deercountry | ★ OCT. (CATCH ALL); open your eyes -- don't let them feed you with their lies.

Ding Dong!

come on, take me closer to the edge now.

(click box for more fancy words.)

(comment here to visit jinx @ her home.)

Edited 2022-10-09 02:31 (UTC)

( Strange things wander at night.

The thing that moves is quiet, tall and thin. It looks like a young man on the surface, with its tangle of dark curls and wide stare. A sleepwalker, maybe, in nighttime clothing: flannel pyjama bottoms and a simple white teeshirt. Feet bare. Perhaps he just slipped out of bed, stole away in the night.

But this is no sleepwalker, and something that only wears the visage of a young man.

The demon king Paimon is often drawn out in the night, when things are quiet. He moves through the city, out towards the dark wood. Sometimes he collects things: shiny items, stones, things that fall from trees. Sometimes he finds places to sit and watch the stillness of the night, dark eyes unblinking. Sometimes he just wanders, tipping into a strange lost place, like a child unsure where it is.

Tonight, he sees something up ahead and it calls to him. There's a soft glow through small windows, high up and tucked amongst the darkness around it. Something within the demon exhales softly, eyes widening further, and he moves closer with a strange obedience. There was a place once, a place that he (or maybe a past life) loved. Safe and secure and his alone. His treehouse.

It's here, he thinks, it's appeared here too, and he finds his way to it, up and in with an inhuman capability. He crawls, long-limbed and too agile, and he's slipping through an opening, he's silently uncurling himself to stand. For a moment, but then.... there's some strange awareness that comes seeping in. Something is off, wrong. The inside looks different, feels and smells different. It isn't his, but it should be his. He doesn't understand.

He's afraid in his confusion, and then he's upset by it. The demon's eyes flash and up he goes, silently crawling against a wall, up to the ceiling where he tucks himself into a corner and stares down, elbows and knees bent like a spider's as he attaches himself there. He doesn't breathe, just stares down with eyes swollen black and wide, pupils practically bursting. Is someone here already? Or will they return? He waits — tense. )

(so this was what they meant by every month, something strange happens. because since this new month started, jinx's been exhausted day in and day out. no matter how much she slept, relaxed, or try to wind down, she just couldn't seem to get any sort of energy flowing. something as simple as getting out of bed, bathing, brushing hair and teeth, was just too much for her. luckily, her spider monkey omen had been some assistance. and honestly, if it wasn't for him, she probably would had killed over on the third day of this. and a night such as this is no different than any other.

jinx exits her bathroom after face washing and teeth all brushed -- yawning with a hand rubbing over her eye. under different circumstances, jinx would had notice something about her home is amiss. after all living in a city like zaun, you had to always be attentive to your surroundings in every given second. in her sleepwear and her long blue locks trailing behind, she bumbles lightly in her footing.

all she needs to do is make it to the couch and then she'll just be done with all the other stupid tasks of the day. the plan is to just eat a little, check any messages, and then off to bed. and thank goodness her omen made those crabmeat sandwiches for the two of them (she made double sure he washed those monkey hands of his).

(she plops onto the couch with an exasperating sigh with an arm over her eyes. when will this crap end? she asks herself. being exhausted was becoming exhausting. but with little strength she has left in her, jinx forces herself to sit up and reach for the sandwich. just a few bites, messages, then bed. she can do this. it's a small list.)

( There's movement — and the demon's eyes snap that way, saucer-wide and staring down. A woman emerges, hair a unique colour, the kind of hue he likes painting with (bright and blue, like candy). She is young, perhaps around his vessel's age. She is sleepy, yawning. All of these are facts he takes in and absorbs without breathing, without moving at all.

He doesn't know her. He doesn't know this. The interior is wrong, the sights and smells are wrong, she is wrong. Paimon bristles, barely shifting as he stares down at her, watches every motion. For awhile, he just observes like that, frozen in stun: watching her eat, check her Omni Device.

Very slowly, he crawls a bit closer. Not pressed into the corner of the ceiling, but beginning to move across it. He's a dark shadow that blends into the shadows themselves, difficult to see.

But his vessel's body is still that of a human's, not some slippery otherworldly thing the way he might be underneath. It moves awkwardly, at times. His arm shifts, and weight pushes upwards, and the wood of the ceiling gives a soft sound, a creak of movement.

The demon, almost directly above where the young woman sits, freezes again— staring right down at her. )

(it's at that sound that instantly travels to her ears. and even if it didn't on its own, her voices are hissing at her harshly to grab her attention.

'something is here. something is here. did you hear it? above. it's up above.'

there's a trance-like look upon her face as she listens to their warnings (even though, they are overlapping), but a sharp little head twitch to snap her back to her reality. so someone or something has a death wish. that's perfectly fine. she hadn't killed anything since she got to trench, and honestly it's way overdue. and although she doesn't move her head to rise any suspicions, jinx still tries to gaze up to the ceiling despite not really able to see anything clear.

one.

in her mind, she begins to count as she gradually curls and uncurls her fingers.

two.

jinx sits more upright in her attempt to pull out any cracks she may have lingers on her shoulders and back.

three!)

(and just like that, she activates her shimmer ability. her eyes violently glow pink as she zips off to the dresser nearby where her pistol rests. and when she moves, her body is like a blur to the naked eye, but a trail of her pinks from the glow to indicate where she moved off to. so with the pistol in hand now, she aims it up at the ceiling where the intruder is lingering. one shot, two shots, three. the bullets are souring through with rapid speed and the demon better be quick if it wants to avoid any body damage. so that's the question for the night: is it fast enough?)

( While literally... everything about his behaviour might suggest it, the demon has no harmful intention, here. Not yet. He's tense and taut and confused, but moving closer to the girl is driven by a curiosity — to understand, to make sense of this bizarre situation. Paimon is a master of illusion, Lucifer's most loyal king; he can make impossible things appear, and yet... this is throwing him for a loop. Is this a trick? An illusion? Is the young woman some sort of witch who has spun his memory into something unfamiliar? This is not his treehouse, but it must be—!

She's there, and then she isn't.

He feels the sweep of her energy, inhumanly fast. At first he thinks teleportation, but then he sees it, the glow of pink like a neon trail, from here to there. The demon startles, crouched low to the ceiling, all long teenage boy limbs and a tangle of wild hair, and suddenly — there is a weapon aimed at him and firing.

If Paimon weren't already familiar with guns and what they can do, he might have stayed right where he is, and Peter.... might have met his first Trench death. As it is, he's been exposed to human weapons in this place and the Dream before, and he knows what they will do. He moves, with a quick, skittering movement, scrambling across the ceiling too fast. Working his host's body past its human limits, and at times he almost seems to fly more than anything, an unnatural floating motion, fingers clawing and propelling himself through the air, upside down.

He launches onto the opposite wall and clings there, neck snapped backwards and black eyes flashing at her. Lips peel back to unleash a sharp, reedy hiss, furious and snake-like. And he sends a wave of abrasive, white-hot energy at the young woman (witch? Enchantress? Something powerful), a swell of force with the intention to send her backwards and hit the wall furthest from him. But he can't be sure he'll succeed; maybe her speed can propel her through such attacks. He isn't sure what he's up against. )

[there are sounds she writes off (fireworks) when they come from upstairs - and there have been many sounds in the last few weeks - this one turns her head and makes the hairs on her neck stand up. it's...

it's gunfire

...she doesn't know. it's hard to tell what's the worry in the blood and what's real intuition, but better safe than sorry and she's too anxious to leave it alone because fuck that. so she's out the window and making her way up the branches of the weirwood (fuck a walkway) until she reaches the edge, hauling herself up to peer into the window, which doesn't show her anything.

so of course, she's going to just let herself in through that window. if she takes a bullet for it? she heals fast and she's halfway versed in first aid. she fumbles with the window a moment, cursing, before managing to slide it up. if she broke it, she'll fix it. she calls out once as she slips in.]

Jinx?

➤ JINX'S TREEHOUSE.

(cw: demonic possession)

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10.8 ➜ event ➜ lost in the woods @ 10:18p

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