A/N: So here's a couple things that you've all been waiting for. Brace yourselves! (And a million thank-you's to everyone who left a review.)
Looking Glass Self: Chapter Seven
The Labyrinth
As Tamsin had predicted the night before, Hnoss was hangover-free that morning despite the sizable dent she'd put in Trick's bar stock. Bo almost laughed aloud at the absolutely disgusted look Lauren was shooting the obnoxiously chipper Valkyrie as she bounced around the Dal with a breakfast burrito in one hand and a beer in the other. ("Beer? It's eight in the morning, Hnoss." "Exactly, Doc! It's too early for vodka.")
Sometimes, she and Tamsin were so related it wasn't even funny.
The group were all gathered at the Dal that morning to prepare for their trip to the Labyrinth. Bo had decked herself out in her customary black leather and had strapped daggers to various suggestive places on her body. She carried the Navigator in a small pouch clipped to her belt, and a few first aid and other survival supplies from Lauren in another. Dyson wore nothing but his customary jeans and button-down. Wolves didn't need weapons, and Bo assumed the clothes were so casual because he'd be half-naked the whole time anyways.
The Valkyrie twins, on the other hand, were on the complete opposite spectrum of prepared than their wolf-shifter friend. Hnoss had donned her armor, and had returned Tamsin's to her as well in an emotional display very early that morning that had resulted in an extended hug and a few tears that Tamsin later denied rather vehemently. They'd changed before they left for the Dal, and Bo couldn't find any other word to describe them than magnificent. Judging by the expressions on the faces of the others when the three of them first entered the otherwise empty bar, Bo rather thought they agreed with her. Hnoss was dressed mostly in molded leather, with the metal pieces strapped over the areas most in need of additional protection. She wore a gleaming silver breastplate carved with a pair of wings that swept beneath her breasts and across her sides. Scaled plate pauldrons protected her shoulders and upper arms, and she wore a chainmail skirt to cover her thighs over studded leather pants. Both her forearms bore plate greaves, and and her shins bore the polished metal as well. Even her black leather gloves had metal studs sewn into the knuckles. Tamsin's body armor was very similar in design to her sister's, except for the styling. While Hnoss' armor was aesthetically molded into elegant curves and impressions of wings around her body, Tamsin's was designed with harsher lines and angles down her torso and over her limbs. It gave her a far more harsh, utilitarian look as compared to her sister, though it was still beautiful in an 'I-might-stab-you' sort of way. Each twin wore a helmet that dipped low between the eyes and across the cheeks. Their headgear was highly stylized much in the way that Hnoss' breastplate was, with a pair of molded metal wings sweeping up the sides of their heads and giving them a wild sort of look. This image was only compounded by the ridiculous amount of weapons each was carrying.
Bo was used to the walking-armoury look from Tamsin, as she'd seen the blonde strap body-belts loaded with various pointy objects onto her torso a great many times since they'd known each other. Honestly, Tamsin was like the Fae boy scout of the group. She was always the one who came prepared -as evidenced by their encounter with the Rakshasa on like, their first week of knowing each other, during which Tamsin had suddenly unzipped her jacket to reveal a collection of knives and darts that made even Bo green and proceeded to slay the enemy. (And who even carried lead weapons anyways?) Tamsin had dressed much the same throughout most of their acquaintance, ready to kick ass at a moment's notice. Nevertheless, the look just seemed… different, when accompanied by full body armor. Fiercer. And Bo was pretty sure Hnoss had an honest-to-God katana strapped to her back. When she was taking mythology class in high school, Bo had once seen a painting depicting a Valkyrie -all flowing locks and fierce pose and glinting armour. She thought that Hnoss and Tamsin embodied this image of the battle goddesses of old rather well, and the succubus simply couldn't tear her eyes away from them.
They were heartstopping. In the deadliest of ways.
Though perhaps not so much so when one was prancing around the Dal, and the other was trying to hit her with balled-up paper napkins with each pass.
"Ysabeau," Trick said from beside her, forcibly breaking Bo's Valkyrie-induced trance.
Bo smiled at her grandfather, who was looking up at her with worried eyes. "What's up, Trick?" she asked. They had about ten minutes before they had to head over to the travel agent, and Bo realized that this time was going to be filled with goodbyes from her last remaining blood family that wasn't completely insane or evil.
"This is for you," he told her, holding out his hand. A thin silver chain dangled from his fingers, weighed down by a pendant that appeared to be a simple, large white pearl.
Carefully, Bo took the necklace into her own hands and examined it. "It's pretty," she announced with a smile, unclasping it and looping it around her neck.
Trick laughed heartily at her. "Repeat after me," he instructed. "Ortus."
"Ortus," Bo dutifully replied. Much to her shock, the pearl pendent suddenly burst into radiant light, shining like a miniature sun from where it hung over her chest. "Oh wow," she gasped, brushing against it with one finger. The pearl was still smooth and cool to the touch.
"And now noctus," Trick prompted.
Fascinated, Bo held the glowing pearl up to her face. "Noctus." Like a lightswitch, the light went out. Bo squealed in delight. "Trick, this kicks so much ass!" she exclaimed.
"A mermaid tear, enchanted to bring light to the darkest of places. I thought you'd like it better than a flashlight," Trick told her with an adoring smile.
Touched at the consideration, Bo leaned down and gave him a tight hug, which he reciprocated. "Thanks, grandpa," she sighed. She didn't know what she wanted to say. That she loved him? That she was so grateful he let her be her own woman even though watching her do something so dangerous was obviously killing him? That their relationship had had its rocky places with all the lying and the secrets, but that she forgave him for that?
Before she could decide, a quiet voice interrupted the moment, causing her to straighten up and pull away.
"Bo?" Lauren asked from behind her.
Trick gave her one last smile and walked off towards where Tamsin and Hnoss were leaning forwards over the table where they'd laid out their half-eaten breakfast and were giving Dyson identical evil grins -the sort of face Tamsin always pulled when she was winning an argument. Reassured that there'd at least be a mediator for whatever conversation was happening over there, Bo turned her full attention to the human doctor. "What's up, Lauren?"
Lauren was giving her that look -that expression trapped somewhere between heartbreak and appreciation of something beautiful that always made Bo feel like a complete and total monster for being the cause of it. She'd been the recipient of that look more and more often the longer they'd dated, and it never hurt any less. Bo hadn't seen it in a while though, and she couldn't imagine what she'd done this time to earn it.
"You took it off," Lauren stated. She sounded… unsurprised. And resigned.
Bo frowned. "I… what?" she questioned, mind scrambling. These past few days had been amped to a constant emotional high, and little things were escaping her at the moment.
Lauren smiled at her. "The necklace. You took it off. I noticed yesterday."
Oh. That. Bo had taken it off. That day Hnoss had arrived, when she'd had time to herself upstairs, Bo had taken the time to look in the mirror and seen Lauren's gift nestling against her throat, and she'd felt warm that she'd been given such a beautiful thing from someone she valued so very much. But she'd also felt fake. Like she was trying desperately to hold onto something that she'd lost a long time ago... and she didn't want to be that person. Bo didn't want to be someone so stuck in the past that she couldn't embrace her own future. Didn't want to lie to herself when so many people around her lied to her every day. She loved Lauren, but every time they were together, they'd only ended up being destructive to each other in one way or another. Be it Bo's inability to relate to Lauren's passions, or Lauren's own insecurities, or Bo's hectic lifestyle preventing her from being there for Lauren, or even those condescending moments when Lauren would look at Bo like she was stupid and… sometimes, Bo felt like their love was wrapped in this agonizing, passive-aggressive loop that she just couldn't escape from. Mostly because she didn't want to. She'd looked at herself wearing that necklace and saw someone who was afraid to take it off because she was afraid of being unloved. And that… Bo didn't admire that person.
So she'd taken the necklace off and placed it lovingly in her jewelry box, thrown some clothes on, and walked from the room. And she hadn't looked back, or even thought about it since, the revelation lost in the maelstrom of shit her life had become the moment she returned to the Death Train.
Now though, Bo felt guilty. She always felt guilty when it came to Lauren. "Yeah… I did," she said, unconsciously touching the hollow of her throat where the pendant had once briefly rested.
Lauren just nodded, understanding the unspoken message that they weren't going to be a them again anytime soon -if ever. "Just… What changed, Bo?"
Bo bit her lip. There were a lot of answers to that question. (Which was a loaded question if she'd ever heard one.) Some of the answers were easy. Intuitive. Kenzi was dead; and with her, Bo's heart. But… that certainly wasn't the only answer, and Bo loved Lauren. She was and always would be one of her favorite people, and Bo thought that Lauren deserved more than an excuse that might not even hold water after today, if all went according to plan. "Lauren…" Bo began, conscious of the time restraints. This definitely wasn't the opportune time to have this conversation, but she understood why Lauren had spoken up now. With all this talk of the Labyrinth and dying, Lauren wasn't sure there'd be a later. "I just… I've spent my entire adult life up until a few years ago thinking I'd never be able to love anyone, and then there was you and Dyson and… I love you. I do. But you and Dyson were just always there and I…" Bo closed her eyes for a moment, full of remembered pain. "That thing with Rainer… I don't know what it was. What was real. What wasn't. But I did care about him, and for the first time since I had control of my own life, I felt what that life could be like without having to choose between you; and Lauren…" Bo stepped forwards and took the doctor's cool hands in her own, while Lauren watched her with large eyes swimming with unfallen tears. "I love you. And it's because I love you that I'm just so tired of hurting you, and you hurting me, and us hurting each other. I don't know what will happen in the future, but that doesn't mean that I -that we- should cling to the past," Bo implored her. "We just keep falling apart, and maybe that means that we just aren't… meant to be. I don't want to be the one keeping you from a happier life than I could ever give you Lauren, because you are so easy to love, and maybe… maybe we should just stop being so afraid of being alone, and start living."
Because Bo couldn't do this anymore. Their entire relationship was fractured by so many lies and so many failed expectations that even if they could forgive each other… how could either of them ever forget? Time wouldn't fix them. Time was against them. Bo didn't think she was strong enough to watch someone she was with grow old and die without her.
Standing stock-still before her, Lauren inhaled a shaky breath and exhaled again, clearly attempting to stave off tears. Bo used her thumbs to rub circles on Lauren's hands in an effort to comfort her, but she knew that anything further wasn't for her to do anymore. The thought was bittersweet.
"You've moved on, Bo," Lauren finally spoke, removing her hands and swiping at her eyes as she took a small step back. "And I… I understand." She smiled that despairing smile that sometimes accompanied the look. "Thanks for telling me, I guess."
Bo frowned and folded her arms across her stomach, suddenly aching. Why did love always hurt so much? She'd never had love that didn't trap her, or hurt her, and Bo wondered somewhat bitterly if that state was due to her succubus nature or just her. "Lauren… I just… I want you to be happy, and I can see that I'll never be able to do that for you. Never. Can't you see it too?" she pleaded miserably. And wasn't that the kicker? She -a succubus- not enough for a romantic relationship. It was so ridiculous that if she weren't so pained over that fact, she might even find it funny. But Bo would never be able to give Lauren what she needed, and she knew it. It hurt, but she knew it, and Bo figured it was about time she stopped lying to herself about it. She was just so done with all the lies.
For a moment, Lauren simply gazed at her, but eventually lowered her eyes to the floor. "I can," she confessed. "I- I do. It's just…"
"Hard?" Bo offered with a bitter smile. She certainly knew how that felt.
Lauren matched her expression. "I was going to say terrifying, but hard… it's that too. And for the record, I hope… I hope you can find someone who you'll always make happy, Bo, just by being you. And I'm sorry I wasn't her."
Bo hugged her. "Yeah… me too. We'll still be friends when I get back?"
"Always," Lauren promised her before disengaging once again and stepping back some. "Good luck today."
"Thanks." With that, Bo turned away from Lauren and crossed the bar to where her companions for the trip ahead were waiting for her by the door, having apparently finished with their verbal spat and deciding to get to the action part of the day. All three were staring at her; Dyson with his puppy-face on, Hnoss with a scowl, and Tamsin with careful neutrality.
"What?" she asked, raising a challenging eyebrow at them and opening the door.
One by one, they all filed through and began walking towards Dyson's car, which they'd be taking to the travel agency. "Dude, did you just get back together with your ex-girlfriend?" Hnoss asked bluntly once the door to the Dal Riata swung shut behind them.
Bo didn't want to know how Hnoss already knew her dating history. She rolled her eyes heavily at the question. "Not that it's any of your business; but no, I didn't," she snapped, before frowning to herself as they walked. Her tone drifted as she grew a little more thoughtful. "I just… told her to move on. To be happy. There we some things to be said -apologies- before I left today, and… well, that's what that was." She shrugged, tossing Hnoss another annoyed glance. "Satisfied?"
Hnoss grinned at her. From beneath the shade of her winged helmet, the expression seemed a tad too feral to be entirely kind. "Extremely, succubus."
The slightly intimidating effect she was having on Bo was completely ruined when Tamsin reached out and slapped Hnoss on the back of the head with a clang of leather on metal. "Quit gossiping and get in the car, Hnoss," she snapped out. "And if you don't leave Bo alone I'll have to do unpleasant shit to you, capiche?"
Hnoss rolled her eyes, but obeyed, rounding the car to slip into the passenger seat while Dyson sat behind the wheel. Tamsin joined Bo in the backseat, though she kept her view trained out the window once they started driving. Bo was both warmed by her defence, but chilled by the lack of further reaction. Confused, Bo placed a hand on Tamsin's leather-clad forearm and shot her a questioning look. Tamsin just smiled at her briefly before turning back to watch the scenery roll past the window.
Bo left her to her thoughts for the rest of the short car ride. Now wasn't the time for another long talk, she knew. Indeed, from the moment they exited the car at the travel agency to the moment just two minutes later when the world whipped past them and they alighted on the island of Crete, the only delay was one of Bo's own making, and it was a brief one. ("Welcome! Please, take a number." "Fucking again? Seriously?!")
Bo was still feeling twitchy about it even as they landed. Dyson was gazing at her with amusement in his eyes, and Hnoss with marked wariness at the sudden burst of uncharacteristic temper. Tamsin just looked vaguely confused.
All of this was quickly forgotten, however, as they each took a good look at where they were. The group had been teleported to a bare hillside before the entrance to the Labyrinth. On one side, the ocean stretched out before them, its slate-grey surface laced with white that rippled with each gust of the wind. The air smelled of salt and grass. Facing the hillside however, they were greeted by the entrance to the Labyrinth. It wasn't anything too spectacular, in Bo's opinion. Just an archway formed from blocks of stone that reminded her of something from Stonehenge, framing a gaping hole that led directly into the side of the hill. What was rather alarming though, were the other creepy elements contributing to the general ambiance. All the plant life around the entrance was grey and crumbling in a radius of several feet, and the earth beneath was stained a rusty brown. Like blood. A foul stench was rolling from the tunnel as if it were breathing, carrying the scent of stale air and rotting things towards them as if the Labyrinth itself was alive and grasping at them. Someone had driven a stake in the ground just in front of the archway, with what appeared to be a human skull mounted atop it. The empty eyes glared balefully at them in a clear a warning as any to stay away from a place that so obviously reeked of death.
Beside her, Tamsin propped a hand on her hip and hummed in that half-amused, half-angry way she did when she felt incredulous over a challenge, squinting at the deathly archway. "Well," she husked, lips pursed in her 'this-is-so-not-funny' smile. "That isn't ominous at all."
Hnoss rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers, as if preparing for a fight. (Which in all fairness, she probably was.) "I hope you appreciate the shit I do for you, 'Semi," she grumbled. "If I lose a limb for this, you are going to seriously regret it."
"And miss my chance to be the permanent hot twin?"
Dyson rolled his eyes and took an experimental step towards the entrance of the Labyrinth before looking back at his three companions. "Coming?" he asked.
Sobering, Tamsin and Hnoss each drew a dagger and nodded. Bo imitated them, but drew out the Navigator instead of a weapon as she stepped forwards to stand next to Dyson and eyed the path before her with distaste. "So… any idea how to use this?" she asked the group at large.
"You didn't think to ask that before we left?" Hnoss lamented, dropping her hands down so dramatically that Bo was momentarily afraid that she'd stab herself in the thigh.
Sheathing her own dagger, Tamsin stepped forwards. "Relax, girl scouts. I got this," she said, holding out her hand for the ball of silver string. Not willing to argue, Bo handed it to her and watched carefully as the armored Valkyrie worked the free end of the string loose from the rest of the ball and knelt to tie it around the base of the stake with the skull on it. Once Tamsin seemed satisfied with the strength of the knot, she stood once more and stepped forwards until she stood just at the lip of the archway, a silver line trailing from her hand to the stake just outside the tunnel entrance. "Fire in the hole!" she called out cheerfully before tossing the Navigator inside the Labyrinth.
For a moment, Bo was entirely confused. But her doubt soon transformed into wonder as the Navigator didn't roll to a stop as the laws of physics would suggest. Instead, it kept rolling for far longer than it should have and proceeded to execute a perfect ninety degree turn about twenty feet along, immediately disappearing into a side passage that branched off the main tunnel.
Visibly pleased with herself, Tamsin dusted off her gloved hands and planted them on her shapely hips. Dyson clapped a hand on her shoulder. "And now we follow it," he proclaimed with a grin. The silver string running down the tunnel gave off a subtle glow that Bo could see even from her place in the sunlight, and she knew that following the path it outlined wouldn't be a problem -not for them, and not for whatever else was living in the Labyrinth.
This was going to be so much fun. Not.
"Right," Bo sighed, drawing one of her own daggers. "Let's get this over quickly then."
"Not an encouraging sentiment, coming from a succubus," Hnoss quipped.
"But I'm sure it's one you've heard a lot, right?" Bo shot back venomously, though her smile was sickly sweet.
"Sweet Christ, I think I'd rather be hanging out with the minotaurs," Tamsin bemoaned, her eyes rolling skywards as she grabbed Hnoss by one of her pauldrons and yanked her forwards into the Labyrinth. Both Bo and Dyson followed the twins closely, Dyson chuckling as he did so and even Bo smiling slightly. Their levity was short-lived however. The moment they entered the Labyrinth, it seemed as though night fell over their heads and their hearts. The air became instantaneously thick and suffocating -dank and rancid- and the only sounds they could hear were the shifting of the Valkyries' armor, water trickling down the walls, and their own quick breathing. Though even that seemed muted. Soon enough, they reached the first bend in the tunnel. Entering, both blondes drew their swords -Hnoss her katana and Tamsin a more European inspired hand and a half sword- and held them at the ready, while Dyson held his hands out to his sides, ready to shift at a moment's notice. Seeing this, Bo drew her dagger, uneasy about the fading light from the tunnel entrance. The silver thread that outlined their path gave off a faint glow, but it wasn't very bright, and the tunnel was so very dark.
Beside her, Dyson fumbled in his pocket for a flashlight, but Bo reached out a hand to stop him. "Ortus," she whispered, staring into the oppressive darkness of the tunnel before them. On her chest, the pearl necklace that Trick had given her burst into light, gleaming over her heart like her own personal star.
Surprised, the others glanced at her. "Neat trick, succu-babe," Tamsin told her with a half-smile. The expression seemed a little strange viewed from beneath her winged helmet with her face cast in the odd lighting angle from the pendant.
Bo smiled at her but didn't speak as the group set off down the tunnel. The two Valkyries were in the lead, with Bo walking shortly after them and Dyson taking the rear. Darkness surrounded them totally now, cut only by the light of the necklace and the silver thread stretching off before them. It was enough to see the slow change to their surroundings. While previously the passage they were walking had been cut from simple dirt, it now appeared to be crafted from metal, almost like what Bo imagined the inside of a submarine would look like. It groaned and creaked all around them like a tired ghost, the flat uniformity of the walls occasionally punctuated by off-branching hallways or sections of wall whirring and grinding with the exposed shapes of rusty, ancient gears. Already, Bo could see why the Labyrinth could be considered unnavigable. No matter which direction their path turned, everything was just so… the same. Dark. Creepy. Damp. With some of the noises echoing around them and the scrape marks on the dirt floor, Bo wouldn't have been surprised of the walls and passages were shifting about on their own too. In light of this suspicion, the steady silver guidance of the Navigator was unexpectedly comforting.
It wasn't until they encountered the first body that Bo started feeling truly afraid though.
"Fae. Male. Fairy, I think," Dyson diagnosed after giving the corpse a once-over and a short sniff. "Dead for a week, maybe?" The fairy was little more than a pile of bones and armor, at this point. Some flesh still clung to the remains, but the majority appeared to have been stripped from the bones very crudely. What was left of the body had been tossed carelessly against a wall, except for the head, which had been propped up against a femur and half a ribcage. The skull had been cracked open at the back and the brain removed, but the fairy's half-rotted eyes still looked off into the distance with frozen horror. The entire area was absolutely soaked in the stains of old blood. Bo was choking on the stench of it.
"Minotaurs," Hnoss decided instantly, her lip curled in disgust. "Nothing else would be strong enough to rip a full grown man to pieces like that, then choose butcher him quite literally. Smells like death and cow shit."
Dyson nodded his agreement. "From the tracks, I'd say more than three, but less than six." He gestured to some scuffs in the browned dirt. Bo could see partial hoof prints there. Big ones.
"Please tell me you Valku-bitches can doubt these guys into oblivion," Bo begged, clutching at her dagger. She so wasn't ready to end up on the menu like dead fairy-douche here had.
Unfortunately, Tamsin shook her head in response. "No can do, succubus," she said, frowning. "Minotaurs are UnderFae. Doubt doesn't work so well on them. They're not really smart enough to have doubt about many things in the first place."
"That and they've got a kind of evil-destruction-y mindset," Hnoss added not-so-helpfully. "Doubt's kind of hard to feel if you don't give a shit about doing anything other than what you are. Ironically, our powers work the best on the heroes. Bitches are always agonizing over what's the right thing to do and preserving their spiritual purity or some bullshit like that."
Bo fought the urge to slam her head into a wall. Repeatedly. "Great," she sighed. "Just perfect. Dagger it is, then."
There were only more bodies after that, no matter how long or far they walked in any direction. Some new, some old, and some so old that they were little more than shadows left in the dust -but always more bodies. Men, women, human, Fae, and even a minotaur. The skeleton had to be at least seven feet tall, but Dyson said he was probably killed for being small and weak and his remains left amongst those of the other prey. The twins were shivering with the force of death all around them. ("Are you guys okay?" "Yeah. But this place hasn't seen anything but suffering for a long, long time, Bo.") It was horrific, and Bo couldn't imagine what sort of death echoes Tamsin and Hnoss were picking up on. None of these people had died kindly, she knew.
And it wasn't as if the ambiance of the place helped any of their moods. They walked for what seemed like (and probably was) hours, and Bo -having stood in front of a doorway to Hell that was swarming with zombies not three days ago- could honestly claim that the Labyrinth was the single most dreary setting she'd ever encountered. There was nothing but endless, featureless metal corridors branching off to every side and up and down several levels, the walls creaking with mechanical gears and dripping with a weird sort of milky moisture; and the dead lying soundlessly around them. All of this was visible only by the light of the silver string and the glow of Bo's pendant.
Each member of the party had been understandably on constant alert for attack from the moment they'd entered the Labyrinth. As more and more time passed without any sign of an enemy, however, they became slightly more relaxed. Not that this allowed for much relaxation at all, under the circumstances. Still, it was enough that when the first minotaur appeared, all four of them were taken by surprise.
"Fuck," Hnoss swore as a hulking shadow detached from the top of a nearby staircase and leaped at her, swinging a massive claymore. The Valkyrie just barely managed to block the blow, but it was strong enough that she was knocked off her feet and collided with Bo's chest, crushing the succubus into the nearby tunnel wall. Groaning, Bo immediately shoved her to the side, gasping for breath. All that armor was heavy, and Bo was very sure she'd bruise, if she hadn't already cracked a rib.
"Dyson, get down!" Tamsin was yelling. The moment the minotaur had struck, so had the wolf. He'd forced his body into a partial shift and swiped his formidable claws at the UnderFae's bulky arm. He hadn't done much damage, but the minotaur dropped his claymore with a grunt of pain.
And boy, was this thing ugly. Bo knew what a Minotaur was. Half-man, half-bull, all mean. In theory, it didn't sound too awful; but in practice, it was grotesque. The Minotaur was vaguely humanoid. He was also eight feet tall, minimum, with a disproportionately large head and neck to support the massive horns curling over his cranium. He wore only a grimy loincloth to cover his twisted form, and his body rippled with muscle and oily sweat as he tottered on feet that weren't so much feet as they were blackened cloven hooves. The creature smelled of filth and rot -like corpses left out in the sun on an ill-maintained dairy farm- and had burning red eyes full of a savagery that made Bo even more sick to her stomach than she already was. This was a creature that lived in the dark and ate only the flesh of the fools who ventured there.
Tamsin had leaped to her partner's aid the moment Hnoss' body had flown clear of her path. With the Minotaur disarmed, she'd shouted at Dyson to get out of the way and swung her sword at the monster with a surprising lack of grace -like she was aiming for more of a Louisville slugger instead of a knightly slaying. Clearly though, the Valkyrie knew what she was doing, because her blade sank deeply into the Minotaur's thick neck. So deeply that Bo thought she could see bone for that brief instant before the wound flooded with blood. Something between a bellow and a gurgle escaped the creature, and he lashed out viciously with his fists, catching Tamsin on the side of her helmet with a loud clang before he succumbed and dropped dead on the floor.
"Ow," Hnoss grumbled, straightening up from where she'd been leaning up against the wall next to Bo and rolling her shoulders.
Bo glared at her. "Don't- don't you complain," she wheezed, rubbing a soothing hand over her screaming ribcage. "What have you been eating?"
"Is everybody okay?" Tamsin asked, cutting off any further griping. A small cut on her forehead trickled blood, but it didn't look serious.
"Yeah, just winded," Bo replied.
Hnoss readjusted her armor. "Same."
Dyson shifted back to full human form. "Not a scratch, partner," he declared with a roguish grin. "How's your head?"
"Not as soft as yours," she said with a smirk. "Now let's get going. I don't want to find out if Fugly here had any friends who just heard that."
A clatter sounded down the staircase where the Minotaur had first appeared. "Yeah, pretty sure they did," Bo noted, readjusting her grip on her dagger.
Sure enough, the group was then accosted by more UnderFae leaping from above. There were three of them this time, all of them equally as bulky and revolting as the first. Tamsin and Dyson were the closest and fell into fighting immediately, sword and claws clashing with crude clubs and axes. Hnoss and Bo exchanged a glance before ganging up together on the third Minotaur. The entire experience of this combat was awkward, Bo decided. The passage was barely tall enough to hold the Minotaurs in the first place, and wasn't nearly large enough for any sort of dodging effort to be very effective for either party. The Minotaurs were large enough that long, sweeping blows were extremely effective for them and devastating for a normal-sized Fae who wanted to keep all their body parts; but they were also slow, and not capable of much defensive maneuvering. All of them -friends and enemies alike- were backed up into each others' space, making the fight more of a mass of flailing limbs and weapons than anything else. The enraged roars of the Minotaurs clashed with the shriller sounds of the women's battle cries and Dyson's raspy growls, echoing down the endless maze of metal corridors and throwing them further into chaos.
Tamsin was the first to make a kill, managing to ram her hand and a half sword straight through her opponent's chest and yanking it out again in a spray of red gore. She didn't pause at all after her victory, and instead threw herself into the fight with Dyson, who had managed to hamstring his enemy, but hadn't killed him yet.
Bo and Hnoss, on the other hand, weren't faring as well. Their minotaur appeared to be marginally more skilled than his compatriots, and was wielding a massive battle axe with terrifying efficiency and improbable speed. Though it wasn't deep, Bo had already received a slice to the side, and Hnoss a powerful knock to the chest. Her long dagger was gone too, buried deep into the monster's thigh and causing a limp, but little other damage. She'd already drawn a secondary weapon, but it was one that Bo usually preferred throwing, and she couldn't do that here. Not without running the risk of hitting Hnoss, that is. And annoying as the Valkyrie sometimes was, Bo would feel bad if she accidentally killed her -options for rebirth or no.
Fortunately, Tamsin and Dyson took out the second minotaur and joined the fight with the last, and Hnoss finally was able to stab the monster through the chest. The sudden quiet was broken only by their panting for a few long moments as they listened carefully for further ambush. For now though, they were alone.
"Everybody good?" Dyson asked. He received a trio of muttered affirmations.
Grimacing with disgust, Bo retrieved her dagger from the fallen minotaur's leg, wiping it free of blood on her pant leg, which was past the point of salvation anyways. (The Labyrinth wasn't exactly clean, and their little skirmish certainly hadn't been kind to her clothes.) "I hate this place," she growled, prodding at her wounded side with dirty fingers before deciding that it was a minor enough injury that healing could wait.
None of the others bothered voicing their agreement. "We need to go," Dyson told them instead as he took a few sniffs of the still air. "I smell more where these four came from, and they're getting closer."
Tamsin nodded in agreement, palming her sword nervously. The blonde's body was splattered with blood. None of it was hers. "We'd better make it snappy. The Navigator thread will lead every single one of them straight to us, sooner or later," she added. "The faster we make it to the center of the maze, the less time they have to kill and eat us."
"Run?" Hnoss suggested, just as the faintest clatter of heavy hooves striking earth echoed towards them from a few of the side passages.
Bo shot a nervous glance at her friends, all of whom appeared just as wary as she was of the approaching threats. "Run!" they agreed in unison, and took off up the hall, banking a hard right down the next intersecting tunnel as they followed where the silver line led them.
