First Time

Jun. 17th, 2022 10:57 am
guylining: ((older) s w e e t n e s s)
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[ Nate returns to their little campsite in the mall, a couple of ice creams in hand. They're covered in sprinkles, syrup and nuts, the full works, and there's a pair of cokes in his shoulder bag.

It's weird, to gather things like this. It's weird to taste food again. He still has no need of it, but Thorne seems to, so Nate's accommodating. Their campsite is a little gathering of pillows and bedspreads inside one of the mall's store fitting rooms. No one has questioned them, at least as of yet. Nate doesn't expect this relative safety to last forever, but he knows it's a better approach than trying to hole up in a hotel or something. Ineroth's less likely to look for them in somewhere like this.

He smiles as he rounds the corner, seeing Thorne comfortable on one of the sheets. ]

Hey. For you.

[ He hands over one of the ice creams. ]

Careful, they're melting. Everything okay?
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Thorn

May. 28th, 2022 03:58 pm
guylining: ((older) w o r r y)
[personal profile] guylining
[ He'd escaped with the skin of his teeth. Actually, he isn't sure that he still has teeth. He isn't sure that he's physically here - he's never been totally certain of that. He could be dead, for all he knows. He could be running through a thousand different realms as nothing but a ghost, just like all the others. That thought occurs to him often. He would say that it runs through his mind several times a day, if there were days here. If he could still measure time in that sense, which of course he can't.

He can't really measure distance, either. It's why he'd cast the tattoo spell on his arm. He looks at it now, and sure enough, a new circle is flaring to life on his forearm. It blooms bright and hot, and then fades to the standard black of all the others. So this is a new place, then, somewhere he hasn't been before. That means there's some level of distance between him and Ineroth, for now. How long that will last, he doesn't know. But he'll take it.

He stands up, and looks around to get his bearings. This dimension is remarkably shapeless. It's disorienting; his feet don't appear to be standing on anything, and there's no real horizon in side. It's like the place is full of clouds, going on and on as far as he can see. ]

Oh, that's new, [ he murmurs, and then flinches, as the sound reverberates around like an echo. Unlike an echo, it seems to get louder as it gets further away. He squeezes his eyes shut. This isn't good, he can't stay here. This will drive him mad.

He turns, trying to get any sense of form. That's when he sees it. He's not alone here. He blinks, disbelieving, because he's sure that he looked at that exact spot a moment ago and saw nothing. Now, for whatever reason, there's a person. Nate moves towards them, and as he does, the boy's image gets clearer and clearer. He's crouched, as if he's huddled up on the ground that doesn't exist. Nate kneels beside him, and tries not to think about what he's kneeling on. ]

Hey. [ Another echo. He winces, and lowers his voice as if that'll help. It doesn't. ] Hi, I'm Nate. Can you hear me?
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The Story

May. 28th, 2036 03:37 pm
guylining: ((older) c o n c e n t r a t e)
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The Beginning (2019)
  • After years of straining within the gilded cage of the Hawthorne family, Nate Hawthorne planned to leave - before he could be forced into an arranged marriage against his will.
  • After an altercation with his older brother, Nate broke through his own mental block and successfully teleported as a means of escape.
  • Now determined to leave home, Nate packed a bag. He visited his twin sister Doe and tried to convince her to come with him; she refused. He visited his boyfriend who also refused, leaving Nate alone - or so he thought.
  • His friend Annabelle Whitley came with him, and they fled to his London apartment.
  • Nate started performing magic in public, and quickly gained media attention and interest. His family disowned him, insisting that he would only be allowed to return if he rejected his new fame and came back into their fold. He ignored them.


Two years pass (2021)

2021
  • Nate and Anna had been living in their London apartment for two years. Nate was still in periodic contact with Doe, who kept their communication secret from the rest of the family.
  • Doe was now married to Harrison Thornton. Nate visited Doe the night before the wedding and tried to convince her to leave with him one more time. She refused, having genuinely fallen in love with Harry. Nate and Anna, disguised, attended the ceremony, and left afterwards.
  • Nate and Anna were living to some excess; they had an open relationship and were enjoying their freedom.
  • Nate's magic shows had made him famous, and he staged regular shows on the West End. He continued to experiment with magic, his spells growing increasingly more dangerous now that he no longer needed to hide them.
  • Anna's empathic strength had also grown with her freedom. One night, while probing into the beyond with Nate, she went further than before and picked up on something new and unusual; an empathic disturbance that frightened and unsettled her. Concerned, she told Nate, who had no hesitation about wanting to look into it.
  • Nate cast a spell seeking out the disturbance Anna found. The spell latched onto the source - a greater demon, who was harvesting and consuming souls. The demon took control of the spell, and pulled Nate through his own pentagram and into the world of the demon.


Nate's Story
  • Nate found himself trapped inside a hell dimension, prisoner of the demon which identified himself as Ineroth the ravenous, the insatiable, the ever-empty, and a whole host of other such titles. Nate resisted the demon's attempt to consume his soul and fought back. Ineroth, unaccustomed to resistance backed up by magic, was momentarily thrown off, allowing Nate the chance to escape. Nate tried to teleport home-
  • But it would never be that easy. Ineroth reacted quickly, disrupting Nate's spell so that he teleported not to his own world, but into a bubble dimension of Ineroth's creation. So began a great chase; Ineroth would catch the witch and consume his soul, more powerful than any Ineroth had yet come across, and Nate would get the hell out of dodge.
  • The demon's magic was powerful and intricate, weaving a prison intended to tire and frustrate his target. Nate kept teleporting, over and over again, through multiple different dimensions, but he was unable to escape Ineroth's realm. Each dimension he found himself in turned out to be another of the demon's tricks, and in each one, he would end up encountering Ineroth himself. Ineroth wanted his soul, but Nate kept resisting, constantly shoring up his own mind.
  • Nate was not the demon's only concern. All around them were other captives, other souls, in various states of decay. At first, none of them were able to communicate. Eventually, Nate managed to get far enough away from Ineroth to find souls which were more whole, and able to comprehend enough to talk to him. Through them, he learned what the demon was doing; each soul consumed made Ineroth larger and more powerful. They were all from different worlds, different realities; eventually, Ineroth would gain strength enough to break through into the world of the living, and would consume it all.
  • Nate began to realise that escaping from Ineroth wasn't enough. If the demon continued unchecked, he would eventually break into Nate's world. He had to be stopped.


Thorn
  • Nate didn't know how long it had been. By the time he met Thorn, he'd already encountered hundreds of souls, for most of whom it was already too late. Some, he'd managed to free from Ineroth's embrace, provoking the demon's fury. Ineroth had brought Nate to the brink of death multiple times in the attempt to consume him, and on one occasion, came so close that Nate thought it was over.
  • Instead, he managed to teleport, and found himself in the presence of a new soul, far more coherent than the rest. Where the others had all felt like fading ghosts to him, this new one seemed alive - if confused, and uncertain. The new soul couldn't remember his real name, but he asked Nate to call him Thorn.
  • With Thorn, Nate found the most intelligent interaction he'd had in years. If there was any soul he had to save, he knew it had to be this one, and he knew it had to be fast, before Ineroth could erode any more of Thorn's identity. Thorn, in turn, wanted to escape that terrible place with Nate.
  • The two became friends, and in short order, lovers as well. Together, they discovered that there was a powerful cage around Thorn. Nate took it as a sign of how much Ineroth wanted Thorn's soul, and believed the cage was intended to keep him there while he was eroded, to prevent him from running away as Nate had.
  • They worked together, Thorn lending Nate his strength to break the bond. It took multiple attempts, but finally, they managed to break through -
  • And then Ineroth appeared, surrounding Thorn, absorbing him immediately in front of Nate. Nate, in horror, watched as Ineroth's strength visibly grew.
  • Nate fled, teleporting to another dimension, feeling wracked with guilt. His spell hadn't freed Thorn; instead it had seemed to speed up Ineroth's process, letting him consume Thorn immediately. Full of grief, he determined that he would find a way to excise Thorn from Ineroth. It couldn't end the way it had; there had to be a way to get his lover back.
  • But then Thorn himself appeared to him. Nate didn't understand what was happening, and reached out for Thorn. As soon as they touched, Nate felt the familiar, creeping chill of the demon. Understanding flooded Nate's mind as though the knowledge came from within; Thorn had not been absorbed. Thorn was Ineroth; he had always been a part of the demon. He wasn't a separate individual soul; rather, he was the product of what Ineroth was doing. The demon had been consuming souls for a millennia, using their energy to increase his power. But each of those souls had conscience and morality - for lack of a better word, they had humanity. Thorn had been the demon's manifestation of that humanity, and the cage that Nate had broken had been a barrier between him and the rest of the demon. By removing the barrier, Nate had inadvertently given Ineroth access to a well of energy from which he'd previously been cut off. As a consequence, Ineroth was now that much stronger - and it was all Nate's fault.
  • Ineroth, still looking like Thorn, tightened his hold on Nate. Nate could fell the draw of consumption, this time so strong that he didn't think he could resist.
  • But then, a surge of magic flooded his veins. For a final time, he teleported away - and for the first time, he was successful. He appeared back in his own living room, in the very spot he'd disappeared from so long ago. Had fear and grief finally given him enough energy to get home? Or had the energy come from somewhere - someone else?


Anna's Story
  • Anna could only watch as Nate was pulled into the spell. Horrified, she tried to recreate it, but couldn't find a connection. Panicked, she reached out to Doe and Harry, the only people who she believed might be able to help.
  • Doe was equally horrified by what Anna described. She wanted the Hawthorne family to pool their resources to get Nate back. The Hawthornes refused. As far as they were concerned, Nate was no longer a part of the family. They had always told him that his experiments would get him into trouble. This, they felt, was just reward.
  • Doe didn't agree. For the next year, she worked with Anna, trying everything they could think of to reach out to Nate. They could never find him.
  • However, on Doe and Nate's 21st birthday, Doe ascended to Supreme, meaning that among other responsibilities, she was now the head of the Hawthorne family. Her relatives could no longer disobey her wishes, even though they didn't agree. She instructed them to seek out her brother, and to find the disturbance that Anna could still sense.
  • Meanwhile, Anna was working harder and harder to reach out to Nate with her empathy. She routinely pushed herself beyond her limits, and became more and more reliant on her power. On one occasion, she broke the crystal siphon that Nate had made her, causing it to be partially absorbed by her body. The accident made her power even stronger. She began to believe that she could sense Nate, though in pieces; he kept moving, making it difficult for her to latch onto him, and there was a very angry, very powerful entity that blocked her attempts.
  • As time went on, she got closer and closer, drawing the entity's attention. She was able to describe it to the Hawthornes, leading them to uncover Ineroth's name in one of their oldest books. Most were dismissive, doing the research only because Doe demanded it. Doe, on the other hand, was afraid. She knew that the presence of a greater demon was a threat to all magic. It couldn't be allowed to come to Earth.


Five Years Later (2026)
  • Nate returned, with no idea how long he'd been gone.
  • Anna was the first to encounter him, given that he returned in the middle of the night, like a thunderclap manifesting in her living room.
  • He was confused and upset, talking over himself while he tried to tell her his story. Anna did her best to calm him, while calling Doe.
  • Finally, the twins were reunited. Doe wanted to celebrate Nate's return, but Nate was distraught. Now calm enough to talk, he explained his whole story. The ending of it focused on Thorn; Nate believed that he had only returned because Thorn had helped him to do it. He was still there, inside Ineroth, and he needed help. Nate wouldn't abandon him to his fate. He would bring Ineroth here, to his own world, where Nate would be in control, and he could find a way to bring Thorn back.
  • Doe was adamantly opposed; the demon couldn't come here. What mattered was that Nate was away from him. They had to do everything possible to keep him away.
  • No, Nate said. Escaping from Ineroth wasn't enough; it had never been enough. Unchecked, he would keep consuming souls, and eventually find his way to the human world anyway. They had to stop him, and in so doing, they had to save Thorn from him.
  • Doe refused. They had to shore up their world's defences, keep Ineroth away at all costs, and keep him contained in his own realm.
  • The siblings parted, unhappily at odds, and each determined to see through their own plan. Doe had every resource of Hawthorne house behind her. Nate didn't care; he would do it alone if he had to.
  • Of course, he didn't. Anna was forever on his side, no matter what was happening. Just like when he left home, the one he could rely on was always her.


The Struggle (2027)
  • It was far easier said than done. While Nate and Anna worked on a way to summon and bind Ineroth in their world, Doe and the Hawthornes actively thwarted their attempts.
  • Anna's empathy grew ever stronger, and ever more connected to Ineroth.
  • Meanwhile, Nate was haunted by dreams of Thorn. Over the course of a year, he started to see him more and more often. Eventually he started to see him even while he was awake. At first, he thought this was just a manifestation of his grief. Anna knew it was something more. She was able to sense an empathic connection between Nate and Thorn, a side effect of Ineroth's repeated attempts to consume Nate.
  • Against his own better judgment, Nate started to focus on the connection, actively trying to reach Thorn through it. The two started to converse, and the experience bolstered Nate's belief that he could separate Thorn from the demon. In reality, he was growing more and more confused. Ineroth was able to manipulate Nate through the connection, until Nate could no longer tell whether he was conversing with his friend or his enemy.
  • Where Nate was confused, Anna could see clearly. She believed that empathy itself was the key; that Nate's connection to Thorn could be used as the hook to summon the demon into a binding of their creation. They tried the spell.
  • Halfway through, Doe and the Hawthornes finally broke through the wards around Nate's apartment. They moved to intercept the spell, and Nate ran inside the pentagram, effectively trapping himself along with Ineroth. The demon grabbed hold of Nate, intent on consuming him once and for all. Nate, for the first time, didn't even try to escape; he just kept trying to reach Thorn.
  • Panicked, Anna weaponised her own empathy to reach out to Nate, pulling him back outside of the circle. With Doe's help, she was able to banish Ineroth again. Nate had fallen unconscious during the effort.
  • Anna reached into Nate's mind to wake him, and found him fractured, and still holding on to Thorn. She managed to bring him back to consciousness, where he told her and Doe that he had seen Ineroth's mind. He and Thorn were intertwined at the core. They had always, and would always be, the same entity. There was no separating them.
  • But there could be another way. As the three talked, Anna proposed a different plan. Even if Thorn's humanity could not be separated from the demon, perhaps they could give him control of Ineroth's form. If he were in charge, rather than hidden within, perhaps he would no longer want to invade their world. Nate and Doe agreed that the attempt would be worth trying. The twins were finally on the same side.


The End (2028 and beyond)
  • Working together, Nate and Doe crafted an upgraded version of the spell Nate had attempted with Anna. With every Hawthorne contributing their magic on Doe's orders to manage the binding, Nate, Anna and Doe successfully summoned Ineroth.
  • Anna weaponised Nate's empathy link with the demon, creating a channel to let Nate reach inside and talk to Thorn.
  • Nate was able to connect with the part of the demon who would never hurt anyone, and with the help of the binding spell, Thorn was able to take control of the demon's mind. Ineroth's evil was pushed down and bound tightly with Hawthorne magic, while Thorn's goodness took precedence.
  • Now in control, Thorn willingly returned to his realm, and released the remainder of Ineroth's captive souls.
  • With the demon no longer threatening their realm, Doe had cemented her role as Supreme. She reinstated her brother's place in the family and asked Nate to come home.
  • Nate made his peace with his family, though opted to remain in London with Anna.
  • Returning to normal life proved difficult for him, after years of travelling through unearthly realms. He chose not to return to his West End performances, preferring to focus on investigating the demonic realms, and using his magic to seek out and prevent further threats to his home.
  • Nate maintained his empathic connection with Thorn, regularly crossing the barrier between their worlds to visit him.
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The Thorniest Rose

June 2022

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