Just a little something I've been sitting on for a while. This was intended to be a tie-in / slice of life piece to pair with the
Coils v. Night Creatures Clan War (Night Creatures' Story) I was going to call
"Week til' War," filling in about a week's worth of time wherein the members of the Coils knew of the impending war and were given a week to prepare and come to terms, had it been completed. Currently it's just a few very brief glimpses from the first two days of that week from Dante's POV that I figured I might as well just share at this point. I'm
extremely hesitant to call this canon to anyone's stories, but I think I may have hit some of the right notes here. Luna's duo are featured in it rather prominently as the two are implied to be living with Dante in some capacity, but this is my writing at the end of the day. I think for something like this to have properly worked, we would all have to have been on the same page with it -- me, alph, acute, azure, cruel, gen, veir -- everyone to some capacity. All things considered, I think it went about as well as could be expected.
Bear in mind, these are
extremely short, incomplete, and out of context.
(Like everything else I've ever written that wasn't a by-the-books collab.)
::: A few hours after the Coils of Nehushtan meeting - 2PM :::
After the meeting with the Coils, Dante resigns to the living room couch of the home he shares with Rhami and Astor. The two have been out since morning, but have now returned. As they enter the kitchen adjacent to Dante, Rhami waves, and Astor skitters away in cat form to his and Rhami’s bedroom. Dante smiles back loosely.
Looking to be the first to speak, Dante asks how the training session went. If not for the change in meeting times, Dante would have accompanied her today. With a tautness in her voice, Rhami claims it “went fine,” However Dante has his doubts about the accuracy of this statement. There is a brief pause as Rhami opens the door to the pantry, followed by the reversal of Dante’s query as the beginnings of a sandwich begin to materialize.
“How was the meeting?” Rhami asks.
Recalling with distaste the image of nineteen year-old Terri Mayweather’s corpse, the smiling blood-soaked face of the Night Creatures’ leader, and the quavering lips of Doctor Macbeth as he prepared the Coils for imminent war, Dante smiles bitterly.
“Fine,” he says. “It went fine.”
Rhami nods. Not buying it, but acknowledging the statement. After a brief pause, Dante decides to elaborate. “But we’re going to war with the Night Creatures. In a week.”
Rhami’s sandwich ceases its construction.
“A week?” she frowns.
“Yeah,” Dante grimaces. “One week.”
::: 2 hours later - 4PM :::
Rhami and Astor had wasted no time getting Dante off his ass and back into the ring. 'Big Daddy D' was now keeled over and complaining of intestinal blockage after a blow to the gut. “I think it was the sausage from this morning,” Dante explains. “A lot of the time when I eat too much sausage, I can get a bit backed up.”
“Stop fooling around.” Astor growls. “Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into? What you’ll have gotten us into, should you fail to defend yourself?”
“I just need to keep them at range,” Dante protests. “And I can get a few good hits in up close. Maybe not against a freight train, and maybe not against a flood of oil, or- against a fucking wyvern, but I'm not going in blind. I have a plan! I just don't think this is what I need to be focusing on right now."
“So you’re just going to sit on your hands? And let me hit you?” Astor laughs.
“I’m thinking,” Dante asserts.
“Very well then,” Astor smiles, taking several paces back.
As Astor takes the form of a tiger, a deep, dark, and disturbing voice claws its way into the forefront of Dante’s mind..
[ K͇͇̣̤͉̰ͅE̯͙͈͚͖͓͇͉E̹P̹̰͇̩̪ ̗͈͉͉̜ͅM̙̘Ḛ͓̼̬ ̞̥̱̼̙̰̙A̹̼T̳͔̞̹̖̹̮ ̟͓̖̲͕̫͍ͅR̲̳̞͉A̻̣̦̹̰͍͍̜N̦G̮͓E͔̼ ]
::: The next morning - 5 AM :::
< Does he always sound like that? When he's in your head? >
{ No. He only meant to frighten you. }
< It worked. >
