Mercurial Shadows [Daniel]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Well, fine then, Miss Smarty Pants.
--

Behind her back, Emi folded down all fingers but one. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, but then it was time to go. She looked at the corridor and then down at her feet. She would probably be mocked for it, but she was wondering she shouldn't use the cloak. If they were going through a corridor... but Jericho already told her resisting would only work for so long. She pulled the cloak out and ran the edge of her thumb over the zipper.

"Screw it,[/color]" she said, and pulled it on over her clothes. No matter what he said, Emi was going to resist for as long as she could. She didn't care what kind of questions they asked, like where she'd gotten the cloak from or why she was wearing it. They probably already knew anyway... Nadia had seen all of her memories, after all. Come to think of it, she probably knew all about her battle with Sephiroth.

Again, Emi found herself blushing. Spending any amount of time with someone who knew that much about her was going to be awkward. She brushed past Nadia and stepped into the corridor before it closed, avoiding looking at the older woman.

It was going to be unpleasant, but Emi was going to make it just as unpleasant for them. Not enough to get her killed though. Just annoy them a little bit.

[Aerith]

Back to Notre Dame. Maybe.
--------

After Jericho went through the Corridor, Nadia waited in silence for Emi. The girl pulled out some black cloak and stared at it for a while, then put it on. Her entire demeanor was immature and unpleasant. If she thought she was going to persist in that attitude, she had a lot to learn.

After Emi walked past her, Nadia double-checked that Predis was still in her pocket. Not that she thought Predis would wander off, especially far away from Jericho, but it was always better to be sure. Satisfied that the spider was indeed still there, she also went through the Corridor, and it closed behind her.

[Slash]

Then hear me out.

[/center]

Gabriel nodded. "Here is what he wants me to tell you."

He looked down at Daniel. "That girl was taken from you by my brother. I will help you get her back."

Daniel twitched a bit, opening his eyes and looking at his wounds.

"I know it's easy to hate him. In fact, he makes it so that everyone will. I hate what he does, and I don't blame you for hating him, but that's what he wants. He wants people to fall into the same cycle of angry revenge that he did. I think it amuses him."

Then, Daniel turned towards Castle and struggled to speak. "Used to be...someone else. I have to...have to kill him, but I can't do it out of hate...I do it...out of pity. If you hate him, he'll exploit it and destroy you. That girl is only safe in a sense- he'll keep her alive but will break her mind, no matter how strong her will is. Seek to kill him to save her...or you'll meet the same fate he has set out for her."

He slumped back, his energy gone. He struggled against unconsciousness.

[Castle]

As he listened to them speak, he was aware of a weakness spreading from the inside. His crossed arms loosened, but his fists remained tight. He sort of wanted to sit down, but it was easy enough to keep standing.

"So, I should want to kill him to save her, not because I hate him. Is that right?" he said levelly.

That was when he knew that the weakness was guilt. If he hadn't mentioned her, if he hadn't brought Daniel to see her, maybe she wouldn't have gotten caught up in all this. On top of that, it was Jericho taking him hostage, in a sense, that caused her to go with him at all. It hadn't occurred to him before, but he realized it now.

He looked at Daniel. Even though his wounds were treated, he was still in pretty rough shape. What he said before was definitely right; there was no way he could beat Jericho alone, or with only Gabriel to help him. Castle didn't know where Clive went off to.

"I get it," he said, and then turned his gaze to Gabriel, "So what happens now? Does he have a place that he goes back to, or are we going to have to hunt around for him?"

He glanced at Daniel again. Though his brother's not exactly ready to move just yet... he added silently.

[Slash]

I'm a little incapacitated at the moment.

[/center]

Gabriel continued to relay his master's messages. "He will make himself easy to find. He wants people to know what he's doing and where he's doing it. It may be safer to act steathily, but he cares little for such things and surely less now that he's so powerful."

There was a long pause, then the message continued.

"He says not to blame yourself for this. He says if you will blame anyone, blame him. And he's saying..."

Gabriel looked at Daniel and reached in a coat pocket, pulling out an obviously aged note. He turned it over carefully in his hands, reading it. It was written in a spidery, thin script, a style that would have been almost elegant had it not been written with such haste. As it stood, it was a panicked thing that nearly cried out in urgency.

"He says, 'I need to atone for letting Jericho even exist. My brother was not an evil person. What took his place was, and it was due to my cowardice that he changed. I could have stopped it.'"

Gabriel handed him the note.

"'Please forgive me.'"

Daniel. You weren't here and I had to keep moving. They keep looking for me. Everyone. If they catch me, they'll kill me. I didn't do it. I would never have done that. What happened to them- I never would have dreamed of hurting them like that. I can explain later. I would never have killed my family, why do they think I killed my family? I need to stay here. I can't get any food and at this rate I'll die. I'll try to get here tomorrow.

I didn't kill them. Please believe me.


"'He had a wife and two children. All of them were killed, and he was blamed. I only sheltered him for a short time. Then I cast him out. I didn't believe him. He was half-mad, and I thought that signified guilt rather than grief. He didn't do it. If he had, he would have told me to make me hate him.'"

[Castle]

Once he read the note, and once Gabriel (or perhaps Daniel) was done talking, Castle sighed quietly and finally sat down on the ground.

"Figures he'd have a past like that," he muttered. He paused for a few moments, pushing his bangs up from his face with one hand, and then letting them flop back into place. "That kind of thing eats people alive, I guess."

He thought of his mother, and how he would feel if she died. However, the thought also made him realize that he was almost sympathizing with Jericho, and he nearly crushed the note in his fist. Instead, he held it out for Gabriel to take back.

"It's a little late for me to feel sorry for him, though," he said darkly, "Besides, it's like you said. Something took his place, something that seriously needs to die. I wouldn't beat yourself up about it too much. It probably couldn't be helped."

[Slash]

Darkness consumes.

[/center]

Daniel looked up again and lifted his head with angry urgency."Don't say that...don't say that. It was not inevitable. It could have been helped. I could have helped him. It was...it'd be like if you abandoned that girl completely and tried to convince yourself that it wasn't partially your fault when she became a monster. I...I..."

He paused, losing strength again. "I miss him."

His head dropped, and only Gabriel's hand stopped it from cracking on the cavern floor. Gabriel took the note and stood up.

"He's out now. He was quite angry for a bit there. I'd lift him out but he needs all the rest he can get."

[Castle]

So that was how it was going to be. Castle kept his sigh silent that time while he studied Daniel's unconscious face. He made a mental note to not bring the subject up again. It was none of his business, anyway.

He was feeling restless again, so he stood up.

"Do you want me to bring back a mattress or something? I could probably get one from one of the abandoned houses," he offered. It didn't seem right for an injured guy to lie on a stone floor.

[Slash]

Well, he must be suffering.

[/center]

Gabriel shook his head. "I will gather those things. They will not take me long to find. Please look after him while I am gone."

He flew off. It was true- they did not take long to find. He came across one abandoned shack, and the items inside were scarce but useful. Grabbing the worn mattress, he looked around a bit more before finding a few ragged blankets and a few pillows. That would do.

It was a struggle to hold them all at once, but when he got the hang of it he was able to arrive quickly.

"I'll set it up. Can you help lift him on? We need to be careful."

[Castle]

When Gabriel left the cave, Castle muttered a soft curse. He had hoped to go out and make himself useful in a more active, preoccupying way, rather than wait in the cave with Daniel and his own thoughts. Waiting around and doing nothing were not the things he wanted to do while Emi was out there somewhere with Jericho.

He paced for a bit, and then sat down on the floor near Daniel again and sighed. His thoughts kept going in the same directions over and over, and they managed to become both monotonous and stressful. Finally, he heard Gabriel's approaching footsteps and quickly stood up.

"Sure thing," he said, since to him, there really was no other answer.

Once Gabriel got the things set up, Castle helped him carefully lift Daniel onto the mattress. He thought Daniel was pretty light, especially with Gabriel lifting him as well, so the process wasn't that hard.

[Slash]

This'll be a decent place to stay.

[/center]

"Thank you."

Gabriel looked around. "This will have to be where we'll stay for now." He considered the location. His master would be loath to destroy the caverns, but there was the option of going under it...He'd probably be ordered to look for a seller of gummi ship parts.

"There's one thing we need. Gummi blocks, as many as we can get. When he wakes up, he'll scrap them for parts and begin working."

[Castle]

"Working on what? A gummi ship?" Castle asked, even though the answer seemed obvious.

Even so, with Daniel being a scientist who may or may not have created Gabriel from a test tube, one could never know. The wording "scrap them for parts" was a bit puzzling as well. That aside, Castle's thoughts strayed to Emi's gummi ship, which was still parked near the edge of town. It seemed that Jericho and his weird little gang liked to use Corridors of Darkness, so the odds that they would come back for the ship seemed slim.

A little idea came up in his mind. If Emi wasn't going to use it anymore, maybe he could use it to find her...