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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 5 months

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Owed - a Malevolent fic

The death of one of the known powers of the Dreamlands could not go unnoticed for long. Sooner or later, entities would start picking around what remains.

Dagon really wanted to avoid the drama. Unfortunately, it did not avoid him.

Part of the Surrogate series. Written with @sepiabandensis.

For @flamiart and @unsafewaters, whose love of Dagon was... inspiring.

AO3

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SIX MONTHS AGO

Dagon didn’t often leave the water.

It was ugly up here. There was no current to speak of. The plants were all uniform. The fauna was tiny and weak… including humans, but they got a pass because humans were also lovely.

He always took the time to enjoy them wherever he found them. He liked to think they enjoyed him, too. They were delightfully easy to pleasure.

Still, Dagon didn’t like to leave the water. He was only doing it because he’d heard the Oracle had bought it, and was rightfully concerned what bullshit that might bring.

Dagon might make fun of Hastur in private as the most frou-frou of all the gods anywhere, but Hastur’s power was no joke—and he’d always been weird about Gokar’luh, attached and emotional and permissive. He spoiled that piece of shit, so if someone really had taken Gokar’luh out, Hastur would respond… badly.

The Storm had been trouble enough. Cleanup would take possibly years, especially since more garbage kept wading into the sea. Worse, Dagon knew most people didn’t realize just how much had changed. The shape of the Dreamlands had been permanently altered by the power that came down, by whatever caused that Storm. They’d figure it out soon enough: fishing and shipping routes would both have to change, and that was gonna be a whole new level of bullshit.

The King in Fancy had been erratic as fuck for the past twenty years as it was. Dagon did not need Hastur losing it on top of all that and causing more damage. So, onto land he went.

He encountered a human enclave en route, and that at least made the trip better. Even in the middle of this, he could afford to dally a little.

He knew where the Oracle was, of course. Everybody did, though Dagon had never bothered going to the House of the Worm. He had no need of nonsense answers; the future was the future, and questions tended to answer themselves. He wondered, though, as he approached the standing stones, just what had been strong enough to do this.

Children of Great Old Ones… well, mileage may vary, depending on what went into them when they were made. Dagon’s were regrettably squishy, but that was the price of human contribution, and it was easy to make more. Gokar’luh… Dagon honestly figured Hastur had just spat that guy up one day, for whatever reason.

Gokar’luh hadn’t been on the level of a Great Old One, had not been a match for his father, but had certainly been no slouch. What could have killed the guy? Dagon hoped (and knew it was slim) that the rumors were wrong, and he’d find that spoiled ass still alive, hissing and slithering and being arrogant, and Dagon could go back to the water and leave this threat behind.

The carrion birds were the first sign that wouldn’t come true. They circled the standing stones, loomed on the roof, stood in shadows by the door, watching him with eyes like polished coal. Well, they were part of the cycle of life. He didn’t bother them as he ducked inside.

Shit. It was occupied.

Maybe it was good he’d dallied—it had given these avatars enough time to get into a rousing argument. Oh, boy, these were heavy hitters, too—servants of Outer Gods, or Dagon was a guppy.

He hadn’t met either of the Outer Gods in question, but he knew their feel, recognized the vibrations of their power. One was a real monster, a so-called scientist with a reputation for sick experiments. The other was an unknown—the Keeper, he thought—who supposedly couldn’t leave her temple in the mountains.

They were fighting over… something Gokar’luh had? Weird. What the fuck could that spoiled shit have had that Outer Gods would be interested in?

Whatever. Not why he was here. He melted down like liquid shadow, slid like water through stone, and made his way to the basement, toward the heavy, sick scent of deific blood.

Oh, fucking hell, a lot had happened here.

The splintered obsidian trap near the pit turned Dagon’s stomach; that thing might not be enough to kill him right off, but it would definitely have pinned him, and would have done a lot of damage, so he took a moment to ensure there were no other such traps before finally reforming as himself. In the course of that investigation, he discovered the blood.

There was a metric shit-ton of it, and according to his nose and tongue, it belonged to two closely related humans. He doubted whoever bled that much had survived.

Dark Young blood pooled in the far corner, too, and that was weird as fuck. He’d heard rumors Hastur had one in his court as some sort of nursemaid to the human he’d adopted. Was that actually true? Really?

Go figure.

There was ichor on the floor, ichor sizzling still down that pit, ichor in the trap. A lot of it. Hastur’s ichor, and it wasn’t fully dead.

It wasn’t sapient, but it was suffering; Dagon sighed, looking at it, feeling the misery of cells that could not die. He killed them off the same way he would if he encountered a dying whale, or poisoned sea grass, or something else. Let it die, feed the world, continue the cycle.

It wasn’t sapient, but he could swear there was a whispered breeze of gratitude as he did.

Whatever. The reason he’d come was to determine who’d killed Gokar’luh. From all appearances, he had his answer, and it wasn’t a good one. Hastur had definitely killed his son.

One: There were two gods’ remains in this room.

Two: The Dark Young had also been here—nursemaid to the human Hastur had purportedly adopted—and had been badly injured.

Three: There was a lot of human blood, too.

So. Had Gokar’luh… done something to the kid? That could have set this off. Would explain even the Dark Young’s blood, as it tried to protect its charge.

But would he actually have been stupid enough to…

Dagon shook his head. He’d faced uprisings, too, but they’d made sense to him. Kids who barely knew him, or believed something crazy like he was going to take over the world, or something. But this… shouldn’t the Oracle have known better?

Maybe it was an attempt to get back in good graces. That was a thing offspring sometimes did to each other: off the competition. It just felt ridiculous. A god of Gokar’luh’s level, hurting a human girl? Why?

Regardless of why, he had his answer. Hastur had been the killer, taking out his own beloved son. Shit. He was bound to be as crazy as a bag of cats right now. Shit. Just how was he gonna have to—

“Oh, sir! Your lordship. I didn’t realize you were in here,” chirped the cheerful acolyte of the Keeper, and Dagon turned to face her.

She was cute. Tiny. Silver hair tied back in a bun, wrinkled skin kept clean and soft. She beamed at him, unafraid.

There was no sign of the other servant. Maybe she’d chased him off.

“Sure you didn’t,” Dagon finally said, because what kind of a conversation would this be if it started out with pure, polite bullshit?

“Well, I knew someone was in here,” said the scholar (she had little glasses and everything, just adorable). “I didn’t know it was a Great Old One! I’m so honored.”

“Uh-huh.” Dagon wasn’t easily swayed by flattery. Or at all swayed, honestly. “Whatcha all doin’ here, lady?”

“Oh, just fetching some things,” said the woman, who wasn’t afraid of him, and wasn’t that appealing?

“Right,” said Dagon. “Welp. Guess I’m done here.”

“Oh, but the Keeper said you never got your invite,” said the woman stepping closer.

He liked her. “Invite?”

“It didn’t survive the water, or something? She hadn’t accounted for the salinity. The Keeper sent out invitations to all the major pantheon when she opened her Scriptorium,” said the woman, rummaging in the scroll case at her side. She pulled out a sheaf of vellum, scribbled something at the top with a fountain pen, and before Dagon’s eyes he could see the ink melt into itself and reform into words that the woman read, smiled, and responded back.

Huh. Acolyte had a direct line to her Outer God. Wild.

“And…” she said, watching as something formed on the vellum below that scribbled correspondence, “Done!” She whipped a blade from her sleeve, quick as could be—and it was obsidian, Dagon could see that from here. It sliced through the vellum like a shark’s fin through seafoam, and she held it out to him. “Here! She’s so delighted I ran into you. She wanted to draft one up fresh!”

It was a fancy little letter on fancy little vellum with fancy little writing saying hey come visit.

Huh! How about them oysters? “Well,” said Dagon. “That could be somethin’. Don’t usually bother too much with Outer Gods. They’re all sinkholes and undertow, if you get me.”

“Not in the slightest,” said the woman brightly.

He snorted. He could absolutely make her very happy, but she belonged to someone already, and he could respect that. “Well, this’s nice, ‘n all, and you can thank her for me, but I don’t think I’m gonna go. Books and me don’t get along so good.” He rolled his shoulders, briefly increasing the humidity so her glasses fogged. “They tend to go all mold and shit around me, even when not in the water.”

And the keen look this bubbly woman gave him now—through her tiny glasses, with blue eyes like the edges of ice—was absolutely fabulous. “Not to be disrespectful, of course… but I’m fairly sure you’re perfectly capable of not destroying books if you don’t want to. You are a Great Old One, Father Dagon, Lord of the Deep Currents.”

He laughed. “Well, ain’t you fuckin’ ballsy?”

She blushed. “She would be so delighted if you came,” the woman said.

“Why?”

The woman leaned in, conspiratorial and stupidly brave. “She heard you have something of a great memory.”

“Yeah?” Leery. Who knew what she wanted with that memory? “Well. When you live in the water, you can’t write shit down, can you?”

“Is it true you have the entirety of the Fenorian Tragedy memorized?”

There was a blast from the past. “Sure. We used to sing that whole thing for fun through the winter. Why?”

“The Fenorian Tragedy…” The woman’s eyes actually teared up. “It was… It was my first thesis I did at the Scriptorium. I’d heard a single line from it and… Long story short, I found myself researching it under the Keeper’s guidance. But even before I arrived, the Keeper has been looking for a copy of it for two hundred years.”

Well, that was a thing. He rubbed the back of head between his fins. “She has, huh?”

“You’re the only living being who’s even heard the whole thing,” she whispered. “Please, if there is any way I can convince you to come…”

Eh. The mountains were even less where he wanted to go. And he didn’t usually fuck with Outer Gods (well, apart from one memorable night with Shub-Niggurath, but that set of circumstances sure as fuck wasn’t happening again). “What’s she do? What’s she want? I don’t much cotton to the idea of my head in a box, or something.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” said this woman, and absolutely nothing in her scent or face or aura indicated a lie. “She’d just want to hear it!”

“Uh-huh.” And this lady was here, scavenging, which meant the Keeper knew the Oracle was dead, which meant... “She know what took place in this here dungeon?” There wasn’t need to waste words specifying.

The smile faded. “Yes.”

��She willing to trade?”

The woman blinked. “Almost certainly.”

Hm.

Details about what went so wrong here could arm him. Like hell was he dying over the King in Lemon losing his marbles. “Well, I’ll tell you what, little lady. You let your boss know I’m up for discussion with… rules. Safety, and all. But I’m up for an information trade.”

She beamed. “Oh, she’ll be delighted! Thank you, great Father!” And she bowed.

Which is how Dagon found himself two days later facing an invitation etched in some kind of weird glass. It hovered underwater outside his seabed garden, and was both readable and polite.

Classy and cheesy. Showy and cute.

Dagon decided to go.

FIVE MONTHS AGO

Dagon never got full details on what happened between the Keeper’s people and that other Outer God’s, but every glimpse he got was damned funny.

Not that it was intended to be funny. But the Keeper’s confidentiality thing (which she fucking meant ) did not, apparently, apply to beings who were not her clients, and in fact had pissed her off.

“I don't like to speak ill of others, but…” said the Keeper, which was exactly what nice and kind people said right before they tore into an absent party like a starving shark with a whale carcass.

Dagon listened well. Which was to say, he was quiet, watching, nodding at interesting moments. He listened, which really was what put this outside the realm of good or bad.

That, and she was so young! So fucking young!

Gods, she felt like she barely belonged out of the creche yet. So passionate, and so honest, and so curious. He’d seen fish like this, flitting right up to his face, smaller than his eyelashes. Adorable.

So he listened. Because young ones needed to know they would be listened to. And needed to know how to be when they weren’t young anymore. And this other "scientist" Outer God might just be a bitch.

“He wasted the knowledge, ” the Keeper spat, like it was the epitome of wrong. “Once it became clear to him he couldn’t just intimidate my acolytes away, he started getting destructive. Nearly killed a few of my people, though Merienne healed them admirably—you remember her, you spoke. And as his final acts he just grabbed some stationary and started burning the rest. Absolutely monstrous.”

“Huh,” he said.

“If they didn’t want it, they didn’t have to be so petty and terrible!” She sniffed demurely and smoothed down her skirts. “My people managed to preserve most of it, at great risk to themselves, and for that I am grateful. But some things were irrevocably lost, and for what? Pride? Embarrassing.”

“Huh,” he said.

“Oh, good Father, I apologize,” said the Keeper, refilling his ale. “I asked you here to talk about the Cracked War of twenty thousand years ago, and here, I’m talking your ear off.”

“Well,” he said. “Gotta get it off your chest, I guess. Won’t be the first god to have a beef with another.”

This being, veiled as she was, could not blush, but he got the feeling from the way she started twisting the edge of her veil between her fingers. “It’s not a beef. There are no lines drawn here, and if he was willing to at least apologize or explain himself I would be willing to hear him out. Instead we have…” She huffed, doing her best not to look childish as her secondary set of arms crossed (and failing adorably). “I am not fighting with him. This is just… annoyance at… He didn’t need to be petty about it.”

“Huh,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “There I go again. My apologies, Great Father.”

“Like I said, none needed.” He considered. “Though I guess I owe you one. Sorry about your, uh, acolyte. And the scale situation. Tends to happen when I’m around—they got any of my heritage in ‘em, and boom, gills.”

“Believe it or not, it’s come up in my research,” she said with a laugh. “Once Patrick got situated, he calmed down; he’s even started talking about writing it out, documenting it for me.”

“You just wanna watch, eh?” He rumbled a laugh, somehow not unkind.

The Keeper let out an embarrassed chuckle (delightful). “His testimony is something valued and cherished, here; it may be old hat to you, but this could be revolutionary for someone who doesn’t have the chance to meet you in person.”

“Huh! Didn’t think of it that way. Well, sure. He’s still got an invite, he wants to come by and learn how to use them things.” A pause. “He’ll transform more, but he’ll finish it faster than otherwise. Might take years, like this.”

“It’s up to him; I’m not going to force the issue. I imagine he will visit before long; I certainly hope he does. I worry about what the air here may do to his new skin, poor dear.”

“Well, just lemme know. Others might start changin’, too. So.”

“Oh!” said the Keeper. “That reminds me: Merienne said… well. She considered your interest, and upon asking for permission, wished for me to let you know. She says yes.”

Ooh. “That cute little number from the Oracle’s place? Huh.”

“Indeed. She’s quite flattered by the whole ordeal, and said she could hardly resist the experience.” She let out a soft laugh. “She doesn’t need my permission, you understand, but she wanted to make sure no lines were being crossed.”

He snorted. “Well, that’s awful kind of ya—but since she’s yours, uh. You know she might conceive?”

“She’s past childbearing age,” said the Keeper.

“Don’t really matter with me,” he stated without pride or shame, merely as a matter of fact. Like gravity. Or perhaps, gravidity.

The Keeper stared at him for a long moment. “Well. Well. How very fascinating, then. I suppose that if you wish to pursue it, you will need to have quite the frank conversation with her in that regard. And, of course, I assume she will be kept in good health?”

“Sure. I never turn family or folks away. Just don’t seek ‘em out. She can come on and get all the help she wants.”

“Well! I suppose any further discussions will be between you and Merienne, then. Anything further is dependent on her consent, then. But oh, she’s going to be thrilled.” The Outer God chuckled, then, clearly fond, and took another genteel sip of her tea.

What a day this was. “You still wanna know about the Cracked War?”

She set down her teacup, prim and proper despite the ferocious curiosity that roiled beneath that veil. “I most certainly do. Would you kindly tell me?”

He grinned, shark’s teeth sharp and disturbing. “So here’s the story of how we fucked around until we broke the Dreamlands from one chunk’a land into more.” He waggled his eyebrow ridge. “And I got the dish on shit that was never written down. Wait’ll you hear the rest of what that ass Cthulhu pulled.”

TODAY

Hastur met him in the throne room, in the empty space between court nonsense and appeals. Met him in the dark, barely lit by Hastur’s own luminescence, and protected by many spells.

Hastur met him, and did the unthinkable: very, very slightly, he bowed.

“Don’t need that,” said Dagon.

“I would have lost him.”

And Dagon knew that to Hastur, losing people mattered. Fuck, he was even crazy about his Forgotten One. “Yeah, well. I figure a favor given is a favor earned.”

“So you wish a favor in payment.” Hastur was, understandably, nervous.

Dagon considered. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “You been acting like a loon for twenty damn years.” He ignored Hastur’s bristle. “And I ain’t gonna judge. Had my times, too, where I was sinkholes and storms in the head. I ain’t telling you you need to give me your secrets. I’m just sayin’… I don’t like surprises. Warnings go a long way. I don’t know what the fuck is up with you—lying about Gokar’luh today was weird enough.” Hastur tried to speak, but Dagon wasn’t done. “We’re allies now. Get it? What you face, I face. Unless it turns out you’re doing so much shit behind my back that the shit you’re cleaning out of the water is the lesser problem.”

The King in Yellow seemed to deflate a little. “That’s… fair,” he rumbled.

“Just think about it. That’s all.”

“Is that your favor? Learning my secrets?”

“No, that’ll be something else owed. This is just a warning. And… maybe an offer.”

“Thank you.” Hastur said the words with care.

“Welp.” Dagon cracked his neck. “I’ll be going now.”

Hastur rumbled. “That’s it? What kind of a favor are you going to need?”

“The kind only you can do. Don’t know what it is yet.”

“Fair enough.”

Dagon nodded. “Sorry about your son.”

So Hastur hadn’t expected that, apparently. For just one moment, his warding slipped. “I… thank you.”

Dagon nodded. Then he left, same as always, walking right out and into Lake Hali. All water was connected, after all.

And as for the condition Hastur seemed to be in… well. It went in the thinking-box, because unless Hastur decided to admit he was torn the hell up and weepy, it didn’t matter.

But Hastur’s rush to secure the Dreamlands made more sense. Something was real wrong.

Real wrong.

Long as that asshole kept it from spilling over—or, failing that, explained—they’d be good.

Dagon went home and wasted no more time hashing out things he couldn’t accurately guess. He had sea calves to nurse, after all.

#malevolent #malevolent au #malevolent fic #surrogate series #dagon #dagon (lovecraft)#the keeper (surrogate)#hastur malevolent

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