InsaneJournal

Who: Possessed Raistlin and Isabela
What: A demand
When: This evening
Where: Bela and Hawke's apartment above the Hanged Man
Rating/Warnings Mediumish for violence
Status: Complete!

It was a busy night at The Hanged Man; time passed quickly, and Isabela barely noticed the ache in her feet. She could run around in her high-heeled, thigh-high boots and not really feel a thing though, as she was accustomed to doing so. The crowd meant heat, bodies all in close proximity (and drunkenness, rosy cheeks and red noses) but she kept cool in a light cotton tunic dress, a creamy shade that splashed nicely against the honeyed tones of her skin. They had sold out of poutine and also rum cake - that, paired with the ice cream in the King Alistair drink was always a fast seller. But everything was made fresh and in-house so when it was sold out, well, tough tits. Wasn’t like they could defrost anything. Get here earlier next time!

“Gonna head upstairs for a bit, love, I need to grab a few receipts,” Bela was saying to Bethany - who helped out with serving and maintenance sometimes, along with Carver - before she turned and disappeared up the stairs to her and Hawke’s flat on the second floor, fingers combing through her hair. Which needed a brush.

Not to mention she needed to retouch her makeup.

After grabbing the folder of what she needed, she stopped to re-apply her red, Hollywood glamour lipstick - it was a deep colour, and she did so love red. Especially when it was the blood of her enemies spilled before her.

The mage known as Raistlin Majere did not have many friends. Fistandantilus did not care much for the practice himself. People were to be used for as long as they had a purpose and then forgotten or disposed of. He thought it strange a man who had spent so many years simply being tolerated by those around him did not think the same way. The man Raistlin dreamed about seemed to and despite what Fistandantilus had lead Raistlin to believe, he really was not that person.

Fistandantilus was also starting to learn that he was different from the man young Raistlin Majere dreamed of inhabiting his soul. He hadn’t been a feared mage with immense power and bent on immortality. He hadn’t been a soul ripped from a body, doomed to haunt the Great Tower of Weywreth feasting on weakened souls and biding his time and thinking of revenge. He had, quite literally, popped into existence one day with an inexplicable need for power. A byproduct of the Dreams, perhaps, and yet, so much more. Of the partnership between himself and young Raistlin, he was the one with the talent. He was the one with the knowledge. Raistlin was the one with the body. He had not offered him the same deal Fistandantilus of the Dreams had. Why should he? Why shouldn't he just take what he wanted? The boy just wanted knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Fistandantilus could do so much more. In this world of mortals, he could be a god.

It wouldn’t be easy. Fistandantilus was not so full of himself not to recognize the challenges that lay before him now that he had utter control of Raistlin’s body. The Necromancer that had taken an interest in the young mage was bothersome, perhaps even worrisome. And Regina Mills was interesting in her own right. For all his power, Fistandantilus was not a mind reader and he wondered what the Mills woman knew. What the necromancer knew. What had Raistlin written in that damnable journal in the days Fistandantilus hadn’t had the wherewithal to pay attention to what the young mage was doing? What observations had he made? Most importantly, who else had read it?

Fistandantilus knew the pirate wench had the notebook. For whatever reason Raistlin had trusted her with keeping it. Trust in a pirate. It was laughable, really. The boy had allowed his feelings for his friends to cloud his better judgment.

He’d been watching her that evening as she worked the room, minded her patrons and finally peel herself away and isolate herself out of the watchful eyes of others. He followed her at a distance, disguising his presence, hiding from her until she was upstairs and alone, dolling up her face. It was then, standing behind her that he dropped the glamour. His presence came with an icy bitterness one could feel deep in their bones. His voice, while still Raistlin’s, lacked the gravely quality that was Raistlin’s signature and was liquid and smooth. “Good evening, Isabela.”

“Fucking balls!” Isabela jumped - and it was difficult to sneak up on her, let it be known. Usually she was the one skulking around, hiding in the shadows. It was what rogues did - and you really shouldn’t trust them, that was true. Rogues, pirates, thieves, scallywags - they were all the same. They took what they wanted, when they wanted - and if anyone happened to be in their way, they would mow the obstacle down; they didn’t let any sort of hurdle stop them.

But maybe, just maybe, there’d be those times where they would surprise you - Hawke had been right when he’d referred to the heart of gold Isabela had, the same heart of gold they just needed to pry up and sell. Sarcasm, of course, yet there was still a bit of truth in it.

She turned, lips pursing and pop, mashing them to spread the colour. Didn’t she look fetching? “Oh, now this ought to be good. What can I do for you, Cheekbones?”

Naturally, she was suspicious. This didn’t sound like Raistlin. Raistlin would have also knocked on the bloody door, because he had manners. Whatever wanted to eat his soul and use his body for nefarious purposes clearly did not.

Such colorful language! There was a certain sense of satisfaction – perhaps even accomplishment – when one was able to sneak up on a person who made their living using stealth and make them jump. She had recovered well, but Fistandantilus wasn’t about to forget the way her voice had pitched in surprise.

The old mage had no use for prettiness or attraction. It was useless sentiments and wasted energies that only got in the way. He laughed at Raistlin for his attachment to the “pretty pirate”. For feeling protective of her!

“You have something that belongs to me,” Fistandantilus stepped towards her, causing the air around him to become frigid. “I would like to have it back.”

Well, you see, Isabela may not have had much of a formal education - she’d gotten past the British equivalent of high school, nothing further (and she’d been tutored with other children of service families on naval ships to boot) - but she was certainly not an idiot. And she wasn’t about to give this whatever he was any sort of ‘thing.’

Though she had a feeling she knew what he was here for. Her and Raistlin had discussed this over Turkish coffee in a quaint little shoppe one day - back when there were only inklings of Fist-a-bum and he hadn’t taken over entirely. Smart of Raistlin to want to keep the journal documenting the appearances of ‘the other.’ Smart of Fisty to want it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, I’m afraid,” she said, unsheathing the dagger she’d had hidden on her person - daggers, rather, because Isabela could be wearing black knickers and pasties and she’d still find a way to stash a weapon. The nature of rogues. “I take a lot of things that belong to people. It’s sort of my schtick.”

Her honeycomb eyes flashed with warning. “And if you honestly think I won’t hurt you just because you’re borrowing his body, you’re even madder than I thought.”

This was amusing. A snake smile spread across Raistlin’s angular features. “You know who I am,” he told her. Her dagger didn’t intimidate in the slightest. Even as Fistandantilus spoke, his mind whirred with the calculations needed for a spell to yank the weapon from her hands. “Thus, you know what I am here for. You’ve been expecting this, in fact. I know you have. I’ve been listening in on your little conversations.” He stepped towards her, practically gliding over the floor. “You know who I am, but you couldn’t even begin to understand what I am.”

He moved closer, raising a hand and murmuring a word in the language of Magic and extending a hand for that dagger to move to. “Do you believe you will be able to beat me? Is a simple ratty notebook worth that much effort?”

“I don’t really care what you are - besides a menace, clearly,” Isabela flexed her fingers and nope - he wasn’t going to get away with just magically yanking a weapon from her. She had daggers and knives stashed in every nook and cranny of the flat but that didn’t mean she would easily give them up. This just irritated her more. “Tell you what, Cheekbones - you can have the journal. If you can find it.”

She was difficult to catch. Difficult to hit - a mobile ninja, rather, and there was really no way she was giving up the journal (he’d never find it too, she’d take comfort in that).

Taunting and distracting her enemies was a skill of hers, and the latter came in the form of a sudden growl from the doorway. Hawke wasn’t home but there stood Dog, tense and ready - a large breed, a mabari warhound (what looked like an oversized pitbull) with hackles rising, having recognised a threat to his mistress.

Dog growled and sprang to pounce on the intruder, and Isabela? Well, she was already out of sight. Blink and you’d miss her!

Fistandantilus’s attention and patience for this encounter was growing quickly short. It had been entertaining at first, watching the wench puff out her chest and attempt to act intimidating. But now she had chosen to run and hide and allow her beast of a mutt to handle things for her. How disappointing. After all this time watching and listening, the old mage had actually looked forward to something interesting for a change.

Fistandantilus looked back at the dog with thin pursed lips and narrowed hour-glass pupiled eyes. “I don’t actually need you to physically hand me the book,” he stated to the seemingly empty apartment. “It isn’t as if I need to physically have it in my possession. I just don’t want it in anyone else’s possession either. If that means I burn this entire place to ashes to be rid of it, all the better. Quicker too. But first…”

He turned towards Dog. A quick mental shift in spell calculations were made. With a muttering of magical words and a snap of the fingers. A series of small, but bright, bursts exploded across Dog’s back and sides. The stench of burnt animal fur quickly followed.

Isabela really hoped that Dog got in a few bites - she’d feel guilty about that later, maybe, since it wasn’t like Raistlin asked for this to happen. He didn’t want to share a body with an evil thing, he didn’t want to be shoved down inside his own mind and silenced. But messing with the Hawke family? It was a bad idea.

Dog, out of instinct, bit down harder - he was burned but he wasn’t out for the count, and he had teeth, gigantic paws, a big hulking body he would use to defend himself; he’d fought demons and, namely, overpowered mages before. His mistress had as well. They would do whatever it took to defend their home. “You’re forgetting a few things, Fisty,” she said; Dog howled and sprang to the left, and Isabela appeared at ‘Raistlin’s’ right. “Water puts out fire, and I hit like a girl.”

Which meant she hit hard - as showed when she re-appeared from out of nowhere, behind his pompous strutting, and punched him in the kidneys. That might hurt a little.

It actually hurt quite a bit. Fistandantilus had been syphoning life from Raistlin for months, slowly using it to build up his own energy. He’d been systematically weakening the younger mage, preparing him to be taken over. It did not help that Raistlin Majere was not built like a fighter. He let out a pained noise and stumbled forward.

Now he was no longer annoyed. Now he was angry. “You bitch,” he seethed through his teeth. He hissed another word of magic as he drew his arm in front of him in an arc, casting out a wave of energy to knock Isabela backwards and away.

“I gave you a choice, wench!” He growled loudly. “You could have easily given me that damn notebook! Now,” he raised both hands, a flicker of flame appearing in the palm of each, “I’m going to burn this place to the damn ground and you and the book with it!”

He was just about to hurl the fireballs around the room when something happened he did not expect and did not please him. Something within him moved, as though it had burst through some barrier and had sprung back into existence. He felt more so than heard Raistlin tell him he was not going to be burning down Isabela’s home today. Before Fistandantilus’s very eyes, the fire in his hands -- the fire that had been under his control -- were snuffed out.

“Bela, please.” Fistandantilus heard the voice from his mouth, deep and low and gravelly. Raistlin. “Kill him now, before it’s too late.”

A part of her was worried, since she’d seen what fire could do - her and Hawke had precautions, of course, they had sprinklers installed in both The Hanged Man tavern and their flat, all around; it wasn’t like in films where the vicinity was soaked at the sight of smoke rising, but they went off in specific areas due to heat. Hopefully there wouldn’t be property damage but the idea of losing this, losing everything, and also Bethany downstairs getting caught in the crossfire - well, all Bela had was her family. It just made her want to fight harder to protect everything.

The energy burst knocked her back and she went flying, slamming into something hard - a bookcase, perhaps, but the impact was at her side and she felt a rib crack. Something cracked, anyway, bruises blossoming. Dog was burned and howling, making these pained noises - all of it made Bela even angier, too.

But not angry enough to see past all logic and kill a friend.

“No - you won’t die because of him. We’re going to fix this,” she hissed, standing up despite how much it hurt. That was what you did - if you happened to fall, you got back up again. “Watch me perform a magic trick of my own.”

In the mess that was her being tossed about like a ragdoll, she’d grabbed Hawke’s staff, Malcolm’s Honour; mounted up top was a small statue of Andraste. He’d often used the inverted Circle of Magi symbol, which was comprised of sharp points, to prick his fingers if he needed blood for a spell. The weapon was heavy. Isabela didn’t know how to use it to cast spells the way he did though, she wasn’t wired that way, but despite the screaming pain she faded away into invisibility and then when she faded back she was behind that fucker again, so she swung the staff as hard as she could.

And bashed poor Raistlin in the head with it. That she would definitely apologise for later.

“See? It’s called ‘knock a cunt out,’” she added, and dropped the weapon shakily.

Despite Fistandantilus running the show, Raistlin’s body was still human and humans didn’t fare particularly well when bashed over the head with a heavy blunt object. Down he went, crumpling to a heap on the floor. The hit caused Raistlin to lose what grip he had managed to gain back. If Raistlin’s body had been at full strength, maybe Fistandantilus would have been able to recover; get back up on his feet and let the pirate bitch have it full force and make a crater where this stupid bar stood. As it was, he was struggling to cling to consciousness.

Fistandantilus pushed himself up onto his knees and dragged himself away from the pirate. He was still enraged and he hurled another spell over his shoulder, a parting gift akin to an explosion in the middle of the room. Something to make the furniture over turn, book cases tumble, make an overall mess of things, and to give the bitch rogue something to think about the next time they crossed. And there would be a next time. Fistandantilus was not about to let this affront go unanswered. This was considered unfinished business. One last spell was uttered and the mage was gone before the dust settled.

Isabela covered her head while the tornado ripped through the room, certainly making a right mess of things - but overall, they were just things. Even if the bar was burned down they’d build anew. Luckily it hadn’t, and what truly mattered (those who lived and breathed) happened to still be intact, even if damaged. Dog whined from his corner, patches of fur scorched and singed off and revealing bald skin - the poor mabari. Hawke was going to utterly flip his shit. Bela was sure she’d have to do some fast talking to convince him not to go after Raistlin in ‘scary blood mage’ mode.

But both she and Dog were still alive, at least, and that thing that had possessed Raistlin had to be worried now. A human meatsack meant he was vulnerable in the ways humans were - and she was damn sure it realised that she’d been sincere when she said they would fix this. They would find a way to return Raistlin to himself. They weren’t about to just sit back and let it take over the world or whatever power-hungry things wanted to do.

“Oh, sit on a cactus and rotate,” she spat once he left; it hurt to breathe, but she shuffled over to Dog and petted him comfortingly. “Bet he tasted like sour rotten evil, huh?” And he hadn’t gotten the journal - ha, ha. Fucker.

Just give her a minute and she’d move to begin cleaning up. First she texted Hawke though, sliding down to sit on the floor while Dog laid beside her and rested his head in her lap. Some healing mojo might be helpful and she had to make sure he knew what he was walking into when he finally returned home.