epidemiology | so keep your candles burning

Entry tags:

so keep your candles burning

CHARACTERS: Hellboy (

hellshaped) and Kida (

adlantisag)

DATE: backdated to the day after hell week ends

WARNINGS: 2cute2live

SUMMARY: Kida gives Hellboy a present.

[ She wakes to the crackle of fire. It rouses her immediately; after the week they've had she's become hyper-aware of the sound of burning. Her eyes fly to the hearth of her bedroom, and that's where she sees it, surrounded by piles of grey ash and dying embers. A grey stone, the size of a bead loaf and perfectly oval. In the lingering haze of exhaustion, she takes it for a vulgar rock at first, and it's only after she pushes the covers away and steps closer that it dawns on her what it is: the egg of obesag nurug, the lava-dog.

She's left blinking owlishly, wondering what she's meant to be doing with this. A live animal; she already has Ninat to look after, and what's more, lavadog eggs and babies need constant handling and warmth, and rocks must be pulverized for the first meals until the immense flat teeth grow in. Certainly that's nothing she can accomplish without help, and she has no intention of staying in this room tending a fire or cuddling a rock until it hatches. She purses her lips, thinks--ah, solution.

She texts Hellboy quickly, asks to meet him. The gardens--she can find her way there. The egg is mostly stone, in any case; even if she drops it, it should manage. The trick will be keeping it warm.

Bundling up her cargo in her bedsheets, she takes it with her down the hall and out into the courtyard. As she passes the stables Ninat comes out to walk by her, visibly interested in the bundle in Kida's arms. It's heavy, but she takes it for good exercise, even though she's glad when she sees red amidst all the green.

(It's nice. Greenery. Living plants, fed by the sun. Everything smells alive.)

Ninat jogs up ahead of her master, butting playfully against Hellboy's hip. Kida follows not long after, wordlessly holding out the pile of bedsheets for him to take. ]

No wonder you came to walk here! What a magnificent sight--and the smell!

[ Turning her attention back to him, she motions to the bundle. ]

Go on, open it! A gift for you.

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[After being stuck in the dark in Chantes for months, Hellboy is pleased to have a nice, quiet courtyard to relax in. Even after Chantes's sun was returned, it was still winter -- but Oska seems to be on a different seasonal pattern, the vernal surroundings doing a lot to help alleviate the sort of natural gloom into which he tends to slip.

He doesn't like to think too much about himself, but he knows on some level that this is good for him. It's better than some crumbling castle or catacombs or god knows what else, at least. Everything is green; the sun is bright; the sky is blue. (And not raining flame.) He's more than happy to stick around longer for Kida to meet him.

Despite joking with Lancer that he'd consider quitting smoking, Hellboy has woken up this morning with a fancy box of cigars next to his head. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he'd taken them out to the gardens with him, and had just been smoking one when Ninat trots up. He reaches down to pat her in greeting, his tail tilting up slightly, and then a little more when Kida arrives.]

Laundry. [It's a flat question, like maybe she needs him to teach her how to work the laundry machines... though to be honest, he's not exactly sure how laundry works here. There's a lot to figure out.

But open it, she says, and he does. Cautiously.]

Is this a rock?

[ She laughs, bright and pristine, at his question. The sun and the grass and the eye-catching redness of him, everything conspires to make her smile. ]

It is an egg! Well--the egg is a rock. You will see, touch it.

[ She couldn't touch it directly, but he could. The rock is threaded-through with opalescent filaments, but isn't moving...yet. ]

It is the egg of obesag nurug, the lava-dog. We keep them as companions, they enjoy heat and eat rock.

[ She pushes against the blankets, pressing the egg into his chest. ]

I found it this morning, but I am already--[ she motions to Ninat ]--occupied. I am giving it to you, if you will take it.

[Touch it, she says. Hellboy reaches out to comply, feeling the heat before he even lays his hand on it. A very warm, rocklike egg. With a dog inside. What a strange place Atlantis must be.]

Obesag nurug. [He tries. Kida pushes the egg at him and he's a little amused by her insistence, cocking an eye down at Ninat.] She is kind of a handful, huh? [Is he talking about Kida or Ninat? It's a mystery.

Still, though, he doesn't need to be asked twice. This is something from Kida's world, and she thinks enough about him to gift it to him. He's grateful, and takes the egg carefully in his stonelike right hand, looking it over with a scrutinizing eye. It's not just a rock. He can see that now. It's beautiful in a way, both physically and because of what it means. Or what he thinks it means.

He peeks around the egg at Kida, smiling a little around the cigar in his mouth.] I don't know what to say.

[ She smiles up at him, indulgent. ]

You could say...pagen?

[ He'll be able to tell she's messing with him: pagen means 'thank you' in Atlantean. Kida may or may not chuckle at her own joke.

She leans back, watching him with the egg, wondering at what a pair they make already. His warmth is faded into the warmth of the day, rather than sharp and enveloping like in Chantes, but there's something about the solidity of his presence that never fails to make her feel safe, put her at ease. ]

I know you will take good care of it.

[ Said but not spoken: I trust you. ]

Alright. Pagen. [It's a joke, he gets it, but he is trying to learn her language. He's already a polyglot -- German, French, Spanish, passable Latin -- so it's not like it's difficult. He's picking up words here and there.

Hellboy gives the egg another glance, still grinning, then opens one of the pouches at his hip to transfer some objects. Little charms, coins, a shuriken... he shifts them around until he has a space for the egg, and gently slips it inside the pouch, giving it a little pat afterwards.]

There. Safe and sound. Though I'm gonna need your help when it hatches. [He assumes... it will hatch. Eventually.

He takes the cigar out of his mouth to ash it, looking at Kida thoughtfully.]

You know, you've shared a lot about your people with me.

[ She wrinkles her nose a bit at the cigar smoke that wafts to her. Absently, she lifts a hand to wave it away, privately wondering what pleasure he gains from that acrid smoke. ]

I have. You have always been curious, and open; you have been my teacher. I am happy to share my people's legacy with you.

[ Shrivelled though it may be. Though that isn't why he brought up the topic, she surmises. ]

Will you tell me of yours, Hellboy?

[Hellboy's mouth twists in his equivalent of a self effacing grin; he knows he's been closed off to her, especially made apparent by how much she's told him about her own life. He's thankful for her patience and her restraint: as she said, Hellboy is interested in her people, but she hasn't asked that much about his own. He clocks that for being polite rather than disinterested.

(The way he lets her see the weirder nuances of his expressions -- the embarrassed smile now, the open smile in Chantes -- is a small clue to how much he is beginning to trust her. They've spent enough time with each other where Hellboy assumes Kida will understand his alien facial expressions, or at least to the point where she doesn't think he's sneering at her.)

Noting her distaste for the smoke, Hellboy dutifully stubs it out on his stone arm. Where he's planning on taking her, they don't allow flames, anyway.]

I should probably tell you something. [Instead of the virtually nothing he's been telling her so far. One drunken explanation in the span of six months isn't exactly quid pro quo.

He starts off toward the castle, motioning for her to follow.]

It'll be easier if I show you something in the library.

[ Her eyes follow after him. It's true that she's become better at and more used to reading him, though it's doubtful she'd be able to express it: from her perspective, it's just a natural consequence of their friendship. She doesn't quite realize that he's allowing her to see. ]

You do not have to.

[ It isn't that she isn't curious--of course she is. But he's been so reticent, so taciturn, that she wants to be sure he doesn't feel pressured, like she's pushed the balance of their arrangement too far.

They walk, and she slips her hand into his much larger one, letting it close around her fingers. His skin is warm, and rough. This close, she smells peanuts. ]

But I would be glad to learn.

[Hellboy won't say it's because he wants to tell her, not really. If he could continue this friendship with Kida in ignorance, he would. But he knows it's not right. It's unfair to keep her from something that's clear as day to other people, especially with how close they are, and how close they're becoming.

He curls his fingers loosely around Kida's hand, thumb moving over her knuckles once. There's a strong possibility she won't want to be this close to him again after they visit the library, so he's committing how this feels to memory: the quiet, kinetic energy she exudes, the way she smells like the ocean, the way her hair catches the sun.]

I know. That's what I like about you.

[The castle has windows so the sunlight still filters in, though as they go deeper toward the library, the halls are lit more with magic than anything else; glass orbs floating past that crackle with purple and blue electricity, the light dancing on the walls.

Inside the library itself, Hellboy finally releases Kida's hand to maneuver through the stacks more easily, going on ahead. He already knows what section he's looking for.] I think I told you about my father before -- my adopted father, I mean. He was a professor. Trevor Bruttenholm. [This is pronounced 'Broom,' incidentally.] I'm sure I can find something he's published in here if I look hard enough. Did I tell you how he found me?

[ She ducks her head a bit, peering at him through her lashes, amusement on her face. ]

Here I was, thinking you liked me for my charm, my wit, my good looks...

[ Kida's a playful person, but not typically prone to jokes. It might be Hellboy rubbing off on her.

In any case, she's happy to follow, watching him, the sway of his tail as he tenses the closer and closer they get to the library. She's gotten hints, of course, that what he is isn't considered 'good'. That he carries a stigma from it, whatever it is. As the library unfolds in front of them she wonders what could be in here that would explain it better than he could. ]

You did not.

[ She doesn't ask him to elaborate, but it's already in her tone, because she knows he will anyway. She's marvelling at the ease with which he plucks books from the shelves, at home here in a way she can't be. One day, she thinks, she'll be able to do that, too. ]

[Great, now Kida's telling dad jokes. Way to go, Hellboy.

He's tense, worried, but he's doing his best to work through it. He wants to trust Kida -- in fact he trusts her in all things but subjects related to his nature, mostly because he has a hard time dealing with it himself on most days -- but it's difficult not to catastrophize. The very tip of his tail is twitching nervously, but his tone remains as even and sure as ever.]

About 60 years ago, there was a war between a lot of surface nations. The professor wasn't a soldier, but he was helping one side of the war with paranormal research -- there was a rumor the other side was using occultism to gain the upper hand. Witchcraft, black magic. Things like that.

[He finds the book he's looking for, an oversized thing bound in faded red leather. There are block letters stamped on the cover in Latin, and a symbol drawn below: circles and crossed lines inside a star inside another circle. Hellboy sets it down on a nearby table and flips through a few pages of nothing but text, presumably a table of contents and an introduction of some sort.

He stops when he comes to a page with illustrations, and motions for Kida to take over turning the pages. It's a compendium of strange creatures, by the looks of it: words accompanied by illustrations in black ink of the creatures being described. At the beginning of the book, it's all monkey-looking things with tiny bat wings and grinning faces.]

So, he and some soldiers went to the ruins of a church with another researcher and a psychic. She knew -- the psychic -- she knew that something was going to happen there. Something bad. I guess they went there to stop it, in case it was something from the enemy.

[ His voice is a low rumble, and she catches the flick of his tail out of the corner of her eye. It betrays the tension that otherwise doesn't make it all the way to his shoulders.

She sidles up to him as he talks, listening intently, trying to picture this surface war he's describing to her, with its black magic. It looks something like Chantes did on the last days they were there.

Leaning over the book he presents her, she takes in the illustrations, reaching to touch the page, finger tracing the lines of ink where wings and hide begin to form. When he hands her the book, she takes it without reservation. ]

And what did they find there...?

[ She has an inkling, but she'll let him finish his story. She keeps turning the pages, unveiling progressively larger, hairier, horned and winged creatures. ]

[He'll have to show her a book about World War II someday so she can get a better idea of it -- or maybe not, actually; does she really need to know what kind of machines the surface world built in order to kill each other? He's never sure what to shield Kida from and what to reveal. Case in point: he's been hiding this conversation from her since they met, but he's tired of lying through omission.

At the question, Hellboy tips his head to the side, curling his lip back a little in something approximating a self-effacing grin.]

A little boy in a ball of fire.

[He looks back at the book, the familiar-looking face shapes staring back at him. Heavy jaws, deep-set eyes, ears slightly pointed. Hellboy's face is overall less bestial, his features not quite as sharp and missing the fangs that some of them have, but it's a stark resemblance in his opinion.]

Did you ever wonder why they called me Hellboy?

[ It all falls into place when she sees the images; him, only not--more like animals. A little boy in a ball of fire.

A demon.

She thinks of the wraiths in stories, the possessing monsters that howled out of the runes in Chantes. She lowers the book. There's a knot in her throat as she works out how to respond. Did she wonder? Yes. But mostly because-- ]

I always thought that was strange name.

[ 'Child of the underworld'. Like a thing, not a true name at all. She looks up at him, brows knitting together. ]

Now I think it is cruel.

[ The book is set down. She steps into his space. She thinks of his reticence, his shyness. This is his shame, his greatest fear, and he's given it to her. She reaches for him, fingers grasping at his coat like she's afraid he'll pull back and vanish now that he's spoken his truth. Words stall on her tongue. ]

[Hellboy isn't exactly sure what kind of reaction he'd been expecting from her, but it looks like it isn't the worst. Still, he's hesitant to relax entirely; Kida is the first person he's explained this to quite so overtly. Most people don't even need to ask. The skin and the horns and the name fill in the blanks for them.

He doesn't move to touch her, just stands there a little uncertainly as her hands seek his coat.]

They didn't really know what I was going to grow up to be, I guess. There were a lot of tests until they realized... [He trails off. He doesn't really like to think about the very early days of his existence.] Well, it's just a little unfortunate now, in a funny sort of way. It's too late to change it, anyway. That's just who I am.

[ Until they realized I could think, he doesn't quite say, but the corners of her mouth still pull down. ]

Oh, Hellboy...

[ Pulling him towards her is futile, so she pulls herself in by his jacket, reaching up to cup his jaw. Even on her tip-toes, her head would still only lay on his chest: this close, she can hear the slow pulse of his heart. ]

I like who you are.

[ She doesn't say 'who you are is good', even though she believes it, she doesn't say that he isn't a monster, because it's obvious. But she thinks on Mabel's shriek of surprise and thinks this must be difficult for him; she can only really offer this. She's glad for the honestly. ]

Thank you for telling me.

[Kida pulls herself to him and Hellboy watches her face, searching for some kind of revulsion in the depths of her eyes. His own eyes are flat, but even in the half-light of the library, Kida should be able to see the workings of the delicate muscles underneath as his focus ticks to different points of her face. Her mouth, her eyes, her forehead, the tattoo on her cheek, her mouth again.

She likes who he is and he ducks his head a little in embarrassment. Hellboy doesn't even like who he is half the time. Too much of his identity is wrapped up in uncertainty and something dark just lurking around the corner -- but to hear that someone as passionate and selfless as Kida likes who he is... it's a good reminder that he isn't just the sum of his nature and his blood.]

I should have told you before. But I wanted you to know me without all that stuff. [He glances at her again, corner of his mouth curving up slightly.] Thank you, too.

[He doesn't say why he's thanking her, but it probably doesn't need to be said.]

[ It's rare that anyone would have unshakable faith in themselves; if Kida has anything remotely close to it, it's by virtue of age and experience alone. It's with that in mind that she allows Hellboy a duck of the head. He looks almost boyish in that moment, and the ghost of a smile finds its way back to her face.

He really doesn't need to say anything more; she gets the feeling he's run out of words for the day, anyway. Even if he plunges his eyes into her face, all he'll find is a kind of tired affection. ]

It is fine. I am glad to know we are friends enough that you have entrusted me with this.

[ She takes his flesh hand in hers. ]

And now that you have brought us here--[ with her other hand, she reaches for the book on demons, shutting it with just enough force that it might be called enthusiasm. ]--why do we not find cheerier books to read? You did say I should practice.

[Kida always knows exactly what to say. There's nothing else that Hellboy would have wanted to hear -- acceptance and reassurance that their friendship isn't affected by this. It makes him hopeful that he can share more secrets with her. The bad ones. The worse ones.

Hellboy's mouth opens a little wider, teeth gleaming white in the low light of the library.]

You're right. C'mon. [He squeezes her hand, not letting go this time, and gently leads her toward a less ominous section of the library.] I know just the thing.

[ She lets her compassion lead. It gets her in trouble often, but it's somehow managed to be an advantage rather than a flaw, for the most part—so far. ]

Do you?

[ She laughs, letting herself get pulled along. Even though she doesn't say it outright, it's clear enough that she's glad to be away from dreary talk of demons. ]

Lead the way.

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so keep your candles burning

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