The Two that Lurk Pv Kaegen Deathmote Closed

Foraging. That was the name of the game, most days. It was like he was back home, in the fens. He sometimes heard maniacal laughter, or heavy footsteps, and sometimes his brushes with danger were close, but that was okay, that was just how home was, sometimes. Well, all the time.

Food could be found, here and there, usually near the slytherin's dormitory. A cleverly placed trip wire sometimes sent a student tumbling, and if Kaegen was lucky, they'd drop some snacks. He wasn't always lucky, but late at night it was a reasonable assumption that any foot traffic was either up to no good or coming back from a snack run.

Tonight, however, his path was interrupted by a scream. "She's not our mother", or something to that effect. It was worth checking out, primarily because Kaegen wasn't sure what kind of person would even care if someone else was or wasn't their mother. A mother was someone who gave your pre-life growing little meat lump of a body means to survive until you could do it on your own. Was this person so pathetic that they still needed a mother, still needed someone to help them survive, somehow? And if that was the case, how had they not died yet?

It was that logic that prompted kaegen to make his way towards the sound, carefully dodging past pebbles and debris, past the suspicious stone that he had covered with a poorly drawn picture of himself so that it would be fooled into thinking he hadn't moved in the past month, and report false information back to its superiors, and to the fork that he knew would take him directly to the origin of that scream.

It wasn't long before he emerged around a corner, looking a sight worse than even the unsettling doll nestled on the other boy's hand. Kaegen smelled like the dust and mildew of the dungeons, and looked like a discarded candy wrapper that someone had run through a black and white filter right before adding some sickly undertones of yellow. His hair was shaggy, his robes were fading and fraying and way too loose. But the boy in front of him only looked marginally better, it seemed.

For a second, Kaegen wondered if it even was a boy, or some discarded mannequin someone had arranged around what appeared to be a tea set. He had seen some of the girls playing with little dolls around a similar teaset, so maybe a really big girl had decided to play here? No, no, that made no sense at all. If that were true, the tea set would also be bigger. His next explanation made far more sense, and was made up of the simple fact that the boy there was probably dead. Just a rather lively corpse, or something.

His eyes moved from the boy's face, to that of the puppet, trying to decide which was more likely to answer a question, if asked. The boy was probably just a lively corpse someone had discarded here, but the puppet couldn't die, as it was made of cloth, and it was therefore the more reliably alive of the two.

"Is he dead?"

A spidery finger gestured vaguely at Selim with a weird flicking motion, as the ravenclaw began to take the time to smell the tea. It smelled surprisingly good, and it was still warm. Was the teamaker still around? And if so, where? And who had screamed, the puppet? Was the corpse lively enough to speak, as well? Seemed rather unlikely, but he'd seen worse.

"As lost as Alice, as mad as the Hatter."

Selim jolted, a voice had spoken. He looked up and squinted into the darkness, seeing a pale figure. For a while he said nothing, just staring at the being. He couldn't tell if it was just another hallucination or a real person.

"Aku is that a hallucination?" He said, voice lowered to a mutter as he closed his book, slipping it in his ratty bag. The shape looked vaguely familiar, he didn't know where from though, his memory was decaying slowly these days.

The puppet moved closer into the dark, one of its small arms raised as if shielding its eery button eyes. "How would I know?"

Selim scowled, looking at the rabbit, "Well you can control 'the Noises' and keep away Sight Lies, so you must know!"

The rabbit mimicked a sneer with its wide mouth, "That's because I knew when your brain is lying to you. That doesn't mean I know what is a lie and what isn't in the physical world. I'm still a part of you no matter how you try to separate me, Little Raven."

Selim hissed, thudding his free hand against his head, a headache was forming, "What did the maybe-Lie say? What did it say again? I- hn, I missed it. There was a loud not-noise that distracted me."

"Tch. I think it asked if you were dead." The rabbit crossed its arms in annoyance.

Selim frowned, calming now that he wasn't puzzling over if the visitor was real or not, "Well, does it mean to ask if I'm physically dead? Or does it mean to ask if I'm dead in a metaphysical kind of way?

The rabbit's arm smacked him on the head, "Stop asking me idiotic questions. I can only read your mind, not anyone else's!"

Selim let out a hiss. "Fine!"

The rabbit hand puppet sneered at its vessel, before moving about to clean up the empty teacup and bento with its stubby little arms. It almost moved like a separate entity, the boy the puppet was connected to only glancing at the targets for the cloth arms occasionally.

Turning the black-haired boy eyed the figure, his fingers scratched at his neck, as per usual when he was anxious. He asked the Maybe-Lie the base question first. "Are you real?"

He hoped it said no, if it was real then it was a person or monster then he was probably in trouble. Real things were dangerous, Lies weren't. If it was real then he was in danger.

The boy's muscles tensed and he eyed the being warily. The shadows moved about as the freehand holding the wand did. It made everything warp, conjuring phantoms made from his mind's mentalities. He stilled the scratching, hand clenching nervously, and he looked back at Aku.

They had to hurry, if what he feared came true then he'd need to flee. He didn't fancy leaving his homemade tea set behind.

Kaegen waited for the two to stop talking. It was rather rude, to not answer him at all. It was obvious that the puppet could talk, although it almost seemed as though the puppet was puppeting the corpse's voice in order to speak. That made some sense, although it didn't explain how the corpse was talking back. Maybe it hadn't died all the way, or maybe it was just a very lifelike doll. He had never seen a doll in the wild before, or, was it a corpse that someone used as a doll, Kaegen wasn't entirely sure.

In terms of the bizarre, this certainly ranked quite high. He had found things that didn't even seem to be part of his world at all, not even his universe. What person would be host to a puppet, what monster or outcast? Seeing as he had never met any category that puppet life form fell under, he drew the next natural conclusion. This was a thing. It wasn't a person at all, but some kind of complex forged intelligence that had been abandoned. Everything down in the dungeons had been abandoned, at one time or another, only stood to reason that this had as well.

The conversation these two beings were having seemed to be an attempt at computing him, figuring out who Kaegen was. That would make sense, if he hadn't seen anything like this thing, then the thing probably hadn't seen a him. The dull gloss was further wiped from the ravenclaw's eyes when he realized that this meant he had found something entirely other. Something that might not be involved in anything at all, something that was probably just a pair of toys, played with and tossed out like a corn husk doll.

"I'm not real to you, not yet. Do you belong to someone?"

He assumed it would be best to make sure that he wasn't about to commandeer the plaything of some death witch monarch. The risks had to be weighed. His question came out in a raspy, hoarse voice, a voice that sounded like it came from someone with a throat full of dust and unused vocal chords.

"Which one of you is in charge, anyway? Do you vote?"

"As lost as Alice, as mad as the Hatter."

Selim noted that the thing hadn't spoken while he had been speaking, maybe it was a Lie then. That idea was scrapped when it spoke again.

The raven-haired boy tried to process this all and it was giving him another headache, he grumbled dropping his lit wand and plunging them all into darkness again. Darkness was better, darkness didn't give his tired brain migraines.

His eyes slowly adjusted, and he looked over to the shadowy figure. Unlike the visitor, Selim couldn't see in the dark, couldn't see the boy. Honestly, Selim wished he had been some sort of creature of the night, then he wouldn't need to use the stupid wand that never wanted to listen to him.

The headache eased in the twilight, and he blinked, sluggishly trying to dredge up what the figure had asked. "I'm not real to you, not yet."

He blinked frowning as Aku finished putting the teacups in the bookbag, though was unable to grab the teapot as it was too heavy for his stubby arms. "Well... that sounds ominous." The boy asked rather nonchalantly, seeming to have calmed.

The boy asked another question, inquiring if he belonged to someone. Perhaps this question would be odd for most normal people, but it wasn't for Selim. Of course, the raven didn't know that the figure ahead of him had essentially decided that he wasn't human, and was, in fact, a doll.

Well, he wasn't entirely wrong, Selim was basically a human doll to his clan, hardly something worth putting emotional effort into. Though more often than not Selim likened himself to a weapon rather than a human; so the question, in that regard, made sense.

"I am, but I don't like them, and they don't care much about me beyond being their tool." He huffed. Picking up his wand he put the finicky thing in its holster.

Aku spoke up with a cruel voice, "Well you were rather good at being one over the summer...~" The rabbit practically purred, "So I don't blame them... Ah, remember the blood? The silent screams? Truly a marvelous time."

Selim physically flinched at that, curling into himself as the memories churned up at those words. He slammed his hands over his ears, closing his eyes and forcefully pushing them down as Aku laughed beside him.

There was a few moments of silence before the rabbit spoke in response to the figure's next question (Selim relayed the answer reluctantly through the puppet).

"I usually let him have free reign, but if I want something of him, he'll do it. I don't give him too much of a choice in the matter..." Aku said, chuckling darkly after. Selim grimaced.

Selim slowly brought himself out of his own head, looking over at the figure as he calmed once more, clamping down on the rage bubbling up his throat. "Why are you here? Are you going to hurt us?" He asked toon level, almost lacking any personality from before.

He studied the figure, his arm shifting so the rabbit was facing the same direction.

Yellow eyes glinting faintly, the boy cast his gaze to the shadows churning around them. His fingers began twitching as he saw eyes starkly staring back at from the darkness, familiar ones, like the shadow that killed Victor. Hand shaking he looked back at the figure, forcing his focus onto them.

He wasn't sure how this was going to play out, but he could feel his daggers' hilts poking out of his bookbag. He had weapons, he knew how to use them, but, like many, he was at a disadvantage in the dark.

It would likely be better to flee if things took on a dangerous turn. He was vaguely familiar with the dungeons by now, having explored them most of that year and the last. Likely he could run without stumbling too much...

He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, taking up what little energy he had. Blood rushed in his ears and he could sense his pulse palpitate in his neck. He looked flighty, like prey; not very unexpected with all he'd been through. He was trained as an assassin, strike from the shadows, do it quick, try your best not to fight your target head-on.

That technique wouldn't work well here, so he'd have to resort to retreating.

The raven watched on, face blank and at the ready. The rabbit waited, amused.

He noticed that the puppet had already started packing away the small things, placing them securely in the little bag, that seemed somehow suited for all these little things. He wasn't about to actually up and help the puppet, not yet, but he did take note. It was no surprise, then, when the puppet revealed that it was the parasite, but it was also what was in charge. It was probably just too tiring to maintain control over that corpse-doll for extended periods of time. The chuckle seemed oddly out of place, as though the puppet didn't know what a joke was. But that wasn't any of the Ravenclaw's concern.

The question from the doll was a good one. Was he going to hurt them? No. Kae saw a resource in front of him, something that wasn't going to betray him, because it couldn't. This was no boy, it was a thing, long forgotten in the darkest recesses of the dungeons. What was a boy like that, to him? A tool, just like whoever held the reigns now. They wouldn't care if he was taken, probably because they could make more of him. But to kae? He had no idea how to make a corpse-doll, much less one infected by a puppet-parasite. No, this was a chance he was going to have to take advantage of.

Kae walked quietly to the boy, reaching out a spidery finger to place on selim's forehead, slowly and smoothly, his eyes the glazed glass orbs of a disinterested corpse. He did look like a tired corpse, emaciated and hungry, unearthly and inhuman. He was a monster of the dark, a monster of hogwarts' halls. Kaegen deathmote, the monster.

Assuming he succeeded in placing that single finger, he would begin to speak clearly, although still in his raspy, hoarse, unpleasant voice.

"A tool thou were't and art, a hammer, knife, plaything. By the power given me by me, Kaegen Deathmote, Fens-born Scarf-bearer, Monster of hogwarts' halls, survivor of death I give to you a new name and life. You told me once, a long time ago that you did not like your masters. I give you now name and life, I make myself real to you and you real to me. I break your chains with the hatred that could make the castle quake, I break them with the hands that struck even the professors of this place. I bring to-"

Kaegen stopped, coughing, trying to catch his breath, reset his voice, carry on with whatever ritual he had tried to set in motion. His voice was not meant for this, it had been so long, his throat was so sore. Taking a ragged breath, he continued, eyes sharpening just enough to stare the corpse-doll in the eyes.

"I reforge those chains, trying you to me. And your name, from now until you have voluntarily broken what I have crafted your name shall be Tea, promise-warden, Third hand of the monster."

Assuming that there was no interruptions, Kae would cough again, placing his finger this time on aku's forehead.

"As your host was bound so too are you. One and the same in sharing life-blood, one and the same in promises. Your name shall be mushroom, cloth-smile, second head of the monster."

Kaegen sat back, apparently satisfied in having fixed some problem.

"I'm real now."

"As lost as Alice, as mad as the Hatter."

The figure simply watched for a while, seeming to mull over something, and then it moved. Selim flinched back as the thing touched his face with five fingers, then froze. He could feel it, it wasn't one of the Lies.

The being began to speak in an old fashion, voice croaking and grainy, and Selim observed with wide eyes, Aku watching on silently.



They coughed, as Selim attempted to process the words, recognizing the name of the boy encountered in the dungeons that Slytherin foolishly tried to explore. Between the spindly figures of the now-identified Dhampir, Selim's amber orbs seemed to glow, pupils slitting, and he locked eyes with the older boy.



Selim's brows furrowed as he was given another name, now he had three, apparently. His mind scrambled to come up with some sort of response, torn between wondering if that was an actual binding chant, or just brought forth from the Dhampie's similarity warped mind.

He took in a sharp breath as the older boy's palm was removed from his face, a chill running down his spine. Looking over as his arm was nudged, he saw the Dhampir's finger was pressed against Aku's head, a much shorter chant recited, and a name bestowed upon the cruel voice.



For a while Selim sat there in silence, eyes unfocused as he tried to compute what the hell just happened. His hazy brain was inclined to take this 'chant' on as a contract, better to treat it as real than to treat it as fake and risk getting backlash from some sort of curse.



He swallowed roughly, and Aku spoke up, voice tinted in amusement. "Should we consider this as a contract then?" The puppet tilted his head, staring at the Dhampir.

Selim's mind finally caught up, and he posed another question after Aku's first one was answered, "You know, my clan, the ones I belong to, will just... take me back over the summer..." He shifted uneasily, unsure as to how to address the person who just decided to up and claim him. "They're strong and have many numbers..."

Aku had gone quiet, Selim could hear him mulling over the uses of having a Dhampir as an ally. Typical, he didn't see people as much more than tools for his use either.

His eyes scanned the dungeons as he thought about how to take the whole situation. he mused that the idea of telling the Dhampir that unless his words were infused with magic or something he was really bound to him. He felt like the odd boy would refuse such a fact, and it was a rather useless thing to point out since Selim had decided that it was fine to be 'bound' to another master. At least this one recognized his presence as more than just a tool.

Now he was a hand, a step up, he thought sardonically.

He wasn't quite sure how the Dhampir would fair against a small village of trained fighters though... The stealth and swiftness of their attacks were rather overwhelming.

At least his third name was ok, Tea wasn't a bad name, though one was more likely to use it for a pet of theirs than on another human. He did Snicker at Aku's first second name though.

'Pfft... Mushroom...'

'Shut up, Tea.' The voice growled, Selim not repeating it out loud. 'At least I'm a 'Head', you're just a hand, he likely considers me to actually be the one in charge....' The rabbit sneered mentally. Selim growled.

The 2nd year focused his attention back on the Dhampir, "So... what exactly is your intended use of us?"

Kaegen stared oddly back at the puppet, almost as though he was amused, or surprised at the question. He had assumed that his new head would have been a little more perceptive, but that was okay. They had been tossed aside, hadn't they? It was most likely because they were faulty in some way. That didn't matter to Kaegen, though, he had always worked with faulty equiptment. His faulty equiptment.

"Shall we consider these to be stones?

Reaching into his robes, Kaegen pulled out a little altoid tin with distinct marker on it's brushed lid that stated clearly 'Stones. (Verified)'. What did mushroom think he had just done? Said hello? Of course it was a contract, a contract that had already been placed in full effect, a contract that Kaegen considered to have more than enough power behind it, power that would probably cancel out at least one death witches' attempt to nullify the bond. Maybe even two, but he didn't like to be overconfident.

"No. They won't. If they wanted you they should have taken better care of you. They've lost their chance. Numbers aide conflict, but hinder-"

Kaegen paused. Should he keep talking, reveal anything else, share his wisdom, his learnings? Probably, after all, how else would this doll keep up with his plans. Not even slightly aware of how he appeared, having suddenly frozen like a deer in the headlights, Kaegen continued.

"If numbers were all it took then suffering would not exist in this world. The numerous would have won, then they would have starved. Such is nature. That is why someone must always survive, someone must always live for themselves, in the shadows. It is a part of all realities, tea. If your reality leads you back to those who would lay false claim to you time and time again, join mine instead."

Kaegen poked at the ground, idly, as he listened to them talk. It didn't matter to him if they had disagreements, the wolf packs would often nip at each other when restless, it was the way of things. He wouldn't interfere. He was, however, soon afterwards asked a question regarding what he intended to use them for. That was something he had to interfere with. It was, after all, a question for him.

"What do you do with your arms?

"As lost as Alice, as mad as the Hatter."

At the response the odd Dhampir gave to Aku's inquiry about that little chant being a contract, the rabbit laughed, seeming amused even as Selim stared in mild bafflement at the tin of rocks.
"I see, I see." The puppet turned to look at the confused 2nd year he was attached to, "Well, Tea, I suppose that's another contract to add to our ever-growing list of them. I must say though, this one is by far my favorite." The smaller boy snapped out of it, looking at the hand puppet and rolling his eyes.

The next response, though, made both of them pause as they listened to the logic of the being before them, eyes attentive.

After it was complete, Selim looked to the ground, thinking on the subject. He wasn't sure if the Dhampir would change his opinion if he knew the full picture of his backstory, but to find out he'd need to reveal exactly that, and put himself at even more risk.

The smaller boy bit his lip, tearing at the chapped skin by habit. Aku, in the meantime, tilted his head when the eldritch upperclassmen froze as if realizing he had almost released confidential information.

Selim continued to ponder. What did he really have to lose by running from his clan? Even if they caught him whatever punishment they'd dole out would have next to no effect on him. He had been through torment and suffering long enough to grow rather callous to it. Even if they ended him for his insubordination, it would hardly be a punishment for the broken boy.

His mind drifted to his older brother... they did have him... but he was also considered a valuable weapon to the Faust clan, would they really end his life? Trade the life of an efficient, immaculate sword for a shipped and broken dagger?

Perhaps... but his brother would take care of himself. In fact, Selim wouldn't be surprised if the boy even approved of his avoidance of their clan.

For even one summer of freedom, the pros outweighed the cons.

He thought of how he was treated by the clan, the memory of them speaking of him like a pawn while he stood at the side like an obedient dog, the memory of that man's screams as his father forced him to dirty his hands unwillingly.

A burbling fire rose up in the boy, and inside his headspace, Akuryō cackled. His gaze rose to lock on to his upperclassmen's, an intense loathing in his gaze that writhed like a maggot-filled corpse, obviously having been locked away for far too long. It was then that he spoke, a low, malicious growl underlying his words as if a demon had been awoken.

"You're right... his eyes became half-lidded with venom, amber burning sharply, "I suppose they do deserve to lose one of their dogs if they don't know how to care for it." He hissed, posture straight, almost oppressive with how much unstable hatred was oozing out of it. "Perhaps one day I'll be able to strike back." A dark grin that promised pain, the rabbit at his side chuckled darkly.

"For now though, we're both satisfied with simply taking their precious tool away." Aku's cruel voice scratched out, head lolling to the side and toothed maw agape in a ghastly grin.

Selim looked back to their new 'owner', a darkly satisfied smile still curling his lips up. "We'll join your reality until our own mind breaks down into nothing but madness." Perhaps not until then, they'll forge their own reality one day, one bathed in the blood of those that wronged them... but for now, it was time to step out of the cage their father had forged for them.

Of course, the next response from the Dampir ruined the moment slightly;



Selim cocked his head like a confused cat, "Uhh... move them? Scratch them when the Lies become too much??..." Did the Dhampir meant hands? Seeing as how Selim was dubbed a hand... maybe he forgot. No matter though.

The boy turned away, pouring out the last of the tea onto the dungeon floor before packing it away in his bookbag and folding up the picnic blanket so it hung easily on his shoulder. Grabbing the strap of the ratty bag, he slung it over its head so it rested at his right side. After whatever remained of the last topics dwindled off he spoke up, scratching idly at his neck with his un-puppetfied hand.

"Well... now what?" A frown pulled at his surface-torn lips, and Aku snorted in wry amusement at the results of the strange situation they had found themselves in. Having a tea party was the plan to escape their other peers, not ending up claimed by a Dhampir who looked about as dead as they themselves did.

Where to go from such an odd scenario?

He could feel it, feel this sort of hate oozing from tea. No, not sort of hate, it was hate. Tea had opened the same box he had, had used the same method in order to survive, it was weaker, sure, but it was there, it was there and it could be used. Kaegen didn't know how much this doll knew, or how much the puppet knew either, for that matter. It was a gamble however he sliced it, but it wasn't as though an object could choose to betray him. And besides, he noted, as goosebumps travelled up and down his spine, this felt too familiar to not look in to further.

Further, still, the invitation was accepted. A portal opened, a dimension crossed. This puppet and it's puppet, tea and mushroom, now inhabitants of Kaegen's reality, a reality of brambles and mazes and twisted thinking and illogical logic. A reality of contradictions and unfairness and nature that defied itself. It was where Kaegen hid from the other worlds, it was where he lived. You had to find it, his reality, in order to touch him. That was the way of things.

"It's not so hard to strike back at something larger than yourself. You simply survive until the tides turn. Survive, survive, survive, and then make sure your enemies don't. Someone used to fight the world. Their name were Fighter-Kaegen, Shield-Kaegen. Chronicler-Kaegen and Hope-Kaegen."

He had mixed up the singular and the plural, on purpose or on accident, it was unclear. Perhaps a slip of the tongue, or a marginal window into a mind that employed curtains as general practice.

"You've shown me why you haven't shattered yet, so let me show you why I have not yet died. Let me show you why I will not die."

Hate provided life. Spite provided reason for the life that hate provided. What did you do, without them? Kaegen wasn't sure, he could scarcely remember. He had a vague idea that he had at one time had something else to hold on to, but maybe that was someone else, maybe he was recalling someone else's memories, someone else's experiences.

Visualization helped him, but not when it came to the past. He hadn't actually tried, if you were being fair about it, but he had a feeling it wouldn't. No, what visualization was for, were emotions. Locked away in a little mason jar, up there in his mind. And it only took a little while, only took imagining himself finding that jar, tucked away in a corner, jostling and bumping and trying to get somewhere. Then all he had to do was imagining it opening, just a crack...

The sensory effect was immediate. An unsettling breeze, blowing from nowhere at all, the paltry light available to them flickering, fading, holding on to life as hard as it could, but it was almost as if a veil had been placed squarely over dungeons. Temperature dropping down to the floor as the shadows began to writhe around the Ravenclaw. What were once calm, greyish-blue eyes had begun to glow, illuminating red rings around the pupils set in a stormcloud grey backdrop that almost seemed as if it belonged on an animated chocolate frog card.

The whole dungeon seemed to spring to life in an instant, life spurred on by fear, a fear that hit whatever was around Kaegen, even if they couldn't see him, with the kind of terror that reminded some of ice-cold talons. The only things, alive or dead, that were not subject to his hatred were those who simply did not know fear. The hate was obvious, but it was laced with far more. Predatory hunger, doom, dread and despair and 15 years of suffering condensed and weaponized to such a degree that it threatened to physically paralyze.

And as quickly as it spread, it vanished. The mason jar lid was replaced, the master of the castle of avarice returned to his role as the key-keeper. And the dungeon, little by little, settled back down as if nothing had ever happened.

"Yes. You move them, and you do things. Just as I survive, so too will you. When you are cut, I bleed. And when I am about to be cut, we both either deflect, or dodge. Simple, yes? Now..."

Kaegen sat down, clearly not intending to go anywhere for the near future.

"...Tell me what you know"