#also with his ties to nature its really frowned upon to mess with balance too much

[zeciex]

Obsidian & Angelite Ch. 6 (M)

Oya has spend centuries bound to one single plot of land when one day a stranger with a voice of velvet and presence that can only be described as dark and outmost interesting. He comes with an offer she can’t refuse and suddenly her entire world changes, both for better and worse.

But what does Langdon need of her? And how can she use him to get what she want? Maybe they’re bound by something bigger than fate.

Warning: Dark themes, Strong Language, Rape,

A/N: Since tumblr kills everything with links, I’ll reblog this post with the links to previous chapters and archive link

When the spirit wanderers things does not go unseen

Placed on the bedside table were a thin yellow candle. It was the first thing that had been done as soon as she had settled in. The yellow candle with a matching flame were to be kept there, to be kept an eye on. It linked in with the spell she had placed on the old house so that if any supernatural being were to cross over into her land she’d know. For weeks now it had been lit.

And then it wasn't.

It left a gnawing feeling deep inside, something nagging at her to make her realise something. It was important and it was frightening.

And so she decided that a simple vision wouldn’t suffice. Visions were scattered, they were focused on snippets out of place and mostly they were left for interpretation. For simple visions like that you’d need to touch something that were there in the moment you needed to see. She had nothing.

So she began plucking herbs from her garden, crushed it in a mortar to release its juices. Mugwort for scrying, Star anise for clavoyance, Bay Leaf for its sanctity and visions all mixed together with soil from her garden, bone from a raven and ash from a burned oak. From it she derevied a small potion to be poured in a body of water and that’s exactly what she did.

The bath were filled up to a critical point, the potion mixed in long ago. In the water she drizzled Catnip, the green leafs floating at the surface, and essence of Eucalyptus for the rituality of its cleansing powers. Blossoms of blue rosemary and the stalks of it floated in the water too. It worked as purification. Whatever was on the other side, she’d rather not drag pieces of it with her, nor did she want to get lost to the inbetween.

“What are you doing?” Michael questioned leaning against the entrance of her bathroom with his arms folded over his chest. Oya remained on her knees, drawing symbols on the floor with white chalk. They looked like disfigured stick men or as if a 3 year old tried and failed to draw any form of animal.

“My place got a visitor,” she said while finishing up the last symbols. Michael had impeccable taste when it came to baths, this tub was perfect for these sort of things, standing at enough distance from everything else to make a circle around it. With the small bundles of herbs, in between the marks, were emeralds and moonstones placed. “Or visitors, I don't know yet but I intent to find out.”

“There are other ways to find out than this,” Michael commented. The way he looked at the set up told her that he had never seen or done anything like this and it made her wonder.

“This is how I learned to do it,” she brushed off her hands on her silk robes, standing up. She tied her hair up in a mess that made it look more like an unkempt bush than anything else, with stray tots falling down her neck. “Many of the herbs open up your mind and lets you wander through the inbetween, the symbols are for warding and protection as well as helping the door open and the stones helps with protecting energies. I’m sure the ritual has developed over the years but this is what I know, what I remember.”

Michael remained standing in the doorway, his face in an unreadable mask that she couldn’t quite see past. It almost seemed as if he wary of it. Maybe he had to be, walking through the inbetween weren't easy, if you were lead astray you’d remain atray. Even if you’ve done it before it could be dangerous.

The ritual she had done when she came here were one akin to this, and it left her drained and with bruises. Worse thing could happen.

But as with all other things, worse things could always happen, letting that stop you would effectively stop you from doing everything, anything.

A little thought planted itself deep in her mind, at the very outskirts. What if there were something he didn’t want her to see?

“Haven't you ever seen a ritual like this? Who taught you magic?”

“My teachers were far more focused on getting me through the seven wonders than to teach me witchcraft,” he said with a frown. Oya looked at him in surprise.

So his teachers had focused on passing the supreme tests rather than teaching ways to use his magic. Even if he were naturally gifted and incredibly clever, raw power like his could reach so much further if he had been taught the ancient crafts. Everything he knew he had taught himself, she realised. Like her.

She folded her arms over her chest like him. “Did they know?”

“That I was the antichrist? No, mostly they didn’t question my powers, they were far more occupied with making me the new supreme, the alpha,” he said with a hint of a smile on his lips that were quickly turned into a frown.

“A male supreme? Unlikely, history has shown that the only supremes that can exist is female. You’re the antichrist not a witch or a wizard or whatever they call themselves, the supremacy wouldn’t be passed to you.” There were something alarming about this mask of his, eyes forming a wild storm and by the way he withheld his tendrils of magic she knew she was on thin ice.

“It didn’t matter, I won, will win regardless.” She walked to him and caressed his cheek.

“Because you have devil juju on your side,” she teased trying to ease his demeanor. It helped, he dropped his arms and leaned into her touch. “And you also have a goddess who owes you a favor.”

Oya turned and felt his hands come to her shoulders, fingers slipping past neck and holding onto it as she stepped out of the silk, naked. He stood with her silk in hand, letting it fall over his arm for her to take when she returned from the bath.

She sunk into the warm waters, the already critical water line rising even higher. Warmth engulfed her body. Before sinking further into the water, she looked over at Michael who stood patiently outside the ritual circle and watched.

“How did you learn? Your teachers were as unlikely to teach you anything like this as mine were,” he asked.

“When you’re not the prodigy you tend to live in the shadows. I stole a whole lot of my mother's books and read them in secret. The things I remember are the rituals I now know, it’s by far everything but it is something,” she answered. Most of the rituals had ceased to work, things get forgotten over time or changed. What she knew she had worked for, she had tested her way through it and if it worked, well then it fucking worked.

Like many things throughout time pieces of magic dwindled. The gods that were had fallen and things changed. That was how time worked. Witches themselves are said to be going extinct, their blood beginning to run thin with magic.

Oppose to them, being a goddess meant you had the possibility of so much more and with that you were a threat, to be hunted and locked away.

Michael would fall into the same category, wouldn’t he? Or just maybe he had the fate of something bigger than one of the last gods on earth.

“Whatever happens do not break the circle before I resurfaces,” she warned moments before diving fully into the water.

Like before there was nothing to begin with. Then slowly she began forming in that nothingness. Everything above the waterline nibbling at her ankles were dry, her hair now free and falling over her naked body. Around her were the emptiness, the abyss. She hated this place, the thought of being trapped there for eternity send shivers down her spine. It was a perfect limbo of nothing.

Oya began to walk, invisible theaters guiding her towards where she needed to be. The soil helped with that, to keep her from going astray and focus on finding the path to her old prison.

She stopped and looked sideways. Even though there were nothing there, she felt her soul being pulled, the back of her mind hearing a whisper that so dearly wanted to be heard. It made her heart speed up in fear. The inbetween called to her and something inside wanted to follow, to see what it wanted to show, what that little part of her told her she needed to see.

Ripping her eyes from the spot of black she had been captured by, she continued to walk a straight line forward. Water became soil, still air became warm and windy, around her formed so familiar and haunting scenery that made her heart stop for a moment in fear that being released from this place had been a dream.

The fine rows of herbs had fallen victim to weed. It looked disheveled and messy, many of the plants now sporting withered parts if it had not died at all. The soil that she had always kept perfectly balanced with water were now dry. Time had really passed.

It wasn’t what she came for.

Oya looked up and observed as two hooded figures entered the premise with a wave of the hand. The spell she had placed on the house from keeping being robbed, broke, the bowl with dried old herbs breaking into. That was the moment her candle went out.

They walked silently through the garden and into her house, hoods still covering their faces. Oya followed at a distance, strangely fearful of their presence. The gnawing feeling returned as nausea, adrenalin beginning to spike in her blood as her heart began drumming. If they were who she thought they were…

One hooded figure revealed themselves. Black hair that were once kept long were now cut to the shoulder, small traces of silver shining through in the light. Her mother turned and revealed the fine turning of time had left small lines upon her face, around her mouth and eyes, and yet she looked youthful. Oya fell to her knees outside of the door, hands gripping onto the wall as a way to keep fast.

“How?” Questioned the other person, her voice soft and young. She pulled back her hood and revealed light blond hair in a braid, eyes that used to be black now a crystal blue. Her sister had much finer and friendlier features. Soft lips the color of pink and a kinder bow to her jaw.

“I don’t know,” Haesoo answered her daughter, bewildered by her other daughters disappearance. “The spell was meant to last, she shouldn’t have been able to break it.” “Maybe it wasn’t her that broke it,” Ina said and kicked at a pillow on the ground. She walked around the room, fingers trailing over everything in an attempt to bring forth a vision.

“There’s no one powerful enough for that,” Her mother voiced in frustration. Worry made her look older.

“What if there were a lot of them then? We were many when we bound her so what if it is a coven we have to look for and not an individual? Maybe the New Orleans coven were desperate enough.”

“It’s not,” Haesoo said and walked towards the cup placed on the table. His cup. She bend down and took it, eyes looking at it as if she read a book. Oya felt herself begin to shake, the tether between this place and her body getting pulled together. It wasn’t long before she had to return. “If it were a coven there’d be left a bigger imprint, of something recognizable. The residue here is… strange, dark. It’s an individual.”

“It's quite similar, isn't it?” Ina asked and came to stand beside her mother.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she clutched the cup and closed her eyes. “Whoever released her is darker than anything I've ever felt and far more dangerous. If they have her by their side then… We have to get her and we have to make sure she’s permanently incapable of being a threat.”

Haesoo turned and looked directly at Oya. No, not directly, through her. Nevertheless Oya felt as if the world pressed in on her, air not getting to her lungs. Scrambling back she fell off the porch in a mess of arms and legs. The ground only seemed to swallow her up just like the fear. She sank, fighting against the soil, hands grabbing onto clumps of dirt and leaves until her head was covered and everything went black.

“Why exactly is it so important to get the ginseng when it’s full moon?” Oya asked her sister that had somehow convinced her to join her on her trip up the mountains. Now they were surrounded by woods, the lights of the city gone, replaced with silver moonlight that only cast an eerie veil through the crown of the trees. She rode beside her sister, accompanied by two armed guards.

“It’s said that if you dig up the ginseng that grows on the side of a mountain in the light of a full moon it’ll improve its qualities,” Ina answered, steering her horse further up. “Mother wanted us to get it.”

“Is it because of what happened?” Oya couldn’t help but ask. Since that day things had been different and why shouldn't it? She killed an entire village. They say it was something in the water but in reality it was her. The power within her had lashed out, she had felt positively euphoric. Even she was afraid of what hid beneath her skin, the monster clawing at her insides, the darkness that wrapped around her soul.

Ina looked at her sister with strange sympathy. “She’s afraid you will lose control again, that’s why we moved.”

“I’m trying. I don’t know what more I can do. I didn’t want to kill them,” Oya pleaded and felt some sort of remorse over the lie. In truth it had scared her how indifferent she felt towards what happened, not the act it self.

“But you did,” Ina said with a cold voice that struck her. “We’re here.”

They unseated the horses and brushed the ruffles out on their skirts. Ina made the guards remain, her powers latching onto them and controlling their minds. Oya followed her sister out into the clearing, carrying the basket on her arm. She frowned, eyes looking for the plant but found nothing but a house surrounded by a stone fence.

“Wha-.” A hand wrapped around her from behind, the basket being ripped out away from her with force. Closing her eyes she searched for her powers but found them as subdued as she was, forced passed the stone fence, into an overgrown garden. In the middle were a table, one she was thrown against moments before hitting the ground. Pain broke through her head, the feeling as if it was split open, she screamed.

“Get her on to the table, we can only hold her powers so long,” a familiar voice shouted. Oya felt hands around her arms, lifting her up and onto the table. Rope were tied around her wrists and ankles but just for good measure she was held down with bruising force.

“Let go of me! Help! Ina!” She screamed for her sister, kicking with all she could against the restraints. A power forced her still, the only thing she could move was her eyes, frantically looking around through blurred tears. Her mother stood beside her, face of stone and eyes as cold as ice. Above her holding her wrists were her sister, with a worried frown on her face.

She wanted to scream her throat raw, to let her powers run through her with vengeance.

“Cut her hanbok off,” her mother ordered. All Oya could do was watch as her fine silk hanbok was cut through, the fabric torn off her body and leaving her revealed and bare to the world. Her heart stopped, the shame of being left so unprotected clutching tightly around it.

She fought the magic stilling her, fought against its restraints until her body began to tremble. Around her gathered hooded figures with lit candles in their hands. They chanted lowly, the words seemingly making the air hum just like it did before a storm would tear through the skies.

“W-what?” was all she could get past her lips. With eyes as empty and cold as staring into a skull, her mother stood above her, knife catching the light of the moon.

“Mother,” Ina said before being stilled by their mothers cold snap of her eyes.

“We were fools for thinking that we should bring back gods,” her mother said. “We were greedy and foolish for thinking we could control something like that. You are by far my biggest regret and this…” Haesoo’s hands levitated above her daughters naked body, paled by the moon as if all colour had left the once sunkissed skin. “this will make sure you can never hurt anyone again. This is our way to make things right.”

Oya finally broke free of the spell that held her still. She screamed like a wolf in the night, the sound tearing through her throat with merciless claws. The rope burned her skin, dug in and left marks that felt like they’d never go away, and in a way they didn’t.

Haesoon began to chant, her words slurring into a language Oya didn't understand. Then her sister joined, her eyes never leaving her mother's form, even when her sister begged for her to help, begged to be released.

The surroundings began to blur into shadows and fine flames, the forms lengthening and twisting to something monstrous. The trees sang a sad song, one of pain and sorrow, maybe if was for her, maybe it sang of this very moment when Oya realised that the ones who should have loved her only saw her as a monster, saw her as something to be kept locked away with betrayal and bindings. Or just maybe it sang the song of all the souls she had taken from the world.

Warm liquid fell onto her body, drawing dark lines over pale skin, smearing and sticking to her. It turned freezing. Above her were now a dead snake hanging limp in her mother's grip, its blood spilled onto her body. Blood of the serpent, symbol of the goddess Ereshkigal, of her.

“Mother, please!” She cried but found her pleas were nothing but empty words to her mother. The screaming had left her throat raw, voice almost burned out of her but her tears kept coming, the tickled down the sides of her face. They meant nothing to them.

Her mother called in someone, one of the guards, that came to stop at her feet. Never had she called so loudly on her powers, never had she screamed into the abyss and found nothing. Never would she have thought that her own flesh and blood would do something like this.

She wanted to throw up, her stomach turning when his hands trailed up her legs and parted them for him. The pain were almost as bad as the betrayal, the uselessness she felt, the utter and total embarrassment. The pain resonated within her and she felt as if she was truely trapped. Burning chains formed around her, searing themselves into her skin with fine imprints.

There were nothing but pain, feeling half of her being ripped from her body, feeling bound to something agonizingly fragile. A part of her wished her dead, wished her gone from it all.

Another part of her burned with reckoning. It cursed them all, saw all those who had anything to do with her binding and rape to die a painful and slow death. She cursed their children and their children's children. She cursed their entire bloodline. But curses from someone who was split in two, whose powers were locked away, were nothing but words.

In a still moment where time slowed down, she looked into the darkness and found a boy the same age as she, with strange clothe and even stranger features. His hair were in golden tossels around his head, golden hair she had never seen before. Maybe he was a spirit, someone who’d help. Their eyes met, obsidian orbs meeting blue angelite. They were beautiful and they were sad.

Pain surged through her once more, feeling as if she were about to explode, she screamed and attempted to kick the man off, to tear her wrists from the bindings even if it tore off her skin.

In the end she was left entirely powerless. In the end she was left entirely alone.

In the end there were nothing but the seed of hate setting root.

In the end the boy haunted her.

With a jolt Oya sat up, water that had been still now violently spilling everywhere, the candles put out and knocked over with force, the herbs washed away and symbols cleaned off. She screamed despite the lack of air, body filled with a hollow pain while her mind was scattered to the then, the inbetween and the now.

She was still being suffocated in the soil, still screaming in the inbetween and in total pain in the now.

Michael had thrown the robe and rushed to her side, his arms sinking into the water and wrapped around her to keep her from sinking in once more. He shushed her with soft words, his hands coming around to hold her face up as she jittered in pain, lips quivering violently and eyes trying to focus.

“Oya! Oya!” He said, trying to calm her. “You’re back, you’re here, I’m here!”

The words she tried so forcefully to from in her mouth came out as strange stutters with no actual words forming. With her mind shattered like this everything felt out of place. She felt out of place.

His eyes were so blue. Angelite. She couldn’t remember were she’d seen them.

It took several moments before her body stopped sizing, before she felt in control of it enough to reach out to Michael. Her hands shook when they grabbed onto his jacket that had become soaked. The pain dwindled, her mind falling into place, leaving behind the then, the inbetween to fully be in the now.

Michael lifted her out of the water and cradled her against him. Without any concern to his attire he held her, softly brushing wet hair out of her face. He felt warm as always. She could hear his heart drum in his chest and slowly she found her way back, her own heart starting to beat with his.

“They’re alive,” she croaked. “They’re alive and they know I’m not there anymore.”

“They won’t be able to find you,” Michael reassured.  There were something there, something pulling at the corners of his sincerity, something that nudged the doubt that had been planted in her. There was a carefulness.

She pushed away from him, hand on his chest. “Did you know? Did you know they were alive?”

“I had my-,” he started after being quiet a moment too long. How easily he lied.

“You knew.”

“Yes,” he admitted. Oya pushed away from him entirely, her skin getting in contact with the wet floor as she pushed over it until they were not touching anymore. There were a callousness to him, like there always were. Another mask, another layer, another shield.

Fear turned to anger and anger burned. It was there to begin with, simmering in the distance and always getting closer and now she were engulfed in it. Rage pure and simple, that left no room for fear or anxieties.

She hated them enough for her to go through him if she had to.

Her powers lashed out and pressed against him until he had scootered over the floor and pressed against the frame of the door. Lights began to flicker, a strange sound filling the room as a gash began to drag over the mirror while it vibrated. The air was windy with magic.

Michael’s eyes flared up with a familiar anger, one she had seen before on him. In contrast to her burning rage his was cold and contained. It made him far more frightening.

“You knew!” She hissed at him, hands balling against the floor so much that her nails cut into the skin of her palm.

Michael simply dried off drops of water before leaning to rest against the frame. Pieces of his hair was wet, the sleeves of his black jacket was wet, his pants were wet. His eyes were cold flames. “Yes, I knew.” He scoffed with cynicy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d go after them without a second thought,” he answered with a cool drawl. They both stood, glaring at one another. The robe were supposed to bring her some warmth but none were to be found. It covered her up and yet the feeling of being bare lingered.

“You’re goddamn right!” She cursed at him. “You have no idea what they put me through. You couldn’t possibly understand what they did!”

“I understand betrayal, I’ve had my fair share of it,” he countered. Weather it was anger or attraction they always ended up being slowly pulled towards one another. Something about him was restrained, carefully concealed. He moved in an elegant way that no one else moved in. “Understand that it was-,”

“If you way it was for my own good I swear I’ll tear this house down with you in it,” she threatened. Weather she were able to fight Michael head on and survive would remain a mystery, the same goes for him. “Were you afraid I’d leave you?”

“No,” he said in an almost cruel way, slow and drawling, with his eyes narrowed at her. It shouldn’t have surprised her and it didn’t, but it did strike something.

“I want to watch them burn. I want to watch them suffer for what they did to me and you want to stop me,” she hissed and took a step back as he began to press her further back with his presence. It infuriated her, the way he always closed in on her as if she was prey.

“I don’t want to stop you.” His breath hit her face and tickled over her skin. “I want you to get your vengeance. You can leave whenever you want.”

Words that should seem reassuring felt quite opposite. The anger that filled her up ran down her cheeks as evidence, how weak it must seem. A goddess trembling with anger and painful tears tainting her cheeks. The pain lingered in her body and the memory of it haunted her. The shame haunted her.

“I didn’t tell you because you’d act rash. You’d let the anger consume you-,”

“And you wouldn’t let it consume you!” She yelled in frustration. Behind her spiderwebs formed as the mirror continued to vibrate, the lights flickering. The rage burned in her blood, made every breath she took feel strained and painful. It felt as if she’d lose control, even if she tried to remain as collected as Michael, the energy whirled around them.

“I’ve learned to think before I act, to take in every possibility and make plans for every outcome so that whatever that happens I’m the one in control.” He didn’t touch her but his hand followed the line of her cheekbone. “When you were in full control I’d tell you. So that you could think clearly.”

“What do you want from me, Michael?”

“I’ve told you. I want you to reach full potential,” he said with an ease unlike any other. If he lied she wouldn’t know and if he spoke the truth… It was hard to figure out if it were all part of a bigger game, of something she hadn’t yet realised or if it were something sincere. At times he were exactly what he showed her and at other time a cypher she couldn’t figure out. It was infuriating.

“And I want revenge.”

“Then take it but be clever,” he said. With carefulness he touched her cheek and dried off her tears. The fire that burned towards him burned out leaving dust and ashes behind, in the form of a hollow feeling. Pain lingered, however. The memoried burned into her mind.

“For the pain they have caused you I will make sure their stay in hell will be worse than they ever thought possible.”

Oya placed her hand over his and looked into his eyes with undoubtful determination. “In this I don’t need your help. However, I ask that you stay by my side as I take my revenge.”

“Seeing you take revenge would be my biggest pleasure.”

#michael langdon #michael langdon fic #michael langdon imagine #mine: fic #obsidian & angelite