if it allows him to get the job done, he will continue.

“Soon,” he murmurs to Spite. He watches the guards through the wards of his cell. There is something different in their behavior. They are agitated, on high alert. They reach for their weapons, and then they are gone, summoned elsewhere. Something is finally happening.

Lucanis smiles, and Spite is there beside him, a violet shadow with a feral grin.

“Very soon.”

#OP YOU GET IT #also what a fucking title 10/10 #Lucanis survives literally on spite both his and his demons #both scenes with Zara were horrible again 10/10 #lucanis dellamorte #datv

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