Shadows

"Shadows" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
Akkey spread eagled on the sand, watching the stars twinkle overhead with sleepy eyes. She was waiting for Liam, who had agreed to meet with her a few days after the little demonstration with the kids. Would've met with him earlier but... She took a deep breath, her fingers twitching as she felt the ocean's waves come and go.
tree-the-cat
If all of the five senses could somehow stand on end like hair in a strong chill, that was how Liam felt striding along the beach at night. His ears were perked  and sensitive and the outline of everything even touched by starlight was almost painfully crisp to him. He knew Verdandi, walking close beside him, couldn’t see nearly as well as he could, so he had a paw wrapped around her hand and tucked close by his side, warning her of driftwood in a low mumble. 
He finally spotted Akkey in a wide, clear area of the beach, and narrowed his eyes a little as he picked up the pace. She was super weird. She’d always been weird, as far as he could remember, from being a kid and only having met her a few times. She didn’t come by White Hallows, and the Arnasons never really left, so their contact had been minimal at best.
He got within earshot of her. “Boo.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
She cracked open an eye and yawned, before getting up on her feet. She dusted the sand off her backside and turned towards him, "About time you got here, ki...d." She spotted another figure beside Liam, hidden in the shadows, "Who's your friend?"
aroleplayingcephalopod
Verdandi smiles shyly. “I’m Verdandi,” she says in a soft voice. 
tree-the-cat
“Couldn’t shake her, so she’s here now.” But he said it with a low tone of affection, and he glanced at her for a second before looking back at Akkey. “So? You gonna explain what you want, or...?”
akkeyagentofhelheim
"Hello! I'm Akkey," she gave her a friendly greeting, her gaze shifting between them, "I will, but..." she regarded them thoughtfully, "You sure you want her to come?"
tree-the-cat
Liam’s eyebrows contracted slightly. “Wasn’t aware that we were going anywhere.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
She wrinkled her nose at him, gears running, and shrugged, "Eh. I suppose it'll be okay..."
Akkey waved a hand, and a portal opened beneath them in the sand, and they sank through. Before Verdandi and Liam could even blink, they had already broken through the surface, and found themselves ankle deep in water.
They had come up in a small cove, surrounded by high mountains, dense forest, and a lake in which they were standing now. Akkey strode up to the shoreline, and they turned. They saw a cottage... or what's left of it. It was destroyed and encased in a massive, spiky structure of dark ice, the colours and shadows seemingly shifting in the starlight.
Akkey turned towards them, remaining silent, studying them.
tree-the-cat
Liam trudged out of the shallows, water trailing from his fur and dripping on the shore, and he looked up at the strange result of what had to have been magic gone wrong. He kept a hand over Verdandi's, where she had grabbed his arm in fright as Akkey teleported them. He stepped closer, close enough to inspect the surface of the blackened ice, reaching out to tap on it with a single claw.
"The Hel is this?" he murmured.
akkeyagentofhelheim
"It's melting, so I'd get away from it before it collapses if I were you," she called out, pulling a hand to dry them off.
She rolled her shoulders, unclasping her sword belt and letting it fall to the ground, "I needed somewhere a little more quiet and secluded for this, and Haligan's a little, ah... full." She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then motioned with her hand.
"Show me those shadows again. Fight me."
tree-the-cat
He blinked in surprise and then shrugged, gently pulling away from Verdandi to stand a few paces away from Akkey. In response to her removing her weapon, he unbuckled his dagger sheaths and started taking off his shawl, expecting to get very wet. “Are we like, holding back, or anything?” he questioned her. “Or are we just beating the shit out of each other?”
akkeyagentofhelheim
"I'd suggest the second one if you have any hope of winning, so don't hold back, kid," she smirked antagonizingly, eyeing the weapons he just dropped, "Sure you don't wanna use those?"
tree-the-cat
Liam's eyes shifted in the dim light, and the moon glinted off his pupils in a white flash. "I might be a prick, but I'm not a cheater," he said matter-of-factly. Reaching around to grip his shirt by either sleeve, he pulled it over his head and tossed it with his belt and cape, pushing them aside with his foot, his claws grating over the stony beach. The young man's hackles were already bristling in anticipation of a fight.
He shrugged a little and a loose circle of smoky darkness started pooling at his feet and dripping upwards to slide up his fingers and forearms like warm sap. "You better draw some real blood if you're gonna trash talk." He started pacing like a wolf to his right, keeping Akkey between himself and the lake.
akkeyagentofhelheim
The same shiver of fear involuntarily went down her spine when the shadows appeared on his limbs, but she leaned forward with intense concentration and curiosity on them as well. She didn’t respond, and let him circle her to shift their positions. Her eyes flicked across his body, fingers tensed slightly, biding her time and observing him quietly.
tree-the-cat
Defensive. He could work with that.
Liam's eyes gleamed again and he paced a few heartbeats longer before spraying gravel at his heels as he sprinted towards her in two quick strides, baring his extended shadowy claws and reaching for her arm and upper shoulder to drag her forward and tear her to the ground. He wanted to bait her into showing him what she could do.
akkeyagentofhelheim
She took light steps backwards but he was up to her in an instant. A hum rang in the air as she simultaneously opened a portal using melted ice below her left foot to sink her underneath him. He grabbed at empty air, coming up close to her too quickly due to his momentum, and she immediately twisted her body to roundhouse kick him on his side, manipulating the water to give her extra force and power, and knocked him over a few meters down the beach.
He crashed on his upper back but managed to kick his feet backwards over his head and get to his feet, winded by the blow. The shadows were nearly up to his shoulders now, and he rubbed his side with his blackened hand. “Alright.” He bolted at her again, but this time, when he went to grab at her again, he rushed past her in his indistinct shadowy form with a hiss, and as soon as he was behind her, he grabbed the back of her clothes, kicked her knee in and threw her to the ground in turn, planting a foot on her chest. It was by no means a victory yet, but he needed more.
akkeyagentofhelheim
She gave a tired sigh, flared her legs and spun herself out from beneath him, getting herself back up on her feet. They glared at each other from a distance.
“I know what you’re doing, kid.” She leaned her head to the side, “We’re not getting anywhere with this, and I need a nap soon, so… I guess you get what you want.”
There was a roar and a flash of light. Liam whirled around, and saw multiple tendrils of lake water weaving through the air for him, speedy and sharp and dangerous.
“Show me what you got, pussy cat!”
tree-the-cat
He was facing away from her, so it was difficult to gauge his reaction, but his shoulders shuddered a little, and the blackness slid over his shoulders and down his shoulderblades, the spread and patches of black streaming with black smoke as though they were steaming with heat. But despite the knee-jerk rage he felt at the name, he felt very, very cold.
There was a sudden low rumble, and Akkey was suddenly blinded–not by anything getting in her eyes, or by light, but by pure, shifting darkness that bloomed outwards with Liam as the centerpoint. A shifting mass of darkness several meters across now spun slowly across the beach, completely obscuring the two of them, and the noise coming from it was the rush and howl of a high wind, but pitched lower than normal, somehow.
A sudden flurry of claws exploded in front of Akkey and tore across the front of her shoulder, followed by a blunt strike to her sternum, collarbone, and then a hand grabbed her throat, sharp tips digging into her skin.
“Hit me, then.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
The shiver came back and he felt it. But she was grinning up at him. Blood dripped down her shoulder and neck, her chest aching, yet she didn’t seem to notice. A manic light flashed in her eyes.
He was suddenly slammed by a deluge of water, loosening his grip around her neck and blurring his shadowy form. He was flung across the beach again, his back meeting painful spikes on the ice structure. 
Akkey immediately bent her knees, and jumped at an inhuman speed straight to where he was on the ice before he could figure out where he was, spun herself around, and shot down three massive tendrils of water towards him at such force that it broke the ledge here he was kneeling and crashed to the ground, spraying up rocks and water, burying him in the cold rubble of frozen water and wood.
She landed nimbly on another protruding spike, watching the ground.
“Is that it?!”
tree-the-cat
Splinters of ice and rotting planks blew across the beach and Liam clawed his way out of the rubble, gnashing his fangs and panting. The darkness blanketed his back now, and covered his upper face like a mask. His eyes were burning white and his tail was a long banner of shadow whipping back and forth. Something in his ribs was burning with an incredibly sharp pain, and his hands felt banged-up inside of the twisting shadows that formed like a gauntlet over his fingers. Liam turned and locked onto Akkey and immediately snarled, his claws tightening and curling, and then his body dissolved again, a cloud of inky darkness sliding up the ice sculpture, and he partially reformed to seize Akkey’s limbs and throw her off the spike to hit the ground. With a crouching leap, he landed heavily in front of her and grabbed her legs before she could get back to her feet, growling like an animal. But his glowing eyes were tracked on her arms, her dancing fingers, pulling another squirming tornado of water out of the lake, and the rage and the freezing darkness hissing through his veins roared at him to stop her.
The half-breed cat threw Akkey’s legs downward, pushed off with his feet and vaulted over her, slamming his paws down onto her wrists. Her right one wasn’t under his paw properly, but her left one was, and he felt it break with savage satisfaction. He ground on it once before kicking her a few feet away from him, crouching on all fours, teeth bared.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Ow... 
She pulled herself up to her knees, supporting herself with her good hand. She made an attempt to move her left hand, but a massive pain shot up her arm when she twitched her fingers, and she hissed softly. 
Akkey glanced towards Liam, bristling and shifting shadows emanating from him. Not enough.
She grinned at him as infuriatingly as she possibly could, “You fight like your dad.”
She launched herself off the ground with her good hand, encasing her left one with ice to protect it, and attacked him at lightning speed again. Her knee came into contact with his chin, propelling him upwards, while simultaneously pulling water from the lake. With a cry, she thrust her hand towards his exposed chest, multiple icy spikes exploding from it and pushing him backwards. The pain jostled her aim however, and only a few managed to injure him. She immediately hurled her arm backwards, melting the frozen spikes back into water, wrapping around his neck and throwing him a distance behind her, dragging him on the rough ground.
tree-the-cat
The darkness absorbed the brunt of the blow, but it wasn’t enough; his chest was covered in several shallow but wide scrapes that dribbled blood down his belly and waist. He dug his claws into the ground, stopping his painful momentum, but the water still surged around him. He spat blood from a cut lip and thrust his hand up into the water, gritting his teeth as he ramped his power up. With a deep vibration, the liquid around his hand began to blacken as though ink were being dumped into it, and it swirled and spread down the length of the makeshift rope. Hanging and shimmering and thrashing in the night, it looked like a length of pitch-black oil under the silver moon. It reversed towards Akkey, slowly at first, but more and more quickly moved to splash up around her good hand and constrict, black watery droplets swirling and gushing and constricting. Up close, she could see what looked like streams of black sand running just under the surface of the water, dirtying it, controlling it. 
Liam pushed both his hands into the stream, his visage only growing more monstrous, with pointed horns and longer ears and black energy writhing around his arms and legs. He began to move towards her, one stiff leg at a time, still focused on controlling the length of water between them, which climbed up from Akkey’s hand to her shoulder and around her neck. “What gives you the fucking right to talk about him?” he snarled between deep panting breaths, arms shaking as he held them suspended in the water.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Her heart pounded in her chest, staring into the darkness creeping up at her arm, dyeing her skin in black, crawling and invading. She tried to pull away, but it was too familiar, too similar. But that’s what I need. As close as possible…
“I have the fucking right,” her eyes flashed as she glared at him, “because I’m the one who godsdamn trained him. I was the idiot who liked him.” Her eyes flicked quickly to the side to where Verdandi stood, terrified, “And you can probably relate.”
Akkey grit her teeth, hard, fighting against the pain, and melted the ice encasing her free, bad hand. She flicked it upwards. There was a roar and a rush of water, heading straight for the frightened girl, and in a blink of an eye it surrounded her completely, trapping her in a massive, inescapable bubble of water. 
Verdandi struggled, but to no avail. She was running out of air, and quickly.
“Beat me if you want to save her.” She twisted the lower half of her body and kicked with her leg, throwing big spikes from the ice structure straight for him.
tree-the-cat
You care about her.
Liam’s white eyes darted to Verdandi. The cracking of the ice behind him sounded muffled, but somehow, the memory of the conversation between him and Nala rang clear through his head. Tiny glittering shards of frozen water blew past him, one of them nicking his cheek as it spun past.
Stay out.
He looked back at Akkey, his face still stuck in an instinctive snarl, but the rage was now interlaced with blinding, surging fear. 
Liam, acknowledge it.
The ice shards around them almost came to a standstill. He blinked once. Time wasn’t stopping. He wasn’t seeing his life flash before his eyes. Everything was just…slowing down. The tiny flecks blasting past them weren’t transparent any more. They were solid, shining black.
Why?
The ice was groaning; he’d never heard such a sound before. The tips of the very first few massive icicles came into view, and they were just as dark, with the impurities threading their way back and up through the thicker body of the ice, blackening it even further than it had already been tainted.
Do you recall how harshly I was punished for ignoring my feelings about the rebels?
Liam closed the distance between him and Akkey and his claws gripped the front of her shirt, lifting her off her feet. The black water still roiled around her arm and her neck, but it wasn’t the physical water he was focused on any more, it wasn’t controlling the element that he wanted any longer. 
I’m not a demon.
His very will felt like it had solidified into the swirls of dark magic that he was so familiar with, and he was almost shaken by how openly he could direct it now. His chest expanded. Deflated. His heart thumped once, twice, thrice. He felt absolutely numb with cold…and he loved it. 
You may have to start acting as one.
His eyes fastened on Akkey’s, and with a sharp exhale, he felt something he had only vicariously experienced through Nala’s memories. He felt his mind pry into hers and take hold of the part of her consciousness that was controlling the surging sphere of water. It burned. She fought back. He felt spikes and barriers attempting to keep him out but he kept his hold on her abilities and began to twist them. The icicles, as dark as the void, hung around Liam and Akkey, turning slowly as they were suspended. There was a dark hum vibrating through the air, through their very lungs. The rushing orb slowed and stilled, turning as smooth as glass.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Puppeteers.
Her scars pulsed painfully, in the same tempo as her mind throbbed. It spread through her body, the similar, invasive feeling, reaching for what controlled her powers. She screamed in her head.
That’s it. 
She completely relaxed, dropping her arms by her side. Liam felt everything cease, the bubble around Verdandi loosening and collapsing, letting her go, the magic energy in the ice and water disappearing.
Akkey stared down at him. He saw the shadow cross her eyes again, but this time, he felt it.
And it was familiar.
aroleplayingcephalopod
Dropping from the bubble, Verdandi lands hard on her knees. For one heartbeat, she marvels at being completely dry despite having been encased in water, and then she lurches to her feet. “LIAM!” she screams. Without conscious thought, she throws a hand forward, and a blindingly bright golden light erupts from her palm. Her eyes take on the same golden glow, as her hair moves in a magical wind.
The light dances forward, wrapping around Liam. It cuts through the darkness easily, and up close, he’s able to see that the light has solidified into shimmering chains. They swirl up his arms, the chains splitting and becoming smaller as they go. Where they touch his skin, the wounds beneath them knit closed. 
The ice hanging around them dropped with several crashes reminiscent of cracking class. Liam’s hand went slack, letting Akkey drop to her feet, and he fell to knees, and then his hands. The darkness had nearly completely covered every inch of his skin, save for a pale patch running from under his chin to his belly, and when Verdandi’s magic flooded around him, his eyes welled up in pain as the strong golden light felt like it was searing him. The cuts on his chest filled with light and the magic whisked away, leaving untouched skin. 
He shivered violently as the shadowy magic dripped off the angles of his body, sliding like oil across the puddles of water flooding the beach, and he dropped heavily to his chest, unable to keep himself upright. He felt like all the rest and energy gathered over the past few days had been siphoned out of him, and he struggled to stay conscious. But the darkness still clung to him; he couldn’t shake it. He dug his long claws into the gravel and growled in his throat, doing his best to untangle himself from Akkey’s thoughts. He was getting flashes of porcelain, of sharp grins, the cold hand of a goddess, a pair of once-beautiful wings rotting into dust. And that overcast of shadow, something he knew but couldn’t name. It made him feel sick. 
aroleplayingcephalopod
The chains around Liam release, though the glow remains in Verdandi’s eyes. She walks over at a measured pace, an air of something different radiating out of her. When she reaches Liam, she kneels next to him and touches his shoulder. From that point, a wave of warm energy sweeps through him, healing any lingering injuries.
She turns glowing eyes on Akkey, her expression completely blank.
tree-the-cat
As the heat rose in his gut, his lungs suddenly contracted and he gagged and coughed up an unhealthy amount of black sludge, feeling the dregs cling to him as her light burned through him. He wiped his mouth with a shivering hand and reached out to grip Verdandi’s wrist, as she made to move away. The light from his eyes slowly faded and he got from his elbows to his knees, still weakly holding onto Verdandi. He tried to say her name but only a hoarse sound came out.
aroleplayingcephalopod
All at once, the magical energy drops, and Verdandi turns back to Liam, her brown eyes going wide with concern. “Oh gods,” she whispers. “Are you alright?”
tree-the-cat
Liam tried to sit up straighter, his breaths still ragged and broken. He fixed his watery, now-clear eyes on Akkey and his pupils thinned.
“What…what the…fuck…happened?” he rasped. “What’d you do?”
akkeyagentofhelheim
When Liam dropped her on the ground she stumbled back, trying to keep herself upright with many, trembling steps. The hair tie snapped and her pony tail fell around her face, clinging to it in wet strands. The tendril around her arm collapsed, her broken wrist hanging limply by her side, dried blood marking her torso.
“I don’t… I wanted to see…” she brought a shaking hand to her face, trying to obscure her expression, but they could see it. Akkey looked at them in pain, in shock… and in regret. Deep regret.
She was excited. When he had shown her his abilities, it piqued her curiosity. She knew he would be powerful. She knew he would be formidable. And she wanted to see what he could do with that darkness, wanted to believe that a dark power could exist for the people instead of against them, wanted to learn from it. She pushed him to his limits on purpose. But in her desperation to see his potential, she had almost cost him his life.
The shadow streaked across her eyes again and again and again, and she grit her teeth, still feeling the sensation in her head. Her forearms where the valkyrie split them burned, her scars screaming. It was like her mind was bending and folding in itself, like the remnants of the multiple powers that sank their mental claws into her were fighting each other. It would rise and fall, showing in her eyes. Hemlock. Nala. Frigga. And Liam.
There was a loud crack, and all three looked up at the sound.
The main spike was falling on them. It had melted and collapsed under the weight and aftershock of the battle. They’d be crushed.
Akkey’s eyes widened in a panic. Both she and Liam were weak, powers spent. Except…
With immense effort she reached for the water. She blinked once, then the shadows on her eyes stilled, completely enveloping her sclera in darkness. Like the valkyrie.
Akkey sped forward, past Liam and Verdandi on the ground, and up towards the falling structure. A massive wave rose from the lake, but this time, the same dark water that made up the ice spike came, powers clashing and battling, shadows churning in the bubbling liquid. Her entire body screamed in pain, but she ignored it. She threw the wave towards the falling structure, flinging it far and fast into the forest, colliding with the trees in a horrific crash, creating another, wilder structure of wood and blackened ice.
She landed heavily on her side as a soft drizzle of lake water fell on Liam and Verdandi, the night air finally quiet after their clash. Akkey struggled to pull herself upright. Her eyes remained dark, shadows bubbling from her lips, her ears, her many scars. Liam made darkness his own and controlled it, but this shadow looked like it overflowing from within her, like it wasn’t a part of her in the first place.
aroleplayingcephalopod
Despite the anger rolling through her, at the sight of Akkey so helpless before her… Verdandi knows she has to do something. At this point, it’s almost second-nature to reach for the golden energy within her. 
This time, though, her expression doesn’t go perfectly blank as her eyes take on the golden glow again–her brow remains furrowed in concentration as she holds her hands over Akkey’s prone form. The shadows start to swirl towards her fingers, wrapping themselves up her arms before dissolving into the air as they reach her shoulders.
tree-the-cat
He didn’t want to feel helpless, but he was so, so exhausted, he could only cling to Verdandi’s elbow and drag himself upright, staring with huge eyes at Akkey. What did Akkey do? Or what did I do?
akkeyagentofhelheim
Gold.
That was what she felt. It’s been orange and blue and a multitude of colours in her lifetime, but that was the first time she was surrounded in gold.
The pressure in her limbs eased itself, the writhing under her skin and tearing in her mind disappearing. Her eyes slowly faded to normal, revealing tired green eyes clouded in shameful tears.
Slowly, she pushed herself up to sit. It was quiet for a while.
“I’m sorry, Liam…” she finally rasped out, clenching her good hand, “I’m sorry, Verdandi. I went too far, I…” A tear escaped down her cheek. What the fuck was I thinking… She glanced up towards Verdandi, “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry. I tried to make it so that you weren’t…”
aroleplayingcephalopod
During the long silence, the glow had faded from Verdandi’s eyes, leaving just her–blinking heavily at the wave of exhaustion that sweeps through her. She struggles for words for a long moment before she settles on, “You didn’t hurt me.”
tree-the-cat
“She could’ve.”
The anger was back, but nowhere near the rage he felt while trapped in his powers. The remaining shadows stained his fur and skin like heavy ink, slowly sliding and dripping to the ground with the lakewater that soaked him. “I don’t…know what the fuck is wrong with you…but if you’re not gonna kill us, you better send us back, now.” There was too much happening; he wanted to leave. He wanted Nala.
akkeyagentofhelheim
His tone stung, and rightly so.
She flinched, her words caught in her throat. With a slow, heavy hand, she touched the gravel in between them. Quietly, the shoreline rose, reaching their knees, glowing in the same light that surrounded Verdandi in the bubble before. Liam felt what she did then; a warmth, a calm, a silent energy that eased the tension under his skin.
“I’m sorry…” The last thing they saw before they sank completely through was her, eyes squeezed shut, cheeks stained with non stop tears, and the black ice glowing in the moonlight above her.
They came up right behind their place on Haligan, completely dry, a little less tired, skin tingling, just the two of them.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Act I
Category:Events
Category:Verdandi Østergård
Category:Liam Arnason
Category:Akkey Black