Hope is the first thing to spring up in a humans heart. It is not supposed to leave them before their life does. And so they fought, brilliant defiance in the name of humanity, yet none of them were really human. The veiled worlds most notorious company, the people who was able to pry your car keys from the jaws of a helldhound for the right price. The people who had taken down a Vampiric Demi-Godess trough wits and power both. The very group who quite literally had spat into the river styx and ripped the long gone out from it's etheral waters. If you wanted a group that shone brighter the morning sun, whos rage were more blinding then the light of a dying star, you turned to Bain And Hoyles motley Boston Branch. Henry would die to save any of them, even the ones he disagreed with. And that was becouse they fought despite the odds and each of them was like nothing else he had ever seen. They always fought with the power that was given, they spit in the face of advesary and gave everything that came running at them the finger and a big fat boot to the ass. They would stare down Gods if they had to, and now they did. Fenrir stood its ground, it waited, and just like that, hope was turned into terrible dread for the Siren. He was not human, hope left him easily enough.
Earth shattering noise and chaos, that was the calling of the World Eating Wolf. The Siren could see the roar, not just hear it. He saw it before he felt it, he saw it before the others heard it and he wish he hadn't. It was magic brutal then the natural rage of the elements. More malicious then anything he seen in his life. It rippled and suddenly, time stood still for the Siren. He could not brace for impact, he couldn't even move. Like a wave of death, he saw the very fiber of reality scream from the rage of the God wolf. He saw as that massive wall of sound shook and convulsed like a pair of jaws snapping at the world it wanted to destroy. He saw the grass flatten against the ground in slow motion, as if the very nature around them bowed to the Fenrir. The Siren saw as the stone became fragments that became gravel that in turn became pebble and smaller still. Ancient stone that had stood untouched for decades upon decades, all reduced to nothing. He saw the wave come towards him, and he knew that the Wolf had him as it's prime target in Henry, the curse of the North. Here he was, defiant and in direct violation of his nature. Trying to appear human, trying to act as a good guy when in truth he was a monster. No not even a monster. He was just a extension of his river, a fickle and evil being.
As two spirits of the North, Henry felt that there could only be one way this ended. He smiled weakly and lowered the violin slowly. His grip loosened as the inferneal tool in his hand slowly fell towards the ground. His eyes closed and he called upon every meager ability of magic he had left, meager in comparison with the God that stood before him. Wrapped around him, a gently weave, the form of a ethereal seals pelt. He didn't have time to appreciate the memory that brought it up before the wave hit him, and his very life suddenly seemed pointless.
The pain that hit him first was physical, his eardrums shattered like overripe tomatoes. If he had been human, his brain might have boiled from the subsonic frequencies that could only come from gods. It was said that if a god spoke, then no mortal could survive the sound. Well god-wolf seemed to have gotten the memo, and despite the Sirens best defenses, he felt his entire body cave. The first hit was physical, pure pain and the sirens eye flew open as he clutched his ears. He was someone who had been impaled, beaten and tossed trough god knows how many terrible things. But some pain was especially hard to take for a being who lived for music, a composer turned painfully deaf if only for a moment. He went down to his knees, tear streaming down his face as he screamed, a hearth wrenching, terrified sound. Why was he crying? Why couldn't he stop crying. Why was this happening? Around him, his friends and allies fought, and he could not hear them and it scared him. He could not here the brash confidence of Thad, the angry snarl and sassy tone of the brilliant Veti. He could not hear the shouts and commands and he found he could not comprehend a world without sound. As blood poured down from both sides of his face, from the ears down to his chin, he started to convulse. Yes, it had been physical at first, but that was never the intention of the attack. The magic ripped trough what defenses he had left, like the jaws of the great wolf before them. It sunk into and crushed his very soul, or what Sirens had instead of a soul. It was a pain like he had never experienced, and his screams louder still. His composure all gone, his luster broken, he seemed less like a brilliant white foam of the natural rivers of the cold north and his color became muted and green , like the stale waters of a puddle or a drying river. He heard the wolfs snarl overpowering everything he was, mocking his innept power, his vain attempts to be something he wasn't.
The First attack was Physical, to isolate and distract and overwhelm the Siren. The Second was magical and spiritual, to crush and tear and sunder Henry. The last, the Last was mental, to kill, to ruin, to destroy the Näck from the inside out. It rippled within him like a explosion, like his heart was a nuclear device set to blow and the very own magic of Henry exploded inside him with a violent blue light. The screams of pain turned to equally ear shattering noises like that of wich had shattered Henrys own eardrums. Henry buckled, gasping like a fish on dry land as he was
”GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I DIDN'T KNOW! FORGIVE ME! I DIDN'T KNOW!”
Merciless was the river that borne him, cold was the waters that caressed him as he first drowned his first victim, a blue haired girl who's crime was only that she looked like the one that killed his predecessor. A toll was taken, the young and the nubile, the innocent and the virgin. A terrible seductive trickster, who sat on the stone in the river, who braved the water and invited you over to swim and sing with him , to dance and drown in the foam of a small but frightening river. Öre älv claimed many lives at the hands of its Näck. Because that was his purpose. And now, the Wolf drew upon the very victims energy and their last gasps of air, their curses and feelings. It seemed to pull it's presence from back before Henry was Henry, before the became self aware. It was a tidal wave anew, far more painful then that of what hit him before. Worse then the shattering of eardrums or the magic pressure of a god. He gasped, and then he felt as if the earth had swallowed him up whole. He went blind as there was only darkness around him as he felt the ancient hatred of every woman, man and child who was ever swallowed by his kinds trickery come rushing at him. It whirled around him, and it drowned him. He felt their anguish, their pain. Pale sickly fingers wrapped around his neck, nails dug into a sickly bloated skin as if he had been a mortal drowning man. To everyone on the outside, Henry was shaking, his body contorted weirdly as he kept begging the voices to stop.
But it wasn't done. The faces dancing in front of his vision began scream at him and very body of the siren began to bulge in places as if those very faces were trying to burst him from the inside. Every ounce of life he had ever stolen, trying to escape their killer. And not just humans, every being he ever fought and used his magic to kill, even those he killed to protect others. Henry was a water being, and with the water failing and his very being slowly being devoured by the hell that was sent his way buy the God-WOlf, his body was starting to return to nature. The Siren was dying, drowning in his own sins. A poetic end if nothing else.
But suddenly, the flooding was lessened, the voices was distracted. A Intruder, raw despair ran her off but she came back. And in a ocean of pure hate, Henry found the unlikely presence of Jay Jay. And a faint warm glowed grew in her presence, a defiant brilliant fire. He reached out towards it and to his terror the very hell he was in raced towards it as well, eager to snuff it out.
"Don't touch her!"
//Jay Jay//
As the little flicker of hope, warm and genuine, seemed to emanate from Jay-Jay, she felt the ocean-like force of hatred shrink back from her like a scared animal. Whereas when she entered, the storm was raging and she was knee-deep on the combination of Henry and Fenrir's magic, now she was on a tiny island, staring over the horizon and desperately looking for Henry.
Soon though, the ocean stared back. She was not alone in the tempest of Henry's mind and the waves looked to swallow her up. A tidal wave seemed to surge at her: faces in the storm were full of rage and vile intentions and a deep, profound sadness. The waves threatened to swallow her but she stood her ground. Waves seemed to break a few feet from her, either rejected by her strength of will, or simply lacking the murderous conviction they reserved for Henry.
One wave though, bearing a particular victim with blue, cold hair did not suffer from such compassion, It crashed towards Jay-Jay with a malice and seemed to inspire the same feelings in each of the nack's other victims. Water seemed to wash up to her ankles: trying to snuff out the spark of defiance. She saw flashes of memory: the sensation of being drowned rushed over her as the water touched the bare 'skin' of her ankles. Memories of betrayal, none of which were her own, filled her mind. The flicker of self-doubt returned, combined with the feelings of the dead. All wanting to drag her down with them.
Then she heard Henry's voice.
Doubt was eradicated by the man's words as her conviction reignited, fiercer than ever. The ocean seemed to shrink back from the glowing Jay-Jay: who was radiant with the golden glow of conviction and hope. The world inside Henry's mind was still dark, she couldn't see him in the murk and the chaos.
"Where are you? Come to me, I ain't getting moved by a bunch of dead spirits."
//Henry//
A fleeting moment of hope.
In the darkest hour, of any man or woman, there is always a fleeting moment of hope. Evil use this moment to break you, to drown your little fire with despair beyond belief, snuffing you out. But not this time. The woman in blue was beaten back by the girl of firey red. And Henry could hardly focus on anything else. He was like a moth drawn towards that light. Part of him wanted to laugh, who but that girl would think of something so absurd as lighting a flame when surrounded by all this water.
But that fire grew, and it shook Henry to the core. He heaved, and something formed inside his heart, or what was left of it in his state. The pulse of fire grew, and Henry heard her voice. He dove into the sea, let it tear at him as he swam towards the girl who light that stood like a light house, a beacon within his mind. As he dragged himself out of it, he shook off the hands still grabbing at his ankles, kicked a face or two in the mess of dead souls. He was now on the same 'island' as Jay. He stood, quite a bit taller then her, even in this twisted realm of his own breaking mind. He was slowly forming back to his self, less that of a drowned man and more of the Siren he was. Outside his mind, where another kind of battle was raging, and to observers, the terrifying visage of faces breaking out of his very skin began to die out and his color slowly returned to normal. As all around him, his brave allies went to war, he began to slowly regain his luster, his hair began to flow with a invisible wind.
”Thank you.” The mind version of Henry smiled brightly down at his unlikely savior. "But I am afraid it time for you to return to your body. What comes next is better that you do not take part of. But I won't ever forget your light. Or the rest of you." He winked at her, as mental aspects rarely had need for, well, clothing.
//Jay-Jay//
"Anytime, handsome." Jay-Jay looked up at the Siren with an wide grin and an unabashed confidence, positively glowing with confidence: literally and metaphorically. Her crimson hair seemed more radiant for it, and her tan skin more bronze. "Next time a world-ending god-thingy wants to fuck with your mind, you know who to call. Better yet, a drink. We'll need a few of those after we kick Fenrir's ass." There wasn't a flicker of doubt in her voice now. Victory changed a person, and none more so than Jay-Jay. To be so useful reinforced her self-worth immensely, and for the first time in a long time, she felt justifiably proud of her efforts.
She took a last little look back at the Siren, thinking less about the naked man, although she totally planned to make Daisy jealous with the details later, and more about the relationship she'd formed with the Siren. It was warm and friendly and, best of all: mutual. She started to cut off the telepathic link: broad smile still on her face. Kata had probably finished speaking with Atticus by now, so she'd have to play her part in kicking Fenrir' lupine butt.
//Henry//
Henry turned around and took in the still storming sea. "I'm afraid, you will all wait a few more decades before I let you eat me." He said as the pale, blue haired women stepped out from the watery depth of his inner being. She looked defeated, as if the hatred had been merely a impulse. He grabbed her by the throat and the woman only shuddered at his harsh touch. Slowly, she morphed into violin before the eyes of the Siren Henry marveled at the pure white violin, with details of blue shimmering in unatural colors all over it's surface. It held terrifying power. For the first time since he left his river, he had a direct connection to his home. He couldn't help but to grin at it.
"Your name is Islinda. The Ice Cradle. Your sing your sorrows for me now, and one day you shall return to the river with me. And all you will be laid to rest. But for that to happen, you will help me kill the thing that summoned you." He said to the gorgeous new violin in his hand. Naturally, as it many times were with magic, the violin formed in Henrys hands in reality just as it had in his minds. As he rose to his feet amiss the chaos around him, his body became solid and opaque again. H He was still weak, but with the spell broken, he started to collect himself.
”God-Wolf.” He coughed. Everything hurt. The magic had torn him what was likely permanent damage on his very being, greatly shortening his lifespan. His earthly body was bleeding all over. But the white violin was already at his finger tips, and the Siren was back to being radiant. ”You pityful, sniveling cretin. I won't die that easily” He played the first tune. And the magic sang out with all the sorrow of the dead, but also with a force Henry had never experienced before.
