This isn't about right or wrong now Who: Derrick and Heracles (NPC) When: Late at night Where: Car parked outside Elaine's trailer.
Angeline and Domina had agreed with Derrick that this wasn't something that could just be let go. They'd agreed that Elaine needed to pay. Or had they agreed with him? Derrick was having a little bit of trouble remembering exactly what all had happened today. He'd slept late because he'd been up doing his best to terrorize Elaine's dreams. Nightmares were better for her, weren't they? Except she kept waking up and then there'd been a long stretch of time when she hadn't been asleep at all. Derrick had drifted off on his own then and when he'd gone looking for her dreams again he hadn't liked what he'd found. They'd been fuzzy and pleasant and there was a blonde woman there. Derrick didn't have to have seen Natalisa to know that was her because Elaine knew and oh. He couldn't make her tear that face apart enough times to soothe the hurt it ignited in him. Only it wasn't really hurt. Not in the sense that it should've been after being broken up with when he'd had an engagement ring rolling around in his fingers, the words already half-formed on his lips. He'd have given her the pretty little speech he'd concocted that he'd told himself she wouldn't be able to say no to. Her parents had said that he'd be good for her and that she was lucky to have him! And she was. She'd been damn lucky until she'd gone and broken up with him.
With him! Who the hell did she think she was? She was special because he'd deemed her so, but outside of that? She wasn't. She worked as a softball coach for little kids and in a jewelry store. There wasn't anything special about her! Were's weren't special on principle. People who acted like their were-counterpart out where everyone could see definitely weren't special. At all. Elaine acted like a bird when she was still shaped like a human and didn't even seem bothered by it. Derrick thought it was disgraceful and she knew that. After she'd said 'yes' they were going to sit down and have a serious talk about that. His fiancee wasn't going to be allowed to go around acting like anything but a human being. She also wasn't going to be moving into an apartment with some guy. If she'd needed to move then he'd be more than happy to bring her along to his place since there was plenty of room. He'd already started making preparations. They'd make the move after he took her back home to meet his family. Not truly a necessary thing to do, if you asked him, but his father would insist. Derrick would give in this one time so they'd see who he'd picked. Elaine wasn't from the best of families, no, but she had the spirit he needed. To break.
He hit his fist against the steering wheel as a quiet voice in the back of his head reminded him that that spirit wasn't his. Elaine had gone and left him. The lights hadn't even been on in the trailer when he pulled up across the street and he couldn't promise himself that she was home. For all that he knew she'd gone out drinking with her friends, or she'd headed back out with that Natalisa woman. The one who'd come along and ruined everything. Before Natalisa everything had been fine, close to perfect even, and after her...
Derrick was going to blame everything that had gone wrong on Natalisa. She was blond -- who liked blondes? That was such an old idea that blondes had more fun or they were prettier or better, it was all about brunette with red tinges -- with blue eyes -- did Elaine think that the Scandinavian default was attractive? -- and no particularly redeeming features that Derrick had seen even in dreams. And dream-versions of a person tended to be amped up from what they were really like. Elaine hadn't said she was leaving him for her, but he didn't believe her. Or maybe she was telling the truth and she was really leaving him for that guy she'd decided to move in. Maybe she'd been hooking up with him for awhile now and was just sick of having to deal with two of them. For whatever reason it was a hell of a lot easier for Derrick to stomach that idea than the one that she'd rather go have this blue-eyed blonde instead of him. Sure, Elaine had told him they were only friends but... she'd used her name and he'd seen the way she lit up when she talked about her. That wasn't even touching on how she dreamed about her. He liked the idea of her hooking up with some guy he did not know better than he liked the idea of her with Natalisa. Natalisa who he needed to find. Natalisa who he needed to tell to stay away from his girlfriend.
'Ex-girlfriend.'
No one asked you, Heracles, go back to the woods. Having a moose for a familiar was one of those things that Derrick thought meant he didn't have to put up with it. He'd seen people who had bird-sized ones or cats even and those could get anywhere. But a moose? A moose couldn't just stroll down-town without causing a scene. Apparently in a trailer park at the dead of night, a moose could get close enough to make observations on Derrick and what he was doing. She doesn't know it yet, but she'll be my girlfriend again soon. Fiancee. Wife.
'You're unstable.'
You're supposed to be on my side.
'I'd be on your side if you were right. She's just a female. Go find a hardier one who won't run away after a few months. There's nothing that special about this one. I'm on your cousin's side.' Seriously? Derrick didn't like having an animal that could just rifle through his thoughts and pull out whichever ones he wanted to use as he pleased. It wasn't fair that Heracles could do that to him, but he couldn't do it to him. 'No one said this relationship was going to be fair. Suck it up and go home already. This is seriously degrading.'
Derrick shrugged and focused his eyes back on Elaine's trailer, rolling a small vial of blood between his fingers. It was a mix of that water elemental blood he'd gotten from Leif and his own. The spell that he'd been working on wasn't cemented as correct and he didn't even know if it'd really work. That was the risk that came hand-in-hand with writing his own spells instead of just looking up something that someone else had come up with instead. Unlocking the door he stepped out, despite the protests that came from his familiar wherever he was, and started across the street quietly. His ears strained but he didn't even hear the sounds of Cow barking like he usually did when someone came close. Either the dog was passed out or he was somewhere else with Elaine too. Thoughts that he needed to not be having as he was trying to remember exactly how this spell he'd only been working on for a few days went. He'd hoped, he really had, that he wouldn't need to use it. It wasn't perfected. 'So wait to do it.' No, he didn't want to wait. He wanted it to work and he wanted it to work now. Reaching the steps that led up to the door he took them in one step, hovering outside the door for several long moments while he waited for any sound to come from inside and tell him that Elaine was there, that she knew someone was outside... nothing. Either the were was dead asleep or he was right and she wasn't there at all.
Working the cork in the vial out, Derrick crouched down and poured the blood out in a straight line over the door threshhold. Then he started to whisper the worlds, feeling as the magic flowed out of him and into that line. To cement it a little further he bit his thumb hard enough to break skin and squeezed out a few drops of fresh blood to mix with the rest. It sizzled for a moment as though something hot had been dripped in before it faded. The blood dried up quickly and Derrick rocked back on his heels, sucking lightly on his thumb while he wondered if it'd worked. There was only one way to really tell, but he'd let Elaine do that. It wouldn't really work on him since it was his blood. Hopefully she'd cross over that line sometime in the next twelve hours before the spell faded. And then, hopefully, Derrick would be getting a phone call.
If it worked. Which his familiar was quick to point out as Derrick returned to his car and started away, wasn't a for sure thing. The spell might not work. Derrick had accepted that and if it didn't work then he'd just have to try again. He had plenty of blood. And if this one didn't work then he'd just have to go and see if there was a blood witch who had a better idea.
Derrick could be patient. And besides, Elaine wouldn't be at her best for awhile. She still had to sleep and Derrick knew exactly where to look for her dreams. She'd made a mistake when she'd been so willing to let him into them in the first place. Now... Derrick could find her anywhere and make her do anything that he wanted in those dreams. Tonight he thought that he'd toss her some ones about him and how happy they'd be together if she'd just stop being so stubborn and stupid.
'Maybe that's what you're being...' Derrick chose to ignore that as he drove away, already plotting out what he'd do to his ex-girlfriend and future-fiancee's dreams tonight.