The Path Least Treacherous
Gideon did not flinch at the sound. Humans flinched, because instinct told them that they must. That somehow recoiling would protect them from the inevitable, but creatures such as he knew better. They knew what was to come, be it pain or grace. Fear never changes the what is to come, only the dire anticipation. So, if anything, Gideon listened for it.
Snap
The sound was small, abrupt and not as sharp as mot expect. Like a muted pencil being snapped. That small, precise fracture, the clean articulation of bone giving way beneath pressure… it settled something in him. Not satisfaction. Not quite. But recognition. Like a note struck correctly, a game being played as expected. And he knew that the pain was not the destination, it was merely a part of the journey.
That was it. Why it did not matter, not to a wizard. Gideon's hand released Winnie's wrist not out of mercy, but because the moment had already served its purpose. And still, Giddy smiled. How were his features so soft? "You did not always that," Gideon commented, voice light, almost fond, as if they were discussing something trivial and not the shape of her arm bending wrong between them. "Mathias is going to hate this."
Winnie was changing and he, Gideon, was the catalyst. A few months ago, her reaction would have more... human. His head tilted slightly, that loose curl slipping just enough to shadow one eye as he regarded Winnie: not her injury, but her reaction. The control. The refusal to give him what others would have.
Stubborn? Some. In truth, she was echoing him in her defiance. When Winnie had broken the Hufflepuff's finger, and he did not scream or cry. Gideon did not fear the pain, he had learned to relish it. How to twist the pain into something else. She was not reacting, she was trying to take control. Finally. It took mother so much longer.
"You think I don't remember?" Gideon continued, his uncanny confidence the most concerning facet of his nature. "That I don’t catalogue it the same way you do? The sound first. Then the delay. Then the understanding of what it means." Just a wrist. Just a leg. Just a spine. It would take a lot of pain and a lot of shattering to create the sense of vulnerability that elicits fear. He took a measured breath. "I remember everything that matters."
His gaze dipped, finally, to her wrist, not with concern, but with a detached sort of curiosity, as though observing a demonstration rather than a wound. "In such short time, you have changed," Gideon added lightly, "and soon enough you are going to be trying to convince yourself that nothing has changed at all." There it was again, that faint, almost boyish smile. Harmless, if one didn't listen too closely to what lived underneath it.
Then, something unexpected happened, her wand moved. Gideon saw it before the word fully formed. She did not aim for him, but rather what was on the other side of him. Of course she would choose the door. Of course she would try to break something else instead.
The spell cracked through the air, "Confringo!" He knew what that spell was, and it was utterly reckless. She did not know if Aamon was standing directly on the other side of the door, which he was. She did not know what sort of space she was blasting into. Was it cursed? Of course it was. What would the consequence of an explosive force be? Who cares!
Gideon did not step back, he stepped forward. Not into the blast, but into the space before it, hand lifting just enough, his hawthorn wood wand already in motion with a flick so subtle it bordered on lazy. "Finite," he incanted.
The magic buckled, her spell not entirely undone, but distorted, its trajectory collapsing just enough to shatter harmlessly against the frame rather than detonate through it. Splinters of force scattered like broken glass, hissing out into almost nothing. Then his flicked the wand, a final time. A barely there action, hardly more than a tick, but for something as precise of wizardry, it proved 'disastrous.'
Wood groaned under the force of Winnie's spell, the frame bending inward like something trying too late to remember how to be solid. Then came the sound, like Winnie's arm: sharp, splintering, inevitable. The door gave way and burst apart, fragments tearing loose from the rustic frame and wheeling across the threshold.
Gideon exhaled, almost amused.
Would she see it? The wrongness of it? What lay beyond that door was not a room or the common space of a cabin. Rather a place that only pretended to be one. The cabin’s interior stretched wider than it should have, the geometry subtly… incorrect. Walls leaned at angles that did not meet properly. Corners existed where they shouldn't, and didn’t where they should. Yet perception warped the longer one stared, suddenly making uncanny sense in the eerie nonsense.
Aamon was standing, no... huddling there.
"You don't break structures to escape something like this, Winnie," Gideon murmured, voice dipping just enough to feel like a secret rather than a threat. "You break something else." His head tilted again, studying her. Not her pain, not her defiance, but the space behind it. "And you're not quite there yet." Then, with that same unsettling softness, "but you're getting better."
Snap
The sound was small, abrupt and not as sharp as mot expect. Like a muted pencil being snapped. That small, precise fracture, the clean articulation of bone giving way beneath pressure… it settled something in him. Not satisfaction. Not quite. But recognition. Like a note struck correctly, a game being played as expected. And he knew that the pain was not the destination, it was merely a part of the journey.
That was it. Why it did not matter, not to a wizard. Gideon's hand released Winnie's wrist not out of mercy, but because the moment had already served its purpose. And still, Giddy smiled. How were his features so soft? "You did not always that," Gideon commented, voice light, almost fond, as if they were discussing something trivial and not the shape of her arm bending wrong between them. "Mathias is going to hate this."
Winnie was changing and he, Gideon, was the catalyst. A few months ago, her reaction would have more... human. His head tilted slightly, that loose curl slipping just enough to shadow one eye as he regarded Winnie: not her injury, but her reaction. The control. The refusal to give him what others would have.
Stubborn? Some. In truth, she was echoing him in her defiance. When Winnie had broken the Hufflepuff's finger, and he did not scream or cry. Gideon did not fear the pain, he had learned to relish it. How to twist the pain into something else. She was not reacting, she was trying to take control. Finally. It took mother so much longer.
"You think I don't remember?" Gideon continued, his uncanny confidence the most concerning facet of his nature. "That I don’t catalogue it the same way you do? The sound first. Then the delay. Then the understanding of what it means." Just a wrist. Just a leg. Just a spine. It would take a lot of pain and a lot of shattering to create the sense of vulnerability that elicits fear. He took a measured breath. "I remember everything that matters."
His gaze dipped, finally, to her wrist, not with concern, but with a detached sort of curiosity, as though observing a demonstration rather than a wound. "In such short time, you have changed," Gideon added lightly, "and soon enough you are going to be trying to convince yourself that nothing has changed at all." There it was again, that faint, almost boyish smile. Harmless, if one didn't listen too closely to what lived underneath it.
Then, something unexpected happened, her wand moved. Gideon saw it before the word fully formed. She did not aim for him, but rather what was on the other side of him. Of course she would choose the door. Of course she would try to break something else instead.
The spell cracked through the air, "Confringo!" He knew what that spell was, and it was utterly reckless. She did not know if Aamon was standing directly on the other side of the door, which he was. She did not know what sort of space she was blasting into. Was it cursed? Of course it was. What would the consequence of an explosive force be? Who cares!
Gideon did not step back, he stepped forward. Not into the blast, but into the space before it, hand lifting just enough, his hawthorn wood wand already in motion with a flick so subtle it bordered on lazy. "Finite," he incanted.
The magic buckled, her spell not entirely undone, but distorted, its trajectory collapsing just enough to shatter harmlessly against the frame rather than detonate through it. Splinters of force scattered like broken glass, hissing out into almost nothing. Then his flicked the wand, a final time. A barely there action, hardly more than a tick, but for something as precise of wizardry, it proved 'disastrous.'
Wood groaned under the force of Winnie's spell, the frame bending inward like something trying too late to remember how to be solid. Then came the sound, like Winnie's arm: sharp, splintering, inevitable. The door gave way and burst apart, fragments tearing loose from the rustic frame and wheeling across the threshold.
Gideon exhaled, almost amused.
Would she see it? The wrongness of it? What lay beyond that door was not a room or the common space of a cabin. Rather a place that only pretended to be one. The cabin’s interior stretched wider than it should have, the geometry subtly… incorrect. Walls leaned at angles that did not meet properly. Corners existed where they shouldn't, and didn’t where they should. Yet perception warped the longer one stared, suddenly making uncanny sense in the eerie nonsense.
Aamon was standing, no... huddling there.
"You don't break structures to escape something like this, Winnie," Gideon murmured, voice dipping just enough to feel like a secret rather than a threat. "You break something else." His head tilted again, studying her. Not her pain, not her defiance, but the space behind it. "And you're not quite there yet." Then, with that same unsettling softness, "but you're getting better."
The Path Least Treacherous
‿︵‿୨✿୧‿︵‿
Interacting: @Gideon Athanatos | @Aamon Athanatos
Mentioning: @Mathias Athanatos
Gideon's smile unsettled Winnie, but not like it had that night in the owlery. She was used to smiles that had more of an edge to them, the kind that revealed too many teeth. Not this. Softness looked wrong on Gideon.
Her chest tightened when Gideon mentioned her husband, but this time it was from anger instead of fear. "Don't," she said through gritted teeth, "don't look at me like that. Don't bring him into this. He doesn't need to know." He would just worry, lecture her for going near Gideon once again. She felt guilty for breaking her word, but in her defense this time it wasn't her fault; she had ran into him! She wasn't looking for trouble, it wasn't fair that trouble kept finding her.
Her grip on her wand tightened, the slickness on her palms almost causing it to slip. "You could have fooled me." She shot back so quickly her words almost stumbled over each other. There was still an underlying guilt for what she had done. She had justified it at the time, but ultimately it was a loss of control, a corruption of her innocence. It was something she couldn't bury.
Her eyes followed his gaze when it shifted. Her wrist was starting to flare with pain again, a scream for attention that was becoming more and more difficult to avoid. Her fingers twitched. Healing, her brain so badly wanted it, but she couldn't. Not yet. Her arm curled against her chest, as if cradling her injury.
'In such short time, you have changed.' A denial bubbled in her throat, 'and soon enough you are going to be trying to convince yourself that nothing has changed at all.' Damn him, always one step ahead of her, seeing parts of her she couldn't quite hide. And damn that smile, it was too wrong, too soft. She didn't want him to look at her like that.
She let out a quick breath to try and steady her thoughts, "I suppose you're going to tell me how it's all a part of your plan." When was something not a part of his plan? Maybe when she managed to surprise him, like when she had bound him last time. It was all so infuriating. She already had a puppet master, so why was Gideon trying to weave and pluck threads when she was already tangled in the ones Mathias had prepared?
Her spell was not well thought out, but it was hard to properly think things through when you had someone pushing and prodding at your buttons. Had this been a few years ago she would have just screeched at Gideon and pushed him over. She still reacted quickly, but with a bit more control. As much as she had changed, she was the same impulsive girl underneath it all.
Fortunately her spell would prove to be anticlimactic. A quick slowing spell combined with her blasting spell meant the wooden shards fell slower. She was all too familiar with Finite, it had saved her from breaking bones during falls off her broom. It also would have come in handy when she was pushed off that freaking tower.
She stepped forward to reach towards where Aamon was huddled, but stopped short. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the interior of the cabin. Something felt... Off. The way the walls were angled made it look more like the fun house her mother had brought her to when she was younger.
"Aamon?" She called out, her feet planted to the ground. "Can you hear me?"
│ │ | │ │ | STA: 15 • EVA: 18 • STR: 8 WIS: 11 • ARC: 7 • ACC: 17 | │ │ | • Healing Sage • Muggle Condition • Paragon of Health • • Poison Resistance • Animagus • Wandmaker • | │ │ | │ │ |