Work Text:
When the summer heat of the day subsides to give way to an evening chill it’s time for stories to be spun. It doesn’t take much prodding for the Sorcerer to agree, between four sets of pleading eyes the man is rendered completely defenseless. Not that Fiona would ever admit to pleading but according to his kids, Jack has a knack for storytelling and an undying love for the sound of his own voice so when there’s nothing better to do, why not indulge .
And that’s how the group finds themselves in an orchard behind the castle, unnatural trees and plants of every variation - Rhys’ creation as he happily explains. That’s where he experiments with his magic, some of the flora looking borderline dangerous but it seems to mean them no harm.
With a small fireplace crackling and a couple of orbs of gleaming light conjured by the Sorcerer, the place looks magical, easily adding to the intimate atmosphere, blankets and sheets spread over the thick layer of grass to ward off the chill and dew. The Sorcerer, Jack, she has to remind herself, his prosaic name stupidly contrasting with the larger than life attitude the man carried like a mask, looks out of place, lazily sprawled on the ground and with his back propped against a looming willow. Then again, Fiona reckons, being the proclaimed evil embodied, couldn’t be a full time job. Rhys nestles right by his side, positively glued to the man ever since his return, although, from what Angel has told them, that’s nothing unusual. -His- sister, sits right next to -her- sister and Fiona’s nostrils flare at how close the two are sat, clearly, the castle’s inhabitants had it out for Sasha, the wooing, the stolen kisses, threats to eat her and now this. That’s something she’ll need to deal with, maybe tomorrow, the atmosphere is simply too pleasant to start another quarrel with the master of the place.
“So tell me, what kind of story do you want tonight?” In preparation for the story, Fiona stuffs a pinch of baccy into her pipe, murmuring an offended ‘thank you’ when the Sorcerer leans over to dip the tip of his forefinger into the flared open end. A tiny spark and soon, a soft gust of wind carries the scented smoke across their temporary camp.
“About you!” There is a collective roll of eyes at Rhys’ overexcited quip but there is no denying that it has piqued all of their interest. A man with Jack’s experience has to have enough adventures to re-tell to last them a whole year, maybe two given his apparent penchant for embellishments.
“Tell us how you became the Sorcerer, that’s one story I’ve never heard, nor do I have many memories from that period…” there is a weird imbalance between how Jack treats his kids, the man seems to absolutely adore Angel despite constantly receiving a cold shoulder from her while Rhys is mostly treated like an annoying stray, always hot on Jack’s heels and demanding every sliver of attention. One thing is certain however, they both have their ways to make their father dance to their tune without realising he’s being manipulated. And so despite his grumbling that it isn’t going to be a -fun- story and he’d rather talk about his sexual conquests, Rhys’ disgustingly adoring expression and Angel’s feigned disinterest, easily convince him. Jack takes a deep breath and begins.
“My origins are humble, a city-dweller boy, promised to become the local locksmith’s apprentice, however, such a mundane profession could not really be on par with my greatness, huh?”
Jack had started simple, in a suburban area littered with workshops and modest housing for the workforce that tended to stick to that part of the city. But that life never felt like it was enough, he knew he was meant for greatness, for power and luxury, and there was only one place that could offer just that. The day he came of age, with a pocketful of stolen gold and a knife sunk into his only relative’s back, he was ready to head out, to leave the ordinary life and make a name for himself. East to the kingdoms laid a fortress, built over an even more ancient structure and said to be home to the most powerful people in the realm. Hyperion. The college of magi.
“You got accepted.”
“Obviously.” The Sorcerer only snorts in response to the statement.
“So you were an apprentice once? Just like me?”
“Obviously, dumb thing. I wasn’t born with all that knowledge.” Rhys seems simultaneously dejected when his image of the powerful man crumbles and, for whatever reason, elated, his mixed emotions quickly overcome with a quiet yelp when he earns a good tug to his ear for asking stupid questions.
“A conglomeration of mages, wasn’t that frowned upon?” To Fiona’s knowledge, magic is said to be the root of all evil, its wielders mercilessly hunted across the lands belonging to the currently ruling king.
“Two and a half century ago? Nope.” Jack pops his ‘p’ with a mischievous smirk. Sure the man must have been fairly old given that his reputation had even the elders averting their eyes and covering in fear but with this additional information, Fiona has to rethink her previous statement about needing two years to hear all of his stories. Twenty would probably be more accurate.
Rhys murmurs something about Jack being old as balls and gets a rough clip around the head.
“Back then, it was a fairly well respected profession. Some even became the king’s advisors.”
“And just anyone could join? I can’t imagine a simple city boy being all that well received…” The curiosity is clear in Sasha’s voice as she scoots closer and her sister can only share the eagerness.
“Of course not, there were...trials to weed out the unworthy. But magic isn’t an innate ability, it comes from years upon years of studies lest one may end up consumed by it. What varies however is the pool of power a future mage is able to draw from, and not everyone possesses enough.”
“What about me? Do I have enough? Can you teach me any spells?” Fiona hides her smirk behind a puff of smoke, glad that it was Sasha voicing those questions even though, she, herself, wouldn’t be opposed to learning that trick with fire. That would save her the trouble of having to deal with firesteel.
“No!” The resounding answer comes both from the Sorcerer and Rhys, the former briefly eyeing the other with a crooked eyebrow while the latter sends a death glare towards the girl.
“Child,” Jack sounds exasperate, “I have my hands full with one apprentice, I don’t need any more trouble…”
“...besides,” Rhys interjects, puffing out his chest and crossing both arms over his chest, “a Sorcerer does not give away knowledge for free and just because someone is an incompetent fool.” He seems to be parroting someone else’s words, getting all the more fluffed up when Sasha snatches some of the snacks he has brought to the campfire, and tells him that ‘magic is for losers anyway’. Fiona can only agree, no magic trick is worth having to put up with Jack’s attitude. An attitude which seems to be rather strange when directed towards his kid, a hand coming up to scratch against Rhys’ scalp when he protectively shimmies closer to the man. For some unexplainable reason, Rhys acs jealous about a possibility of Jack sharing his knowledge with somebody else, why though, Fiona cannot tell.
“Quiet you two, just let me continue.” With Rhys placated by the attention he’s receiving and Sasha busy munching on her seized snacks, Jack is allowed to move on with the story.
Life at the Hyperion wasn’t easy, everybody, students and scholars alike, only looked after themselves but Jack loved it, he loved the vast knowledge just begging to be taken and he loved the backstabbing atmosphere. He excelled at his chosen subjects, blood magic, destruction and necromancy, anything else, history mostly, held little of his interest making the young mage ditch the lectures more often than not. His restlessness drove him into aimless loitering about the fortress, mostly unsupervised and as one of the more promising apprentices, left to his own devices. That was until he had stumbled across a firmly guarded secret, hidden in the bowels of the dungeons and chained with powerful wards.
A corpse, wrapped in chains that gleamed with words etched into them and a presence, sticking to the walls of the room like tar. It called to him, a siren’s song, not in his ears but at the base of his skull, crawling down his spine, an irresistible pitch and a whispered oath. The air was heavy, clinging to his lungs on every inhale, the same strange condensation that quietly dripped from the ceiling and Jack was careful , oh so careful to not let it touch his skin. There was immeasurable power there, a force to be reckoned with and something that could bring whole worlds down and yet, despite fear, Jack was consumed by lust.
“What are you?” It was hard to push the words around the lump in his throat but the entity seemed to drink them straight from his lips, a certain kind of starvation driving it to claw at the young mage’s presence.
“I am Hyperion.” The answer, not spoken but rather seeped directly into his mind, came with a flash of images, feelings and emotions he couldn’t piece together. One thing was certain, it hungered for freedom, denied and cruelly taken away.
Jack ran, like he never did before in his life and after that, he never skipped his history lectures.
“That… sounds familiar.” Rhys is absentmindedly rubbing the palm of his right hand, shoulders slumped and looking somewhat dejected.
“Correct.”
Not only did he never again skip history, the need to learn everything about the thing living in the basement had consumed the apprentice, an obsession only beginning to bloom at that point. It took some snooping around the restricted area of the library and some prodding the older scholars for the veil covering the truth to slowly begin lifting. What he had found in the dungeons, was an ancient being, enslaved by the founders of the college, now used as a powerhouse to all the magic happening upstairs, the creature gradually drained of its lifeforce and giving name to the school in the first place.
But if bound to a single user… the possibilities were endless even more so when he discovered it had a servant, a guard that laid in deep slumber until its master could be fred to answer its call. The Destroyer. The informations about it were scarce, warnings about its destructive nature taking over any actual data. But Jack was relentless, scavenging every scrap and carefully stitching it together, a new goal in his life he was more than blindly dedicated to. He needed a host, to breath life into the malicious being, someone that would obey him without as much as a single question.
“So uhh… is -that- Hyperion?” Before Fiona can get surprised at the sudden question, Rhys is pointing towards his alien arm and suddenly things click, the kid was infected, often speaking of his right limb as it was a separate being. It has her deeply shocked, angry that someone who was supposed to protect his kid has apparently used his own offspring as a host. Because what other reason could there be? The Sorcerer has already proven to be… unhinged, oscillating between destructive tendencies towards his boy and aggressive tenderness.
“No, child. The one you carry calls itself Atlas.” He moves to ruffle Rhys’ hair, the kid only scoffs and immediately tries to fix his hairstyle. “There is more of them. Seven maybe eight I can pin a name to, probably more, lulled into some kind of dormant state, wordlessly observing the world and waiting. What for, I do not know but I reckon, nothing good.”
There were more of them, Atlas with its gargoyle servant Warrior, Vladof who commanded the Sentinel and others, their intentions unclear but Jack wasn’t going to let them catch him off guard. If they were waiting and preparing for the end of the world, so was Jack. Not long after that, he had lost his wife, the woman giving up her life to bring a little miracle to the world. Little Angel was brimming with power and it did not take him much to figure out a solution to his problem. What stronger a bond and devotion than that of a parent and child.
He grew more volatile, snapping at anyone who dared interrupt his studies and conducting experiments that were better left shrouded by the past. It was only a matter of time for other students’ and teachers’ respect to turn into fear of his obsession and lust for power. They feared him and Jack revelled in that. They all feared him, all but one. While mages were more than capable of standing their ground, they were lacking in a... more physical aspect, most of them scrawny bookworms so needing additional protection was only natural, a contingent of the king’s guards permanently stationed at the fortress, the guardians and lawbringers. Commanded by the most striking woman he had ever met. Nisha. She got him, she just got him and day by day, Jack was more in love. Unlike his wife, a gentle if rather skittish thing, the commander was merciless, driven by the same instincts as Jack and she was the first and only one he had confessed to about his findings. Between the two of them and Angel who, with his subtle prodding, was growing stronger with every passing day, they could take on the world. But it was the world which had decided to take on them first.
“Wait, wait wait wait…” Sasha, who has been progressively scooting closer to the Sorcerer’s daughter, tears her eyes from the man and instead, centers them on Angel, “does that mean he has experimented on -you-?”
“Yup.” Angel doesn’t seem fazed in the least, grabbing the last remaining snack and chewing on it with a somewhat disgusted look on her face. “Eww, I hate human food. I prefer food made of humans anyway…” she spits it out and runs both of her hands over her front, smoothing out the short hairs covering her lower body, “...but it did turn out fairly alright if you ask me, having eight legs is far superior to just two punny poles.”
“That’s my girl!” The Sorcerer gets only a scowl in return but that doesn’t manage to bring his obnoxious cheer down.
“Does he… do things to you too?” Fiona’s attention shifts to Rhys who clearly isn’t listening, staring at the Sorcerer with a dreamy expression on his face. “Hey! Rhys, moron, I’m talking to you!”
“Wh..?” Her fingers snapping before his face finally seem to drag him out of whatever daydream he’s stuck in and back to reality, although, apparently, not completely. “Does he… ah yeah, totally…” he waves his hand dismissively and returns to staring.
“Jaaaack…” there is a nearly inappropriate, drawn out mewl to the word and Fiona is left pondering strange reactions the Sorcerer’s kids seemed to have towards his abuse. She’s obviously missing something crucial here. “Jack, you were in -love-.” The kid is positively giddy, starstruck even, his words puzzling even to the man in question if the look he briefly shares with her is anything to go by. There is no telling what goes on in Rhys’ head currently and in the end, they collectively choose to ignore his antics.
Fiona reckons that after all, Felix wasn’t that bad of a father compared to the Sorcerer.
Yeah, Jack was in love but also on a rapid ascent towards the position at the top of the food chain, staging a coup one night and overthrowing the principal, taking over as the new headmaster of the college. By that time he had already learned the hard lesson, one of his experiments going sideways and resulting in disfigurement of his daughter, after which, Jack had made a promise, and struck a deal to seal it, that he would never harm her again.
As life escaped Tassiter with his last breath, what Jack had lost, did not come back but it did not feel like a big sacrifice and so he settled in the comfortable chair in the tallest of towers as the head of the school. Under his rule, Hyperion grew more lenient towards accepting new apprentices, none of them however, were meant to leave the place, subjugated to Jack’s madness and becoming unwilling subjects of his tests.
The real Hyperion, waited, baited with Jack’s promises of freedom soon to come. No one dared to oppose his and the commander’s reign and so a messenger sent to the capital, had slipped their notice. Until one night an army showed at the doorstep of the fortress, quickly joined by those mages who quietly disagreed with the principal and escaped the purge he had unleashed. They claimed he had lost his mind, that his reign of terror was to be ended there and then and Jack seethed with barely contained rage, rallying his own forces to fight for their lives. The mages were slaughtered, falling victim to their own kin who had enchanted the knights’ weapons and worked on dispelling their spells. But their deaths did not stop the king’s vengeance, the army marched into the fortress, seeking the weakened force trapped there to put an end to its existence. In one last spur, Jack had unleashed the Destroyer but the beast was too rabid without its master’s guidance, refusing to bow down to the principal and easily becoming yet another dead body amongst the carnage littering the floors of the fortress.
He had been cornered, drained of his powers and barely able to support a couple of shambling corpses that stood as the last barrier between him and death.
But he was a hero, baby, and heroes never gave up. They never gave up until they had to watch someone they cherished executed in the main yard. For Jack, that was the last straw, tipping him into murderous rage and taking away rational thoughts. Without those, he was easily overpowered, taken into custody and branded like a fucking animal…
The Sorcerer needs to take a long, unsteady breath, his fingers now tracing over the scar arching across Rhys’ face.
“Don’t tell me you think it wasn’t just.” She has to keep the edge out of here voice, slightly apprehensive of the man’s frequent outbursts of anger but also, pissed off enough to speak her mind.
“It wasn’t. Had I gained control over the Sentinel, the world would have been a marginally safer place.” He seems to believe his own lies, too tangled up into the myth he has spun around himself to see the clear picture. “Besides, sugar, justice can only be exercised by those who are just themselves. And there ain’t nobody like that. The king feared competition, understandably, but it’s power that rules this world, he shouldn’t have messed with me.”
“A brand seems like a light punishment for the crimes that you have committed.” This time it’s Sasha who chimes in but her words are only met with a gravelly chuckle.
“Please, its only intended purpose, beside destroying my face, was to make sure I wouldn’t escape as they dragged me before the king’s court. It works like a tracking hex more or less. These idiots even held a proper trial for me, sentenced to death on the pyre I was, hell, they made a whole show out of it.”
“Can they track me here?” Rhys seems at the very least, moderately concerned, voicing Fiona’s worry as well.
“Of course. But don’t wreck your pretty head over it too much, sugar. I’m pretty sure they know you’re mine and live here anyway. Those who claim to be the witch hunters nowadays have nothing on the old timers, they are merely sad imitators, without the help of college mages they do not understand the power of the brand all that well, fumbling in ignorance and calling upon their gods with little understanding. The order wouldn’t risk a siege anymore. You are safe with me.”
“So how did you escape?” It’s nearly heart wrenching how the boy soaks the poisoned words, watching the man who was the very reason he has ended with a brand seared across his face with adoring eyes. But, to each their own, the Sorcerer seems to be equally ensnared by that nearly revering attitude and Fiona isn’t going to butt in. Not yet at the very least.
“I did not.”
When the sentence had been passed, Jack only laughed, high pitched and maniacal, making the knights holding his battered body upright flinch. The traitorous mages who had helped stage the rebellion also met their end there, fools hoping to get into the king’s good graces only to be betrayed. A betrayal for their own betrayal, a fitting end in Jack’s opinion. Which left him as the only magic user left in existence, one not quite ready to part with this world just yet.
Jack wasn’t captured completely unprepared, one last desperate attempt at the fortress made, the tiniest of drops of the dead Hyperion’s essence ingested and leaving him with a manifestation of new powers curved in two spikes now growing out of his forehead. He had more magic at his disposal than they assumed, more than they could predict, and all he needed was the slimmest of gaps in their defenses to escape. The opportunity presented itself between flames turning his flesh into charred mass and wrangling hoarse cries out of his throat. With no regards for his mortal shell, Jack’s consciousness had slipped from the doomed body, darting between the cheering mob’s feet in search for a new host. A new ability gained thanks to Hyperion’s courtesy. His new host was a strong, powerful man, one of the knights, slipping unnoticed and heading into the wilds to find a new place to settle.
Jack is having troubles remembering the man’s name but eventually, after a good dose of fingers stroking his chin and tapping at the base of his broken horn, he seems to have recalled it.
“Roland! What an awful prick he was during my incarceration. A bandit dressed in a shiny armour, damn him. But he also apparently had left a vengeful lover behind.”
Five years later, they came after him, under the pretenses of saving a queen held hostage in the castle Jack took over. Little did Lilith know that the queen had long been dead and turned into a stuffed animal. But Jack did not spend those five years idle, testing the extent of his new powers, bringing his daughter to settle down with him and raising an army of his own, small in comparison to what he commands in present day, but formidable enough to ward off most wanderers seeking troubles. The little party failed, taunted throughout their advances through the forest and castle by Jack flaunting the stolen body and only adding to Lilith’s spiteful nature. After the final clash with those who had taken to calling themselves witch hunters, Jack claimed the huntress’ body as his victory trophy, violently overtaking Lilith and forcing her to watch the rest of her friends die at her, his, their hands. She should have been grateful, Jack had risen her pathetic self to become the feared blood baroness, dubbed ‘shrike’ by their subjects thanks to a penchant for impaling their enemies.
After Lilith came Axton but he wasn’t quite satisfactory even as Jack sat on the throne, with enough time on his hands to track down one of Hyperion’s sister beings, the emperor beaten to his reward by his enemies and once again losing his life.
“By that time I have figured out I may have certain… preferences when it comes to choosing my hosts, and you my dear…” Jack’s lecherous gaze sweeps over her and Fiona has to shake her head to shake off the uneasy feeling “...seem to be fitting the bill quite well.”
“Cut it, father.” Angel’s snapped response only makes the man laugh but he doesn’t continue the topic and for once, Fiona is grateful for the weird protectiveness the Sorcerer’s daughter seems to be extending towards her and Sasha. Even though she’s most likely just guarding her food.
“Alright, alright babydoll. Anyway, then came Steel, a tough cookie I tell ya, but she carried my will inside of her from the day she was born, just as many children in the realm do nowadays. And then… good, gentle Timothy…” Jack pats his chest with a certain dose of affection, a light brush of his fingers over his lips and the man seems momentarily lost in his thoughts. “Little Timtam still hangs around here, didn’t have a heart to extinguish him completely.” A tap to his temple indicates where ‘here’ means and Fiona is terrified of the prospect of anyone having to share their headspace with the malevolent Sorcerer. The malevolent Sorcerer who’s now gingerly carding his fingers through the hair of the moron soundly asleep on his lap. God knows when exactly the kid has drifted off but right now he’s less than gently scooped in his father’s arms and slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the Sorcerer grumbling under his breath that he must be going soft with age.
“Now, the three of you, scurry off to bed it’s late.”
The slowly dying out embers give off just enough light to trace over the edges of their faces and to her surprise, Fiona discovers that there is nothing more but ashes in her pipe, the girl too entranced by the story to actively remember about taking an occasional drag. With a small amount of regret, she taps the pipe against the ground to clean it and quickly catches up with the group heading towards the castle.