#but also i imagine her as a bone demon more than i do a bipedal almost-human

[qourmet]

i have lots of thoughts on personified spiritual weapons, but chenqing is a special case cos unlike suibian (who i hc as ♂) & the yin hufu (that i hc as a 🐯), chenqing is both a girl and takes on a bipedal but non-human form. idk, my thoughts spiraled, i have many headcanons about chenqing being a bone-flute and why stop at Bone when she could be a Demon's bone?

[churchyardgrim]

also there’s this that I don’t think I ever posted

The circle flares, sparking and jittering like a bad video feed, and Gregory flinches back from it. There’s light at her fingertips and fire in her mouth and a glowing ring burns itself into the air around her head. The Grim howls, delighted, and the warding circle inverts, it’s host’s pupils sliding sideways into horizontal bars. Gregory raises an arm to shield his face, the light burning his eyes.

The circle wavers, twists — and breaks. Shrapnel explodes outwards, gouging a jagged ring into the walls, and Gregory hisses and recoils, stumbling. Her head whips around as his back hits the wall, a dark stain spreading on his shirt.

Her feet move without permission, the goat driving her forward and putting a spectral knife in her hand. The words out of her mouth are half plucked from her forebrain and half put there by the Grim: “you lied.”

He slumps slightly, one hand pressed to the shrapnel wound in his stomach. “I— yes, well—”

Another knife materializes in the air and drives itself into his other hand, skewering it to the wall and cutting him off with a scream. “You’re not even human!”

His face is screwed up in pain, fangs bared. “You understand why I had to hide that, you can’t imagine— I need this! That demon you’ve got, it’s my last option!”

Her hand clenches on the knife handle, blue sparks along its edge. “You were going to kill me for it!”

He makes a noncommittal noise, like he would have waved his hand were it not pinned to the wall. “A small price to pay, one life to save so much knowledge—”

He screams again, high and piercing, as another ghostly knife spears itself into the hollow of his throat.

The image of it, eyes wide with pain, white shirt stained spreading red, jerks her out of the fog and she recoils, dropping the knife from her hand. The circle of light round her head quietly fractures, the Grim’s influence starting to slip. It hisses, regroups. Move.

“What? Where?”

Doesn’t matter, just move!

Without thinking she takes a step and space twists around her, swallowing her up with a snap. Gregory slumps, the knives in him dissolving into nothing. The wounds stay, bleeding sluggishly, and he grits his teeth in pain. He’s going to need a new plan.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It’s trees.

The shock of her own viciousness and the goat’s voice had made her turn and run and now all she sees are trees stretching around her, black pines and white birches, and only the vague idea of ground and sky. It’s unnerving, and she turns this way and that trying to make sense of what she’s seeing.

Are you going to cooperate now?

She whirls again and the goat isn’t a goat, just a goat’s head atop a black cloak, suggesting a bipedal body underneath but giving no real confirmation of it. It watches her with round, white eyes.

“What the shit.”

You’ve seen what your other options are now, you can’t get rid of me. You can either keep going like this, or do this properly with a contract.

Harker rubs her forehead. “Jesus, are you a lawyer now?”

It tilts its head. It’s not a complicated concept. We each get something from the other.

She looks up over her hand, glowering. “…okay, I’ll humor you. Explain.”

Its face doesn’t change, but it almost sounds like its smiling. You get access to my powers, and I get favors.

“…favors.”

Yes. I like bones. And old liturgical manuscripts, oh, and small tributes from you.

She barely stops herself from groaning out loud. A real deal with the devil here, all she needs is a fiddle and a crossroads. “Any chance you’d tell me what kind of tributes?”

I haven’t decided yet. Far less than you’d be giving otherwise, though. It seems to grin, though it doesn’t seem like it’s got a choice. I don’t want your death yet.

“And I get to use your powers for that?”

It nods. The knives, the fire. Your work with the fabric of reality, I can help with that.

Harker swallows, considering this. The knives had been a surprise, she hadn’t quite known what she was doing there. It’s possible the goat was doing that more than she was… pushing her in the right direction, or something. Not sure what use ghost knives would be in everyday life, but considering the fact that she’s pretty sure she didn’t actually kill Gregory — and what an emotional can of worms that is right now, nope, not gonna think about that right now — they might come in handy in the near future. No way is she going to be safe after what just happened. But the second part…

“You can really help me with physics magic?”

I was tied to a specific locus, my powers drawn from it. I know more about the shape of the universe than most.

She watches it for a moment, frowning. Jeeze, if she could have just gotten rid of it… but fuck, now it’s actually offering her help she needs, and a contract’s gotta be negotiable right? She can probably tip it in her favor, get it to stop sleepwalking her into open graves at least.

“…alright, I’ll bite. But I want to hash this out properly, lay all the conditions out.”

The goat nods, unblinking, and she reaches and snaps a stick off a nearby tree. She crouches and draws a grid in the almost-not-there dirt, with spaces large enough for words.

“So you get your tributes, and I get your powers. Are you also gonna stop waking me up in the middle of the night for stupid things?”

I will be satisfied with bones and artifacts. Although, certain feast days will have to be observed.

She scribbles that in, frowning. “Feast days?”

It nods. Find a liturgical calendar and follow it. Not all of them, I’m not that unreasonable. But the important ones.

Harker rubs the back of her neck, thinking. “Fine. Anything else?”

Just let me live inside you, and you will prosper.

“…no way you had to phrase it like that, that’s too creepy.”

Its face doesn’t change, but she swears it seems smug.

“Fine then. What do I call you?”

It doesn’t matter.

“Obnoxious nicknames it is. Alright, how do we seal this thing?”

It floats closer, cloak brushing the not-ground. Touch my heart.

Her face twists up, flinching back. “…do I have to?”

It just stares at her, unblinking. Yes.

She makes a face, eyeing the folds of that cloak. How the hell is this supposed to work? She tentatively reaches for it, almost surprised when the fabric turns out to have texture. Awkwardly, with the goat’s head watching her unnervingly, she gets her hand in through the front of the cloak, expecting to feel fur or flesh or something.

What she doesn’t expect to feel is nothing, then warm moistness.

She gasps and jerks her hand back a few inches, suppressing a shudder. Ew ew gross ew, badfeel, that’s definitely a badfeel. She takes a breath, steeling herself, and reaches for it again. It’s warm and damp and it throbs holy shit, but she takes hold of it anyway and there’s a lurch behind her lungs, and the goat rests its bony chin on her head, and—

She sees the universe.

Then a split second later she’s spat out flat on her back in her living room, brain behaving more like a tilt-a-whirl than a functioning organ, and startling Ifian into skittering up the back of the couch and shouting, “Ya lahwy, Harker!”

————————————

It takes almost ten minutes for Harker to stop crying, which is to say, wailing and trembling. The tears keep coming for a half an hour after that, but quieter.

It’s shock, she supposes distantly.

Ifian holds her while she cries, rubbing her back slowly and enduring tear and snot stains on her shirt and headscarf. She says soothing things, remarkably patient under the circumstances. Eventually the sniffling stops and Harker stumbles up to find a wet washcloth to clean her face with.

She comes back breathing easier, sitting down on the couch and leaning into Ifian again. Her girlfriend draws her into a comforting hug, and she takes a deep, shaky breath. “Well, new rule, never go for an exorcism with a guy you met online.”

“What the hell even happened? I was starting to get worried, you were gone for so long.”

“Jeeze, what didn’t happen more like… there’s no real way to get rid of the goat, not without killing me. Which he was going to do!” She keeps going over Ifian’s expressions of shock and anger. “Apparently he just wanted the thing for himself, and, by the fucking way, he’s dead! Not recently either, a fucking vampire.”

Ifian swears, first in english and then in arabic. Harker presses her face into Ifian’s softness, feeling her grip tighten. “And I made a contract with the goat, so. That’s a thing now.”

“Oh, Harker…”

“But it doesn’t seem all that bad! It’s not gonna eat my soul or anything, and it’s gonna stop being such a nuisance. It just wants animal bones and some antiques, and I don’t even have to kill the animals.” She frowns. “At least I don’t think I do.”

She takes a breath and keeps going. “And it says it’ll help me with my research, it knows old-timey physics or something. And then I had to touch its heart and that was weird and gross but I’m alright now. I think.”

Ifian pulls her closer, worried. “But that Gregory person, what are we going to do about him?”

Harker makes a strangled whining sound. “Fuck, I don’t know. I kinda… stabbed him a bit, no way he’s happy about that. And the whole getting away from his trap thing. I don’t know what he’ll do.”

A long moment passes, Ifian rubbing slow circles on Harker’s shoulder. Then, “Well whatever he does it won’t be tonight, I’m sure of it. If he was gonna be rash and move quickly, why bother lying to you and getting you to come willingly?” Harker nods quietly, her energy fading fast, very grateful someone else is there to be reasonable at her. Ifian giggles suddenly, startling her. “Guess he really wants to… get your goat.”

Harker blinks, then groans, face in Ifian’s shoulder. “Remind me why I’m dating you again.”

She’s snuggled closer into soft fat rolls. “Because I’m cute.”

Harker squeezes her in response, letting herself smile a bit. “So what if you are?”

Ifian kisses the top of her head, nuzzling a bit. “Do you want me to stay over tonight?”

Harker nods, suddenly afraid of being alone. Ifian squeezes her softly, warm and comforting. “We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow, don’t you dare worry.”

Harker stands, stretching, and downs a glass of water to ward off the dehydration headache from crying. She chalks a few sigils onto the door and windows of the apartment while Ifian goes down to her car to get her spare overnight bag, then sets a short-term proximity alarm spell to wake them both if anything gets too close or lingers by the door. Ifian sees her settled into her woefully small twin bed, then takes the couch outside.

Harker tries to sleep, then, tries to let herself rest, but tired as she is she can’t settle. She rolls over, forcing her eyes to stay closed, but… nothing. Just images of blood and knives and she straight up stabbed a man, she just can’t get over that.

Harker never thought of herself as a violent person.

It’s not like she wanted to! It wasn’t really intentional, she was just angry and the goat was pushing her and she didn’t even move, it was just there—

She groans and pulls a pillow over her face. She’s rationalizing it and that can’t be good.

But she doesn’t know how to deal with it. And the fact is, she’s probably going to have to do it again. She’s not even sure she’s safe right now in her own bed, there’s no way there’s not going to be conflict over this. Gregory wants the goat and he’s sure not going to give up just cause it didn’t work once. And he’s… not human.

Fuck, how is she even supposed to deal with a vampire of all things?

She inhales long and slow, holds it for a moment. Exhales. Just shut up and sleep, she’ll deal with it in the morning. She’ll make a plan, she’ll research. She’ll get through this and hopefully keep future stabbings to a minimum. She rolls over again, sighing. Why couldn’t the goat have given her something more useful? Can’t do much with floating kitchen knives, a screwdriver would have been more helpful. Or a tool kit or something.

—————————

It takes the better part of an hour for Gregory to haul himself up from the basement, hissing through his teeth. His wounds sting — hand, lower right side of his abdomen, throat and windpipe — and he’s drained beyond measure. All that energy into a failed spell, the waste makes him angry.

He leans against the counter in the kitchen and flexes his right hand, watching the wound pull and stretch. He grimaces, then rinses it under cold water, reaching for paper towel and a set of tweezers.

His stomach wound twinges when he picks at it with the tweezers; shallow, hopefully nothing in his abdominal cavity. He picks out chips of metal and concrete, dabbing with paper towel, then cleans the edges of the wound in his throat. Not sure he can speak yet, better let it sit.

He sighs, long and slow through his nose, closing his eyes momentarily. He’s running out of time. He needs to regroup and figure out what to do next.

He has a plan B, but he’d expected the worst case scenario to be if the girl died and took the Grim with her, not that she broke out of the circle and escaped. He might still have a chance at her Grim, it’s still a possibility. But even if he got it eventually, it’ll be time lost, and there’s no guarantee he’ll succeed there anyway. No, he needs to put his backup plan into action now, as a safeguard.

It’s not even midnight; he starts gathering what he needs, making phone calls and rinsing the floor of the basement in brine, to break up any remaining magic. Felicity watches him from the upstairs banister, then goes back in her room. As long as she’s not under his feet.

It’ll be tricky. He can’t do it himself, not as he is, so he’ll need an intermediary. There’s two places within the city that might work, unless he can just consecrate the tower and be done with it. That might not be feasible in the long term, but if it’s the only way to keep the tower safe, well… he’ll just have to live with it. It’ll be expensive, regardless, he’s calling in more favors than he’s earned in ten years. But he doesn’t really care at this point. He’s not going to let something as trivial as cost stop him now.