InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "HOLY JESUS WHAT ARE THOSE"

Darian (sinister_darian) wrote in free_form2,
@ 2008-04-07 02:16:00

You Again
Hell was very busy.

Those who had betrayed, refusing to side with Lady Elfleda against her would-be successor, were being hastily purged. A great culling was in process and those of prior lowly status were being promoted by virtue of merit, to take the place of their former superiors. A little revolution, it seemed, was good for the damned. The strict imposition of order was Leviathan's creed and, with own dominion returned, Elfleda was seeing to it that her own proverbial territory would exemplify its loyalty to both her and the cause she represented.

It was not necessarily measured in terms of land, although certain places were gifted for her use. No, dominion was mastery. Control. Those decreed to be under Elfleda's personal guidance needed to do as she ordered or requested, depending on the situation. The Abyss' laws might not be for her to decide, but interpretation was another matter. The disloyal, the unfavorable, the unworthy and just plain lazy... All needed to be cleansed - and the lady in black had achieved much since Rhiannon Lee's absence. It had been an age since one of the Brides of Leviathan had enacted such a harvesting of blackened souls, but, nonetheless, it was servicing as both warning and a message to her reunited 'groom', that Elfleda was far from unable to enact a terrible price from those in debt. Elfleda was as much proving herself again, as she was dealing revenge.

It had been a while since she had summoned Darian to her midst. Elfleda levitated in meditative likeness, in the uppermost central chamber of a vast palace. One constructed from a fusion of ebony metal and the blackened bones of the damned. The very walls seemed to hum with a ghostly, demonic chorus; a low-frequency thrumming, embuing the venue with an aura of power, both within and without. No physical guards stood here, but the ever-writhing shadows could snatch an intruder with ease, enveloping with suffocation or tearing the victim apart with horrifically sacrificial purpose. The floor seemed fashioned of something not too unlike glass. Beneath it, crimson skeletons could be seen entombed like primordial insects trapped in amber.

The vast doors to that room creaked open and the empowered Corruptress raised head toward her guest.

"I trust your journey was absent of problems," the familiar woman in black intoned.

"Ah, yes. But not without ceremony," he returned, a touch of sarcasm in Darian's voice and demeanor. After all, it wasn't every day that he, while in the process of shaving, was set upon by pincered minions and ushered through a portal that had appeared above his toilet. Once in Elfleda's realm, and what roughly counted as a receiving area, there was barely time to wipe away the evidence of white foam and nicked throat. As it was, he wore only a white shirt, dark trousers, and shoes, with no jacket to complete the demon's uniform.

Darian supposed he should be glad he didn't shave in a towel.

"Despite your flair for dramatic summoning, I'm glad to be back in the fold," he told her. "Then again, the night is young. You've yet to tie me to anything." Should memory serve, the Corruptress had a hard-on for bondage.

The maker of deals passed through the room with indifference that spoke of his demonic nature. A human might've been horrified by the sheer noise of the place, not to mention the skull collection underfoot. Empathy was an emotion he did not feel, so the tortured shouts of betrayers didn't illicit concern. He had not been a supporter of Atia's cause. Darian rebelled against Elfleda with much fanfare, now and then, just to assert his independence. But he would rather fly her colors than the deranged Roman's.

Especially considering she'd sent Bethany on a sapphic thrill ride. Not his favorite day.

[Thread: Open to Elfleda]

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lady_elfleda
2008-04-08 12:08 am UTC (link)

"Well, not with rope, perhaps..."

The verbal sentiment was spoken with a form of amusement bordering on the flirtatious. It was either a sign of what might be termed good will between them. Not to mention, the time she had virtually paralysed him with a view to offer some etheric 'cleansing' of her own.

For Elfleda, a truly thorough example of corruption was recalled as fondly as a particularly good session of pelvic grinding. It was a cause, in part, for her often intimate undertones with the Slayer, Rhiannon. To blossom within the host of another brought the Corruptress great satisfaction.

And so it was with this one. The two simply had more history between them. More to go on, as it were.

Moving forth, Elfleda's partially gaseous self was akin to a purvasive cloud of shadow. As she moved, though, so did the very room seem to change in appearance. Not necessarily furniture, sparse as it was, but in its surroundings. The walls, floor and ceiling, all seeming to change texture and colour, like watching a stop-motion film of a building being redecorated, over and over again, down the ages.

But it never shone anything other than pure and untainted, enriched wickedness.

"Atia's rehabilitation may take quite some time," Elfleda calmly mentioned in soothing voice. "Let us hope," she continued, taking a glass of utter darkness from the ebony table of black marble, "that she finds it within herself to... Understand the way of things, hmm?"

It was spoken without apparent malice. Atia had to be undergoing untold torments, even as they spoke. Things reserved for fates the English language had no way of describing. Elfleda, however, seemed to partake of no gloating; speaking of it only in passing, as if any other business arrangement.

But that was real power. She needed not to act in glorification, but simply relax in secured victory. The deed was done. She could savour every single further moment as ordered consolidation. Other Brides existed, most surely, but they were not the topic of conversation.

And perhaps Atia no longer even qualified as one of them.

Gesturing Darian to take a filled glass of his own, Elfleda smiled.

"To the restoration of thrones..." She offered in toast. "Long may our shadows swim in this most tranquil of seas."

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sinister_darian
2008-04-08 05:03 am UTC (link)

With hands remaining in trouser pockets, Darian didn't seem to be in any hurry to join cocktail hour. He leaned over the table and peered down into the depths of the glass, looking skeptical. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what's in that." The Dealmaker raised his eyebrow. He had no desire to thwart Elfleda's hosting pleasantries, but in Hell, it was good to know what was in the Kool-Aid. For instance, was it liquified souls? Or some kind of tarrish brew that would cling to his insides and make him act like a bitch in heat?

He did have standards.

Speaking of acting like a bitch in heat...

It occurred to the demon that he hadn't seen Elfleda since that spell that swept them all into the twilight zone. He was an Ivy League film documenter turned Hollywood sell-out. And she, if he recalled, had been scripted to mount up and ride him like a horse. A vision that, once upon a time, would've been the subject of many a cold shower. He had known the woman for centuries. But blatant 'Don't you wish you could fuck me'-isms wore thin after a while.

Darian didn't say anything aloud, but it was clear he was remembering something amusing, judging by the smirk. He picked up the glass and half-saluted her with it.

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lady_elfleda
2008-04-08 11:47 am UTC (link)

Elfleda might be able to pick up on emotions, but not necessarily read thoughts. Even so, she, likewise, remembered their last meeting. One which, similarly, had involved drinking. It did not take much for the Corruptress to know perfectly well what was being turned over in the creature's mind. Pondered. Perhaps even savoured with relish, so apparently low had her status fallen during such a time.

Yet she could not fault him for it. Or rather, she could, but it would neither achieve anything or be out of character. So long as he did not go trumpeting his memories to all and sundry, there was no significant problem. Besides which, it always paid to play to one's allies' good humour.

Atia was forcefully confrontational. Elfleda was more the stab-you-in-the-back-with-poison type, only to make the victim thank her for the experience.

The drink was a mildly pleasurable potion. One of those things not able to be found in Earthly realms and which were keyed to more demonic tastes. Something pleasant. An ambrosia for the damned. Elfleda was being pleasant, not vengeful.

"The humans," she began, once her glass left lips, "seem to be undertaking something of a consolidated effort to register things they ought not... Hardly the first time, but it's become rather more global than before."

What was referred to was not only limited to the United States of America, either. Nor even recent times. Mankind always seemed to have an impulse to exploit the otherworldly, whether it be for the sake of gaining new power or joining with something seen as far greater and, thus, worthy of praise. Even sacrifice. It was something which the corruptress was uniquely placed to target, but such curiosities also had their limits. The red lines in the proverbial sand, across which it was dangerous to allow humanity to enter.

At least, when outcomes were not controlled.

"You'll find a great many in need of wishes, Darian... And for your recent display of rebellion," Elfleda smiled, "I find myself in the unusual position of wishing to reward you. My problem now becomes, what do you want, negotiator? A small kingdom in this realm, perhaps... A special gift for your intended..." Eyes narrowed, possibly with informed knowledge of an arrangement once struck with an agent of Wolfram and Hart. "An ability?"

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sinister_darian
2008-04-15 03:55 am UTC (link)

As was Elfleda's intent, Darian's attention was now snared. He swallowed the contents of the glass. "An ability." He seemed to mull the possibility over in his mind.

Three years prior, Darian had contracted for another ability. At the time, a lawyer named Jason Toren was at Wolfram and Hart. In exchange for Darian's retrieval of a medieval sword, Toren promised to give Darian what he had, at the time, wanted most. A demon form. As a few rare history books told it, Darian had once been a more traditional looking demon, one with horns and hooves, but of lesser intelligence. He bargained his way up the food chain to become the Dealmaker. What he lost in the process was his demonic form. Looking like a human was a drawback that rankled for years. The contract with Wolfram and Hart seemed like a way to have his cake and eat it, too. But it fell through, and after his relationship with Bethany began, it no longer mattered, because being shaped like a male human 24-7 was finally useful.

So Elfleda's unspoken idea was no longer good to him. But there was another thing.

Darian looked into his glass. "Despite our... connection... you know there is one thing I've always resented. Coercion." His face went through a series of tense expressions. "But I would gladly put on the mantle of willing servant if you altered one thing about my situation."

The maker of deals weighed his words carefully. "Bargaining is what I do. But for centuries, I've been a servant to my abilities. It's not only my work; it's my livelihood. You called me a machine servicing itself, but when a demon is created whose sole purpose is to strike deals... and whose entire existence hinges on that work, how can he be more than a perpetual system? I've been called a centrist. I've been trapped into neutrality because of this need to be fair." Here, he fairly spat the word. "To my clients. Otherwise the bargains I struck would be flawed and I would suffer the consequences." Here, he spoke the truth. When Darian's bargains were renigged upon, he could lash out at his clients, but to strike it under dishonest terms was a breach of contract. Each time that happened, his abilities were impacted; Should it happen often enough, he would revert to his former self, without power, without purpose.

And ultimately without Bethany.

It was a prison of his own making.

Darian met the Corruptress eye to eye. "I want out of that contract. I want to be trusted to continue my work without the threat of reversion. I want the freedom to be a true creature of darkness. Leviathan has no need for a just Dealmaker. Show me that trust and I'll show you loyalty."

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lady_elfleda
2008-04-15 05:39 am UTC (link)

"Poor, poor Darian," she lamented, extending one finger to alight the tip of nail upon his sternum. "Locked behind the bars of another's making..."

That same finger wagged slowly from side to side and, although in air, a sound of it tapping against metal could be heard, as if to emphasise the point. Elfleda shifted the tilt of her head and, again, with such a movement, the room's aesthetic seemed to change a little. Truly, this was her domain.

"With liberation, comes clarity. Through clarity, comes focus. Through focus... Whatever one must make of it. And what better way," she smiled, "to allow you to share in celebration of my own captivity's release?"

Her own glass seeming to vanish, Elfleda placed hands either side of his face, pressing foreheads together. Words whispered in an arcane language, leading to a strange feeling of what could only be described as electric nakedness around him. Across his skin, a bright colour shined, lighting up his form, as an ancient bond to magician was finally, at long last, severed. Elfleda's gentle hold to his head releasing him from the bondage of stagnation, filling the void with a coil of energy which had been prevented from evolving for so very long.

Humming pleasantly with the effects of a wish now granted, Elfleda's chamber took on momentary flare of reddish hue, as she cooed her witchcraft with a caress of fingers down the demonic accomplice's cheek to chin.

"I release you from your burden..."

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sinister_darian
2008-04-15 06:58 am UTC (link)

Had he known it would be so simple, Darian might've attempted it decades ago.

The severing of his metaphysical attachments was like weight being removed from his body, a sudden lessening of burdens Darian hadn't realized he carried. Iain's limitations had been put in place long before to make certain that Darian performed, and had outlived the sorcerer by over two hundred years. Now he owed obeisance only to Leviathan. He wasn't a fool. He knew this renewed relationship would come at a price; this was not complete freedom, but rather another kind of servitude. Still, he had room to flex his muscles now, and see what could become of a malicious mind set loose at last, without fear of what would become of it. And in his doubtful moments, he could remind himself that he had been beholden to Leviathan all along, at least when that entity chose to exercise its dominion.

Now the world might finally discover Darian's true nature. Even the demon himself might be surprised.

"Whoever said you weren't generous?" With that pool of liquid sustenance in his stomach, and anticipation beginning to work its way through him, Darian was at once glad he came (not that there was a choice) and ready to leave.

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lady_elfleda
2008-04-18 08:20 am UTC (link)

"None who can say they know me..."

As if to empathise with his new-found liberation, the Corruptress dissolved completely into that familiar black mist, using the gaseous form to wash over the hellish child in her midst. Lady Elfleda was all about helping others to evolve under the guidance of shadows. An influential guardian presence for the damned. It was why she sought out those wiht potential, after all. Those who could use her gift to become all they could be.

At least, in one sense.

Where once he had been a caged bird of prey, now she had just released him into a decidedly larger aviary.

"Go with infernal blesssings, Darian... Write your destiny, anew."

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	sinister_darian 2008-04-20 09:11 am UTC (link)
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