peryton

[shesepankh]

Summer vacation elapses, and sees their storefront doing one heck of a business in the Avalon with the help of their griffin employee. There is a suggestion box for new spells they should invent, some of which have to be long-term projects but others of which are converted into new product fairly promptly.

School starts up again. Darren and Bella are both skipping straight into twelfth grade. (Bella looked into just starting college early, but while she does technically have the sort of resume that can lead to that kind of thing, she can't exactly write an essay about how she saved the life of another person and this caused her to have Moral Character, let alone about how she started a small business - so skipping one grade it is.)

They apply to colleges. They both get into University of Washington and get sufficient scholarships to accommodate both going there.

Summer ensues again.

One afternoon, Bella is over at Darren's, and has fallen asleep - in purring fullform - across his lap on the couch.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"I -" If she tries it, it's hard to tell.

The blackness spreads past her wing and gets the rest of her, and then there is not a weight of a sphinx on his lap anymore - just a squodge of inky blackness, now retreating.

[castmyown]

Darren will wonder, later, exactly what went through his head when he saw his girlfriend get - eaten by an ink monster. He won't be able to recall. He'll try to describe it as 'a deadly calm' but that's not what it is at all. It's focused, it's logical, and it's - like a tidal wave of emotion, pushing him to act and to act decisively.

But he will be able to remember what he says, in perfect French, and how he managed to get the fire scroll out of his pocket before the ink - thing makes it to the door.

"Light, heat, sunlight brought to life, come forth, come forth without harm to any but darkness," he nearly whispers. "And do some fucking smiting."

[alicornucopia]

The inky thing flattens when the light pours onto it - but it absorbs it all, blacker than ever, and slips out the door.

[castmyown]

Fuck. Fuck, he miscalculated -

He is off of the couch and after the - the ink monster as fast as he can manage it, and he's already trying to figure out a new angle to kill it. Because he is going to kill it, it ate his girlfriend, it is not allowed to keep shooping along like that's perfectly fine, it gets to die. It gets to die efficiently, damn it, except he can't figure out how to kill it, not yet. He just knows that he's going to.

[alicornucopia]

Shoop shoop.

It melts into a storm drain.

[castmyown]

Darren hisses a curse word and grasps at the storm drain, briefly trying to see if it will do what he wants it to and be ripped out of the fucking ground, but no, no it holds just fine. Damn engineers. He tries to tell what direction the ink - thing goes, see if he can follow it, but it's too dark down there, he can't tell.

He indulges himself by allowing himself a primal scream of rage and despair. Once. He makes it a good one.

And then he stands, turns on his heel, and marches back to his house to start composing a spell to find the ink monster, and then a spell to kill it, and then he's going to do both in rapid succession and maybe it will spit his girlfriend out.

Or maybe not. She could be dead. Please don't be dead.

He ignores the cold pit of fear gripping his heart. He adds another item to his list of things to do, and that item is 'find way to torture the information out of ink monster about the whereabouts of his girlfriend.' He doesn't even think about the ramifications of it, it's just a mission that he is going to accomplish. Because it ate his girlfriend, and Darren wants her back right this instant.

[steppingup]

"Darren," says a panicked father, having heard both screams. "What -"

[castmyown]

"Call Savannah, I require her. Ink monster just either kidnapped or ate Bella."

And then he walks off to make spells. To find, torture, and then kill the ink monster.

[steppingup]

Vernon calls Savannah. She says not to bother picking her up, she's flying home, it's important, and that she gives no fucks about subtlety. Vernon does not enforce the swear jar, just this once.

And then, wondering what on Earth he's going to say - Vernon calls Charlie.

[sundayfish]

"Hello?"

[steppingup]

"Hello. There's been a problem." Vernon pauses, and closes his eyes, and then says. "Another creature just attacked my house."

[sundayfish]

"You need help?"

[steppingup]

"Possibly. It - took Bella."

[sundayfish]

"Took?"

[steppingup]

"The exact terminology Darren used was 'kidnapped or ate.'"

[sundayfish]

"What kind of - what happened? How did it happen?"

[steppingup]

"I wasn't there. Darren was, he said it was an ink monster, I can only assume it snuck into my house and -" Vernon trails off.

[sundayfish]

"He got time to explain it to me or is he up to his neck in magic?"

[steppingup]

"He said two sentences to me and then went off to do - what I assume is magic. I can ask?"

[sundayfish]

"I need to know. Especially if there's - anything I can do."

[steppingup]

"Yeah, understandable."

He goes and finds Darren.

"Darren, Charlie's on the phone."

[castmyown]

Darren is currently at his computer, notebook in hand, drafting out spells with the rune-sorting program in the background. He looks up at his father, impassively. He takes the phone, because maybe Charlie has resources that can be used.

"Five minutes ago a pitch-black ink-like monster flowed under the door like it was part of the floor, formed up into a shapeless flowing mass, and then - swallowed Bella." There is a faint waver in his voice at Bella's name, but otherwise the tone is curt and flat. "I hit it with a light spell, it didn't hurt it in the slightest, and then it fled to a storm drain and melted through. I tried to see what direction it went but I couldn't tell because storm drains are dark. I'm making a spell to find it."

And then he is going to ask it in no uncertain terms where his girlfriend is. Then, he kills it.

[sundayfish]

"Anything I can do? Anything else funny go on around that time?"

[castmyown]

"Came out of nowhere. You can get me a map of where the storm drains go, that might help."

[sundayfish]

"Will do. Anything else? You sure it went through the drain somewhere and wasn't just hiding out waiting for you to leave?"