King, Queen, and Masters
Safeguard
What fun would this tale be without Danny's perspective...? ^^
Hello, everyone. Just doing a little morning updating. Anyhoo-Happy Columbus Day, I guess. Rest of the week-I'll be gone.
Actually, for a bit longer. This is something of a goodbye chapter for awhile.
Be well, everyone-sayanara!
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Quote:
(Why do I use these things? Ah, well.)
"Fear is the father of courage and the mother of safety."
His forehead burned softly, even as he leaned it against the cold marble of his room's balcony.
The teen managed a slight groan as he did so, looking down at the distance quite a drop below from where he perched.
It was funny....he had never particularly been afraid of heights, even as a child.
But then again-he'd always known he'd wanted to be an astronaut. Being a good thousand miles away from the Earth required a good stomach.
That much was obvious.
Still, he had almost understood when Jazz spoke of her fear of heights as a little girl. She had claimed that they made the bottom drop out of her
stomach and her head spin.
On that first-and last-flight they had shared together, well....it had been quite clear she had gotten over it.
Eventually.
His head still throbbing terribly, Danny closed his eyes, and vaguely remembered a stunt he had completed in Amity Park so long ago that scared
Sam and Tucker half to death.
The boy smiled at the memory, resisting the urge to repeat it. He WAS on a balcony....and it might be cool to try-
He sighed, and shook his head at the thought. No. Somehow, he didn't feel comfortable trying it out here.
Other then the fact it seemed a little too easy to slip up and seriously wind up hurt-if he were extremely lucky-Vlad's Castle was still....
Well, the term "eventually" never seemed to come, save for a long, long time.
Just like living in their memory WAS killing him.
But putting them behind him would do the job all the faster. Eventually-although this had been buried in the young hybrid's heart since day one
at this place.
He phased into his ghostly counterpart, wincing as he felt his head continue to throb.
The boy had awoken from sleep with a splitting headache-and had come out here for fresh air, after taking a sip of water and a med. That might
also help do the trick.
But it was taking a good while, and now, the boy was faintly feeling ill, even as he took off towards the starry sky.
He shook it off, feeling the now much stronger winds at this altitude brush over him, like a cool caress. As so often was his wont, Danny took off.
It was almost funny. As much as Danny loved flying-he had never needed to do it as much as he did here.
He managed a bitter smile. He seriously needed time to think....and why not here, alone in the sky? Even if it did make his headache worse-he'd
simply have to take another med or something.
At least Vlad wasn't giving him any more of those "special teas." He shuddered slightly at the thought.
The intensity and speed of those ghostly sedatives through his system.....
Well, the first time Vlad had made him take such a thing, he had been mentally and physically drained. He had passed out in a matter of seconds.
Had he really been that unhealthy? Or were the sedative drugs simply too powerful?
You couldn't deny that he had indeed....especially when his ghost powers had elevated so much.
Either way, Danny didn't like the thought of the billionaire having yet another hold of him.
It had made him feel....dirty.
But, as much as he had rejected the idea as even a remote possibility in the past, he had to admit it to himself now.
Vlad, indeed, had a heart. What type of heart it was, he didn't know, but...
Danny fluttered over a sea of trees, frowning slightly.
The proposition the man had made today was strange, even by itself. Germany.
But to think he was leaving for another country with his arch rival, well....
Danny found a large oak that he regularly visited on his trips to the woods. It was an odd tree-bent at an angle somewhere at the trunk to the
point where some of the long, swaying branches almost brushed at the ground itself.
Yet it seemed healthy enough. He settled on one of the lower branches for awhile, looking at nothing in particular.
The roots were intricate-and somewhat loopy in thick, gnarled twists of ovals that generated into small spirals in the Earth.
Regardless of who had offered it, it was a rotting shield. Ghosts...and others still slid through.
Danny's raven spikes fluttered slightly from where he perched on the wood, inhaling and exhaling slightly.
Still, it was different to be on the other end of the line for a change. The thought of someone saving him, well....
It was almost laughable, actually.
Well, it had been, save for a few weeks now. Danny turned slightly to look at a raven nesting in a few branches below him, sleeping in complete
oblivious bliss to the ghost boy's presence. With a small smile, he looked away at the darkness enveloping this place.
What seemed to be now quite a long time ago-when he and his mother were left trekking in the Colorado woods, he had relied on her to save
him that night.
And Wulf-he wondered whether the ex prisoner and bipedal wolf ghost had managed to escape Walker's clutches again-had willingly given
himself up for his...auchniche.
The thought made Danny smile sadly. Walker had been sent back to the Ghost Zone as a result-and then tried to murder Danny just weeks
earlier, so there really hadn't been a way to find out if Wulf fled again.
Still...it wouldn't surprise Danny if he did. It was a shame he couldn't really understand the ghost very well at all-after all, he didn't speak
Esperanto-provided one word. But even Wulf pulled together some English, at the end:
"Friend, we meet again."
It had seemed fairly positive idea, coming from the crafty spector. What would Wulf had done if he discovered Danny had been taken Vlad's
prisoner of sorts?
He tried not to think about that. The boy was trapped in every scenario-and anyone's interference would only make things worse.
Why had Vlad sent him into the Ghost Zone just to meet some teacher? Why did he care whether or not Danny was educated?
Everything would've been so much easier if the man had indeed left him alone. The only way the boy had known how to even remotely live here
was to keep entertaining the motion that the man would let him do his own thing.
Now, he almost relied on the older hybrid's company and the distractions he provided. It was the only thing he could allow himself to do under
neath mostly fake smiles.
The ones today had mostly been genuine though. He was glad because of it.
Vlad had told him he was not indeed just another piece of property. That had been...heartening to learn.
Still.....
The freedom he had loved so much in Amity Park had meant daily danger for the boy. That, he had come to accept. It was simply an added factor
brought upon when he became his hometown's defender.
Here....
He was a broken marionette. Or so Vlad had led him to believe for quite awhile.
The man had so earnestly believed Danny would be safe here...but with so many that pretty much hated his guts...
It was a false sanctuary. And even if the man continued to come to his rescue-which surely couldn't go on forever, because, eventually-
He shook the thought off, disturbing though it was.
~*~
Danny didn't understand in the slightest what was happening, being that his eyes were still closed. He was certain the arrows fired; so, then,
where was the pain? And what was this suffocating hold around him? It wasn't helping his hurting body in the slightest—quite the contrary. And,
yet, it felt… nice. It was comforting. He almost felt… protected…
That shield came at a heavy price-he was completely trapped behind it. And it wasn't letting him go anytime soon.
Still, if what Niane had said was true, he could at least silently appreciate the efforts of one in a very few number.
