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dresden_kink2011-07-19 08:39 pm
dresden_kink_mods) wrote in dresden_kink2011-07-19 08:39 pm
Entry tags:
Ghost Story Prompts and meta
The Ghost Story spoiler period is expired; prompts, meta, discussion, etc. including Ghost Story spoilers can take place in the regular pages, but please consider your fellow fans, and continue to warn for spoilers. You can continue to use this post if you would like.
Change of plans, folks. Given the fact that Ghost Story spoilers are supposedly already floating around the web and the fact that there's an early limited release at Comic Con this weekend, we're going to start a Ghost Story specific post.
All GS related prompts, fills, discussion and meta go here so as to not spoil your fellow fans (at least the ones that don't want to be :D). All fills should follow posting guidelines, with the exception of GS meta going to the meta/discussion post. Questions? Ask the mods.
Flat view: http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2520.html?view=flat
In case it needs to be said. All comments to this post are read at the risk of spoilers.
Change of plans, folks. Given the fact that Ghost Story spoilers are supposedly already floating around the web and the fact that there's an early limited release at Comic Con this weekend, we're going to start a Ghost Story specific post.
All GS related prompts, fills, discussion and meta go here so as to not spoil your fellow fans (at least the ones that don't want to be :D). All fills should follow posting guidelines, with the exception of GS meta going to the meta/discussion post. Questions? Ask the mods.
Flat view: http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2520.html?view=flat
In case it needs to be said. All comments to this post are read at the risk of spoilers.
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 1/?
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 1/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-12 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)Faerie Tale
Summary: A Faerie Tale in three parts, containing Harry Dresden's brief and fatally flawed career as a damsel in distress, a heroic rescue by a knight and a wizard, ritual magic sex, destiny, true love, bagels, noble sacrifice, and Donar Vadderung recast as the slash dragon from Merlin.
Warnings: dubcon, mentions of past noncon and torture, slavery, PTSD, explicit het, a motherfucking bucketload of slashy UST, themes of homophobia, themes of slavery, themes of rape, themes of abuse, themes of asexuality, discussion of rape, discussion of abuse, discussion of slavery, death of a major character, violence of the Ass-Kicking Evil Faeries variety, lots of burning buildings…
Okay, I think that’s it. Let me know if there’s anything I forgot to warn for, please! I DO NOT want to trigger or offend anyone, and I am more than happy to edit.
"My Knight," Mab said.
I tried to think of two words in all the English language I hated more, and couldn't.
"I had hoped not to have to issue this order," she continued, voice warm and sympathetic. Color me impressed. All Mab's sympathy really meant was that she wasn't going to be the one causing me pain or forcing me to hurt things in the immediate future; someone else would. Someone she owed a favor to. And at this point, I frankly didn't give a damn who was giving my orders or yanking my chain; all the orders hurt just as bad to fulfill.
Unless it was Maeve again. Christ, I hoped it wasn't Maeve.
I racked my brain, trying to think which of the higher-ups were likely to be cashing in on a favor right now, but came up with nothing. Things had been...well, not peaceful, recently. Not quiet. But...consistent. Yeah. Consistent was a good word.
Before Maggie, before Mexico, before Mab, I used to think I didn't have a peaceful life. I used to be wrong.
I tuned back in, only to find that Mab had finished speaking, and was looking at me expectantly. Shit. "Sorry. What?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"I said," she repeated, the air around me growing just a few degrees colder (a warning, and not a very subtle one, hells bells, she was pissed - who was it that wanted this favor?), "I am going to have to order you to kill John Marcone."
I sputtered.
"Okay. What?"
"I know you were listening, my Knight. I thought I had trained you in manners sufficiently last August." Icicle coldness prickled up my spine, and I flinched.
"My deepest apologies, my Queen," I said with thorough sincerity, dropping into a bow. I used to think there wasn't a monster alive that could force me into good manners. It was a point of pride with me: they could destroy my home, they could destroy my friends, they could destroy my body and my magic and my life but they couldn't ever destroy my God-given right to mouth off.
Stars and stones, I'd been innocent. Ignorant. Looking back on it, I almost scared myself.
"I don't understand the order, my Queen. Baron Marcone is a signatory of the Accords. It would be an act of war for any agent of Winter, even the Winter Knight, to openly attack him."
"Which is why the attack will not be open," said Mab coolly. "The Baron called John Marcone will shortly launch an attempt which will put him into a position resulting in certain death. Your orders are to help ensure he places himself in this position. I am giving you to him."
I blinked.
Wait.
What?
"It is not a trade I am pleased to make," Mab said, sounding almost petulant. "But circumstances compel me. Go to him, and follow his orders as you would mine until such time as I call you to return. And do try not to die in the interim."
And with that she vanished, fading out of touch like a melting snowflake, leaving me with my marching orders and confusion. And a whole faceful of melty new snow.
I huddled into my duster (faerie leather, made from the skins of I-didn't-ask-what), glanced around, and started walking quickly, rubbing my hands in front of me. It was four days before Midwinter, and Chicago was getting cold.
Nobody ever said that I was bad at my job.
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 1/?
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 2/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-12 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)As I walked, I brooded. I'd gotten good at brooding, over the past year-and-a-bit. I tucked my hands into my duster and my head down against the wind and settled in for a good long angst.
There were a whole host of shiny little problems with my new situation, first and foremost being the idea that I was going to have to kill John Marcone. Ensure his death. Whatever. The order itself wasn't particularly bothersome; frankly, on the scale of morally-despicable-orders-Mab-has-given it didn't even make the top twenty. Hell, in some people's opinions (like those of the entire Chicago PD), it might even be considered a public service. Any objections I'd once had to murdering vanilla mortals were long gone these days, vanished with the fire of Chichen Itza and the subsequent year and a half of ice and bloodshed. And Marcone wasn't even an innocent. If it were up to me, I'd be heading off to do my duty with a whistle and a smile.
But the thing was, this wasn't about me. Ever since the Red Court, I'd been a lot less blase about political consequences. There was right and wrong, yes (however feeble my own personal ties to the side of "right" might be these days) but there was also collateral damage, and killing Marcone would mean a metric ton of collateral damage. Marcone was a significant player not only in the supernatural community (where he was, honestly, a bit redundant, and getting more so every day the Formor raged around Chicago unchecked) but in the normal vanilla world as well: eliminate Marcone and all the organized, neatly-controlled crime in Chicago's underbelly would suddenly get a hell of a lot less organized and a whole lot less neat.
And then there was the method. What Mab was asking me to do was perfectly legal under the Accords, and should be no trouble to carry out; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was weird. I was being asked kill like a Faerie: lure Marcone into a deadly situation and leave things to resolve themselves, and that's not what the Winter Knight is for. The Winter Knight is there to provide all the ass-kicking violence that Faeries aren't legally capable of committing. Mab could have sent any number of lesser or greater Sidhe to do this. Why did she have to send me?
Not to mention that this was the first time she'd ever tried to settle a debt using my services before. I had no false modesty about my position in Court, or how well I did my job: I held an awful lot of Winter power, power that Mab wouldn't have given away lightly. I was none too well-connected with the Chicago scene these days – Mab usually issued my assignments down towards Central America or Africa, in deserts or tropics; warm places (I'd never been able to figure out if that was more about punishing Summer or me). But if Mab owed Marcone that big a favor, I should still have heard something.
Which meant either that this whole bizarre trade actually involved paying off a favor to someone else entirely, or that Mab herself really desperately wanted to get Marcone killed, and knew sending me to him was the only way to do it.
And where the hell was Mab getting her information, anyway? Information not about what Marcone was doing, but about what he was going to do in the immediate future?
And what did she mean when she said she'd been forced?
On the plus side, it was already 6AM, and my skin was still safely covering my entrails and all of my blood. That made this officially the best day I'd had in four months.
And I was in Chicago. Not the NeverNever - Chicago. This was Chicago air I was breathing: smog, smoke, the stench of open sewers, and all around me electric lights and signs and the sounds of real human people, talking and laughing and shouting right along with the car horns.
I threw my head back, open to the city and the sweet, sweet, natural sun, and felt my face twist into something that might, just, be the first real smile I'd given in years.
And then I turned left, glanced at a street sign to get my bearings, and headed off south down Fourteenth street toward one of Marcone's buildings. As long as I was allowed back into Chicago, there were some people I desperately wanted to see.
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 3/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-12 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)"Hi Toot!" I called happily, walking up the stairs to the (truly formidable) reinforced-steel door of Brighter Futures. "Think you can find someone to let me through the wards?"
"Sure thing, Knight Harry!" I swung my latest staff (Brazilian rune-carved wood, kinda cool) politely out of the way as Toot fluttered through the letterbox and vanished. A few minutes later, the door swung open to reveal a saggy-eyed, wild-haired, three-foot ex-cop carrying a tiny cup of coffee and a giant, exhausted grin.
I don't care about Fae glamours, White Court vampires, or the fact that I currently worked for a woman who'd once had both Spencer and Shakespeare drooling at her icy skirttails. At that moment, Murphy was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
"Harry!" Within seconds, the coffee was all over the doorstep and I was being pulled into a hard hug. "Oh my God, what are you doing here?"
I laughed, and took a step back to look her over. She looked good - she'd been run hard recently, clearly, and I was willing to bet the nightmares hadn't gone away, but there was none of that hard edge of desperation that had been dragging her down two years ago. In its place was good old-fashioned exhaustion. Murph took way too responsibility on with this place: leading the organization, leading missions, running interference with Marcone and running herself to the ground trying to do the sort of job that was never meant for vanilla mortals in the first place. It probably didn’t help that the Formor problem in Chicago was clearly worse than even I’d suspected; I could see a couple new wounds that looked distressingly similar to my own scars. Still - Murphy looked tired, she looked bad, sure, but it was nowhere near the same scale as my kind of bad, and that thought made something fierce and sad and happy blaze through my mind.
"I'm gonna be hanging around Chicago for a while," I grinned. “Mab's got me working for Marcone this time. Something about repaying favors.”
Murphy's eyes narrowed. "So why aren't you with Marcone now?" She'd seen Maeve come to collect me last time I'd stopped by to visit, and had suspicions about the kind of thing that tended to happen when I played hooky with friends while on the clock.
Of course, she'd only seen about five minutes of a punishment that in reality lasted somewhere between six weeks and six months, NeverNever time, but I was hardly going to tell her that. One aggravation I didn't need was my friends feeling guilty whenever I snuck off to see them, and I was not going to stop sneaking off to see them. Every damn time Mab sent me anywhere remotely close to continental America.
Some things, no matter what, will always be worth the cost.
I did an exaggerated double-take, looking around with wide-eyed innocence.
"You mean he's not here? Golly gee, and here I thought he owned this building. I guess I'll just have to wait around until he shows up."
Murphy laughed, and looked a little less worried, although she was clearly nettled by my "owns-the-building" comment. It seemed a year of mutual alliance had failed to reconcile Murphy to Marcone's interference. Good girl, Muph. I'd expected no less.
"Most of the others will still be asleep at this hour - God, what possessed you to visit a nocturnal defense squad at 6 in the morning? We’re all exhausted, we had the sixth attack in a week last night - But if I tell them you're here, I should be able to drag most of the gang over before Marcone figures out you've arrived. Bleed for me?"
I obligingly pulled out one of Mab's knives and slit my finger, adding, "and you know I still love the Smurfs." Our previous passcode, "wearing the boots," had been changed to a once-a-week rotating series of shared memories helping to prove that each of us were really us and not Bad Things impersonating us; permanent passwords had proved too dangerous after a small-time warlock disguised as Daniel had nearly slit Andi's throat last June. Of course, my own passwords could never be considered completely secure, since Mab had the right to demand them from me at any given moment, but my friends were willing to make exceptions for me. I kept steeling my nerves to tell them they shouldn't, that I wasn't worth it, but when push came to shove I knew I was weak enough - desperate enough - to let them keep risking themselves. Like I said, some things you just can't give up.
Besides, there weren't many beings, supernatural or otherwise, still alive these days that would dare to walk around wearing my skin. I was pretty sure I'd single-handedly wiped the Formor from most of Northern Africa, and that kind of word gets around. People and beings throughout the NeverNever were saying my name, and most days, I just tried not to think too hard about how scared they might be when they said it.
I was not a monster. Barely, but still, I wasn't. My will was my own.
Murphy grinned. "Come on in."
"Murph", I complained, as I followed her in past the group of Einharjen lurking in the foyer, "you know you shouldn't invite me. I'm on assignment here, there's no telling what-"
She waved a hand back at me. "Leaving your magic behind the wards always makes you twitchy, and I’d rather not risk it with so many Formor around. They’ve started coming out in the day now. Besides, Marcone wouldn't issue attack orders in here; he'd never let you get away with burning another of his buildings. Go on," she said finally, pushing me toward a door I vaguely recognized. "Sit. Drink. There's coffee inside. I'm gonna go call people."
"Hey," I called after her. "Maybe you should send a messenger out to Marcone. Don't want to keep him waiting, or anything."
Murph nodded solemnly. "I'll send one of our captured trolls to walk over to Executive Priority. Make sure it stops at all the traffic lights. And to check for tails at every single corner. And to help random little old ladies cross the street."
I grinned, and she bustled off, and I was left staring at the coffee pot, wondering if Brighter Future's other employees would try to kill me for icing the pot. Over the past year-and-a-little, I'd kind of lost my taste for hot drinks. They made my magic twitchy.
I had been waiting for maybe twenty minutes, slumped in one of the surprisingly-comfortable fold-out chairs and wavering between catching a nap and staying awake to wait for cold coffee, when the door finally swung open, revealing...
Well, just about everyone I loved best in the world.
Michael and Charity were first through the door, Charity balancing a squirming toddler and a picnic basket in one arm and rushing forward to envelop me in a hug with the other. A whole pack of werewolves, trailing loose clothing and giant smiles, bumping elbows with the rest of the Carpenter kids, and Butters stumbling half-asleep, Bob bouncing in a bag over his shoulder, and behind him, Murphy....
"Harry!"
"Harry!"
"Is that a new scar-"
"Oh my God, you cut your hair-"
"Move over, I wanna see him!"
"Uncle Harry! Uncle Harry! Look at my sneakers-"
I groaned at Murphy from behind the giant eight-armed hug-huddle the Carpenter kids were forming around me, and she grinned back.
"We couldn't get a hold of Mort or Forthill or Abby, but Eyes and the wolves here wanted to carpool, and then it just seemed to make sense to go stop by the Carpenters' in person to drag them along. Hope we didn't keep you waiting."
I noticed she didn't say anything about Thomas or Molly, and swallowed down the lump in my throat. Thomas I didn't worry about; he had largely cut himself off from my circle of friends since returning to the White Court, and Murph probably wouldn't have even thought to call him, but not mentioning Molly was a really bad sign. I hadn't heard anything from the Leanansidhe about her last time we spoke, and had, foolishly, hoped that meant things were improving.
I should really know better by now.
"We brought you breakfast," said Charity, pausing to put down a large hamper in the middle of the table (another two hampers, I saw, were already being disemboweled by the Alphas further down the table) "and some food to carry with you, if your Lady permits it."
The Fae, we all knew, were not the most accepting when it came to gifts – and that sometimes included me now, if the gift was one for Mab by proxy or if she was in a particularly bad mood.
"That won't be an issue this time," I reassured her. "In fact, I might even get to see you guys more than once, I'm gonna be staying in Chicago. Her Iciness sent me over to work for Marcone."
That got me some startled looks; Murphy clearly hadn't told them. From their faces, I didn't get the sense it was a particularly welcome surprise.
"I wonder what the Baron wants with you," said Billy, sounding slightly apprehensive.
“Meh,” I shrugged. “Probably just more Formor-killing. You said yourself they were getting bad lately, and the Courts-" by which I mostly meant 'me' "-have already chased 'em out of pretty much everywhere but here.”
“Yeah, maybe…”
“C’mon, what else could it be? Mab's had me chasing monsters across the territory of every Accorded party from the Council to the Foo dogs this past year, even if none of them ever asked for direct control of me before. You told me yourself they’ve totally overrun the place, Murph, and you guys all look dead off your feet; it’s about time he called in some outside help.”
“Harry,” said Murphy. “You know how, a while ago, we had a conversation about your mile-wide blind spots?”
I dug around in my memory. I vaguely remembered beer at Mac’s and something about Molly's crush, but the details eluded me.
“...I think so? At Mac's. We were talking about Molly.”
She nodded.
“Well, Marcone is one of those blind spots. You can't see it or you don't want to see it, I don't know, but when it comes to you he gets kind of...scary. Focused. I don't know what he wants with you, but I know he wants something. I’m just not sure it’s Formor. He hasn’t done much to fight them in the past year or so, beyond letting us go out and get our asses kicked. As far as I know, he hasn’t even been in Chicago since last winter.”
Charity and Michael were having one of those whole married-conversation-with-their-eyes things.
“Harry,” Michael said slowly, breaking away, “You should be careful, dealing with Marcone. Over the past few weeks, he's had people watching our house.”
Ice- no, not ice, I was familiar with ice, ice was goddamn comforting nowadays – sheer bloody fire flooded my veins.
Nobody besides me, Ebenezer, and the Carpenters knew, but Michael and Charity's newest adopted daughter was actually my daughter, Maggie. I didn't see her - the one and only time Michael tried to suggest bringing her to visit me, I nearly blew the windows out of Murphy's apartment. I didn't talk about her. I didn't even let myself think about her when I was in the NeverNever. If anybody knew she was my daughter, my enemies would try to use her to get to me, and Chichen Itza had shown me and the whole world and the now-dead Red Court of vampires how well that would work.
Never again.
If Marcone knew – if Marcone so much as suspected what Maggie meant to me...
For the first time in nearly six months, I felt the blanket of numb, dull shock that had settled between me and the world break, and real terror flooded in.
It was one thing to walk into battle day after day expecting to be flayed and wrecked and tortured; it was one thing knowing my life and my body were not my own. It was another thing entirely to think about my daughter in danger.
If Marcone did anything to threaten Maggie, I wouldn't kill him, regardless of what Mab might do to me for disobeying orders, regardless of the fact that I didn’t think I even could. If Marcone hurt my daughter, I'd force him to live - I'd make him immortal, just so I could hurt him again and again and again and again and again and again and again and-
"Well, whatever he wants, you should hurry up and eat, Harry," said Georgia, thwacking her fellow Alphas out of the way to grab a second bagel. "Murphy’s troll should have nearly made it to Main Street by now."
"Actually, Ms. Borden," came a cool, familar voice from the doorway, "your troll is currently somewhere around the business district, being waylaid and detained by one of my elderly female agents."
Everybody in the room froze. I looked up to see Baron Johnny Marcone framed in the doorway, flanked by Hendricks, Gard, and Childs, dressed in full-on commando gear with a huge sinister-looking black duffel slung over one shoulder.
"Knight Dresden. I came as soon as the Einherjaren alerted me. I'm afraid we don't have very much time."
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 3/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-12 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)I wonder what Marcone wants exactly. And what "maneuvering him into a position where he's vulnerable" will entail.....
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 3/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-13 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)(How is this my brain)
(I apologize profoundly for unleashing this upon the world)
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-21 01:29 am (UTC)(link)Also, a reiteration of the warnings above: this section contains mentions of past torture and graphic violence, and discussion of slavery.
"Hiiiiii, John!" I trilled, standing up and trying to ignore the pounding thup-thup-thup of my heartbeat in my ears. Maggie. Don't think about Maggie. "Package for you! Mab didn't have time to wrap me properly, but I'm sure you can dig up a bow from somewh-"
I stepped forward, and got a closer look at his face.
Hells Bells, Marcone looked terrible. If Murphy had looked tired last midsummer, he looked like he'd been chewed up, spat out, and digested. There were new scars slashed across his face and hands, acid burns framing his money-green eyes, new patches of white springing up around his salt-and-pepper hair, and underneath the duffel and Kevlar and guns, I was pretty sure he'd lost weight, hard middle-age muscles giving way to something lean and desperate.
I was beginning to see why Mab said I wouldn't have to work to kill him.
He looked like...he looked like Susan had, like I had, in the days leading up to Chichen Itza. He looked like he had eleven years ago when I found him on Demonreach, trapped with Nicodemus and the Denarians to watch Ivy die and convinced that no rescue was coming.
He looked like a man with nothing left to lose.
"Stars and stones, Marcone, what happened to you?"
He ignored me, stepping inside and running his eyes quickly over the room, then gesturing to Gard, who immediately went to the duffel and started pulling out supplies: little plastic baggies of herbs, chalk, birdseed, a couple of horseshoes, and several tiny bottles of what I sincerely hoped wasn't blood, all with neat little labels in Old Norse. I saw the bagels vanish under spell ingredients with with a mental sigh of regret. Mab fed me well, but I hadn't eaten human food for a couple of weeks now and even the best fairy fare in the world couldn't come close to touching Charity's home baking.
Marcone glanced around at the rest of the room, most of whom were staring at him in open hostility. Hope and Harry Carpenter had huddled behind their mother, shrinking wide-eyed away from the guns in Hendricks's and Marcone's hands.
“Where are Mr. Lindquist, Ms. Ash, and Ms. Molly Carpenter?”
“Couldn't get hold of them,” Murphy said tightly, scowling at Marcone as if daring him to comment. He just nodded, seemingly satisfied, and turned to Hendricks.
“Check to see whether Mr. Raith's car has arrived yet.”
“What's going on, Marcone?” I said, trying not to look as confused as I felt. “You trying to join in the party, or something? 'Cause I'm pretty sure we’re gonna need more food, if you are, Gard just ruined the cream cheese-”
He ignored me again, turning instead to Michael. "Get the children out."
My blood ran cold.
Marcone seemed pretty determined to get me and everybody I cared about
together in the same room, and whatever he wanted with us, I was willing to bet it wasn't a welcome-back party with streamers and cake. And I knew, probably better than anyone present, that if Marcone was going to try anything violent, the first thing he would do was get the kids somewhere safe.
On the other hand, if he really did intend to kill us all, I wanted the kids out of the way more than anybody. And Michael and Charity. More than I cared about my own life, I wanted the Carpenter family safe.
It wasn't safe for me to see my daughter. I could never be the family she deserved. But Michael and Charity were Maggie's family now, and she'd already lost us- she'd already lost her first one. If I had anything to say about it, she would never lose another.
I set my staff on the floor, meaningfully.
“No.”
Marcone's eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“No, Marcone. If the kids leave, everybody else leaves with them. I won't have my friends risking themselves, not for the likes of you.” His eyes closed briefly, and a look flashed across his face that could have been either exasperation or pain.
“Dresden. Your Queen does not own you right now. I do, for the next seventy-two hours-” Three days? No one had said anything to me about a time limit “-and you have been charged to obey my orders as her own. Do you really want to know what kind of orders I am prepared to give?”
He didn't say it like a question. He said it like a fact, hard and fast and totally emotionless.
He didn't sound like he was joking.
It was hard to make myself remember it, over the glowing relief of being outside the NeverNever and surrounded by mortals, but Marcone was actually more dangerous to me than Mab was at the moment. Mab and I had an arrangement. It was dangerous and precarious and it sucked, but we both knew that the power she held wasn't entirely one-sided. She told me what to do, and I jumped to it and smiled nicely and asked how high, but she'd sworn me an oath before I started my knighthood, and she would never order me to hurt someone I cared about. She couldn't. Fae can't lie.
I had no such guarantee with Marcone.
And if Mab ever pushed me too far, she knew I had a way to get back at her: I would be obedient. Perfectly, stupidly, unthinkingly, automatically obedient, so she had to stand over my shoulder every second to make sure her assignments were completed, and no matter what she tried on me, there was nothing she could do to make me stop.
Well. Nothing so far, at least. I was a little more careful about promising things like "forever" these days. But I was pretty sure she and Maeve between them had already tried pretty much everything they could, those weeks (years? Time ran differently in the NeverNever) last August, after Puerto Rico, and none of it had broken me so far. And if Lea had anything nastier hidden up her sleeve, she wasn't sharing it yet. I kind of got the impression Lea didn't approve of the way Mab treated me.
Then again, Lea had spent most of my adult life trying to turn me into a dog, so that wasn't really saying a whole lot.
Marcone, however, would have absolutely no problem with pedantic, slavish obedience. Hell, it was probably what he wanted. Yeah, he was going to die soon, probably in the next three days if he was right about the time limit, but just thinking about the kinds of things he could do- or, worse, make me do- during that time-
Huh. Now there's a thought.
"Well, scumbag," I said, leaning casually back on my staff. "I can't kill myself, 'cause Mab told me not to and it didn't take last time. But if you ever, ever try to order me to hurt one of my friends, I'll burn off my arms."
Marcone went absolutely still.
On either side of him, Hendricks and Childs' gazes focused on me like a laser. Behind me, I could hear Murphy give a sharp intake of breath. "Harry-"
"Mab'll grow 'em back," I reassured her, keeping my eyes locked on Marcone’s. "Nothing I haven't done before. But it'll take longer than three days, and I doubt a crippled Knight is going to be able to do you much good in the meantime. And you're going to get to explain to Her Highness at the end of it exactly why you're returning me damaged. I doubt she'll be pleased."
She'd be less pleased with me, but Marcone didn't need to know that.
I looked around and blinked. Everybody was staring.
"What?"
"I- I have no intention of ordering you to hurt anyone, Harry," said Marcone. His voice sounded hoarse. “Very well. Your other friends can leave too, if it makes you more comfortable.” He glanced around the room. “In fact, this might be better managed if everyone were to give us a few minutes alone-”
"No," said Murphy. Marcone and I turned to stare at her.
"What?" She shoved her way in front of me, knuckles going white from where she was gripping her gun. Charity reached up to put a warm hand on my shoulder.
"No, we're not leaving. Not until we know what you're planning to do with Harry."
Michael and Charity shifted closer to me on either side, putting the children behind them, eyes fixed on Marcone and his men. Almost casually, Billy and Georgia and the rest of the wolves pushed themselves out of chairs, dropping their bagels, fingers drifting towards dress ties and shirt hems.
"Guys," I said uneasily, "I'm not sure this is such a great idea-"
“You gave up the right to ask us not to risk our lives for you when you sold Mab your free will and your right to say no,” Murphy interrupted.
I stared at her in raw shock. Murphy never talked about the Knight thing. Never. Unlike the Alphas and the Carpenters and Butters who all seemed to want to drag me into Talking About Things every couple of months, she had never once verbally acknowledged the change my life had taken. It was one of the many reasons I loved her.
“We're staying. We're protecting you, Harry, and you can shove your stupid macho instincts where the sun doesn't shine. If this asshole wants to use you, he's coming through me.”
I felt tears springing to my eyes, even as I quietly panicked over what Marcone was likely to do to all of them for defending me like this.
Ye gods and little fishes. Murphy.
Marcone stared her down, assessing, then turned around to look at everyone else clustered around me and snorted.
"I suppose this was probably inevitable. Very well, stay with Dresden. But I'm afraid I'm still going to have to ask the Carpenter children to leave this room at least, if not the building. The matters I have to discuss are highly sensitive and possibly dangerous for those involved.” His voice turned softer as he turned to look at Charity, and her hand tightened on my shoulder. "Please, Ms. Carpenter. For their safety and ours. They will only be a door away."
I didn't believe him, not completely. It was about equally likely that he was going to blow us all up; or, more likely, have Gard try some thrall-spell-thing the second that door was closed. But if he was going to kill us, it would be better to have the kids out of the way. And even if the worst happened and Marcone killed us all, at least Maggie's new siblings would be okay.
And if Marcone ever tried to lay a finger on Michael or Charity Carpenter in my presence, orders or no orders, it would be the last thing he ever did.
Charity stared him down, but eventually nodded.
“Fine. Go on," Charity said, nudging Daniel. He scowled at her - at twenty-one, Daniel was way too old to be treated like a child, but he went quietly enough once Michael put a hand on his shoulder. Marcone nodded to Gard. Gard nodded back, and pushed past Butters to unplug the coffee maker (Butters made a wounded noise) and shove it into the center of the room, crouching down to dip her fingers in the blood-vial and start inscribing a neat string of runes along the wall. Billy glared suspiciously, sidling away.
“What's she doing? I thought you were going to explain.”
"Patience, Mr. Borden. Ms. Gard is warding the room against eavesdroppers." His voice sounded strained; he kept looking away from me. I mentally shrugged. Sit and wait was one order I could carry out.
Since I didn't have anything better to do, I picked up one of the bagels and sat back down to watch Gard carry on with her rune-things. It wasn't any kind of magic I was familiar with, and I doubt I could figure it out without knowing at least some of the symbology – she seemed to be working on a totally different system from traditional wizardly runes, which would make sense, considering she was actually a Valkyrie – but it was weirdly peaceful to watch.
And as I watched, I realized I could feel something weird happening. The veins of ice running up through my magic - Mab's power, locked and woven into me so deeply that most days I couldn't tell where it stopped and my magic began - started to shrivel, shrinking down until nothing but a single thread remained, dangling out from the left side of my chest. At first I couldn't believe it was happening - no wards could be that powerful, not to shut out this thing inside me - and then I quickly stopped worrying and just sat back to enjoy it. If I pretended real hard, I could almost imagine I was free of pain again. Free of Mab.
Stars and stones, I'd forgotten what it was like to feel warm.
After a while, it occurred to me that I could probably drink a cup of hot coffee again, so I went over and grabbed one, using a wisp of soulfire to steam up my cup and Butters's. He gave me an eloquently grateful look.
Huh. Soulfire. I hadn’t really expected to still have that one in me, but it was a nice discovery to make.
About twenty minutes into waiting, Thomas was escorted to the door by one of the Einherjaren. He sauntered past Marcone and Gard (now busily scattering birdseed, rice, wheat, and millet in seemingly random clumps across the carpet) without blinking so much as an eyelid, pausing to punch my arm and steal my bagel on his way to lean coolly against the far wall.
I felt the bruise he’d left surreptitiously, and smiled a little as I reached for another cup of coffee. Brothers. It had been too long.
Finally, Gard dusted her hands off, shot an eloquently disapproving glance back at Marcone, and wandered over to take a post inside the doorway, gun held at the ready. Hendricks and Childs took up a similar poses like bookends on each side of the door. Finally, she reached over and swung the door shut, pressing the last of the horseshoes ends-up against its surface. It stuck in the middle, humming, about five feet off the floor, without any visible adhesive holding it up, and all the ambient noise from the corridor went suddenly silent. Marcone glanced over at me.
“Dresden. How solid is your connection to Faerie?”
The question surprised me, and I nearly choked on the last of my (hot, gloriously luxuriously scalding hot) coffee scrambling to answer. He’d known what Gard’s runes were doing to me? For me?
Of course he did. Marcone would never want another power like Mab knowing his secret business. I wondered if he knew I would have to tell her everything after I got out of here, or if he was planning on killing me and everybody here before I could. I could almost ignore all that, though, for the unexpected gift of freedom – of actual hot coffee.
“Feels like it's barely there.”
If I hadn’t been watching him closely, I would have missed the way Marcone let go of some of the tension he'd been carrying, shoulders drooping forward and right hand tightening and loosening reflexively over one of the Glocks strapped to his belt. He swept his gaze over at the rest of the room, and said once, not angry or threatening but absolutely, frighteningly calm: “if there is anyone in this room with any doubt about his or her willingness to make sacrifices on Dresden’s behalf, I ask that you leave now.”
No one moved.
"I have brought you all here because I am going to free Harry Dresden from the Winter Queen."
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-21 01:43 am (UTC)(link)How is it that I'm the only one to comment on this! it's TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS, that's how!
How about you post in directly on AO3 or something? I'll also shower you with love there.
Also, don't worry about the slow coming chapter -- we( I) shall wait untill the brave knight Sir Anony of Mouse slays those wicked finals!
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2012-05-21 01:54 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2012-06-26 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)I'm betting that none of Harry's friends are going to be willing to bail after that whole conversation about burned off arms... Yikes Harry. :(
One thing that threw me a little: "He looked like he had eleven years ago when I found him on Demonreach..."
Eleven years? Is this due to Harry's time in the nevernever? 'cause I don't think it's been that long in the books...
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2012-10-14 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)I think my favorite part might be where he threatens to burn off his arms, mostly because I don't think he even realizes how much he gave away in that handful of sentences about what his life is like now. He's on a completely different wavelength from everyone else in that room regarding what's normal - what to expect in terms of orders, how far it's reasonable to go in order to circumvent them, what reactions will be to those methods (from the one giving the orders as well as witnesses), what kind of punishments are (or rather, aren't) a big deal - and the new standard has been so deeply, thoroughly driven in that he doesn't even get that everybody else isn't on the same page.
Which only makes them even more upset about what he just revealed, of course.
Re: Fill: Faerie Tale, 4/?
(Anonymous) 2013-01-07 02:10 am (UTC)(link)