Shadows Over Camp Darkness

Gideon dropped off her newest Intake at the Mess and Meet and then immediately escaped outside the moment she had a clear path to do so. By now she could recite everything the Dragon was going to say, word for flipping word and it would drive her mental to stay for it all again. So as had become long tradition, she skipped it, slid outside and found her friends had the same lack of patience she did. It was good to see the witch and the golem again, even though they’d met up a few times in the year the Camp was closed, it hadn’t quite been the same.

“You know what? I actually kind of missed this place.” Xavier confessed with an almost nostalgic look on his face. It was an odd expression on the almost granite visage.

“Really? I actually kind of feel like this is going to be my last year here.” Lisa admitted with a shrug. Her words made something in Gideon’s stomach sour and her internal Fury grumbled something to her but Gids kept her darker aspect tucked away still.

“Great that means we’ll have to break in a new Counsellor to you replace you!” Gideon tried to sound jokingly disgusted with the concept. “You looking forward to that one boulder boy?” she asked the golem, expecting a smart ass remark. But Xavier suddenly looked away, his entire demeanour giving away his thought process. The golem had never really been able to hide his internal emotions well at all. “You too? But you just said that you’d missed this place!” Gideon felt another sharp pang but couldn’t explain why. Like all things she couldn’t figure out, she ignored it to handle later; when there weren’t witnesses to see it if things got messy.

“Well yeah, but it’s not the same now is it? It’s like going home for holidays after finally moving out. You miss what you had back then but going back to it just reminds you even more how it’s not the same fit it was before you left.” He tried to explain, seeming to realize that the Fury wouldn’t understand. Then again, using a familial metaphor would be lost on her as well and he should have known that too.

“Exactly.” Lisa nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve actually applied to go to Dusk University. I might get a partial scholarship thanks to all my work here too.” She sounded so excited by the prospect that Gideon managed to plaster a convincing smile to her face when inside things felt a lot less happy.

“That’s amazing!” Xavier enthused.

He might be made of earth, clay and rock but it was Gideon who suddenly felt like a statue, a false look of cheer chiselled into her features to match her friends. She didn’t know what to say and she had no clue why her belly felt so twisted. It was almost as if a phantom had thrust a barb into her gut and wrenched it around, but there was no would or blood to indicate a physical attack. It still felt eerily similar to her though and her internal darkness was trying to respond as if it was a life or death situation. Her friends continued on, oblivious to her shell shocked silence.

“I’ve got a chance to work at a placement for witness protection. Since I’m a golem I’m a great guard and naturally inclined for the work.” Xavier sounded so proud. And even though Gideon could readily imagine him in the role, part of her wanted to deny the idea at the same time. It was a surreal sensation.

The Fury was actually wishing she had stayed inside to endure the meaningless babbling speeches that the kids were enduring right now. They were tedious, repetitive and mind numbing, but safe in their familiarity. The routine she had felt at odds with only this morning suddenly felt safe and secure compared to the nebulous, different futures her friends were talking about. Her guts felt pierced, her chest felt vulnerable and she had a weird sensation that her feet had been kicked out from under her and yet she was standing firmly in place, unwounded.

“How about you Gids? What are you going to do when you leave this place?” the witch finally turned the question on Gideon, forcing the Fury to confront a future she’d never considered.

But Gideon didn’t have an answer for her best friend. The truth was that most Furies never lived to full maturity and were almost never incorporated into civilian life. As a species they’d been biomagically engineered, raised to be brutal yet efficient killers and used as pawns in the Human-Portentum war. It’s why so many Portentum creatures feared her kind. The Humans had engineered them to be living, trainable, expendable weapons of mass destruction. Her kind was unnatural; designed not bred. Gideon could count on the fingers of her hands how many Furies had ever lived to work as something other than a soldier or weapon; and that tally included herself here at the Camp. She simply didn’t know what life outside death, violence and the Camp would be like. Thankfully she was spared from having to express any of that when Virgil ambled out of the building, veering over to the trio once he spotted them.

“Hello trouble!” the Loki called out, grinning as the three of them all made protesting noises of innocence. He hooked a thumb back at the Mess and Meet with a disgusted look on his face. “You know what boils my brain? I was one of those mouth breathers in there myself not too long ago. Maybe a little less pathetic but still… oblivious. But it seems to me that this lot is especially…” he trailed off, waving his hand in the air as if groping for the right word.

“Vacant?” Xavier suggested.

“Helpless.” Lisa offered, almost speaking at the same time the golem had.

“Lost.” Gideon said confidently and Virgil just grunted agreement with all three descriptors. It was the same with every intake they’d ever had but the Loki was having his first experience with playing the responsible part so he hadn’t grown accustomed to it yet.

“Glad it’s you all stuck with them and not me. Do you know how hard I have to shield from the pure angst oozing out of there right now? Let alone having to resist the temptation to stuff their own emotions back down their throats…” he shuddered. And Gideon knew her Loki boyfriend was only half joking, he had come to the Camp himself to learn to not manipulate other’s emotions like that.

“You poor thing you.” Gideon mocked him with a teasing pout. “Anyone interesting in your intakes this year?” she jumped on the chance to change the topic of conversation.

“I’ve got a Faerie with anorexia.” Xavier admitted with a grumble.

“How the hell… they’re so tiny to begin with! This one trying to disappear entirely?” Lisa asked, incredulous. They all started to discuss their various intakes and impressions of them so far, giving each other advice on how to potentially help and what problem would likely crop up over the next six weeks. Gideon kept her sigh of relief internal, revelling in the sensation that they had gone back to old times again.

“So are you sticking with the six rules approach?” Virgil asked as they headed back inside. The advantage to the speeches never changing was that it was very easy to set a timeline on the whole pedantic day.

“It’s worked well for me so far convict, I see no reason to change it.” Gideon stated with confidence. Grinning as Virgil rolled his eyes at her nickname for him. A holdover from when he was one of her intakes.

As they walked into the Mess and Meet the smile jumped off Gideon’s face and she nearly stopped dead in her tracks as the sudden scent of pure gibbering terror hit her nose. Other odors of fear wafted in the air like a perfume as well; from the confused fear where the unknown is both more and less intimidating than it should be, to the scent of a panicked crowd that was feeding off of each other’s anxiety. It was far from the normal fear Gideon smelled on the kids by now, above and beyond what should have been emanating from them just now.

Gideon felt her internal Fury react to the level of fear, swimming up to the surface and holding just under her skin should she need to react and attack. It wouldn’t show on her face or body yet, but her voice would give it away when she spoke. Her eyes darted around the room, training and instinct cataloguing the details. Councillor Jasper’s satisfied smirk, the way that those seated closest to her were all leaning away from her specifically, her intake all pale faced and the source of the terror scent but for one who smelled of calm acceptance; almost a lazy smell of madness. Furtive glances were shot her way from the rest of the intakes, fear silencing the whispers that would otherwise fill the auditorium with a murmured susurration of sound. And the final clue was how sad and tired the Dragon looked when he caught her gaze.

On the other side of the crowd, Lisa had caught the same tension in the air, using her eyes instead of her nose. She flicked her hands, using sign language to communicate with Gideon. *Looks like the cat is out of the bag on what you are*

Gideon didn’t reply, she didn’t need to say anything. It had been the same conclusion she’d drawn herself. It wasn’t an ideal situation, she liked to have the intakes get to know her personally before they started to react to her heritage and now it would be an uphill fight to have them react to her in anything but fear. She’d managed it before in the past, and she’d succeed now but it would be a lot harder work for the Fury. None of this showed on her face though, instead she just drank in the looks and smells and aura of fear that they all broadcasted at her and grinned at those brave enough to look at her.

“BOO.” Her Fury voice was husky and seductive sounding, making several people startle in their seats. Jasper glowered at her, hateful as ever, Doctor Cyr sighed in resignation and her Loki, Virgil, simply laughed.  Let the games begin.