Lucky You {Tag: Brennan}

[Brennan Shardae]

He couldn't breathe.

That was the first thought that really stuck, even though he was thrilled at the realization that the last shot he took actually hit its mark, and horrified when she kept on attacking.  It was the sudden lack of air that really hit him, though.  It was like the pain and the location, the way his collarbone was just being destroyed, that really stole the breath right from his lungs.  He couldn't even scream, not if he tried, and focusing enough to shoot the wolf was suddenly out of the question.  He struck at her head and body with his left hand, which coincidentally ended with him pistol-whipping her a few times, but it wasn't like he was hitting all that hard by that point.  His eyes were wide and he was obviously in agony, so the fact that he just laid there and tried to suck in as much air as he could when she fell away from him shouldn't have been a surprise.

That he didn't have a response for Raphael's 'cheery' smile and parting comment shouldn't have, either.  Raphael looked as though he was going to get his way, though the former commander of the Royal Flight had to at least make an attempt at helping himself, even if the first one was a rather useless moving of his arms.  He managed to pull them both up, even though the right one wasn't cooperating, and nearly lost consciousness when he attempted to push his own collarbone into something resembling its proper place.  He wasn't going to fix it himself, but he was going to try to put pressure on it.  It was bleeding far too much, and he didn't WANT to bleed to death.  Or at least, he didn't want to right then.

In another moment or so, he wouldn't care.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"Father, I firmly do believe -- I know -- for Death who comes for me," Theia quietly whispered the Edgar Allen Poe piece to herself, fingers rolling the black feather back and forth, index and thumb, back and forth, like a good luck charm. It was true, she had felt badly at first about chasing off Brennan, her Little Raven, but he would never understand the way that her Falcon mind worked, even if it was trapped in such a disgusting, mortal shell. Her heartstrings had been tugged, but not in a traditional sense - more of, nobody had ever, in thousands of years, even noticed her - and then her Little Raven had saved her life. Well, what was left of it.

She whispered her poem softly to herself, shrugging the soft white fabric of her jacket close to her skin. She didn't find the weather particularly warm these nights, not as warm as the White City. She had almost completely passed the alley where Brennan lay by, but the scent of blood, thick even to her human nose, reeked in the air, hanging like a curse, an infection, polluting the stagnant air around it. It smelled of bile and garbage and copper, and it was a scent that Aleya knew as much as Amaltheia.

Trembling now, because Theia had nothing to defend herself with, she slunk into the mouth of the alley. "Hello?" she called softly. "Is anyone down here?" she whispered. She felt the pressing sensation of Death lingering close by, and felt it as His robes brushed by her, so softly, so familiar.

"I c-can call for help," she peeped, louder now, but still not enough.

Something dark caught her mismatched eyes, and she moved slowly, behind Death, but just by a pace. Her eyes began to focus, fully encompass the scene before her. Crushed bones, blood, flesh. Ligament was torn and strewn, and an arm once sleeved was bare, hanging uselessly at an awkward angle against a shoulder long-since crushed. It looked like the body had been attacked by wild dogs.

Death crossed her path, but not before Theia realized.

"Little Raven?" she said softly. She held a hand up, uselessly, reaching for Death - but He did not stop for her, just as she, trapped in her shell, did not stop for him in all this time.

Finally, she broke the silence, fully understanding the vision before her. "BRENNAN, NO!" Her voice was shrill and alien against even her human vocal cords - the split, ear-piercing shriek that was laced with dead magics ripped through the alley, nearly taking her own sanity with it. The feather floated silently to the ground, landing in a pool of blood, as Theia screamed hysterically, each cry more violent than the next.

[Papa Aristide]

Perhaps it was luck, or maybe destiny, that Brennan had been attacked close enough to the Mojo Lounge that Papa Aristide himself could feel the magical reverberations of Amaltheia's shrieking.  Normally, he didn't bother to venture out of the Lounge itself for trivial matters, but when his curiosity was piqued, that was an entirely different story, and happened to explain why he was to be found stepping out the back door and into the alley beyond.  A man that had spent the day tending bar for him, a rather new employee actually, knew enough of his habits to spare him a glance as he left the building from his place on the opposite end of the kitchen, but didn't comment.  Why should he?  He'd have to be very foolish indeed to question this boss' actions.

Besides, if he was going to question something such as this, he'd NEVER get involved in the activities in the back rooms, and he was there because he thought he wanted to.

Some new mortal's reasons for entering his realm aside, he turned his attention to the alley.  He could practically feel the strangeness of the shrieker's magic, and the elemental bound to him felt much like it was stretching and practically purring just at the thought of it.  This was something new, something interesting.  He followed it, and was neither surprised nor bored to find the Death's shadow swooping in upon a prone figure, and it took mere seconds for the body's racing heart to slow and stop, and the labored breaths to falter.  The bloodied man was gone, that much was obvious, and no amount of screaming would help him.  Really, nothing should have been able to help him, but one thing in this equation might change that.

This was Papa Aristide they were dealing with.

"He's gone, child," he told her, his rumbling bass somehow sounding far gentler than should have been possible, but there was still an edge to his presence that would never be entirely gentle. 

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Amaltheia was still shrouded over Brennan's body, her throat aching, bleeding, as she tried and tried to raise him. "Come back! Come back, do you hear me? Empress, please, bring him back!" she cried, burying her face into her hands. Amaltheia in the many centuries she'd been bound to this form had never allowed her emotions to swallow her alive like this. She could almost feel the Betrayal all over again, the sentencing, the stripping of her power - it felt like Death. Like this.

When Aristide spoke behind her, as gentle as his voice may have been, it gave Theia no comfort, no solace. She turned to him sharply, one blue eye and one brown eye wild and wide, full of fear and loathing. "I can't fix this," she wailed. She could have, before. As a Falcon, she danced in the stars, and weaved songs of life and death, saying who lives, who dies, all for Her Favour. No more, though. She was tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit.

"I can't fix this," she whispered again. She pulled the remnants of Brennan towards her, cradling his head into her lap, and sitting down in the muck next to him. "I can't fix this," she whispered again, closing her eyes. She couldn't even feel his warmth anymore. It was gone.

[Papa Aristide]

The whole show was intriguing to watch, particularly so much emotion swirling in that transparent ghost of power.  It was strange, something he knew he'd never seen before, there and yet not.  It made very little sense right up until she turned to face him, and her eye gave her away.

Yes, eye.  Just the one.

It may have seemed callous, particularly when she was in so much pain, but the voodoo man couldn't help himself.  He suddenly began to laugh, the whole situation suddenly falling into place so perfectly that he could do nothing more than laugh at the realization.  She was a falcon, so the magic was hers, but it had to be bound.  That would be why one eye was normal, and why her power seemed so transparent.  It was there, still a part of her, but impossible for her to access.

For HER to access.

"You can't, petite blanc, but you don' need to.  Ah can fix it, if you like me to, an' you will owe me," he told her, cutting right to the chase, for once.  She didn't seem to have the ability to follow a long speech right then, and he was eager to play around in the real magic, if the ghost of it was so pleasant. 

New toys were always fun, as were new favors.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

She couldn't understand why he was laughing at her so madly, like a wolf howling at the moon, especially at a time like this. If she could still sing the dark magic she'd have woven a net around him to trap him in misery for eternity, but alas, Aleya was gone and this shell of her memory was here to stay - mortal, yet not, and powerless to Death as he stole away with her only friend, her Little Raven.

It was awkward that Theia even considered Brennan a friend, but he had been the only being to ever show her an ounce of emotion, oddly enough for his avian training, and that meant worlds to her.

It wasn't until Aristide boasted that he could fix Brennan than did Theia begin listening again. "Yes," she said without thinking. "Yes, fix him now," she demanded. It was after that when 'petite blanc' struck her as odd, and... she knew the meaning of the words, yes, but why did it bother her so? A chill went up her spine, but she couldn't concentrate on that now.

"If you can fix him, do it. I'll give you whatever you want," she said hurriedly. She didn't know that offering Aristide 'whatever he wanted' encompassed a whole hell of a lot.

[Papa Aristide]

Whatever he wanted?  Amazing.  Nobody ever understood just what that meant when it was time to pay up.  Delightful for Aristide, who didn't care why she wanted this done, or what she thought she was getting, but would do it anyway.  Eventually, someone might actually think to put restrictions on what they were purchasing with the promise of their favor, but not this time.  He liked the freedom in it, and didn't stop to wonder if she would.

"Take off your coat," he told her, stepping forward to take it as soon as she obeyed, and he took a quick glance over the dead man laying before them.  His elemental was telling him it had been a shifter, which was a shame, since that was likely to get a bit...addled.  No matter, since Aristide would replace it with something better.  He'd make the job he did worth the favor he'd later take.  Well worth it.

This wasn't going to be easy, however.  He didn't have any of his supplies with him, and he wasn't going to take the time to go get them when the body was already cooling.  If the man was dead too long, it'd be too much work to be worth it.  He'd just have to manage, and bent to dab his fingers in the still-warm blood caused by the man's wounds.  He drew a circle around them in the blood, then laid the coat over the body and gestured Amaltheia to a kneeling position inside the circle.

"Dis won' feel good," he warned her, giving her a final chance to back out, even as his elemental began pacing about and his own power started to reach out. 

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Amaltheia dropped her coat to ground as he commanded, and hugged herself in the cold. She hated the cold sometimes, and right now was one of those times. She was ushered to her position in the circle, and placed her hands in her lap without knowing what she was supposed to be doing. She could feel the hum of power, and she knew that she had gotten in over her head when she realized that as a mortal she could sense the power, but there was nothing left to do about it, because Brennan's life was more important than whatever consequences she'd deal with later. Let's face it, she's pretty sure she's dealt with worse.

When Aristide warned her that it wouldn't feel good, she had already been preparing herself for something, though she wasn't sure what. She had never anticipated, however, that she would ever feel a pain like the one when she'd been bound - it had hurt worse than any physical pain they could have employed on her. No weapon a Falcon could wield was so great as the magic to strip the power of another.

Amaltheia clapped her hands to her mouth as she tried not to scream, not wanting to expose herself. Her scream was shrill against her sweaty palms, and sounded very different, almost... bird-like. Her muscles spasmed, and she felt herself begin to convulse, and tried desperately to regain control. She felt disconnected from her mortal body, though, somehow detached, like she was floating further and further away from it. She realized that she could see everything around her, even herself, as she looked back down below. Her body had rolled its eyes into the back of its head and had fallen limp, rocking to its side and rendered almost into the fetal position.

She couldn't seem to muster any conscious thoughts, but before she had time to even attempt to try, she felt herself being slammed downward at a rapid rate of speed. Everything went white, than red, and then finally black.

[Papa Aristide]

With the warmth of his own power and the elemental's magic sweeping around him, Aristide didn't even notice the cold.  Why should he, when his own power was of life and the flesh?  He dealt in death and cold things when necessary, but there was no escaping the facts of the situation.  That was fine with him, especially now.  It'd serve him well.

No falcon magic could fix this, not with their power lying in stillness and death, but that didn't change the fact that Amaltheia had a rather impressive build-up of power dammed inside of her.  If he could free that, which he knew he could, then he could tap it and twist it to his own purposes.  With his own power already raised and swirling around him, he thrust both of his hands straight into her back.  There was a shudder and some smoke in the air between them, but no blood.  This wasn't a typical motion, and the flesh and bone beneath him accepted his presence without resistance.  It had to hurt, but he didn't care.  He was speaking under his breath, though the words were lost on the strands of power spinning around them.  He pulled from within Amaltheia rather suddenly and violently in a metaphysical manner, snapping the bindings within her and freeing the power that had waited so long for him to tug at it.  It swept into and over him in a tidal wave, and he took all he possibly could before putting a stopper on the rest, leaving about half of it to Amaltheia herself even as her body dropped.

To anyone who could read auras, Aristide would have practically been glowing there was so much power rushing around, and he stood over the fallen woman's body for a moment, eyes closed, without seeming to do a thing at all.  Really, he was focused inward, sweeping the falcon magic through his own power, mixing and twisted them together to both strengthen his own and warm the falcon magic with the power of life and flesh.  His own elemental had rushed him as well once the falcon magic had been freed, and that only helped.  Ignoring the fallen woman, he knelt beside the dead raven and did something rather similar to start.  He set one hand right over the man's heart, his fingers clenching and actually digging right into the body much like what he'd done with Amaltheia, and thrust downward with that magic to practically ignite the organ that was so very essential to life.  The body arched up towards him and he continued feeding magic through it even as it became clear that the man's current form couldn't sustain what it was being given.  The eyes shot open, their darkness being completely overtaken by the magic surging through the body, the mouth opened in what appeared to be a silent scream, and the voodoo man didn't let up.  He was waiting for something in particular.

Ah, there they were.  He had no intention of forcing a newly alive shifter into a different form, but wings were necessary.  Only when they burst from the body's back was he satisfied with what he'd done.  Just as suddenly as it had all begun, he withdrew, drawing the rest of the power that was swirling about back within himself, then forcing it downward, towards the ground to calm it all.  Once he was certain that no harm was going to come of it, he stepped outside of the bloody circle, leaving Amaltheia and Brennan to recover on their own.

"Good luck.  We'll speak again."

[Amaltheia Monarch]

As Aristide pulled out, the ghostly skeletal structure of wings plumed from her back. They looked like hazy white sketches as she fell forward, screaming, angry and in pain, confused as to why she was not left to her dark shell that she had found only moments prior when she'd lost consciousness. As the power cascaded down on top of her, crushingly close, her screams were robbed by the utter silence the magic brought, causing her to choke in breath and cease her sound. No longer so occupied on attentions of Aristide, she folded a wing experimentally towards herself, reaching up as she bowed it over her head, almost sculpted in her pose.

Feathers the colours of snow and ice bent towards her, the ends dusted with an indigo hue, a shade so perfectly vivid it looked as though it had been snatched out of a rainbow just for her. She ran her fingers across the feathers slowly, shaking, afraid that the illusion might disappear, but she felt sensation on the tips of her digits, and suddenly knew that she wasn't dreaming.

She pushed herself to her feet with a grunt, and wavering, turned to Brennan's body, still unsure of what was happening. She could feel the strange song that death sang looming so closely, but getting fainter, and fainter still - it was replaced with a thunderous sound, a heartbeat. She dropped back down to her knees, still unable to walk fully, and crawled to Brennan's side, before she shrank back in surprise.

He.. but it couldn't be..  His wings were as black as pitch, the ends streaked with violet just as hers indigo. His skin was pallid, but living - his chest bloodied but rising and falling.

"Brennan," she stammered finally. She reached out slowly at his motionless figure, afraid he was in some sort of trance. "Brennan... your eyes," she whispered. Theia didn't realize her own were the same brilliant hues now, no longer one holding the mongrel trace of mortality to it - both of them as rich and blue as the edges of her feathers.

[Brennan Shardae]

Brennan was...either extremely calm or so completely panicked that he couldn't even function, because he didn't even move as Aristide withdrew.  His first waking moments had consisted of such overwhelming sensations that he'd thought he was going to die all over again (even if he wasn't really aware that he'd died to begin with), and now he was slowly coming down from the rush of it all.  He didn't know what to do, other than just lay there, eyes wide, and catch his breath.

He hurt, he suddenly realized, all over the place.  It was understandable where he'd been hurt, because wasn't he bleeding everywhere?  That werewolf had torn him up, so he SHOULD hurt, but...it wasn't quite bad enough.  He felt strangely well, and just plain strange all around. 

His eyes flicked to Amaltheia when she said he name, locking on hers even as she mentioned his, and he didn't get it.  He had NO IDEA what was going on, but he could see that her eyes were no longer two different colors, and how could he EVER miss the fact that she had her wings back?

How fitting, that he'd lose his, and she'd regain hers.  Of course, he didn't yet know that they'd both benefited from the voodoo man's ritual.  Even as he pulled himself off the ground with a groan, rubbing at his face with a bloodied up hand, he didn't know.  He felt like his brain was in a fog, just returning from somewhere that he didn't know, and it'd take a few moments before he was altogether 'there'.  He'd need that time to register what was going on.  It still hadn't occurred to him what had happened.

"My...eyes?  What...?"  Even the words came out hoarse, which should have been expected.  He'd been healed, but he HAD just suffered his collarbone and throat being torn up.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

"Your eyes. Brennan, your eyes," she hissed, unable to believe what was in front of her. She had no mirror, nothing to show him with, nothing to try and explain what she could possibly be seeing. "Your wings," she said, reaching behind his head to brush them lightly. "Brennan... "

She trailed off. She didn't even know what to say. The buzz that she'd felt for what seemed like an eternity was suddenly gone - her mortality was gone. She could feel only the low, soft lullaby that her power brought - the song of silence, of stillness, a sensation like gravity, one that could pull you in if you listened too closely. She covered her face for a moment, breathing slowly, trying to pull herself out of the stream of the dead, that alluring symphony that could wash over your mind until nothing was left. She looked back up at him.

"Falcon," she said finally.

[Brennan Shardae]

She was talking about his eyes again, and he had no idea what she meant.  What was wrong with his eyes?  He obviously couldn't see them, since there wasn't anything with a reflective surface present (and both of his guns were so bloodied up that there was no way of using them), but whatever was wrong with them, it sounded urgent.  Until she mentioned his wings.

His wings were gone.

Weren't they?  She reached behind him, brushed against them.  Brushed against his wings. 

His head jerked around to look behind him as well as he could, and it was well enough.  He could see them, black and more glorious than he'd ever remembered, but they weren't his.  They just weren't.  The violet, that wasn't the way they were supposed to be.  He swept one around him to touch it, see if it was really there, and it was. It wasn't right, though. 

"Falcon?" he repeated, and he stared at her with eyes that shouldn't have been his, stained with what had just happened, all disbelief.  "No!  Raven!  I'm a raven!  What happened, what's going on?" he demanded, releasing the stained black feathers as though they were undesirable, and trying to pull himself to his feet.  He had to scramble closer to the wall in order to stand, but he managed it within a few tries and a head-rush.  It made him dizzy for an instant, which really only seemed fitting.  His whole world felt upside down.

[Amaltheia Monarch]

Theia grew angry for an instant when he rejected what she was saying, and rose slowly, trembling, following after him. She was a natural Falcon by birth, and so she had a restricted control over her magic, even in the newness of it all. She was familiar with it, and glad to have it back, the silence twining 'round her fingertips like vines, the lullaby of the darkness swelling around her.

"Brennan, you need to calm down," she said, pressing forward with what little power she dared use. She meant only to try and stay his wandering mind while he tried to grasp all this, though she was still a little irritated that he would behave so... ridiculously about this.

"Not raven, Brennan. Falcon. I don't know how, or why, but you are a Falcon, just like I am a Falcon. Look, do you see?" she asked, approaching him, fanning her wings out. She looked almost angelic for but a brief moment, and it was apparent that the old, depressing Theia was gone for good. She looked back at him, eyes sparkling and so alive. Slowly, she rose a hand to his face, to catch his gaze.

"Don't you feel it?" she whispered, unwilling to accept that he didn't want this. He couldn't possibly not. Anyone, avian or otherwise, would be stark raving mad to reject this most precious magic.

[Brennan Shardae]

Calm down?  He felt like he was stark raving mad at this point, but somehow through it all, he could think again.  Why?  He once more turned his now violet eyes on her, and he understood.  She was right, he could feel it, and she was using whatever 'it' was to calm him.  She was allowing him the ability to actually think, and it was both blessing and curse.

She was right, no matter what he wanted, she was right.  He could see her wings, and though he hadn't taken quite the look at his as he had hers, he knew they were different, but the same.  They weren't raven wings, not anymore.  They weren't his, but they were.  He'd lost his, and been given new ones.  Better ones, if he was to believe Amaltheia and her obvious happiness on the matter.

What had he lost in return, though?

The Avians didn't get along with the Falcons.  His people didn't get along with falcons, and there was Avalon to consider.  How could she rule her people with him by her side?  Would she even consider it?

Had he really lost everything, only to be given a whole new chance and lose it all again?  Could fate be that cruel to him?  "Avalon, I have to speak to her," he said suddenly, not answering Amaltheia's questions or considering the fact that going to Avalon like he was would be a certain disaster.  Drenched in both his own blood and the wolf's, violet-eyed and with wings that shouldn't have been him, he was a wreck just physically.  The mental effects of the entire situation had barely had time to touch at him before Amaltheia calmed him.