Chapter Text
Being a Pride demon is the best. Dean will fight you if you care to disagree. Pride demons are the toughest, the bravest, the ballsiest, yeah, just all around awesome. There's really only one drawback.
The drawback - if you can call it a drawback. It’s more of a downside, really. No, a mild inconvenience at best. It’s sort of the flip side of the whole pride thing.
So yes, the flip side of being a Pride demon is that you are constitutionally unable to surrender or run away from a fight, which is why Dean is going to be a dead demon in just under five minutes.
Sucks. But he handles his current state of disintegration with the bull headed attitude of his species. The only thing Dean has on his mind right now is the simple mathematics of how much time he has left, how long will it take him to triangulate the caster of this bullshit spell, and how many feet of small and large intestine can be removed before Dean croaks.
The sizzling sound of his skin sublimating tries to distract him. He refuses to let it.
The trap that snapped shut on him a minute ago is like a steel net. It yanked him out of reality and is now trawling him at high speed through the skin of various realms, higher and lower, like it’s trying to give him multidimensional roadrash on its way to an unknown destination. The friction is so bad, it set him on fire in a matter of seconds.
While a human would be dead, the heat isn’t even an inconvenience for a hell-fiend; back in Dis, the imps go surfing the lava waves on belly boards made from magically petrified taxmen, so other than destroying a nice set of leathers, the fire itself is a non-event. But the harsh trawl through the skein of the realms continues even after sizzling off his clothes, and Dean quickly realizes this is its purpose. The spell dragging him along isn’t turning him into demon mincemeat by accident, it is actually aiming to disintegrate him.
The spell is a noose reeling him in, so instead of trying to escape (Pride demon, right?) Dean beats his large bat wings faster and faster, tearing through various realms regardless of the cost to himself, because at the end of this tether is the caster, and that is someone Dean wants to meet very badly.
He’s sublimating fast, the higher elements of his body turning to vapor, he’s going to be nothing more than a wild angry patch of killing intent in a minute, but those sixty seconds are going to last the rest of the spell-caster’s life and will feel like several eternities.
With a wrenching scream of realms tearing apart, Dean transitions from the higher spheres back to what humans think of as reality. This reality, specifically, is in a huge underground cavern retrofitted with pillars, chains, gargoyles and other gothic paraphernalia that humans might consider intimidating. Dean, hailing from Hell and the dread spires of Dis, thinks their attempt at Doom and Damnation is fucking cutesy, but whatever, now he’s going to find whoever lurks down here and kill ‘em.
His wings weave contrails of smoke and ash behind him like war banners. They’re almost gone. But they’ll last long enough.
Up ahead, in a space wide enough for a respectable battlefield, is a huge spell array with magical ingrams carved along the eight directions, decorated with black candles, skulls, the usual. And there! Humans at its center. Hello, Targets, prepare for evisceration.
Waitaminute-
That flip side, okay, we can call it an inconvenience, of going full bore at your enemy when you’re a Pride demon is that you sometimes need a moment to pivot.
The array is large and powerful, evil light pulsates in shapes that have Final Stop for Demons written all over them. But the figures at its center aren’t waiting for him with nasty grins on their faces, in fact it’s even odds they haven’t even noticed his arrival. There’s half a dozen of ‘em rocking the latest fashion in cowled and hooded Evils R Us wear, and they’re trying to subdue a seventh man dressed in rags, bruises, blood and chains. One of his captors bends over to fit the end of the man’s manacles into a set of rings welded to the center of the array, and gets a solid kick to the nuts as a reward.
Before the prisoner can even enjoy his brief win, he’s clubbed by another captor; six on one is really not fair, oh wait, make that five on one, no, four on one-
Amid screams, someone cries: “It’s here! It’s already here! The demon is-” bloody gurgle.
That’s right, taintstains. Dean takes out captors three and two, blood spraying as his vicious swipes rip at them. A solid clank of chains on flesh means numero uno just got taken out from behind by the sacrificial lamb.
“Watch out!” shouts the prisoner at Dean’s back.
Shit, it's not over yet. The array is a bloodied mess at its center, but the outside spell lines are still pulsating, more robed guys out there gesture wildly, trying to complete the casting at high speed. These guys visibly don't care about the demise of their colleagues, and Dean’s not spoiled their plans, it seems, even if his sudden arrival caught them flat-footed.
The spell yanks. Its tug is still there and growing stronger with every incantation the robes read out. He thought it was pulling him towards the guys he just murdered, but it isn’t, it’s pulling him straight towards the prisoner.
Into the prisoner!
The captured man staggers towards Dean like a strong wind is blowing him that way and he’s fighting it tooth and nail. The spell - the spell wants to - to mash them together?
For a frozen instant they’re face to face, both struggling to keep apart.
Despite bruises, pain and ridiculously screwed up circumstances, the prisoner unexpectedly grins. Hazel eyes dance like twin stars from the constellation of Fucking with People.
“Dean, quick! Break these!” He thrusts out his manacled hands.
Dean swipes a claw down without hesitation, smashing the pinions apart with his talons like the metal is made of papier mache. The spell sucks at him hard, they’re like two opposite poles of a magnet. Dean whips his hand away, afraid of what will happen if they actually touch.
There’s some loaded questions to ask, how do you know my name, who are you, what do these guys want, yada yada yada, Dean dumps those in favor of the tried and tested: “Let’s fuck these bitches up!”
The iron handcuffs sizzle as the retraining spell on them is smashed, they fall to the floor with a clang. Two of the robbed felons off to one side grab cudgels and run forward.
Too late. The prisoner, hands freed, lifts his fists high.
Wham! A tsunami of light and power surges forth. The guy’s a mage! A high level Light caster, as good a reason as any why he wouldn’t want to end up in a non-consensual snuggle with a demon.
But he's not aiming for the bastards!
The power surges and catches Dean before the latter can react. Just as it hits, he hears a jaunty, “I’m giving you a chance here, Dean-o, good luck.”
“Wha- WAIT!”
But the blast catches what’s left of Dean’s wings, the magical tether can’t cope with the force and lets him go with a snap, and he’s shooting out of the dungeon now as fast as he first arrived.
Dean’s trajectory leaves a cyclone wind of force, smoke and a hell of a lot of swearing in its wake. He’s already a dead demon here! What’s the point of running?! He wanted to spend his last few seconds helping that prisoner mince up the bastards. The dude might have been kinda small, face swollen and bruised, dark blond hair stringy with sweat and grime, but that’d been the grin of someone damn spicy, and Dean didn't even get his name. But he no longer has enough intact wingspan to slow his bullet trajectory.
He’s not hell flesh anymore, he’s gone, his core barely held together by pride and spite with a bit of soul for spackle. He’s so immaterial that he phases right through the walls of the dreaded dungeon o’ doom the humans built.
Then he’s outside. But still in darkness. Turns out the dungeon was lurking below ground level of a deep ravine. Dean cruises up the gap, rock walls streaming by on both sides, heading towards distant sunlight. He has no power over his movement, he can only hope to hang on a few seconds more. If he clears this canyon and croaks a bit higher up, it’ll be easier for Sammy to find his etheric remains, backtrack his path and avenge him.
Just a bit more.
But suddenly another force exerts itself. It bends his trajectory sideways, towards the far side of the chasm. What-
There is someone falling there.
Dean’s going so fast, he couldn't stop if he wanted to. And… the spell that stripped him of all of his material seems to have an inbuilt mechanism, like it’s made to find a home, a place to put him. The prisoner fought off the magnetic pull with Dean’s aid, but now…now Dean's out of power, all but dead, and over there is an injured person, also dying, freefalling and screaming for help from someone, anyone.
To the spell, that cry is like chum to a shark.
Dean tries to fight it, but it’s over before he can do more than twitch. Two beings, one almost dead, the other almost disintegrated, collide midair and a rather anticlimactic whoosh occurs.
Then there’s only a single body plummeting down the chasm.
Wretched trees cling to the side of the rocks, reaching like old gnarled hands towards a sunlight they only see for an hour a day at most. The body hits one, then another, slowing down until it thumps onto a ledge where it stays still for a bit.
Then it stirs.
“That hurt like-”
Dean is silent for a whole minute, horrified at the sound of his words coming out in an alien voice. A girly voice. Light and lilting. Falling from a mouth full of blood but otherwise tender and young.
“Oh fuck me.”
He’s quiet for another minute out of sheer panic. There’s something beating hard in his chest. A heart. Dean normally has a large etheric core of a heart that thrums like a gentle engine along with his wing beats. He doesn’t have a meat sac bouncing beneath his ribs like it’s trying to get out.
Oy vey.
From above, his ears pick up the sound of scrambling, pebbles bouncing off rock, and then a voice.
“Hey! I see her! She didn’t reach the bottom! She only fell some thirty feet. Think she’s still alive?”
“How could she be?”
“Did you stab her?”
“Yeah.”
Yeah, you did, you asshole, Dean mentally growls as he realizes one of the holes in this body is not a regular one by design but a bleeding one that hurts like a bitch.
“Damn, do we have to go down and finish her?”
“Yeah, boss wants the job done. Can’t let her say what she saw. It gets to the wrong ears, we’re bound for the gallows. Or worse.” A horking sound is followed a second later by a gobbet of spit hitting the ledge near Dean's head.
“How do we even get down there?”
“Look, this gulley goes on down to that rock, and then there’s a couple of ledges that'll get you to her level.”
“Izatafact? You go then.”
“Huh? No, you go.”
“No, you.”
“You haven’t done anything so far other than smack her one. I'm the one who stabbed her.”
“Yeah, and didn’t finish the job, so you go down.”
“How about you both go down,” Dean suggests.
The two yahoos spin to where Dean is hanging in mid-air, hovering on a wellhead of power made of raw magic, pain and savagery.
They don’t have time to speak, much less beg. Fingers harder than the claws of hellbeasts fasten on their shoulders, yank, and two useless pieces of meat go caterwauling out into the void. They won't hit a ledge. Straight on down to damnation, maggots. Give the Pit my regards.
Dean’s feet touch firm ground and then he just stands there, chest heaving, staring straight ahead at nothing much as the blood sings and pulses in his ears and the body aches.
“Hey, fuckers, did you do it yet?”
Snapping underbrush and a clatter of rocks herald the arrival of a third asshole, half sliding down the steep gulley. He's dressed the same as the others, rough wear bristling with a variety of weapons that says as clear as a sign: will do anything for cash, no questions asked, violent solutions a speciality. He’s not as burly as his buddies, small-and-twitchy, the rabid weasel format of murderer for hire. He was probably ordered to stay behind by the other two, because they might have been a couple of big bastards who could stab and hurl a small girl off a cliff, but this guy could still make them feel a bit uncomfortable to be around.
The slow viscous smile that spreads over his face when he sees Dean does nothing to dispel that first impression.
“Ooooh, little lady, are you trying to run away? Sorry, but-”
“I…am in…a dress.”
It’s not so much the words as the tone. The leer fades as wisps of self-preservation peak through the sadism. “Don’t move and I'll make it quick-”
“I. have. TITS!”
There’s a gibber of a moment where a saner, or at least less evil guy would have taken to his heels on instinct. Not this guy. He lunges forward, dagger set to stab.
A wave of power picks him up and slams him against the side of the gulley. A very final crunch rings out where his head meets a rocky spur. When the power flickers out, the body slides down to the gulley's scree with a boneless thud.
Dean sways. His head spins. He goes to lean against the gulley walls, then he sinks down to sit on the corpse.
…By all the devils of Dis. What a mess…
And… who were these jokers? This didn’t feel like some random human on human violence.
Maybe I should have kept one alive, smack an answer out of him.
Whatever.
Dean gathers up his stubborn courage and finally looks himself over. He’s covered in a baffling amount of layers. Even his tiny hands are encased in black gloves, fake pearl fasteners keeping them tight on the wrist as if the revelation of any skin whatsoever will cause a gasp of shock that could level a building. The black twill wool cape, a symbol stitched onto the lapel, covers most of a dark traveling dress that goes down to the ankles: rugged practical cloth, of the long-lasting-but-at-a-decent-price variety. It resisted the fall remarkably well, and the black hides the bloodstains.
Dean's new heart goes into a gallop when he lifts the skirt to find giant spider legs entombed in swathes of white webbing. But after a few seconds of unpleasant palpitations and a cautious poke, it's just muslin and thin flexible rods, bent out of shape but originally designed to make the dress poof out; a constrast to where the waist is caught in tight by the corset, which is as fucking uncomfortable as Dean always thought they’d be when he noticed this recent human trend. Beneath all of that - Dean peeks uncomfortably then looks away - is some very utilitarian undergarments. This all feels like something a governess would wear.
The body beneath all of this highly starched cloth is damaged. The gloves’ fabric sliced through several times, defensive wounds, and four ribs are broken. A sucking chest wound was probably the cause of death of this body's previous occupant; it got roughly patched up during the surge of magic that lifted Dean out of the chasm, it's no longer making irritating whee-squelch-whee-squelch noises in time with his precipitous breathing, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. Blood seeps down the back of the skull beneath the dark cape and the hood Dean’s pulled over his head to block out the sunshine which, weak as it is, seems to be gouging his eyes. On the other end of this body, where his legs end in thick black stockings, he’s lost a shoe, and the remaining one clinging to his left foot is ridiculously thin and dainty.
Dean glances up the gulley leading away from the edge of the chasm. It’s steep and rocky. He looks down. The corpse he’s sitting on has thick-soled combat boots with small metal spikes punched through the leather.
They’re a bit big when pulled on, but better than the alternative.
Dean struggles through the underbrush and rocky scree in the direction of the afternoon sun. He has no clue where he is, his wild ride through the realms messed with his sense of space and time, he could be close to where the trap first sprang shut on him or on the other side of the fucking planet, but he’s gotta move. More assholes might show up, this time with magic. Though this situation is abominably bad, it could still get worse; he could end up chained in that dungeon nearby at the mercy of these raving shitstains. Just… get away from here and then… then think about the next part.
---
After some time, he reaches a paved road, which promises to lead to somewhere at least halfway civilized. Dean trudges along for half an hour. The early autumn air is chilly, but he is feeling increasingly hot, a sensation unfamiliar to a demon who relaxes in lava pools while having a brewsky. His feet drag, heavier and heavier, he’s regretting the boots now. He's juggling the option of torn feet versus hauling along the extra pound of leather when he hears a distant shout and a clatter. The road rises and bends up ahead, and a coach just made the turn. The driver on the box seat is waving at him. Dean stops, eyes narrowed.
“Finally!” The driver is breathing as hard as the horses. He loops the reins around the brake lever and climbs down, talking all the while. “You-...I almost got-... I assume you had an excellent reason, young madam, to jump out of my carriage, but that was… it left me in a difficult situation when I arrived without you.”
Dean’s grasp on human society and mores is not as good as Asmodeus’ lot, since Treachery demons have their claws in everything and live to spin humans around like evil prayer wheels. He still can gather that the…the body he is temporarily inhabiting is not that of a governess or a servant, because it’s very obvious the coachman wants to holler, why did you run off you STUPID bint, I almost got my ass fired because of you!! but doesn't have the relative social standing to do so.
“I see you fell, too, you’re all muddy.” The coachman’s gaze skip uncaring over Dean's cape-covered form but pauses at the boots, which seems to give him some esthetical conundrum. “Er… never mind, this way. I need to get you to the dorms before they send out a search party. Plus, I have to be back at Omusk tomorrow early to pick up the next lot of trunks, packages and ladies-in-waiting. Um, and students such as yourself.” The last is said through practically gritted teeth.
Dean’s head aches, the light stabs at it even with the hood pulled up. He contemplates turning this dude into a newt. Just temporarily, for stress relief. But Pride demons don't do that sort of thing, not without cause, and besides, his power… feels weird. It surged before under the fire of his emotions, a candle that flared bright but is now flickering at the end of its wick.
Opting out of newt-ification doesn't mean he’s going anywhere with this asshole, though, or so Dean thinks until the coachman up ahead swings the carriage door open. Dean gets a full-on view of the fancy coat of arms painted there: a book and sword with wyverns rampant and a pair of angel wings on the crest.
Daedalean University. Well damn.
Dean glances down at the swell of what he is not considering his breasts, thank you, and focuses on his cape's lapel: he's viewing it upside down, but now he knows what it is, he can see the stitched coat of arms is the same.
Dean is yanked out of the here and now and forced to think back on a recent past somewhat rife with bad decisions…
He was at Daedalean U just this morning, testing its defences and weighing options. But a bit further back in time, all this shitshow started with that fucking book.
The book is said to be very old, unique, and very evil. Sam got sweaty just at the thought of getting his hands on it when he heard that Maruk, of Maruk’s Very Discreet Bookshop For the Discerning And Open Minded Gentleman, had found it and put it aside for his favorite demonic research nut. Sam and Maruk get on like a house on fire, or rather like a big library crumbling under centuries of boredom, in Dean’s opinion. Sam was, at the time, in the middle of some crucial research he couldn’t leave, so he asked Dean to pop over to the mortal realm and pick up the book. Two years ago. And just because Dean was a little late, Maruk went and sold it to an anonymous connoisseur last month.
Maruk did do a couple of things right. He doesn't know who the buyer is, because ‘discerning and open minded’ on his non-existent storefront is bullshit-wording for ‘I service mages into some extremely dubious dark stuff and my life and soul depend on not knowing who I am dealing with, hell, I actually prefer the demons, at least I know where I stand with them.’ But because he knew Sam wanted it, he made the buyer promise to implement a buy-back option through anonymous channels. A buy-back, or maybe even a promise of joint research and collaboration.
More importantly, and a lot less ethical: Maruk may not know the buyer, but it seems he has magical means of keeping track of his purchases, probably as blackmail collateral in case one of his customers gets difficult one day. In exchange for a favor to be determined in the future, a demonic IOU, he did a divination to find its location for Dean.
Dean (and Maruk, though he’d keep plausible deniability if you asked him) was at the time considering a five-fingered discount to cut out on time, costs and the necessities of interacting with mortal scum. But the divination turned up something a lot more valuable than the price of a book: a warning.
The book was at Daedalean University. Which meant the meeting might be a trap.
Well over a millenia old, Daedalean U is so revered, even demons have heard of it. It has churned out countless mages and wizards, including the best Light magic wielders, which are rare among humans as a rule. It’s been the coming-of-age ritual for every royal with magic for the past eight hundred years. It’s the alma mater of six different popes, as well as countless lesser religious peeps, and the breeding grounds that spat out renowned irritations like Holy Heroes, Saints, the Templar Elites, and even a few angel-mutts. Its students are all nobility, or else extremely rich and renown, which is why the coachman’s tone is forcibly polite with one of its pupils, even one who is not part of The Proper Set. The latter lack of lineage can be deduced by the material of the dress and the fact she was riding a common coach alongside luggage and ladies-in-waiting, instead of showing up at DU in a golden carriage followed by a mile long train of guards in shining armor. But the fact she even got into DU makes her an elite, if a down at the heels one.
Dean flew at a good distance around the mighty crenelations and towers for hours this morning, checking the place out. He knew what he was looking for. Sam had given him a description of the book’s contents and appearance (Dean promptly replaced all the details about chased engravings and magnificent etched precious metal with ‘I’m looking for a large book with an ostentatious cover made of actual silver plating, because dark mages have always loved their bling.’) But his goal was a single book in a whole university that probably had a few of them. And Daedalean University is quite, quite big.
The original creator of DU was Sir Octavion Daedale, or maybe he still is, for all Dean knows. The best magic users, especially Light wielders, can conquer the Longevity spell that allows humans to squeak out of the century Best Before date most of them toil under, to match the age demons reach naturally. Contrary to many of his kin, Dean is happy these dudes live so long, it means that in the many clashes of the Ever War between Light and Dark, Celestial and Demonic, Good and Bad, Cats and Dogs etc, he keeps running into the same people, and he doesn't have to work at memorizing a lot of new faces, combat styles, habits and ways of getting under their skin each time.
These days, the Ever War is mostly reduced to a series of non-fatal scrimmages over territory and bragging rights. This was not the case a thousand years ago, though; back then the war was raging hard. But Ol’ Daedale was more of a builder than a fighter. To do his part for Good and Right and Holy Apple Pie, he focused on training the mages of his day into a kickass force, and erected a magical school and garrison in which to do so. Every century, some new boss takes over and wants to add their own building or wing in their name, and since they’re constrained by the enclosure of Daedale’s initial walls, they build up, or sideways, or in a corkscrew leading to another dimension, until the place looks like a puzzle box of white marble and pointy towers, surrounded by some very respectable bastions. There’s other defences, invisible to the ordinary eye: labyrinthian arrays of high level holy wards covering entire square miles. These days, they’re mostly for show and to give students something to study for practical magic applications, rather than because anyone assumes there’d be an evil entity out there stupid enough to attack DU head on. After flying around it for several hours, occasionally probing the outermost defenses, Dean had to conclude that this evil entity, for one, isn’t that stupid either. That left the meeting spot.
While the roosters in DU's outlying farms were still trying to outcompete each other in the crowing department, Dean received a magical notification through the charm Maruk had given him and which connected him to the buyer through untraceable means. The meeting was in twelve hours, to allow time for Dean to get there. Which was funny because the meeting place identified in the charm was actually quite close to Dean’s current position, something the buyer had obviously no way of knowing. So the book was definitely in the hands of someone from the University, but they had, or were going to, move it to a new location for the meet, away from the school, its magical defences and loads of curious bystanders. This still left one of two possibilities: either someone from DU, a student who flunked Magical Ethics for example, was actually planning on using the fucking dangerous thing and/or sell it to a demon, or else this was an enterprising Light Mage who wanted to prove his chops by bagging someone from the opposite camp. The only way to find out would be to investigate.
So far Dean’s decision making had been stellar, if he says so himself, but it’s the next bit that explains why he’s currently finding out how much spiderbone petticoats can poke when they’ve been bent and broken by a thirty foot fall.
The meeting was for an hour after sunset, so Dean, giving up on his exploration of DU, headed for the rendezvous at two o’clock in the afternoon. The place was in the middle of the forest, an old ley-line focus. It was only an hour away from DU as the demon flies, still within the vast territory granted to the university by pope Igneous the First (his motto, Set Them All On Fire, God Will Sort Them Out! A proper pope in Dean's book, not one of these milquetoast modern ones.) The place looked like it hadn’t been used in a very long time. The magical focus was marked by a cracked flagstone apron, overtaken by weeds, lined with old stone tables for the preparation of enchantments, or possibly school picnics. The place was boring, but the assholes scurrying around it were quite the opposite. Half a dozen strong, in black robes with deep hoods, they were busy preparing a rather nice ambush, to be ready in a few more hours. Dean particularly admired the dedication of the one with a hoe slowly digging a trench into which a bunch of them could hide.
And standing in the middle of it all, supervising, was a guy in a dark hooded robe carrying a large silver-bound book.
Jackpot.
Seeing those idiots setting up a trap for him, and the book right fucking there, Dean thought, ‘Goody, that’s rid me of any obligation to actually bargain with the bastards, I’ll just go grab it’, inconveniently forgetting the rest of Sam's book-related blah blah including the bit where the volume contained some concerning neutralisation and imprisonment spells for demonic beings.
The supervisor saw him winging his way over, yelled in alarm and dropped the book in his hurry to dive for cover, tripping over the hem of his Dread Robe Of Doom in the process. Definitely not a templar hiding beneath those threads. Dean landed in front of him, reached towards the book-
And found out the hard way that part of the ambush had already been set up, invisible, in the center of the leylines, ready to spring shut.
Dean tries not to think about the next bit; the spell-leash dragging him along like a whipped dog, stripping him raw and bare, agonizing inch by inch, then the way it tried to force him to- to slavishly invade a tortured man, and successfully got him into a dead chick instead.
He focuses on the here and now. He’d been one scant second from punching the coachman in the latter’s painfully stretched smile and gritted teeth, but now… this guy is taking him to Daedalean.
The dungeon full of dead-men-walking is Dean’s ultimate goal, but just because he’s a Pride demon doesn’t make him stupid, whatever Sammy has to say on the matter. He’s in no shape to tackle that level of danger right now. Just on the basic physical side of things, in his present form, wingless, he can’t get down a two hundred foot ravine, dig through rock, break into a reinforced secret chamber and murder assholes outnumbering him twelve to one. Granted, walking instead into the absolute best arcane academy and research center to have ever existed, full of high level mages, teachers, guardian knights and a herd of lowly human students bumbling around learning magic, is probably not the best place for a demon in his condition either. But there are several solid advantages: this human body he’s currently in belongs there, which, if anyone is out looking for the demon they lost, will help hide him. And there’s someone in DU who bought the book and helped organize all this, and who will not be expecting Dean in this shape and from this direction. To top it all off, the school is where Sam will come looking for Dean if the latter doesn’t show up with his fucking book soon. Nobody but Dean and the perps knew where the meeting was being held, but when Sam touches base with Maruk, he’ll learn Dean was heading to Daedalean University, and he’ll follow. Dean’s going to have to find a way to leave a few signs for Sammy, find a way to meet up.
Hell, if worse comes to worst, and Sam gets absorbed in his research again and forgets to look up for another year, being in a magic school full of supplies would let Dean create a Pact circle to bring down the nearest demon for assistance. That’s by far and away option B though, hell, it’s option Z, it practically requires a new alphabet, because a Pact circle cannot be aimed at a specific demon, it’s open to whoever picks up the invite, and that’s almost always Asmodeus’ lot, the interfering little shits. Dean doesn't want to think about the humiliation and the bargaining to get one of those Treachery assholes to simply drop a line to his brother… Plus he doesn’t know all that much about human magic universities, but he’s ready to bet they frown on demon summoning. It’d be a good way to trip an alarm and end up in a major hoe-down while in a dress. Not good.
So yes, there’s a lot of danger, but it’s a better place to start than charging right back at the dungeon in his present state. So instead of punching the irritating bozo who knows how to make horses go to where they should be going, Dean meekly climbs into the carriage and sits down with a bit of an Oof. His head is throbbing as hard as his heart, and the clouds draping the afternoon sun are bouncing up and down when he glances at them before the carriage even starts to roll.
----
Daedalean University’s majestic towers and turrets, its stunning church of pure white granite, its red rooftops and floating banners, all open up before the students passing the iron and gold-guilden gates through which kings come by to drop off their offspring after summer break. Dean, however, is driven to the servant’s entrance, by far the better option. The coach is barely glanced over by bored guards near the pigsties and then passes straight through two magical barriers without a single blip. He’s well hidden, as he thought.
The outer bailey at the back of DU bustles with busy maids, porters carrying luggage, handymen and guards, staff children herding a rabble of geese, stablehands tending to horses. It’s all great cover, nobody notices the small hooded figure easing out of the coach, except for a single dude standing at a side gate, arms crossed and an unpleasant look on his face. He seems to be waiting for Dean.
The guy is dressed as a student, in a dark uniform of much nicer material than Dean’s dress, with an additional patch next to the embroidered coat of arms. Like any human under the age of fifty, he looks like a baby to a centuries-old demon, but the coachman’s extra polite forelock tug suggests this guy is at least legally an adult and also not just another student.
“Prefect Oliver, sir, found our missing second-year pupil.”
“I can see that. Dismissed. Secretary Anderson-Brooker will be busy for a while, with classes starting tomorrow, but Student Council Leader Lantz-Breitson wants to see you in his office as soon as you get back from your next trip to Omusk.”
The coachman winces. He gives Dean the vilest look once his back is turned to the prefect. Dean’s missing claws itch like phantom limb pain, but he screws his attention where it matters, slowly climbing up the four stairs to the gated area that separates the bailey from the school grounds proper.
This Prefect Oliver stands there like Cerberus stands guard at the entrance of Dis, only a lot less cute. Dean feels no urge to give him scritches and a beef bone.
“So. The famous Miss Dorothea Dovelane graces us with her presence.”
“Only technically.”
Some of the starch drains from Oliver’s stiff look to be replaced by irritated perplexion, but then he visibly decides to discharge his duties to this late arriving student as quickly as possible instead of wasting time and prolonging their conversation. “This way. Past the refectory. It's closed at this time, the staff are busy cleaning, and no exceptions can be made for dawdlers who wander away from their coaches. You will have to do without dinner.”
“Not hungry.” The fancy dining hall has its doors still open despite Oliver’s snippy words, a few students lingering around its portico, eating sandwiches, fruit and pastries. Those who spot Dean stare at him unpleasantly. One of the kids at his six, but still within the area of Dean’s demon senses, mimes hurling a half eaten tangerine at Dean’s back. Three other greasy youths snicker.
They walk by the kitchens, bustling with the scent of boiling water and the clink of dishes. Behind their backs, DU is a wonder of towers amidst floating colored lights, alabaster buildings, waving flags. Going this way, though, the university gets progressively less shiny, and with fewer and fewer people. The water from the kitchen flows out in sudsy waves that join a canal, evacuating the sludge to a water gate in the bastion wall separating the school from the outer bailey. Dean follows Oliver over a small stone bridge arching over the brownish flow.
The canal, the wall and a decrepit greenhouse form a rough triangle. A small building seems to have wandered off from the main pack and gotten stuck there. Five stories of grey granite fronting, a flat roof lined with cool gargoyles, four rooms per floor by the looks of it. Oliver opens a large oak door. He has to put his shoulder to it, the warped wood fighting the swing of hinges. At last it opens with a dreadful creak. Inside, the windowless hallway between the rooms is impenetrably gloomy. Oliver is forced to pause and light a candle in an antique holder on a shelf near the entrance, leading the way up succeeding flights of stairs.
“Where we going?” Dean asks.
“I am leading you to your room,” the guy says with an odd sort of relish.
“…okay.” This mook must really like walking fellow students around dusty old buildings.
There’s a pause. Dean catches Oliver side-eyeing him like he expects something more than ‘okay’.
“I'm afraid your application to stay on in the first year dorms was rejected, since you are now a second year student and no longer a minor.”
“Okay.” Not much else Dean can say, and the word seems to stick in Oliver’s craw again, which is a bonus.
“As you can see, it's not in the main lodgings area.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Two of the maids sleep under the eaves on the far side of the building, but the other floors are empty at present. Saint Romain House is principally designated for student overflow. This time of year is always hectic. Registrations for foreign nobility are dependent on changing diplomatic circumstances, it has always been difficult to tally how many pupils we have each year until classes start. We do our best to accommodate all.”
Trudge, trudge, trudge.
“I’m sure you will be fine here.”
Silence bar the scuff of feet on a threadbare runner carpet that has seen better days, or possibly centuries.
“As you lack staff and entourage, I'm sure these quarters will be quite suitable for you.”
“Is there some regional accent that puts an odd stress on the word you? Or are you trying to tell me something.”
The guy’s face takes an odd shade by the light of the candle and his voice is colder than the damp breeze down the hall as he says, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Huh uh.”
“...You will be pleased to hear you have the entire room to yourself.”
“That is actually really awesome. Best news I’ve had since two o’ clock today.”
“Daedalean thrives on fomenting strong bonds and cooperation between its pupils. We wanted so hard to find you a roommate, as is traditional for second years and up, but alas, well, you understand.”
“Nope.”
“It’s unfortunate that you insist on coming to our university, when your background would better suit you to an apprenticeship in a lesser magical workshop. You can understand that the abysmal difference in class leaves you as an outsider.”
“I'm an outcast? That’s great.”
“…Your inability to sustain even the most basic companionship amongst your social superiors meant that we had to give you a room by yourself.”
“And I’m friendless? Even better.” No running into anyone noticing ‘Dorothea Dovelane’ behaving oddly.
If Oliver sneers any harder his nostrils are gonna hit him in the forehead. “Your attempt at sarcasm betrays the lack of polish in your upbringing.”
“You’re right, my background doesn't lend itself to passive aggressive vomit you’re dishing, hoping I’ll react to what I think are jibes. We done here? Where’s my room?” Dean’s already irritated, but he’s feeling increasingly lightheaded too. The candle’s flame splits and merges, splits and merges again, his vision doubling and blurring.
The guy is saying more stuff. Dean can’t even focus anymore
There is…. something off. Something…inside…
A realization crystalizes in his mind with a wave of panic and horror.
“Oy!”
Prefect Oliver stops so suddenly he apparently bites his tongue.
“My room! NOW!”
“You dare-”
“Get me to my room now or I’ll take that candle and use your bunghole for a snuffer!”
“Huh?” says Oliver, confused. His inability to understand a threat in plain and simple english betrays the lack of polish in his upbringing.
There’s an ‘eep’ off to one side. A little woman in a black outfit with a tidy white apron, who’s been waiting for them nearby, looks like she is about to die of contact embarrassment. She obviously understood what Dean meant even if Oliver is too dense to.
“Y-y-your room is over there, m-miss- um - miss-”
There’s a door open at the end of the long hallway, a faint flickering light coming out, a contrast to the other doors that have Shut and even Condemned exuding from their dusty peeling veneer.
Dean snatches the keys from her unresisting hand, sprints to the room, catches the door, slams it shut in the same movement that spins him around 360 degrees to check his surroundings. No enemies, but other than that, it’s everything he dreaded. The room, quite large indeed for a student, is all covered in lace and doilies and a pretty embroidered awning for the four poster bed. Two steamer trunks have been dropped off near the door. Some asshole accidentally-on-purpose spilled one on its side, releasing a puddle of dresses, pink, white, periwinkle blue and crinoline on the floor, and there are fucking dolls in there, and an embroidery kit with a half-finished needlepoint of pink posies above the words Be A Light in the Dark. It's a nightmare, a genuine fucking nightmare, but Dean pries his attention away. He sprints instead to the white lacquered vanity on which the maid thoughtfully left a candle burning, to beat off the darkness of the dying afternoon outside the thick-paned aging windows.
Dean stares at his reflection. The horror of it all, it rivals the bloodied fields of Gehenna… He is now five foot two with blond FUCKING PIGTAILS falling in corkscrews from little angel wing shaped clips, so someone somewhere is going to die for this, but what is worse…
What is so much worse is the little wisp he can see hovering behind the baby blue eyes. A tiny speck of a human soul slowly snuffing out due to the pressure of a demon’s being occupying the same body and space.
She’s still here, Dean realizes, aghast. The chick whose body he took isn't dead, she is still here.
He hadn't noticed. Well in his defence, it’s been one hell of a day.
The wisp flickers. It’s fading, barely there to begin with. In another hour at most, it will be gone.
A small, a miniscule part of Dean wants to just pretend he didn’t notice it. Let nature take its course. He’s a demon, damn it, not a doctor, and besides, he has enough on his plate. He almost died himself. He’s in deep shit and sinking fast, he doesn’t need more pressure, he disintegrated for fuck’s sake, nothing left but some gasps of power, consciousness and pride.
Yeah, Dean’s pride, his being, his core. It immediately kicks in. This little human girl was dying, crying for help. And this body saved Dean’s life. I’m tired, I’m scared, I don’t know what to do, I’m helpless, it’s too much, whine whine whine whine whine! If he lets that stand, then he might as well be dead. A Pride demon who’d prefer to do something shameful over something hard is not a Pride demon at all.
The decision, as good as any vow, triggers a wave of desperate power, same as when he flew the body out of the chasm earlier, and killed those goons. Power and the seeds of a plan. Dean’s of the Battle Our Foes type of Pride demon, but he’s Sammy’s brother, and he’s picked up a wealth of eclectic knowledge over the centuries, seemingly by osmosis.
Knowledge. Spells. Power. Arcana. A thought bubbles up inside, half remembered details of some beautifully icky dark magic he witnessed hanging out with the great Camy the Cannibal two hundred years ago (wonder how that old dog of a dark magician is doing, Dean will have to look him up if he survives all this...)
Yeah, he can do this, and he's gonna do this. The obligation may be tenuous, but it’s there: this chick's body saved Dean’s life, he will try his damndest to get her back into it alive one day. It's a basic law of compensation. But for now, she needs to be elsewhere to protect her.
Working on adrenaline and instinct, Dean lunges towards the open trunk, ripping off his boots, cape, hood and gloves on the way for ease of movement and leaving them stranded on the floor like dark breadcrumbs. He grabs what he needs and brings his haul back to the candle light of the vanity.
He props the doll up against the mirror. A tubby mannequin of calico and rags with a huge grin made of stitches, a brown shapeless coat and thumb sized angel wings sewn on the back for some reason. It’s got round blue eyes taking up half its face and dark brown yarn for hair in a messy quiff. Its so hideous, it deserves to be enshrined in the Tower of Terrible Torture Toys back in Dis, but its advantage over its other two porcelain peers are the stitches along its back, which Dean rips open. He yanks off a blond strand from his left pigtail and stuffs it into the head near where the woolen mop is tied in. He smears half congealed blood raked from his wound on his palms into the inside of the cloth. He rolls a magic spell around in his mouth, spits into the rags for good measure, but it’s not enough, what else, what else…
A sacrifice, the bloody kind. Dean grimaces, grabs the terribly inadequate sewing scissors from the kit, and without hesitation, uses them to cut, slice and eventually hack off the little finger of his left hand, disarticulating it at the knuckle and yanking it away from the last shreds of sinews and skin.
Blood flows like mead at a feast by Zagan’s hellish kin, and the wash of absolute agony all this provokes brings even a Pride demon to his knees.
He throws up, which is something he's seen humans do and is just as gross as he imagined. But he wipes his mouth without a pause and stuffs the amputated finger into the doll where a spine would be. Then he closes his aching eyes to look inside for that fading wisp.
The room is doing funky waves around him, it feels like he’s flying without wings. There’s blood all over the floor. Ugh, what a mess.
But his mental fingers catch what he’s grasping for.
Dean shoves his face into the rag doll’s tummy and mutters one last spell and something that, if he wasn’t a demon, would perhaps even sound like a grouchy prayer…
A flicker, a breath leaves him, and the doll in his hands gives a twitch. God-fucking-damn, this might have actually worked.
Dean grabs the needle, already threaded for the embroidery, and sews up the ripped stitches. His remaining fingers move as gracefully as potatoes and his vision keeps blurring.
“Fuuuuuuck, why is this so hard…”
‘Because I’m hemorrhaging,’ says the doll in the abrupt panting silence of the room.
“Huh? Oh, cool, it did work. Er, him-o-rage what?” Dean pulls the last stitch shut, ignoring the gaping holes he left (fuck it) and turns the doll over.
‘I’m bleeding a lot,’ the doll interprets heavily, ‘and I - my body is weakening. The body you took.’
“Hey, you invited me in.”
The rag doll glares at him. The little angel wings on its back flap with irritation and the rounded handless arms and legs waggle, but it can’t do more than that. The voice is not coming out of a throat without a windpipe, it’s talking soul to soul.
A human soul to a demon's. Dean’s separated them physically, and that’s saved the human soul’s existence, tenuous as it is, but they’re still linked, he can feel an odd current running through his borrowed sinew and bone down his arms into the doll and back again.
“Look, we’re both up shit creek with a paddle that’s been set on fire, human Dorothea Dovelane. I’m guessing that’s who you are.”
The painted eyes of the doll are no longer big, round and blank, they flicker with emotion, they glare, the face shows feelings that can still be guessed despite the rough cloth and stuffing. The mouth twists expressively, but being stitched on, it can't open.
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do this on purpose. I hate this too. I am half my original size and I have a set of honkers for fuck’s sake. So shut up, don’t get in my way, I am gonna look for a way to get us separated and each back in our own bods.” Somehow.
‘Why don’t you just leave my body now??’
“Because I’ll die. And so will you, most likely. I don’t think you realize how much damage you caught. A demon can survive this kind of pain and trauma, you can't. Magic is keeping us alive, dollface, my magic, you’re welcome.”
The wide blue eyes focus on a point an inch above Dean’s sternum. ‘It’s-... oh my god! It’s all mangled! The damage - and the arcane pathways!! Everything's-... stretched to the limits! And my Light channels are-are filled with evil gunk! It’s HORRIBLE!’
“…I wouldn't call it that, I did my best, but I’m a demon, it’s hard to fit into this body. Hey, I bet the rearranging of all this arcane matter will make you into a kickass magical powerhouse one day. Upside, right?”
Drip-drip-drip goes the blood hitting the varnished wood of the vanity.
“If we don’t die first.”
The chubby arms wave. ‘I… I can’t do magic.’
“Well yeah, you're currently made of rags, paint and fucking voodoo, you’re lucky you're alive.”
‘My white magic is still tied to my body, though. It’s helping heal it. My magic is still keyed to me, to my soul. It’s antithetical to you, but it's using your large arcane power to work, that’s how we survived.’ The doll wags an accusing arm at him. ‘That’s why you saved me, isn’t it. My death would have caused my body to die in short order.’
….Dean is good at magic, but mainly in the pursuit of kicking ass. He doesn’t have the knowledge of the intricacies. Humans have made some extremely complicated magic because they had to, poor flightless critters built from clay. Demons are magic. It’s an instinct. An instinct that is now telling Dean that his generosity in saving the little human wisp might have actually saved his own skin too, borrowed or not.
But since he doesn't like the nasty way the doll is speaking, he doesn't feel like admitting it. In this relationship, he’s definitely the horse, not the pony, so he gives the doll a sharp shake, the oversized rag head flopping back and forth. “Oy. This may or may not be true, but bear in mind that keeping you alive doesn’t mean comfortable. It's also likely this co-dependency will only last until the worst damage is healed. Now I will be working to get us separated, because ick, and I will try to get you back into this body if you can still fit, since I guess I owe you for the shelter, however involuntary on both our parts. But don’t push it or you’ll spend your days in the bottom of that there trunk with mothballs stuffed up where you didn’t even realize you had stitches, got it? Oy, why is this mouth not saying words right, I keep slurring.”
‘I hate you so much.’
“I’m not super fond of you either right now.”
‘But I need to keep you, or rather, my body alive. Despite your obscene mana reserves powering our combined magic, it’s no longer enough, you chopped off my finger! I have a concussion, that’s why your vision is swimming and your head hurts, while that growing warmth is from a fever, my cuts are badly infected. I - you - we are dying. We need help.’
“Don’t think it's just gonna show up at our doorstep-”
Knock knock knock.
Dean and the doll both stare at the door. Then Dean staggers to the feet he can barely feel anymore and lurches across the room, the cloth critter clutched in his arms.
There’s a geezer waiting in the corridor, grey in his hair, monocle reflecting the light of a fire spellball hovering over his head. A large badge on his frock coat reads in twinkly magical lettering, “Sir Pomstead, Head of Student Affairs, Welcome to DU First Years! ” Oliver, the prickly Prefect, is there too, being a perfect prick behind him.
“Miss Dovelane,” the man starts before the door is fully open, “Prefect Oliver here says that you were unaccountably rude to - oh my god! What happened to you?!”
“Yeah, forgot to mention to that overbearing ass over there - not that he bothered to ask - the reason I got delayed was, I was attacked on the road. Got hit in the head. Also stabbed. Oh yeah, look, a finger is missing. I’ve lost a lot of blood. I hear that’s not good? Is there anywhere in this dump I can get, I dunno, bandages?”
The next few hours in DU’s white-tiled infirmary are a crash course in healing magic, anatomy and human frailty, also painful, but are delightfully offset by overhearing Sir Pomstead harangue Prefect Pricklypants about being everything under the sun from unobservant to rude to arrogant to a shame to guidance counselors everywhere.
The head of the whole healing department, summoned by one of the nurses with a screech of “Matron Holly! We have an emergency!”, takes charge before Pomstead even finishes the first tirade and while the infirmary staff are still agitating around and easing Dean out of the wretched travel clothes. Matron Holly is soothing, unpanicked and bracingly straight to the point. All this can be set to right. The only hitch is that there isn’t much she can do about the finger other than tidy up the amputation site. Dean’s relieved, he’s not sure the loss of the digit counts as a sacrifice if it’s replaced less than twenty minutes later, and the magic of that dark sanctification is what binds the blood, bone, sinew and meat together in the doll, giving that irritating Dodo chick a pseudo-body for her soul to roost.
But the rest of the injuries are patched up in short order, giving Dean a new appreciation of light and healing magic. Even the nasty bruise on his chest gets poulticed by a young nurse; fortunately the more experienced Holly is so focused on the finger, she doesn't check herself or she might have questions as to why the ‘bruise’ goes all the way through the right lung. Dean is cleaned up, dressed in long white sleeping clothes, wooly socks and a sweater, tucked into a soft bed with starched white sheets, and given a cordial with a hint of delicious booze to fortify the blood and help with the pain, a novel idea. Dean’s used to bullying his way through pain until he claws his way out the other side. This peaceful, floaty feeling, agony dulled to a mere ache, is a glorious innovation. He’ll have to mention it to Sam, see if he can come up with any of this anal-jizz-ick for demons, even if it does sound gross.
“What an, um, interesting doll.”
Dean is still clutching the rag doll, not sure of the effect of distance on their bond. Dodo is right, there's some sympathetic resonance here that affects the magic in the body, it could get nasty if the bond stretches or snaps.
The doll is currently wiggling and bouncing in the constraint of Dean’s arms. It can't speak out loud fortunately, and Dean is tuning out the mental screams for help, the revelation of his hellish origins and body theft, all with a chilling lack of invectives. This tightly laced young light mage was never gonna swear like a pimp in a ten penny brothel, but still, don’t say dreaded satanic being, let loose a few ‘motherfucking bodysnatching dipshit demon slut’ or something, will ya?
“Is that, ah, a derivative of Korvachian’s motility enchantment? That makes it move like that?” Matron asks, head tipped to the side.
“Yeah. Something I'm trying out,” Dean lies with aplomb.
“Lovely,” says the human with hard grafted sincerity, then much more naturally, “You have such interesting ideas, Dorothea! I remember your end of year project. Do you know, our research department is looking further into your spell woven bandages? They think they could be produced cheaply and distributed to our troops, who can use them in a pinch if no healer is on hand. Who knows, in a few years your invention might save the lives and limbs of soldiers on the front line in the fight against evil. Isn’t that amazing? And among the top ten scorers last year too, of course. We are so glad to have you at DU, my dear, we are all looking forward to your wonderful contributions to light magic for centuries to come,” gushes Matron Holly, cementing Dean’s conclusion that yes, Prefect Sour Puss Oliver and every other student in this school are gonna want to tear Dodo down a few pegs.
Matron pokes the doll's round tummy. “Haha, is this meant to be our favorite alumni and hero, Castiel?”
In all this fish out of water confusion, that familiar name drops like a ten ton anchor. Angelus Castiel of Sansara? That bag of straight-faced sincerity and priggishness with those showy angel feathers on his back? The absolute rat bastard whom Dean’s battled many times in the past centuries? Seriously…? Well, the creepyass doll does have blue eyes of the same shade and similar thick dark hair, and of course the thumb sized chicken-nugget wings, oh right.
“That is exactly who it is,” says Dean, who could not have imagined a better burn to apply if he tried.
“It is certainly lively. Um.” Holly stops poking it and takes her hand back carefully.
“But it’s not moving the way I want, as you can see, it looks kinda frantic, doesn’t it?” says Dean with an innocent if somewhat toothy smile. “I want it to be sweet and giggly, haha, something for kids to play with. I guess if it doesn’t start working properly I will have to take it back to my room and disassemble it.”
“Oh look, it stopped moving.”
“Yeah, the enchantment only lasts a certain time, it won’t fuss again if it knows what’s good for it.”
“What is that, dear?”
“Nothing, matron.”
“Oh, Dorothea dear, I know you must be absolutely shattered, and you do need rest, but secretary Anderson-Brooker and two of our guardian knights are here to see you about the attack.”
“Oh brother.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Oh that’s just like you to say that, sweetheart, but we do need to know what happened. Can you do it? While your memory is fresh?”
Might as well get it over with. If he hesitates, it might seem suspicious. Surprisingly, none of these mages, including Holly, a healer, have spotted Dean, he’s really blended into the clay here. What that means for his and Dodo’s future… is something he’s trying not to dwell on, but in the immediate, it’s crucial he doesn’t give them cause to call on an actual Light seer or clergyperson, because they’re actually trained to spot demonic miasma, and they’d sooner miss a dragon stuffed in a barrel than overlook Dean’s hellish presence squatting in their adorable prodigy Light mage in training.
“Oh, Miss Dovelane! I am so relieved to hear from Matron that you will make a speedy recovery, it was such a shock-” Secretary Anderson-Brooker is a tall man dressed in black academic regalia, with a few nervous twitches and wet myopic eyes peering out from behind large spectacles. He seems sincerely alarmed and distraught at Dorothea’s ordeal, he’s still apologizing and lamenting on the state of road safety when Matron returns with tea. Dean ignores the mope to focus on the two guardian knights standing behind Brooker, one of them with a watch officer's insignia on his armor’s epaulette. These are the kind of guys who’d take a whack at a demon if given half a chance, though their posting at a school of all places suggest they’re probably not the pope’s shock troops… They’re nonetheless well armed and armored, serious, and visibly boiling with impatience to replace Brooker’s wittering with important assault-related questions. Dean is in no such hurry.
‘Hey, Dodo, can you hear me?’
The doll twitches. Good, the bond’s silent communication is two ways. Dean’s been playing the ‘concussed and confused’ card a few times when he said something Matron Holly found odd in the past hour, but muttering to his dolly might be a bit beyond the pale.
‘What?’ Dodo asks sulkily.
‘Who were those guys trying to kill you? They mentioned a boss. Give me some basics and we can set the knights on their tails.’
There is a long silence while Anderson-Brooker gulps a calming draft of tea, Matron Holly runs off for more cups and some biscuits, and the officer standing at Sorenson’s left shoulder clenches his jaw and draws in a discreet breath to hide his growing irritation. The ‘son’ and the double barrel in Anderson-Brooker’s name means nobility on this continent, and from Matron Holly and the knights’ behavior, ‘secretary’ is probably something like Chief Main Person In Charge of Getting Shit Done, rather than someone who fetches letters and takes dictations. This guy might be the second most important geezer in DU, and if he calms down enough to start asking real questions, Dean’s gonna have to have answers.
‘Dodo? Now is good.’
‘I… I… someone was… trying to kill me?’
“Secretary, with utmost respect, Dorothea needs her rest, she is still in some pain,” says Holly, misinterpreting Dean’s sudden scowl.
‘Seriously?? You don’t remember those guys beating you up and stabbing you?!’
‘N-no! Oh! It’s- it’s-.... I remember jumping down from the coach! I saw- I saw something, I saw something really important! I remember running - a horse- there was a horse! No- I- I don’t- I don’t remember anything! Is- is this your fault?!’
‘Me?! I didn’t do anything! Other than wipe out the toughs trying to murder you!’
“You’re quite right, Matron. Miss Dovelane?”
Dean and the doll must have matching expressions as they stare at Brooker and the knights, now very invested in the conversation. “Um. Um.”
“Yes? To begin with, why did you jump from the carriage? The ladies-in-waiting - I’m so sorry, I have given them a very stern lecture about their inexcusable attitude, they should have told the coachman right away. I am not in measure to impose sanctions on non-school staff, but I have brought their behavior to the attention of the noble students they serve. I expect consequences. However, they could not say why you decided to, um, jump out of a moving carriage.” Anderson-Brooker peers searchingly over the rim of his cup. “You were fortunate it was navigating a rise and a curve, you could have been injured. More injured. But why did you decide to do that? Did you- um, did you see something?”
Everybody is staring at him, awesome. ‘Thanks for nothing, Dodo.’
‘It was so important! I have to remember! Why can I not remember??’
‘Oh relax. You’ve had a day, that’s probably why. It’ll come back if you don’t focus on it too hard.’ But Dean knows he can save his mental breath, Dodo’s not listening.
“Miss Dovelane?”
“Um, there was a horse.” ‘Right, Dodo?’
‘What? No, the horse was after.’
Brooker blinks. “A- a horse?”
“I think, er, it was hurt. Um, yeah. I went to give it a bandaid, I, uh, am good with those. Um.”
‘Oh my god you are ridiculous.’
‘Hey, bite me!’
“You…er…what?”
The door at the end of the ward flies open with a bang that effectively terminates the silence before it gets awkward. Dean feels vaguely grateful to the origin of the interruption.
“Where is she?! That this should happen in my school- but of course one must expect something like this if we let just anyone into Daedalean’s hallowed halls. Why, we have nurtured the steps of six popes, a dozen saints, three celestial beings-”
Dean is even more grateful to the barrel-chested overdressed moustachioed asshole striding towards them, because this guy’s not going to let ‘Dorothea’ get a whole lot of explaining out without interruptions. Plus, if things really go south, Dean will have no compunction using that snobbish ape as a human shield in order to boogy. A faint sense of honor is a Pride demon’s achilles heel; he didn’t like the idea of putting an armlock on the earnestly distraught and nerve wracked Brooker, even less the bright and adorably brisk-yet-kindly Matron Holly. But Sir Blowhard here? It’d be an absolute fucking delight.
“Principal Princeton-Moffet! Please! This is a hospital ward!” Matron Holly bristles. “Miss Dovelane is the victim here. And injured. If you do not lower your voice, sir, I will ask you all to kindly leave.”
Even the principal lowers his tone, unfortunately, as that would have been an easy out. But he frequently interrupts Brooker’s interrogation with Harrumphs! and Tchs! and such, turning the Secretary into a dissolving pool of nerves, and interrupting Dean before he can say anything more than ‘I saw someone, thought they were injured, I jumped out to help, didn’t realize the carriage wouldn’t stop, some bad guys attacked me, I don’t remember anything else because of the concussion, can I go to bed now?’
Principal Princeton-Moffet’s irritation goes through the roof, Holly kicks them all out, Dean finishes the tea and curls up in the comfy infirmary bed. So far, so good, he’s keeping his head above water. A good night’s sleep, and he’ll have a clear field of operations to work on the real issue tomorrow.
“Good night, Dorothea dear. Do get some rest,” says Holly as she walks off with the candle. “School starts in the morning and I know you well enough, you’d never miss your first day.”
Ah fuck.
---
Next chapter: Prison Yard Principle
In which Dean doesn't so much go to school as he takes it out at the knees.