Their clan was large, and they all worked well together, but they weren't immune from conflict. They were all proud beings, and they all held strong opinions and beliefs. It took a lot for a gargoyle to admit to themselves, let alone each other, that they were wrong. While it didn't happen often, it wasn't unheard of for a fight to break out amongst them.
Depending on the type of dispute, the parties involved would either fight it out in a spar or duel, or they would bring their issue to the leader of their clan. The leader would come up with a compromise that would not completely satisfy all parties, and then they would move on. Maybe there would be a few days or weeks of tension between the gargoyles, but eventually things went back to normal. They were a clan. A family. They couldn't be torn apart because of a petty disagreement.
She had been involved in a number of fights and disputes herself. She hated fighting with her clan, but she didn't back off easily. If she saw a terrible injustice, she spoke out against it, and if things didn't change then she fought for it. She never ran away from a fight, but now she was faced with one that she didn't know how to resolve.
"Young one." She glided down from the castle turret to one of the walkways. A few of the lads were just taking a late night walk. She was always more than happy to spend some time with the youth, and now that they were getting older, nearly twenty four now, they were all starting to come into their own.
There was one of them in particular that she wanted to talk to. She wouldn't exactly say that he was her favorite, but she was very fond of him, so it was both annoying and painful when he pointedly looked away from her when it was clear she wanted to see him.
If his brothers noticed the tension, they ignored it. The shortest of the three of them tugged on his arm. "I think she wants to talk."
"Well I don't." He said moodily. His tail flicked irritably. "She can talk to someone else."
She was starting to get more irritated. "You're being childish, and very disrespectful. You were taught better than that."
His eyes flashed slightly as he turned to her. "I was also taught to keep my promises to my clan, and you didn't." She couldn't believe he was still upset about this.
"I didn't break my promise." She growled. "I just had to postpone plans. I thought you would be old enough to understand."
He stood tall, looking ready for a fight. If she wasn't the one he was angry at, she might be proud of him. As it was, she was just frustrated. He was so stubborn.
"You said you would train me." He said. He tried to sound strong, but his voice cracked and it was clear that he really was hurt about this, and she didn't understand why. "And then you left."
"I didn't just disappear." She argued. "You aren't the only one that needs attention." The gargoyles had a tradition. When the majority of their young was deemed strong enough, some of the adults would take them out on a bit of an excursion. They would glide away from the castle, as far as the young ones had ever been and away from humans. There they would truly start to train the young ones in combat and teach them the traditions of their ancestors, from an age before gargoyles and humans lived together.
She wasn't originally meant to go. She had decided to stay at the castle and help protect the remaining clan. When this young one found out she wasn't going, he had asked her to specially train him. Apparently he had decided that he wasn't going on this excursion either, and she still didn't completely understand why. While it wasn't required for the young ones to go, she hadn't known any of them who willingly stayed.
The day before the trip one of the adults that was supposed to accompany them got injured in a small fight. It was nothing truly concerning, just a small sprain in his wing, but he couldn't glide the required distance. So she had volunteered to go in his stead. She had felt a little bad for not keeping her promise, but she told herself that she could train the young one any time, and his siblings needed attention too.
He had felt hurt and betrayed, but she was sure that he would calm down and get over it by the time she returned. If anything he was even more angry. It had been several days since she had gotten back, and he was still trying to ignore and avoid her.
If he was even just ten years older, she would challenge him to a fight. It would give him a chance to get out his hurt feelings, and then they could get along again. But she couldn't fight someone who was still so young, and she especially couldn't be the one to initiate it. But since they couldn't fight, and she didn't think this issue was important enough to bring to their leader, she was stuck trying to figure it out for herself.
"If you wanted me to train you that bad, why didn't you come with us instead of moping around here the whole time?" She asked. The anger in his eyes went away in an instant and he looked hurt. His shorter brother gave her a sharp glare while the third of them gave his distressed brother a concerned look.
She knew that she had somehow done something wrong, but she couldn't imagine what. He was always so sensitive, and she couldn't keep track of everything that upset him. She opened her mouth, though she wasn't sure what she was going to say. It didn't matter, because he didn't give her a chance. With a flick of his tail and turned and just ran away.
The broader of the little ones looked like he wanted to run after his brother, but he didn't. Instead he turned towards her. "You know he couldn't come, don't you? He wouldn't be able to glide that far."
She frowned. "What do you mean?" She had thought that all of the young ones had figured out how to glide by now, though some of them were certainly more confident at it than others. That was part of why they had this adventure. To give all of them a chance for a longer flight. When she thought about it though, she realized that she hadn't actually seen the young one glide. While his rookery siblings chased each other through the air, he would play with the gargoyle beast on the ground.
She had just thought that he wanted to play with the gargoyle beast. She hadn't even considered that he couldn't glide.
"Is something wrong with his wings?" She asked. She couldn't imagine any other reason why he wouldn't be able to glide by now.
"There's nothing wrong with him." The smallest lad growled.
"I think he could glide." The other one said. "He can drift a little in the air, but he just goes down. Whenever he tries to catch the wind, his wings get unbalanced and he doesn't know how to control them."
She could actually remember when her mate had struggled with the same thing when they were younger. It had just taken a lot of practice, and some coaching from their leader, for him to get better. He had been one of the last of their siblings to glide, but he hadn't been far behind the others. He'd certainly been older than the young one was now.
The young one probably thought that he could figure it out on his own, and as time went one and his siblings all started gliding without him he might have gotten too ashamed and embarrassed to get help, and he might have even gotten discouraged and stopped practicing as much, and he definitely wouldn't get better like that.
She wondered if he would have wanted her to train him on just that kind of thing while all of his siblings were away. If she had just known, she would have insisted that they work on that.
She had thought that he was upset for no reason. That he just wanted her around and wasn't putting the needs of the clan above her desires. She hadn't known that he'd had a need of his own, and she'd brushed it aside to fulfill a need that could have been done by anybody else.
She didn't truly think that she'd made the wrong decision, because she hadn't known any better. But she should have. The adults in the clan were supposed to know the needs of the young ones, even when the young ones didn't have the words or confidence to say what they needed.
She couldn't change what she'd done, and she didn't know how to make things right. If she offered to help him with his gliding, she knew that he would just reject her out of pride and hurt. And if she let the other adults know what he was struggling with so one of them might help him, he might feel betrayed that she'd revealed his secret, and he'd be even more upset with her.
It was probably really selfish of her, but she didn't want him to hate her. Not for something so small.
She would find a way to make it up to him. A way to show with her actions that she was admitting that maybe he was a little right, without saying the words that meant admitting she was wrong.
Demona usually slept sometime during the day, but she didn't dare to this time. She couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes all she saw was the hurt and betrayal in Brooklyn's eyes as he was turned to stone. It was a harsh reminder of just how young he truly was.
Demona had been alive on this earth for more than a thousand years. Brooklyn was not even forty. By gargoyle standards, he was still a young one. Even if he wasn't a child he would still only be about 4% the age that she was. He was practically a hatchling.
And he was here because of her.
She refused to admit that it was her fault. Matthew was to blame for both of their situations. But he had told her that if she just apologized, just said two simple words, no matter how insincerely, he wouldn't make Brooklyn pay for her insolence.
She refused to roll over and play Matthew's game. She was going to get out of here sooner or later, but she didn't want him to have a moment's victory. And she'd convinced herself that he wouldn't follow through with whatever this threat of his was. He just wanted to scare them, and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. She'd been too proud, and now Brooklyn's stone form was gone and Matthew was doing who knew what to maim him.
She told herself she didn't care. She'd given Brooklyn a chance, and he'd squandered it. He had refused to join her. He'd chosen the humans. Demona ignored that little voice in the back of her mind telling her that Brooklyn hadn't truly chosen the humans. That if it had actually just been between her or the humans, he would have joined her, no matter how much he disagreed with her.
No, he chose his clan. They were the ones that chose the humans.
Demona had spent so long living alone, relying on nobody but herself, that it was easy to forget that gargoyles were social creatures. They weren't built for isolation. It was in their blood to crave the company and comfort of their clan. Even when Demona had lost her clan she had found new ones, and she lost them as well. Eventually she got so tired of losing those she cared about that she stopped letting herself care. She turned to isolation as a way of comfort, but it had taken her a lifetime to get to that point.
Could she really blame Brooklyn for not being there? Was naivety such a terrible crime that it deserved such a cruel punishment?
She tried to tell herself that this was for the best. Perhaps this would be one step too far, and he would finally be so hurt by others that he would harden his heart the way that she had done. Maybe he would finally see the world the way she did, and it would save him from future pain like this. But was it worth the cost of whatever Matthew was doing to him?
Because she didn't know what the man had in mind, she couldn't say for sure. She couldn't tell herself that he would be fine and get past this obstacle, because what if he couldn't?
The only thing that Demona could do all day was pace around her stupid cell and wait for Matthew to return.
He didn't return until shortly before dawn, wheeling Brooklyn in on a dolly that made her feel infuriated, as though he was nothing more than a piece of furniture. Her fury grew when she saw Brooklyn's hands.
His talons looked like they'd been sanded down to stubs. They were less than half the length they should be, and the sharp claws were gone completely. Both of his hands had been brutalized in this way, and Demona hated that she would have to be in the room when Brooklyn first saw it. She had been haunted all day at the betrayal in his eyes. She couldn't bear his pain and anguish too. Not when it had happened for such a pointless reason.
Demona was so focused on Brooklyn that she forgot about yelling at Matthew and threatening his life. Maybe that was for the best, because it was her threat to claw at him that had made him do this. He'd said he would give a punishment that fit the crime, and it did. It was just the wrong gargoyle being subjected to it.
"I hope this will teach you to hold your tongue." Matthew said, his tone sounding like a parent who had just disciplined a disobedient child. She hated all humans, but this one was particularly despicable. She couldn't remember the last time she had wanted to kill a human so badly. But she was stuck behind these bars, and he didn't give her time to come up with a way to get out or at least threaten him without it backfiring. He left just as she felt her transformation come over her. The sun had set.
Far too soon she heard the ear-piercing scream that she was sure would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life. She had heard many horrible things during her life, but at this moment she thought that this was the worst. Brooklyn sounded like he'd had his soul ripped from his body. In a way, he had. Gargoyles were beastly creatures, and they were very proud of the traits they had that separated them from the humans. Their wings. Their tails.
Their talons.
To lose a part of oneself, without even having the chance to fight for it, it could destroy someone.
"What…what did he do?!" Brooklyn's voice shook both with anger and horror. Demona dared a look at him, and she wished she hadn't. He was trembling and crouching so low towards the ground that he looked like he was going to start crawling. His eyes were squeezed shut tight, as though he was trying to block out the imagery of half of all his fingers being gone. He was trying to scratch at the ground, and it was a pathetic and painful sight to see. She couldn't look away.
He spent a long time clawing at the ground, only stopping to try to clutch at his hair. He started to scream again when he struggled to get a grip on anything. Demona wished that she was anywhere but there, and not just because she hated being at the mercy of a worthless human.
Brooklyn panicked to the point of exhaustion. It felt like hours before he calmed down, and he only did so because he didn't have the energy to keep going. He huddled in the corner again, staring blankly at his hands as he flexed what remained of his fingers. Demona thought that he had forgotten that she was even there, but then he addressed her.
"Was it worth it?" His voice shook, but it also sounded numb. "Was your pride worth this?"
She didn't know how to answer that. What was she supposed to say? She didn't know if she necessarily regretted it, because how could she apologize to a human just for defending herself? Matthew didn't deserve that.
But Brooklyn didn't deserve this.
Demona's silence lasted too long. Brooklyn made a sound that was part sob and part scoff. "Who am I kidding? Your pride is the only thing you care about. You never cared about the clan. You never cared about me."
"That's not true." Demona said defensively. Usually her tone had anger and confidence in it, because she was defending what she thought to be right. Now it was more desperate than anything, because she was trying to defend herself when she knew deep down that she was wrong, but she would never say it.
She cared about the clan. All of her clans. She cared about Brooklyn. That was why she'd tried to sway him to her side, because she thought that he was worth it. But the clan was also her enemy. She'd taken advantage of Brooklyn's sensitive and trusting nature, and wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
He was far too young to understand the nuance of her situation. In his eyes, if you cared about someone, you treated them well. If you treated them badly, then you hated them. There was no black and white about this.
"Shut up." Brooklyn tried to growl, but he sounded more defeated than anything. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say. Please. If you ever, even once, cared about me just a little bit, don't say another word to me."
It was a childish plea, because Brooklyn was a child, and Demona could see that more clearly now than she could when they were both far younger, when she was barely more than a child herself. She wanted to reason with him. She wanted to yell at him and tell him that his anger was misplaced and they needed to turn their hate to Matthew, who was the one who truly deserved it.
But Brooklyn never asked things of people. He was both too proud and too shy to do it unless he was beyond desperate. For him to ask such a simple thing from her now showed just how much he was hurting, and she knew that he didn't blame Matthew.
So Demona looked the other way, giving Brooklyn as much privacy as she could. She would leave him to wallow in his self-pity, at least for tonight. He'd been maimed and crippled. It would take him time to wrap his head around that fact, let alone learn how to live with it.
She'd wallowed herself all day. Now she knew just what state Brooklyn was in, and that Matthew wasn't afraid of following through like she thought he would be. She needed a plan of escape, and soon.
She tried to plot, but Brooklyn's sobs and growls were distracting. She couldn't blame him though. Goodness knows she'd had countless days where she felt like she could do nothing but curl up and cry. They weren't often, but the pain from those days lingered in her soul and she'd never truly recovered from them, even though she tried to pretend they never happened.
Eventually his cries faded away, and she finally turned around to see him curled up on the ground, sleeping. She hadn't seen him sleep during the night since he was ten years old. He was so distraught that he had physically exhausted himself, and he was too scared and upset to even try to stay awake. He had to be feeling really bad if he was desperate for the escape that unconsciousness provided.
In any way that mattered, Demona was alone, and she felt something inside her start to splinter. She wasn't broken completely. She wouldn't let Matthew pull her down that far. But something slipped through the strong shields that she tried so hard to maintain, to protect herself.
"I'm sorry."
