Chapter Text
It felt like sleeping.
He was floating somewhere in the back of his mind, like a dream. Sometimes Darius thought that he could hear people talking, a child laughing or something similar. It could be his imagination. He is dreaming after all.
Sometimes he thought he could see a hall - beautiful and pristine, shining in the moonlight - and he thought that his fellow Coven Heads were there with him, that Eberwolf and Raine were there with him.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, heck he couldn’t even look around. But he didn’t need to look to know. Somehow, he knew what he was now - a puppet, a toy put on display like a thorpy.
Then he would sink under again.
Nothingness would take him and it was as if he stopped existing altogether.
“Philip never really like you.”
What?
There is still only nothingness surrounding him but he can hear somebody talking to him. If he focuses hard enough he can almost feel the person there.
“He always knew that you were up to something, you know,” the person says and Darius tries to focus. Then slowly, the form of the Collector appears before him in a blurry half-formed vision. A small victory. But now he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what this was about.
The Collector is floating before him and as if they could sense that he is fighting for some sense of consciousness, a smile creeps onto their face. They cross their arms before them and rest their chin on them as if they are a child listening to somebody telling them a story.
“Ever since that last Grimwalker got broken he suspected that you are going to be troublesome,” the Collector turns onto their back swinging their legs up and down. “But you did your job well enough, and he didn't think you would actually try to do anything.” they continued talking at him. “He said some other boring stuff as well, but that doesn’t matter. Philip is a liar anyway so blegh to him!” they stuck out their tongue in the air.
What were they talking about? Who was Philip? And Grimwalkers?
“I'm bit jealous of you, do you know that?” the Collector continued. “You got to play with the Grimwalkers. Both the old one and this new smaller one. Philip never let me. He kept them all to himself and he always broke them.” They frowned and looked away, pouting very much like a child would.
He tried not to think about how he had seen this type of look on a much older child. Of how he would hunch over the stitches he is learning, pouting that he messed up and had to start from the beginning. He misses the expressions he would make, of how hard he would concentrate, or the genuine smile when he got a simple praise.
Darius wishes that he could go back to the void.
“We could have had so much fun. Oh, I know!” The Collector jumped up now sitting crosslegged before Darius. “When I find those dirty little liars we can play a game! It will be fun! I can even forgive that they lied and ditched me and King.”
The Collector left and they flew off. Darius was left with an odd feeling that he should know what they were talking about.
Soon enough he fell unconscious again.
The sky turned dark, he was standing in a circle with the rest of the Coven Heads. Only they look wrong, lifeless and gray as if he is looking at them through a filter - or was this his mind’s way of telling him that they are already gone? He can't see Eberwolf or Raine.
Where are they?
His knees buckle and Darius falls to the ground.
He can see his sigil, his arm, light up with brilliant golden light. The light spreads and runs up, tracing his veins - his arm, through his body, and then away from him, stretching like roots of some horrid plant and reaching into the darkness. Somewhere along the line, the other Coven Heads disappeared along with the platform and he was left alone in the darkness.
He failed. And now everybody suffers the consequences.
Darius blinks and when he opens his eyes he sees a familiar blond boy lying on the ground before him - no, no, no, he is not here, he is somewhere else, somewhere safe, he sent him away with the rest of the children. Hunter was supposed to be far from the head. But he has a sigil, does he not? How could Darius guarantee that he survived? What could the draining spell do to a teen?
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything because he is stuck as a stupid puppet and he can’t go looking for him.
Hunter was still not moving. The draining spell roots reached him and wrapped around his arm, holding it in a vice grip until his own sigil lit up and the draining spell ran through his body like it did with Darius.
He didn’t want to see this anymore. But he couldn’t close his eyes.
This is a dream, only a dream. Wake up. Wake up!
You are a failure, his own voice berated him. A Titan damned failure. How could he even think that he could save anyone?
He pushes himself onto shaking arms. Darius crawls forward, toward Hunter, and the boy continues to lay there motionless.
The dream ends before he can reach him.
Darius wakes up and they are free.
The Collector themselves turned them all back one by one and they even apologized while Darius tried his best to get his legs under him. Then he nearly fell over when Eberwolf decided that this was the perfect moment to climb onto his back. The lazy mutt - Darius was so glad they were alright.
They wandered around for a while. Darius felt as if he was walking on clouds, he was weightless and unstable at the same time. He guessed there had to be some side effect to spending so many times as a puppet.
His magic was, thankfully still present. He could feel it buzzing in a familiar way as he called on it to test. Good, at least there wasn't a lasting effect from the draining spell.
‘Hunter is here!’ Eberwolf barks out in excitement.
Darius’ breath catches in his throat when he sees the boy.
He looked so different, his hair was longer and he was wearing strange clothes. But worst of all he was covered in so many new scars - new scars that somehow looked completely healed, even if he doubted that they would look like that with the short time they were separated.
He walks up to him and has to resist wrapping the boy into a hug - it would be too soon, too sudden and he didn’t want to scare the kid. Instead, he put a hand on his head and gave him his most honest smile when he turned around.
Hunter was so relieved to see him and Darius felt a sharp stabbing feeling in his chest. It was something mixed with happiness and guilt. Happiness, for he couldn’t imagine what he would have done if Hunter dismissed him right then and there. And guilt, well he would have deserved being given the cold shoulder after how he treated the boy before. He feared that distance would have made the Hunter see their relationship differently. And by the Titan, he would have deserved it.
Darius swore that he would make it up for him. He will do better.