Night's Omen

Not allowing her to slip into unconsciousness was a cruel thing, because Danielle hadn't been exposed to a pain like that in quite a while. She generally kept her fights short and explosively violent - this had been somewhat drawn out, and with someone who was definitely besting her in the power department.

The animosity was still there in her eyes, but it was a different type, no longer reserved for Ash, but rather, the fact that she was damn well immobilized at the moment. He should have known it was more than a small fear of hers. She watched him, unable to form words at the moment.

Her hand was useless now, but it would heal rapidly.. once she could get up and get herself back together. They had effectively cleared out the Lounge, though, which was something sort of comical - to her, anyways. Papa was all who remained, but Danielle was way, way too detatched to be able to pinpoint him at the moment.

Grey eyes fluttered for a moment and then focused on Ash. Why didn't he let go? Why was he doing this? It sort of struck her then that she had crossed a line she couldn't just uncross or say she was sorry for, and somewhere in the pit of her chest, there was a different sort of pain, that strange aching sensation people got when their heart broke - even if it was just a little.

If she would have said she was sorry, or even acted like she was sorry right then, she would have been surprised at how quickly he would have forgiven her for crossing that line of his.  He could quite possibly forgive almost anything, if she was truly asking for forgiveness.  Such was the level of patience he possessed, and how much he cared for her.

His power slowly creeped away from her, loosening its hold as he realized that she wasn't going to pass out, and the calm, sad expression on his face didn't change as he waited for her to get up and react.  He wasn't expecting much grace from her, not like Felicity (who had looked enough like Dani to make his heart ache, much like Lark had as well, damn blondes) would have.  Dani was far too modern for that, and the modern world was often a graceless thing.  

Act like she was sorry? Danielle was a good liar when she wanted to be, but she couldn't feign emotion that ran so deep as to changing her entire essence. And she didn't feel sorry, not even just a little bit. She felt something quite else.

As the power ebbed off of her in a strange tidal sort of way, the icy sensation was almost instantly as fleeting, her own anger building back up again. It was horrifying if you thought about how much she actually had in there somewhere, and what she hadn't even begun to tap into yet.

She didn't dare move, not a muscle. Any move she made right now would be the wrong one at the moment, so she just stayed where she had fallen, fingers not even so much as a twitch as they rested on the floor of the lounge.

She stared back up at Ash, expressionless, as only she could do, a portrait of neutrality painted with the finest brush strokes possible. Grey eyes, however, sang a bit of a different tune. Within them, the iris was almost blacked out by her pupils, the colour now an eclipse of silvery-grey around the dialation.

Danielle was going to do something violent soon, very soon, just as soon as she could get her thoughts in order. She wanted to rip his eyes out for that little move he'd just pulled, such a precious thing he was. One could suppose that it would have been mutual had things gone the other way around - after all, Danielle was Vida, and violent, and viscious, and other bad things that started with V - and she was also a bad loser. Losing to a triste wasn't a big SHOCK or anything, but to her it wasn't that. It was so much more simple, because she didn't SEE Ash like others saw him.

Perhaps her perception of him had been poisoned by their relationship, but there was fuck all he could do to make her see him any other way at this point, no matter how many times he busted her up with his power.

He'd have to kill her before she'd ever admit, freely or forced, that he was simply too much for her to push limits on.

He sighed, looking down at her, and offered her his hand to help her up.  He wasn't so sure that she'd take it, but he offered it, somewhat like offering a truce.  He didn't know what the hell was going on with her, but he wanted to.  He wanted to know what he'd done to provoke her so badly in the first place.

"Are you ready to talk now?" he asked, hoping that she was willing to stop punching and screaming for awhile.  Given the way he could feel her power building up again, he was doubting it, but he could hope, couldn't he?

She answered only by lashing out at him again, this time not physically, but with strictly energy. It wasn't as tame as before, since now she wasn't using any real physical strength to sap at her concentration. No, now it was all just mental, and she could accomplish that easily enough from her serene little splotch on the floor.

It was heat, like a sudden flash fire, intense, dizzying with the saturation of heavy, angry energy. She seemed to draw in from around her, using herself as a sort of conduit to allow it to pass - her nose began to bleed again, and she didn't care. As long as the blood spilled wasn't his doing, she could live with it.

He probably could have warded off far more of that energy that he actually did, but he took most of the hit without trying to protect himself.  Why?  Two reasons, one of them being the hope that if she got a hit in, her hurt pride would sting a little less.  The second was to appease his own guilt for having hurt her to begin with.  He'd promised Dani once that he'd always protect her, though that had been so many years ago that she may not even remember it.  Right after Marcus died, when she was so upset.  How was hurting her supposed to protect her?

A sharp intake of breath indicated the initial blow being struck, that fiery energy whipping about him as though it would devour him.  He stumbled backwards and caught himself with a hand on the table they'd been sitting at, just riding it all out.  It hurt as only her anger could, but he took it without complaint, and finally turned his eyes to hers.  "Now, we're even.  Let's talk," he tried once more, his voice a little breathy.

Danielle pushed herself up off the floor, but something in her expression, which was entirely too dark for a Witch of light and justice... or whatever the hell her family claimed to be this time around. No, she wasn't done yet. This was plainly known as her power seemed to backdraft to her, and then flare out again, only this time, enough to break a few glasses that were caught in the wave as it lashed out towards the triste.

What was she ON? She seemed to be running purely on aggression, animal instinct, and emotions at the moment - Danielle had lost all rational thought for the time being. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to.. something. For all of the grief he had caused her, not that he really knew that.

How do you explain that you love someone so much you hate them? Danielle had been misguided in the past, but now she was just flat out doing stupid shit to try and expell some of her anger. Picking a fight with a triste? That about ranks 10 on the stupid scale of 1/10.

Picking a fight with a triste was usually a 20 on the 1-10 scale, but this was Ash, and it was Dani picking the fight.  If it had been anyone else, he probably would have ground them into dust already, but it was Dani, his Dani, and he wasn't going to hurt her at all badly.

That would explain why, other than using his own power to keep that wave of hers from continuing on the cause more damage to their surroundings and anyone who might be nearby, he again took the blast.  The pain she caused showed on his face for a moment before he got a handle on it once more and it ebbed away, and he once again looked to her, as though asking if she'd gotten enough out of her system that she could function like a normal person again.  He was nothing if not patient.

The calm that held around Ash was like some sort of visual venom for Danielle, and it only did the opposite of what Ash had in mind, spinning her further down the spiral into madness. I am running out of words for angry, rage, and insane.

She was infuriated at this point, so much so that her aura began to take in light, making her look like the black hole she was at the moment. She was feeling the weight of her own untrained power on top of her now, and it made a compressing sensation in her chest that almost took her breath away.

Not before she got in one last hit, anyways. Danielle was spreading herself too thin, using too much concentration on trying to attack Ash that she'd totally forgotten to guard herself from, well, herself. One last blast literally rocked the small room, sending a few more glasses to the trash-can grave. The air around her was nearly tangible it was so saturated, and Danielle finally caved under the pressure.

Her right knee hit the floor first, as her body fell this time of its own accord. She teetered there for a moment, and then fell forward, a deafening thud as the Witch finally succumbed to her own crippling energy. Not dead, no - drained. If Danielle got attacked now... well, there'd be one less Vida.

Ash's eyes widened just a bit when he realized exactly what she was going to do, and he decided right then and there that he wasn't taking this hit.  He used his own magic to do his very best to contain the blast, though some of the glasses on the tables were lost anyway.  And Dani, of course, positively dropped.  She'd completely exhausted herself, which was about as foolish as she could have been.  If he hadn't been there, who knew what would have happened to her?

He sighed, glancing back at Papa Aristide, who was still sitting as calmly as ever in his corner, watching.  He didn't look particularly pleased, but intrigued.  For whatever reason, he hadn't stopped them.  Not Ash's concern right then.

He reached into his pocket and left a few bills on the table that added up to far more than their drinks, hopefully enough to cover the glasses she'd broken and anything else.  Then, he scooped her still form up off the floor, headed for the Hollow and the room he had upstairs.  She could rest and recuperate there, and hopefully they could actually talk, instead of her trying to beat on him for some unknown reason.

((Continued [a href=\'http://midnightmayhem.ourdarkarts.net/index.php?showtopic=621&st=0&#entry16536\' target=\'_top\']here[/a].))