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moonshine-nightlight · 1 year

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Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Part Twenty-Three

It’s been a week, but you’re fairly certain your fiancé accidentally got himself replaced by an eldritch being from the Depths. Deciding that he’s certainly not worse than your original fiancé, you endeavor to keep the engagement and his new non-human state to yourself.

However, this might prove harder than you originally thought.

Fantasy, arranged marriage, malemonsterxfemalereader, M/F

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41189829/chapters/118476739

Warnings: Violence and Death (nothing too graphic, but its prevalent enough I wanted to mention it)

[Part One][Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Seven.5] [Part Eight] [Part Nine][Part Ten] [Part Eleven] [Part Twelve] [Part Thirteen] [Part Fourteen] [Part Fifteen] [Part Sixteen] [Part Seventeen] [Part Eighteen] [Part Nineteen] [Part Twenty] [Part Twenty-One] [Part Twenty-Two] Part Twenty-Three [Part Twenty-Four] [Part Twenty-Five] [Part Twenty-Six] [Part Twenty-Seven] [Part Twenty-Eight] [Part Twenty-Nine] [Part Thirty] [Part Thirty-One] [Part Thirty-Two] [Part Thirty-Three] [Part Thirty-Four]

But time is slipping through your fingers. You make your decision and pray it’s the right choice.

“Dale!”

There’s a second of silence before muffled confusion is evident from the hallway on the other side of the door followed quickly by pounding footsteps. Vi spares you a glare, but Clen seems unconcerned, merely readying his crossbow.

The door bursts open before anything else can happen and you can’t help but flinch as it hits the wall.

Framed in the doorway is an alert and worried Dale, his mouth in a hard frown and his hand already on the hilt of his sword. You watch as his eyes land on the four strangers arrayed in front of him. He draws his sword before he unerringly finds you and the unconscious Grandmother. That’s when fury ignites in his eyes.

“What is happening here?” Dale asks, his voice outraged as he takes stock of the situation.

“Northridges simply enjoy asking after the obvious, do they not?” Clen asks Lasky before looking back to Dale. He lifts his crossbow and aims directly at you. Instantly you tense, ready to drop to your knees and out of range behind the heavy wooden desk. You freeze where you are because that would leave Grandmother a free target. “This is a kidnapping, your lordship. If you don’t cooperate with us, your fiance and grandmother are forfeit. Surrender now. Prove yourself more intelligent than the rest of your ilk.”

Keeping your dagger in your strong hand, you grope blindly on the desk for something to use as a shield, cursing yourself for not thinking of grabbing such a thing earlier. As your fingers close around the ink mat, a sturdy leather mat to absorb any ink that might seep through when writing, your eyes meet Dale’s. You can almost see a cold certainty enter them before they slide back to Clen.

“No. You may surrender or run,” Dale retorts. “I’ll not go with you nor will I allow you to continue to threaten my kin.”

“Oh, lordling,” Lasky coos, “You’ve barely begun to hear threats. Wait until you learn of my plans for your spouse-to-be. Not that you will continue to live for much longer, but I doubt you’d still wish to marry after I’m through.”

You swallow down bile and hope Dale hurts him.

Dale growls, a dark, rolling sound that fills the room. You shiver, feeling it resonate through you, and quickly check to see that Grandmother has not yet awoken. The mixture of concern and relief that fills you at that fact doesn’t help any of your nerves settle, not that you expect them to for several days—provided you live that long.

“Do not—” Clen warns before cutting himself off with a curse as Dale charges. He manages a single shot in your direction before he’s forced to meet Dale’s sword with his own. The shot is still good enough that it hits your makeshift shield of an ink mat. The arrowhead pierces through the leather to scrape your arm and knock it back, but it doesn’t make it any further than that through the mat.

The clatter of the crossbow hitting the floor is nearly masked by the shouts and grunts as Clen, Vi, and Lasky begin fighting with Dale. Your eyes find Two, but he’s watching the fight, not you. Dale has managed to get his back to a wall, limiting his opponents ability to surround him. They’re appearing to have trouble ganging up on him without hitting each other, limiting their approach.

With no better opportunity, you place your dagger down on the desk and open the closet door. You grasp the back of the chair Grandmother is on and begin tugging it is in towards the closet. You choose to keep your eyes forward towards the fight instead of putting yourself between Grandmother and the action. Hopefully if you see anything coming your way, you can intercept it before she gets further hurt.

The chair is heavy, but you’re terrified, especially since you no longer have even your thin dagger in hand. The adrenaline seems to help as you drag the chair across the rug, grateful at least there’s no sound to alert the others to what you’re doing. The three assassins currently trying to fight Dale seem to have fallen into a pattern, with Clen engaging Dale’s sword and Vi trying to get at him with her spear from the side, herding him towards the opening in the wall to another side room. Lasky waits in that room, a seemingly endless supply of knives in his hands.

True to your suspicions, both Clen and Lasky seem to have some sort of demonic enhancement to themselves or their weapons, although they remain clearly unpossessed. Clen has a strength to his movements that matches Dale’s own while Lasky’s daggers seem to come back to his sheaths when they miss. You eye the knife lodged in Dale’s leg and wonder if it's a good thing they don’t pull out to return when stuck.

You cross the threshold into the closet and have to focus on maneuvering in the much tighter space. It seems to primarily hold cabinets for files which you realize once you back into an ornate handle. It’s at a perfect height to jab painfully into your neck and prevent you from pulling the chair the final few inches into the closet.

You side-shuffle out from between the cabinet and the chair, mind racing as you check if the chair even will fit. The top of it is just under the height of the handle so you think you can manage it. You scoot around in front of the chair, a nervous glance over your shoulder to see the fight still raging, a confusing knot of bodies and weapons that you can’t make heads or tails of except that Dale is still holding his own.

Kneeling down, you lift the front legs of the chair off the ground so they can get over the higher board marking the entrance to the closet and heave. After a few seconds of straining which feel like an eternity, the chair finally moves those last few inches, thudding into the back cabinet and fully crossing over the threshold into the closet. You set the chair down, trying not to dwell on how it’s likely a bad sign that Grandmother hasn’t woken up for any of this movement.

You get to your feet, glad you’d pushed the chair towards the middle of the closet even before you’d realized how shallow it is. That leaves room on either side for you to fit in. Unfortunately it means that it’ll take too long to turn the chair around and try to wedge it against the door. Or maybe that’s a good thing because your hands are shaking and your palms sting where the wood of the back and legs had dug into your palms. You half close the closet door as you turn around. You're even more nervous now, after having your eyes off the fight for so long. You need to see if there’s anything nearby that might work as a wedge instead and check on the fight.

Dale seems to have gotten more room to breathe, the others all pushed back, but he’s in that doorway, with little at his back to guard it. Lasky takes advantage of that space before Dale can, sending a series of knives flying at him. Dale deflects two and dodges the other two. Unfortunately, with Lasky on the other side of Dale from you, you realize with a jolt of terror that sends the dodged knives in your direction.

One lodges into the desk, but the other flies just over it. You try to move out of the way and you manage—mostly. The knife lodges solidly in the closet door and through your skirts, pinning them in place.

“Darkest damn—” You can’t help but let a minced oath out as you frantically begin pulling on your skirts, trying to get free. How the knife was sharp enough to pierce the fabric of your skirts but not enough to rip them now is proving nearly as frustrating as it is terrifying.

You glance back at the fight and your eyes meet Lasky’s. Desperately, you reach for the knife hilt instead while your other hand fumbles to pick your own dagger up again. You swallow when you notice Lasky is indeed circling the fight, heading for you. You grip the hilts of both daggers so hard the little imperfections on then dig into your palms.

You point your own in the direction of Lasky’s approach while continuing to tug futilely on the dagger pinning you in place. Nothing you do seems to budge it and your hand keeps slipping off given how much you're sweating. You give up on pulling and start to simply shove at the hilt with the palm of your hand.

“Did I pin a pretty little butterfly?” Lasky asks. He’s got another dagger in his hand, but he comes to a stop a few feet from you.

You keep your eyes on him, but don’t answer, giving the hilt of the dagger another strike with your palm. You feel it wiggle and wrap your fingers around it. If you can move, you don’t want him to know in case the element of surprise will help.

At the same time, where can you go? Or rather, can you afford to leave grandmother? She’s hidden now, but if one of these assassins decides they need her or just wants revenge when the inevitable becomes clear. Dale is the only one here who you know will walk away from this fight. Whether everyone else, including yourself and Grandmother, will is still to be determined.

“Did I nick your tongue too?” he taunts. “Do not pretend to misunderstand what your role is. Your little lord is proving more of a challenge than we expected, especially since Two isn’t helping.”

You think he grimaces at that, but it’s hard to tell with his mouth covered. Still, for all his taunts, he’s clearly strung a lot tighter than he had been before. Good.

“So you are going to help bring him to heel, as intended.” He flips the dagger in his hand in a deliberate move to show off. You chance a glance behind him to see Dale finally pushed into the side room and out of your line of sight. You’re certain the idea that you did manage to make eye contact with him is just false hope. You have to figure out how to get out of this yourself. And right now, running isn’t an option.

“You are not going to win this,” you reply, your voice a little rough, but still intelligible and not obviously full of fear, hopefully. “You should leave.”

He takes a step closer instead. “Just because he didn’t immediately fold, doesn’t mean he will triumph,” Lasky corrects, some anger coloring his voice. “He’s outnumbered and once Two remembers why they’re here, he’ll be outclassed.”

“Then should you not be aiding your companions?” you ask, trying to tug on the dagger with as little obvious movement of your arm as possible. Anything to keep from drawing Lasky’s attention to what you’re doing.

The lines by his eyes crinkle, he must be smiling under that mask. You feel more dread pool in your stomach. “Do you not see? That is what I’m doing. For all your threats, you’re no real match for me and while I still do not have any rope, I’m just as capable as taking out an eye as you are, if not more so. You need to remember who you are dealing with and surrender.”

A noise from behind—something heavy crashing into the wall and possibly a bookcase given the cacophony that follows—draws both your attention. Unfortunately, Lasky refocuses just as quickly as you do and so you’re still in a stalemate, both holding daggers, but truly, there isn’t a contest here. There is no question who will this fight, just what the collateral damage could be.

You hate this. You hate everything about this situation, from the fighting and Grandmother’s condition, to Dale in a fight against multiple opponents. Most of all you hate this man in front of you. But what can you do?

Another smash and thud sounds from behind Lasky, but he doesn’t bother turning to look this time, just takes another step closer. He steps to the side, blocking your sight-line to the rest of the fight although not before you see a figure thrown across the room. You can’t even hope to identify who.

With another step, you give up on the pretense and give a final pull. This time the dagger is freed from the wall and you take a stumbling step down along it, away from Lasky. You hastily bring that knife up to bare as well, holding one in each hand. You’ve had no training in the use of two daggers or even much training at all with your non-dominant hand.

It’s clear Lasky knows that too, his confidence is obvious. The secondary reason for that becomes evident when the knife in your hand that belongs to him starts to tug. You’d thought if you were holding it, it wouldn’t try to return to him, like when it had been stuck in the wall, but apparently that’s not true. It fights your grip, attempting to go to Lasky and into its sheath on his arm like the others had.

You hold on tight, not wanting him to be further armed even if you don’t know how to wield it well yourself. He takes another step forward and you take another to the side. You notice that he’s steering you away from the relative safety the desk might have afforded you. The only good thing is that he seems to have completely forgotten about the fight going on behind him. Unfortunately, whenever you move to compensate, he blocks your own view.

Finally he breaks the stalemate you’ve been locked in and rushes forward. You hastily stumble backwards along the wall, unwilling to give up the, perhaps false, feeling of safety it gives you. He slashes at you with his greater reach and you try to dodge, but you can feel his strike connected. Luckily, between the fabric of your dress and the manner in which the corset is boned you’re not pierced or cut by the blade. However, on his pull back, he catches your arm, slicing it and leaving a hot line of pain on your underarm that makes you cry out.

Your mind spins as the attack throws off your balance. You try to ignore the drip of blood down your arm, the sting of the cut, and the satisfaction in his eyes. Your palms are sweatier than ever and you have to focus on not trembling. The pull from his own dagger has only gotten stronger. With half an idea in your head about that, you kick out, slashing with your dagger more in the hopes of gaining back even a foot of space.

It works, you catch some part of him, and he curses as he takes a step backward. “Would you simply stay—”

You lower your center mass and just as he raises his arm for a stab from above, attempting to use his height to get at your throat or chest, you release your grip on his dagger. In such close quarters, it doesn’t have time to turn or aim effectively. Given the strength it had been pulling at, it’s out of your hand like it was shot from a slingshot. Between your attempt at aiming and Lasky’s own speed, it misses its sheath entirely. The blade sinks into his armpit instead and he screams in pain.

Lasky’s fingers release the dagger held in that arm as his other hand clutches at the knife now embedded in him. You don’t waste any time standing there, immediately retreating, trying to find somewhere else to go, somewhere else to hide—anything to keep him away from you.

Should you go for the courtyard? Two’s no longer guarding that door—at least as far as you can tell, who knows if he needs to be near it to stop you from leaving. You feel a pang of guilt and regret for no longer staying to guard Grandmother, but with Lasky specifically focused on you and no real way to hold him off, you’re no use to her except to distract from her. The closet door was slammed shut so hopefully these assassins will just forget she’s even there.

You head back towards where you came from originally, where Lasky’s been herding you. Hopefully you can find some of the Governor’s guards—or anyone, really. You sloppily knock over any chairs, ottomans, side tables you come across—anything to slow down your pursuer as you go. A wild, likely foolish part of you wants to run towards Dale. For all the fight still raging, and him already dealing with multiple opponents, you know he’d try to protect you. But your presence would just make his fight harder. Right?

“You bitch,” Lasky’s voice is ragged with pain and you hear his heavy footfalls getting closer as you round a short couch. “Get—” Whatever words he was going to say next are cut off by a thump and a wet gurgle. Unable to help it, you turn around.

Lasky’s already much closer than you expected, his eyes wide with surprise as he looks down at the raw spike of iron protruding from his chest. You identify it as a fireplace iron and look beyond him to see Dale’s back disappearing from the doorway.

A gasping cough brings your focus back to Lasky in time to see him collapse over the back of the couch and stop moving. You pant where you stand, feeling staggered by the sudden absence of an immediate threat. You can’t dwell on Lasky’s death, you can barely process your gratitude to Dale—there's only relief that Lasky’s not capable of hurting you anymore.

Should you return to Grandmother? You hadn’t actually gotten that far with how messy the room is. Hide in that closet to defend her if need be? Hadn’t you just proved how ineffective you’d be at such a task? You got in one good blow that was more accident than anything and still needed Dale to—.

You hesitate and absently use your dagger to finish a cut made to the fabric of your dress. You take the strip of cloth and wrap it around your bleeding arm. The sudden pressure on the wound makes you flinch and grit your teeth against the renewed pain.

Just as you secure that makeshift bandage in place and resolve to leave to find help, Vi comes running full speed out of the side room. You know the moment she spots you because she changes direction, heading for you. Immediately, you try to run for the door, but she anticipates your movement. She runs around wide, blocking that as a viable exit.

Without thought, you turn, heading back the way you came and for the courtyard. She’s fast though, faster than you with her sturdy boots and training while your skirts and soft shoes only slow you down. She catches you just before the desk and closet you’d started this mad dash from.

A side hit from the spear bruises your side and you cry out as you are spun around. There’s desperation in her eyes as Vi lunges to cover that last few feet between you. She slams you back against the wall, her spear shaft across your throat. Your wrists too are pinned up in the skilled maneuver. Her wide, terrified eyes bore into yours. “What the fuck is he? You’re going to—”

The clash of metal on metal followed by a wet cough and a triumphant growl from the other room cuts her off. You only try to wrestle her for control briefly. You’re no match for her strength. Instead, you try desperately to wriggle your hands free, trying only to get more room to breathe. Your head is tilted back, your throat throbbing as she fixes her gaze back on yours. You try to say something, you don’t even know what, but she doesn’t give you a chance.

“They lied, he’s not human,” she spits. “He’s a skinwere.” It’s clear Dale’s revealed enough of himself that she knows he’s possessed, not enhanced. Another word for a possessed human is a demon wearing human skin or skinwere for short. It’s a very negative term and you think she might be local—you’ve heard that term used more in Northridge than even at school. No wonder she’s scared out of her mind.

She must be able to tell you’re not surprised by the news because her eyes narrow, “You knew.” It’s not a question, but you can’t speak or even move your head to answer anyway. She doesn’t seem to need you to.

She pushes against you with her spear, completely cutting off your air before she pulls back enough to let you speak. You cough, gulping in air as she orders, “Tell me how to kill it. Tell me—”

Before she can make any more demands, you drop your whole body down heavily. There was enough space now between the spear and the wall to let you, although it still wrenches your wrists and hands painfully. Your head hits the wall as you tilt it back to allow the movement.

Wrists and head hurting from the spear, backside throbbing from smacking into the ground as a dead weight, you’re moving before you can think about it. Crawling around her legs on your hands and knees. You scurry towards anything that can be perceived as safe. The sound of something heavy being flung into the wall makes you flinch.

A heavy blow to your back makes you yelp, collapsing onto your stomach. “You’re not going anywhere,” Vi snarls, the butt of her spear, pressing down with insistent force. “Not until—”

The pressure abates abruptly and you turn on your side to see something long and black around her wrist, pulling her weapon off of you. Your vantage point, combined with your throbbing head, makes it hard to follow all the action, but it looks like a black snake that Vi tries to tug off with a yell.

She draws a knife with her free hand to strike the black thing, but the crack of bone breaking causes her to scream as her spear drops from her limp hand. It falls harmless to the floor. You manage to pick it and throw it far away. You know she’d be more capable of taking it from you than you would be at wielding it.

Vi finally looks behind her, following where the solid shadow stretches from and screams at whatever she sees. You only see another long dark ribbon of tangible blackness wrap around her neck before she’s pulled backwards with a strangled sound. She disappears out of your sight.

Another thwack and gasping whimper make you wince, paralyzed on the floor, mind unable to decide what to do next.

You hear footsteps heading for you accompanied by a tap of wood on wood. Then you hear a worried, “Sana?”

Relief floods your body and you desperately need to see Dale, to reassure yourself that despite the horrible clashes and yells, the violence and the destruction, he’s whole. No matter what he must look like given what you’ve seen and how his voice still has an echoing, deep quality to it. You brace yourself on your palms to push yourself up. Opening your mouth to answer him, you’re interrupted by a crack before you can.

“I knew it,” an unfamiliar voice meets your ears. It has a strange, otherworldly grit to it and you freeze instantly. “How all these other humans are so blind, I’ve no notion.”

Dale hisses, “Hide,” before you hear him move away from you and towards the voice. You follow his suggestion, too cowed by the return of the threat to want to do anything else. Half crawling and half dragging your tired body, you tuck yourself under the heavy wooden desk.

“As though you are a paragon of subtlety,” Dale snaps back. He’s clearly nearly in that other side room once more, but his voice carries more than perhaps he’s even aware.

“Ah,” the voice concedes, the sound carrying just as easily. Is that a demon power? you wonder with only slight delirium, projecting your voice? “ But I am not trying to be. Neither of us are.”

“Us?”

“Yes,” a far more human voice replies this time. “Us.” The two voices overlay on that word before the more inhuman voice continues, “We are not all so rude as to kick out the original owner. Some of us know what it is to share.”

You realize it’s Two, who has apparently decided to finally enter the fight and who’s strange nickname suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“I care not how many of you are fitted in that body,” Dale replies. “You’ll do no more harm here. You’ll not fulfill your mission.”

“Perhaps,” the casual menace of this voice is not intimidated by Dale’s confidence or orders. “Or perhaps there is simply more to be gained and less to be shared.”

Dale must see no more reason in talking because there is only the sound of movement and metal after that. Grunts sound from all three voices, perhaps more distinct given your inability to see and only to hear. They’re not enough to tell you who’s winning and you’ve no notion of how Dale stands in contest with another actual demon. Neither are likely attempting to hide their natures, but is that an advantage to one or the other? Or a wash?y

Does the Two being both help or hinder them? They had also implied that Dale was not sharing his own form, which meant the human who had been Dale was gone, didn’t it? Neither of them are mentioning Clen, so is he dead too? What sort of creature was the demon in Two? You know demons vary wildly, even the intelligent ones, in a manner far greater than humans did, what if this one was more powerful than Dale?

It feels like ages of simply listening, though in reality is likely only a minute or two. You can’t take knowing so little about what is happening. You hesitantly move forward and cautiously kneel up to see just over the surface of the desk.

They’re indeed still in the other room, moving so fast you can hardly tell who’s who. Front he glimpses you catch, neither of them are in forms that are entirely human anymore. Part of the fight seems almost mundane, the swords meeting and breaking apart as they circle, engaging and dodging stabs and slashes. The shadows in the room move unnaturally and at least two seem to be even more independent than that. They whip around Dale to meet and deflect animate stonework, colored grayish-green with a rusty red shot through it. The rock seems both to come from the columns and walls of the room beyond, despite looking nothing like ones in this room, and from nothing at all.

Your heart is nearly in your throat as Dale’s shadows seem as if they would be far weaker than something so sturdy. A big chunk of stone falls from the ceiling causing Dale to need to dodge to the side. He catches Two’s sword stroke awkwardly as a result. A clatter reveals that he’s been disarmed. His sword sent flying from his hand to land behind Two.

Dale retaliates with a riot of shadows which erupt between them and forces Two back. It also nearly leaves them out of sight of the doorway and you straining to follow what’s happening. Dale’s back is to you and only half his body visible, while Two’s nearly on the other side of that room. From what you can tell he’s beginning to resemble a statue more than a person, if a moving one.

“I believe you’re unarmed now,” Two says with a smirk.

“I do not need a weapon to be armed,” Dale snarls, the shadows of the room flickering dizzyingly. His entire body seems more amorphous than ever before. You think he looks taller than he typically is, but thinner too. The arm you can see is oddly shaped, as if it is bare but also, more like a medical mannequin from class—bone and muscle with no fat to be seen. He brandishes his hand to better display the black claws he now has. In fact, you’re certain he’d been wearing a green suit earlier, but it’s black now too. Even his dark hair is even darker, untied and wild, longer than it should be.

You keenly appreciate Dale’s rebuttal, but you still hate that his sword is gone from his hand while one remains in Two’s. They shift their stance and you automatically try to compensate with your position to keep your view. You bump into a lamp that’s been knocked to the floor.

As you push it to the side, something on the ground catches your attention. You peek around the edge of the desk to get a better look and very deliberately don’t look too closely at Vi’s body, only a few yards away. Instead you focus on the long, thin piece of polished wood instead. Dale’s cane.

Instantly, you know you need to get this to Dale and more than that, you want to do something, anything to help him. Carefully, you put your hands down on the cold stone floor to steady yourself. Then you move just far enough out from behind the desk to grasp the foot of the cane and pull it towards you.

You grasp it firmly in your hands and peer back over the top of the desk, checking to make sure that Dale’s still the one closest to the doorway.

Once you see that he is, you call out, “Dale!” Then you lean up high on your knees and throw the cane like you’ve seen others throw a javelin. It soars through the air and into the further room where Dale and Two are tangled in a confusing knot of shadow and stone.

They break apart at the sound of your voice and Dale leaps backwards as if propelled by some of the shadows under him. A hand, black, like he’s wearing gloves or dunked his arm in ink, and clawed, snatches the cane out of the air with careful precision. You think you see the glint of a blue eye on the back of his hand, practically the only color standing out against his form now.

“Will that do you any good?” Two asks, seemingly curious more than anything as he watches Dale hold the cane. You can’t tell if his lack of anger over this fight, the way he keeps treating it like a tournament fight for entertainment, is a good thing or not.

Dale says nothing, merely twists the handle. He carefully pulls off the wood to reveal a long green rapier.

“Jade,” Two hisses, taking a full step back. “A dangerous weapon for one such as ourselves to wield.”

“All weapons are dangerous,” Dales replies brusquely. “Humans regularly use weapons as deadly to themselves as they are to their enemies.”

“How adaptable. All the shade in your nature, I presume,” Two says, a mocking edge to his tone.

“You are not the only one who can use stone to their advantage,” Dale bats back as easily.

Two lets out a bark of laughter and the sound seems to come from far more than two mouths, let alone one. You would give nearly anything for him to never do that again. “It has been so long since I spoke with one of us with intelligence still left to them up here. The sunlight seems to drive too many insane. Almost a shame to kill you.”

“A good thing then,” Dale says as he charges, “that you will not.”

The visibility of the fight becomes impossible after that. There’s too much movement from shadows and they move further into the room. You’re back to primarily trying to gauge the fight based on sound alone: thuds and crashes and ripping that you can’t identify.

“So close. But perhaps you are correct,” it’s the human voice this time, panting but not demoralized. Some of the sight line clears and you see Two hunched over, a hand on their chest. “I shall not be able to kill you nor collect the bounty so generously placed on your head.” They pick up their head, “However, the knight had the correct idea.”

“Yes,” the grating demonic voice picks up and they slowly straighten. “I’m certain you must have supplies or books worth perusing. I can tell your form is impeccable underneath, despite your essence spilling out. This body, with him intact, still gets a bit stiff if I’m not careful. I shall be intrigued to ascertain how you accomplished such a thing.”

“You think I will allow you to leave?” Dale hisses. “After all you’ve done.” He throws a hand out to emphasize the general state of destruction around them.

Two laughs and it's one of the most unsettling things you’ve ever heard. It has a screech to it that makes your skin crawl. You are resisting the urge to cover your ears or yell yourself in order to drown him out when he looks over and meets your eyes. His dirty red eyes, the color of dried blood, bore into yours across the distance and he rushes for you.

He crosses the distance faster than he should be able to you and there’s a ripple in the walls that seems to respond to him. Panic seizes your heart and mind as you instinctively dive back down and under the desk. Your hands desperately latch onto and drag a broken ottoman to cover the open part of the desk.

Curling up behind it, you feel something slam into the makeshift shield, pushing you and the desk back, the wood squealing against the floor as it moves. A wordless roar comes from further away and another crash echoes through the room. The sound of what you think are books falling to the floor and a heavy grunt follow.

Then, silence.

You cough a few seconds later, unable to help it due to all the dust the stone moving has kicked up. You think you hear a smothered groan while you attempt to stop, but you stay rooted in your hiding spot, waiting.

After another dull thump, Dale calls your name. His voice is still strange and yet you can hear the confusion and worry in it. You can hear a lot more than that actually. Your eyelids flutter despite being unable to see anything other than dust and dingy wood.

Your name sounds different than when he’s said it in the past. There is a depth to it, meaning below the surface that you can hear when he’s like this. Like emotion and inflection and neither of those.

There’s a layer of softness, of imagery that it conjures up, that you can almost feel through his voice. Of gentle sunlight through the window on a clear day. Your favorite chair and the taste of fresh, sweet honey melting on your tongue, soothing and comforting. Its respect and harmony and the potential to be more than you are alone, of joining and of belonging. Tension leeches from you in waves, like taking off so many heavy coats to stand unburdened. You want to drown in the sensation, you want to hear him say nothing, but your name for the rest of your life.

You want to come out, to go to him, regardless of what you might see. Hesitantly, you push the ottoman away and start to crawl out from beneath the desk. Shakily, you stand up and turn to face Dale.

To your surprise, he looks far more human than the glimpses you’d gotten of him during the fight. His eyes still glow unnaturally and his hair is too long and wild. He’s roughly the correct height again with no too tangible shadows or extra eyes, though you’re not looking at his hands on purpose. His skin for the most part is a shade of human coloring once more. He doesn’t seem to be bleeding either, no obvious large wounds or injuries.

You can’t handle a direct conversation about his nature now, not after all of this, and so you look beyond him to assess the rest of the situation, although you can tell by a feeling in the air that Two is gone.

The room beyond him does look as though the bookcase closest to you had been tipped over or thrown towards the desk, but Dale is standing in such a way as to suggest he’d caught it before it fell. His free hand is also held open in a gesture towards the wall behind you, where you can see large bricks of rock have come loose, though not enough to threaten the integrity of the wall itself.

You meet his eyes once again and he finally relaxes, shoulders drooping as you both stand in the aftermath. Then he’s striding forward and the cool fingers of his free hand grip your chin as he examines you.

“I am fine,” you say, which would probably be more convincing if you couldn’t feel tears dripping down your cheeks. His eyes rake up and down your form, obviously trying to assess that for himself before finally settling back on your face once he’s done.

Something that might be relief starts to spread over his face until he freezes. He withdraws his hand abruptly from your face, tucking it behind him with a speed you don’t bother to try to match. Instead you resist the urge to sway towards, wanting his touch once more as it had felt grounding.

Then he blinks, his eyes darting around the room with renewed concern. “Where?” Dale asks.

After a second of confusion, you realize who he’s asking after. Your hand closes around the door handle for the closet and you pull the door open to reveal a still unconscious Grandmother hidden away safely.

You grab one arm of the chair and Dale the other as you pull it out from the closet. You don’t even care that he’s clearly doing the majority of the work. It takes a second before you can see her chest moving with her breathing.

“Grandmother will be too,” you say, not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Good,” Dale says. He carefully brings a human thumb to wipe away your tears with a tenderness that does not match the danger that lingers in the way he still holds himself. You can’t help but lean into his touch, the safety he offers, if only to you. “It would only be worse for them if you were not.” His eyes slide to Grandmother’s unconscious form and menace seems to drip from his voice. “It shall be bad enough for them as it is.”

You jump at the sound of a door opening, looking past Dale to see two of the governor’s guards walk in. They stop, gaping in the doorway.

Dale straightens, ignoring the reinforcements that have finally shown up. He doesn’t respond to Grandfather’s concerned voice calling his name and Grandmother’s and even your own. His head swivels to the direction of the courtyard, where Two went.

Fear grips your heart and your hand lands on his forearm, “No.” He doesn’t look back at you either. He gently, but inexorably pulls out of your grasp. You can’t stop him, you know that you can’t, but you can’t stand the thought of him leaving, of him pursuing this threat. “No. Dale. Don’t go after him!”

He ignores you, jade rapier in hand, and runs out into the courtyard.

“Damn you,” you say, voice tight as you try to stop more tears from welling up. What if he’s found out? What if Two can do more to hurt him? What if there are others in wait and he’s outnumbered? What if—? You wipe your eyes more harshly than perhaps you need to as you force yourself to focus on what you can do, who you can help.

While the other guards race to follow Dale, Grandfather hurries across the room to be on the other side of the chair, calling Grandmother’s name. You can feel her breathing, but you need to see if her heart is in trouble. You check her pulse as you tell him, “We need a doctor. Now.”

[Part Twenty-Four]

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