Hey, I'm back from NaNoWriMo hiatus and feeling creatively revitalized! I'm posting a little earlier than usual so I don't forget.
Thank you all for commenting! It means a lot to me!
If you would like to read the rough (very rough) draft of my NaNo novel, please PM me on tumblr. My username there is five-rivers.
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Chapter 262: Brotherly Love
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"So, my foot just fixed itself?" asked Danny. "Just like that? Are you sure? I mean, it could just be Desiree's illusion keeping you from seeing what's going on, right?"
"No," said Frostbite. "I do not think so, Great One."
"I concur," said Clockwork, still incredibly smug. "I can't wait until this trial business is truly over." He waved his hand at Libra's main hall. "Were I a pettier ghost, I would simply take you and skip over it." He drummed his gloved fingers on his staff. "I want to teach you how to use the oven."
"Wait, what?" asked Danny. "You're serious?" Clockwork never let anyone use his oven, except, perhaps, for Nephthys. And that was more a matter of not being able to stop Nephthys than anything else.
Clockwork ruffled Danny's hair. "You are the only other being in existence that I trust not to immediately break it, now that your temporal abilities have matured. At least, I think they've matured." Clockwork thumbed the scar under his eye, almost absent-mindedly.
"Oh," said Danny. He took a deep breath and let his hands clench around the sheets on his bed. "Matured. Really? Just like that?"
"I wouldn't say just like that," said Clockwork. Frostbite hummed in agreement. "But yes. I'm sure your mastery will increase with practice, and perhaps even your power—"
"But not to the extent of Lord Clockwork's power."
"Oh, no, probably not," agreed Clockwork.
Frostbite gave Clockwork a sidelong look that he likely wouldn't have even dreamt of a week ago. "Probably, Lord Clockwork?"
"Probably," repeated Clockwork. "But I think all your individual temporal abilities have manifested, at least in small part. Which means that I can start to show you my more interesting work. Or I could if my workshop hadn't been destroyed." He sighed. "At least properly perceiving and utilizing my oven would be good practice… And we could make cookies… you deserve cookies. You all deserve cookies. I deserve cookies." Clockwork's voice got progressively darker until it was almost a growl.
"We could probably get some cookies here," said Danny.
Clockwork sighed. "I suppose I'm just missing having you home," he said.
Long Now wasn't really home to Danny. Considering the mess that had been made of Fentonworks, Danny's lair was probably the closest thing he had, but he'd spent so little time there… Maybe he should consider Long Now his home. It was, at least, his grandfather's lair.
"To return to our original topic," said Frostbite. "I would say that you are in perfect health."
"Alright," said Danny. "On to the victory party?"
Clockwork grinned, put one hand on Danny's shoulder, and suddenly they were there, in the room they'd borrowed for the victory party. Danny blinked. That… shouldn't have happened. He wasn't entirely immune to Clockwork's time outs, but he could still perceive and move through them, even if very slowly. "How…?"
"I will show you later," said Clockwork, "I still have some tricks up my sleeves." He tugged one, as if to make a point.
"The guest of honor!" shouted Nephthys, hoisting a small keg in the air.
Frostbite, Fright Knight, and Damien came in a few minutes later, complaining about Danny and Clockwork 'abandoning them' and 'skirting his protective detail.' Well, Fright Knight and Damien were talking about that, anyway. Frostbite was obviously put out at Clockwork but didn't say anything.
The party rolled on. Dmitri briefly braved Danny's presence when Danny took out the jar he was working on. It wasn't long enough for Danny to give him his present, though, which was disappointing but not unexpected.
Ellie convinced Pandora (who Danny had thought had gone back to Elysium days ago) to give a recitation in Ancient Greek. Danny thought it might have been from Margites, but he was hardly familiar with that type of poetry.
Then, Sojourn started to sing, and Sojourn had a shockingly good singing voice. He attributed it to karaoke. Danny had wondered how he knew what karaoke was, when he had been supposedly off planet for centuries. Sojourn told him not to ask so many questions.
Dora danced with Damien. And Frostbite. And Clockwork, once, in his youngest form. And Danny. And Nephthys. And Fright Knight. And Jazz. She also tried to dance with Dmitri, but he had been too shy.
Nephthys had made ectoplasm shots. Shots as in drinks. As in alcohol. They had been immediately confiscated by Frostbite.
Nocturne was there. Asleep under the table. Mr. Lancer was also there and asleep, but in Mr. Lancer's case it was more of a 'sudden release from stress' sleep rather than whatever Nocturne had going on. Danny wondered why…
All in all, it was a very successful party for Danny and his friend group. It would have been nice if Sam and Tucker had been there, of course, but Danny understood. Besides, he doubted Aragon would be the last weirdo to challenge him to a duel, regardless of whether the crown was involved or not.
Danny leaned on the table in front of him and sighed, pensively.
"Come on," said Ellie, poking him, "they're not that bad, are they?"
"Huh?"
Ellie pointed at the other end of the table, where Frostbite and Nephthys were having a strange not-quite-argument regarding the ectoplasm shots that Nephthys had managed to reclaim.
"Oh, no, I wasn't sighing about that."
"What then?"
"I don't know. Just thinking about having more fights like this."
"They'll be easy, though, right?"
"Right," agreed Danny. "Most fights probably will be."
Nephthys chose that moment to jerk into the table, spraying the ectoplasm shots over everyone. Danny blinked, getting a strange sense of déjà vu as strands of Jazz's hair turned blue. He looked down at the jar in front of him and, thinking quickly, threw himself back before it shattered, revealing a ghost that Danny might have called large, if he didn't know Frostbite and Nephthys.
This ghost, his sibling, stared down at him for several seconds, then launched himself at Danny with a wordless growl.
It took several minutes to pry the two apart – mainly because no one wanted to hurt the newly-formed ghost.
A quick consult with Frostbite revealed that the new ghost was fine, but Danny was about ten times as injured as he had been immediately following the duel with Aragon. In other words, he was just injured enough for Frostbite to comment on it before doing a more thorough assessment of the new ghost.
Danny, meanwhile, left to sulk in the hallway. Jazz followed him.
"Are you okay?" she asked, softly.
"I am," said Danny, shoulders raised until they nearly touched his ears, "very tired of my siblings being afraid of me."
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"Before you go," said Danny, tugging on Jazz's sleeve while the rest of her group got ready to return to Earth and their responsibilities there. "Things got away from me, but, uh… Belated birthday present?" He held up a small cerulean blue paper bag.
"What is it?" asked Jazz.
Danny shrugged. "You've got to open it," he said. "And, uh. There's something for Dmitri in there, too, but I didn't really want to, um. Push him. Since he's so jittery around me."
Jazz pursed her lips. "I think if you two talked more, you'd be able to get over that hurdle faster," she said.
"I don't want to push his boundaries," said Danny again, firmly.
"That's important," said Jazz, looking frustrated at herself more than anything. "Just… I don't think it's a good idea to be distant."
Danny gave a little, breathless laugh. "That's the last thing I want," said Danny. "But we have all the time in the world. No need to rush."
Jazz gave him a wan smile. "I would like to see everyone together before I die."
"Don't joke about that," said Danny, nudging her shoulder. "Open your present."
Jazz peeled back the paper and smiled somewhat more genuinely. She also raised an eyebrow. "A charm bracelet?"
"For your swords," explained Danny. "In case you need to hide them."
"What?"
"Here," said Danny, reaching for one of the two charms on the bracelet. "This shrinks things."
"I thought the shrink ray worked using some kind of bizarre one-off thing?"
"Oh, yeah, this only works on ectoplasmic stuff," said Danny. "It's an ectoplasm compressor." He held out a crystal of ectoplasmic ice and held the charm to it, squeezing. It shrunk to the size of a bead. "And this one makes it big again." He took the other charm and touched it to the ice. "I do mean stuff, though. Even for ectoplasmic stuff, this isn't going to work on anything that isn't cool with being an object."
"That is such a weird sentence," said Jazz.
"It makes sense, though, doesn't it? I mean, Calesvol at least is sentient."
"Yes," said Jazz. "It's still a weird sentence."
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Sojourn opened the portal directly into the main room of the embassy. When Jazz stepped out, the very first thing she noticed was Pamela's extremely prim and pleased aura. It reminded her more of a cat than Inky's. Almost.
The second thing she noticed was Sam, Wes, and Irving slumped over the couches, looking stunned.
"What happened?" she asked while Sojourn looked on in obvious amusement.
"Our shopping trip turned into an escape from the hordes of people following us," said Wes.
"Ectophobes?" asked Jazz.
"No," said Wes.
"Well, maybe," said Sam. "We don't actually know."
"They were spies," Irving croaked.
"I doubt that," said the chef, serenely, from another room. "If they were, they weren't good ones."
"Also," said Sam, "we met Ashley's twin, so that was weird."
"Huh," said Jazz. "Yeah. She actually has one, then?"
"Yep." Sam popped the 'p.'
"Are you going to ask what I accomplished today?" asked Pamela.
"Of course, Mrs. Manson," said Sojourn, courteously. "What did you accomplish today?"
"I convinced the president to show us where your prisoners are being kept," said Pamela.
Jazz blinked. "What did you have to promise for that?" she asked. She might be new to politics, but she knew there was a give and take to these things.
"That's just it," said Pamela. "I didn't promise a single thing."
