Joseph sucked in a wheezing breath through a bloody nose and a bloody mouth. He was dazed, though his legs still held him up. A metallic taste poured down the back of his throat—dry and salty. His shins were beaten all up, but he could still stand. He staggered back.

Indeed Ernst was not showing him anything new. This was as old hat as the whippings, as the evil leers, as the starving and everything else in between. Joseph grinned wickedly, up at Ernst. Old jokes are sure the pits, Ernie.

Joseph swung once more at Ernst's head, pushing every ounce of pent up desire to kill into the shot.

How he managed the hit, only the Mona knows. But he managed it, nonetheless.

Joseph's fist collided where cheekbone meets temple. It was a hit that made the sinuses retreat to the occipital lobe and made one's eyesight flicker. It was a direct hit.

Ernst's eyebrow split as Joseph's fist cleared his head.

(( the die make for some interesting happenings ))

Ernst felt fist make contact with face as he sucked in his breath sharply, white hot pain coursing through the muscles in his head and tried to blink the world into focus. With fingers, somehow primordially held like claws he pawed at his own temple feeling the blood on this finger tips. He sniffed it first, metallic- ugly, inferior and brought it to his lips before shoving it in his mouth and sucking his finger clean of blood. It tasted…wrong. Passive blood. Wrong blood.

Hate. He hated them. Hated himself for being like them. They deserved this both of them. More even.

And that sent Ernst down a very bad road. A road where men howled like wounded animals, savage and raw. Passives were subhuman, so the gollies said, and Ernst always did what gollies said. Again he ran at Jo, making to grab him by the waist, to take him to the ground, all the while working his fists in Jo’s direction not caring what blows stuck and which ones missed. He didn't say anything, not capable of speech at this moment, not capable of anything but the fight and the ability to hate. Grabbing, Jo by the head he tried to work his arms around the younger man’s neck, in a tight grip, working up a huge gob of spit that would hopefully land somewhere on Jo’s face.

The clawing fingers raked Joseph's battered and bruised flesh, leaving red welts in the already-puffy skin. It was excessively painful, second only to the original beating.

Ernst's arms had a weak, hurried hold around Joseph. He still had a chance to break free if he was quick and smart about it.

Ernst's spit smacked into Joseph's jaw, narrowly missing the corner of his mouth. The glistening glob only added disgusting insult to painful injury.

Joseph hissed ferociously—catlike. A feral yowl built in the back of his throat and a roar pushed it out with force. Pain woke him up. Made him feel alive and strong and undeniably tangent. The teachers, the students, no one could deny that he didn't exist. When he walked down the halls, he noticed how they seemed to look everywhere but at him, as though they were trying to deny to themselves that something like him didn't exist. Like he was just some little wind-up toy to do their work for them. Some ignorable machine.

Joseph Abernathy was no machine. He was flesh and blood and bone and hair, breathing, heart-beating, teeth grinding. He was someone, not something.

The dark-haired passive mentally thanked Ernst for this. Thanked him for letting him be alive and letting him show Brunnhold that he was at least an animal in a cage. At least people looked directly at animals in cages, if only for spectacle.

Joseph made his move the second Ernst latched onto him and he brought the blunt wooden end of the mop slamming down towards the back his head, just above the neck, like some giant leather hole-punch.

The makeshift weapon pounded Ernst's sinuses back to the front of his face. The force battering his brain very nearly knocked him out. It wouldn't take much more to do so, but it seemed that for the time being sheer hate kept him awake.

There was such a charge between them that, if they had cared to notice, would have felt different. Odd. Off. Anyone nearby could feel it in the air.

A shift in the mona. Something clearly charged and not right. As if something was held in the balance and could shatter in a moment.

Ernst ached all over, his breath felt thick in his throat like breathing out treacle. He snorted through his nose and felt blood spurt forward skimming across the top of his lips. He straightened up slowly, lurching on his feet, stray strands of his own saliva dribbling down his chin.

The blow to the head was disorientating, made him sway drunkenly on his feet, saw his vision blur. But he wasn't finished and wouldn't be, not ever, he would go and go til the day he died- he would be a passive forever, the champion of galdori discipline forever. Long past the time one of them was knocked out cold, past the meal Jo would not be eating tomorrow, past next week and the week after. If Jo wanted to end this, one of them was going to have to die, Ernst's fight was never ending.

Again, Ernst swung for Jo fists clenched, teeth bared to sink his teeth into passive flesh. They probably tasted inferior too.

Orientation was far more within Joseph’s grasp than Ernst’s. Though blood flowed from his mouth and nose, he could still see, could still tell up from down. Ernst, however, did look drunk. He could feel the tinge about him, but the feel of the mona was not something he truly knew. It did not feel the same as a field. It felt like the rush of battle.

Joseph smiled thinly, his lip scar twisting his mouth into a slit-eyed sneer, as he made to doge the older passive, aiming to send him clear past and club him again behind the head.

If all else failed, he could still just beat him with the mop. It was nearly over. Nearly.

All gift-wrapped and pretty.

Ernst's fist was flying just off center, his vision out of line with reality. Joseph's sidestep was enough, and Ernst stumbled past, off balance.

The mop collided a second time with the back of his skull... and something snapped.

It was a punch to the sternum, an eruption in his skull, electricity in his bones. They all tasted the oily menace of it... his diablerie.

Time slowed, stopped, sped up, and blasted off into an infinity of terror. Spiders crawling under their skin, snakes launching at their limbs, the unknown thing hiding under beds and behind closet doors, paralyzed silent screams at midnight, awakening in a dark presence, a thousand shattered moments of terror dropped into their hearts. Even Aurelie, in her shed, was not safe from the reign the Terror swayed over them.

It was earth-shatteringly violent, and shook all three to their very bones.

Aura had given up on struggling. No one was coming to rescue her, those two were killing each other on the lawn-- whatever the outcome, there was nothing she could do. Powerless, helpless, tied up and alone. She let her head drop forward. Her arms hurt, and her wrists. She knew it would only get worse, the longer she stayed here. A chill crept over her, and if she had been paying attention she might have noticed the feeling of wrongness in the air, the brittle quality the world had seemed to take.

But she wasn't paying attention to anything but her own misery. If she felt anything at all, she put it down to her own nerves. It was easy to feel afraid, like this with Ernst at the door. Alioe she wanted Jo to win. Maybe he'd rembember her, untie her, and she could go back to work.

Still, it was... There was a tingling at the base of her spine, a slow creeping and a raising of the hairs on her neck. Her breath came heavy and fast, chest feeling too tight. Air, she needed air, but she just couldn't breathe. Kept gasping, but there wasn't-- she couldn't-- Water, everywhere--

Lilly, Lilly I can't-- the water is too high! Lilly!

Drowning, drowning, water at her nose and mouth in her lungs, she kicked and struggled but she was stuck, tied to the support beam, tied to a rock tied to the earth. Lilly! And she screamed, oh she screamed but she couldn't hear. Nothing but the crush of water in her ears, the sound of her lungs trying and trying to expand. But there wasn't any air, no air-- no-- Lilly!

Ernst wasn’t sure how he found himself on the ground, but there he was, hands digging into the ground- clawing at grass as the shadows overtook. No, no, no he wanted to choke out but couldn’t find the words. It would have to go off now, his fucking diablerie. That thing, that reminder that he’d never be galdori ever, that worst thing in the world. It was almost as bad as that fear itself.

Slow, creeping nightmares made of shadows flooded the ground and Ernst felt broken glass filling his jaws, throat full of nails, thorns growing under his finger nails. Muh…muh…Ernst tried to choke out as needles erupted from his spine and dark creatures twisted at them, their spines warped, faces human but made of stones and bones and seashells played with them. Make a field, they chattered, taunting little voices, a million dark passives screeched make a field. Carve holes so the mona can pour out, scissors and hand knives they were all there, laughing, the gollies and the passives. Give him what he wants, they screeched as Ernst shook his head, neck like a pincushion, long needles criss crossing along his throat, red droplets of blood dripping down their surface.

Ernst was going to vomit out shadows, he buried his face into the grass he knew was there. There somewhere beyond the fear. It isn’t real , he told himself, it’s you. All of this is you. Feel the grass, smell the earth. The grass felt like bones, flecks of flesh still clinging to their surface, the earth smelt of bile and decay and hot blood. Muh…muh…mother, Ernst felt the words cling to his throat while he felt something cool and soft to touch, something motherly. Something that wasn’t all this fucking pain.

Not real Ernst, all in your mind. All in your mind. “My dear, dear darling little Ernst.” Not real. She was smiling, that same smile she’d always had- wearing one of her concert dresses, he’d stay up late to watch her come back, to make sure she did come back. Little Ernst was never sure when mama would go out, especially with the pearls and the perfume how long she would be gone for. Oh how, happy he was when she came back- clutch at her skirts, hug her middle, telling her with every inch of his little body language that she needn’t go anywhere ever, that he should be all she needed. “Clingy isn’t he?” Constance would sniff, looking down at her son with derision. But not today.

Not real, not real. “Let’s sing a song, Ernst, my darling,” Constance Quilp smiled, but something black oozed from between her teeth. “You remember this one don’t you?” Stoking his cheek, she started to hum, but it was wrong, all wrong and instead of notes there were knives, that hand of his cheek turned into a claw pulling at his skin. He clutched at the grass again as a thousand rats ran underneath his finger tips, biting and screaming.

Passive, Passive, Passive over and over like a drum, Constance Quilp sang, bashing his head against the floor. Her teeth were brown with blood, hundreds of teeth crammed into her mouth, row upon row like the mouth of a shark, each of them razor sharp as she growled and a mocking smile danced in her eyes. Her hands were nothing but bones, black cords and spider’s webs keeping her all together and that pretty concert dress hanging off her angular skeleton. “Mamma, please Mamma, won’t you sing a song with me?” she laughed, spitting blood into his eyes, running the edges of her teeth against his arm, one of her long fingers poked under his skin, wiggled about between blood and muscle tissue, he could see it, underneath.

It wasn’t real. Constance Quilp wasn’t here, she wasn’t made of spiders and skeletons and Ernst hadn’t seen her in seventeen years. It hardly made things better, but it was a start. So was disentangling the false, sharp, cool pain of the spell with the red hot throbbing of reality.
“My…fucking…diablerie,” he finally managed to croak, over the sound of his heart wailing and moaning in his chest and the strange loose and cold feeling of his limbs.

Joseph's chest felt cold, all of him felt cold. Clammy and numb yet able to feel every pierce through slack and grey flesh. He could not move. Nothing that was dead and cold could ever move. But he was not dead. Though his blood did not flow, his heart did not beat, and his lungs did not breath, he was not dead. His nerves—like sinew as thin as spider's web—pulled from the tips of his fingers, from under his fingernails, from his toes and stretched out into a dark horizon. Joseph lay suspended over black oblivion—a void of nothing. Only those nerves held him aloft. Twinging twangering sounds echoed from far off that pounded his head against the pitch and he felt each sound slice into his body from the nerves. Claws plucked the delicate strings, strings vibrated and threatened to break, threatened to send him into nothing. Sea of nothing. Realm of nothing. Nothing of nothing. Plucking nerves. Discordant twangs. Slicing passes. Cold dead body. Immobile, slack, vulnerable and helpless to the effects of magic on his brain.

Joseph was helpless.

In truth, he was not suspended over nothingness, but sprawled out in the wet grass, weapon, mop, in his clenched shivering hand, blue eyes as wide with horror as a man staring at his torturer without even the ability to cry out.

Though it seemed to last an eternity, the diablerie only lasted a few moments. But what was thirty seconds... a minute in pure terror? It seemed to last an eternity to them.

As the spell faded, it slowly released Aurelie, then Joseph, and finally, at the very last, Ernst.

Though it had seemed to her, at the time, that this terror would go on forever and she should never be free of it as long as she lived (which, surely, could not be very long), it receeded almost as quickly as it came. Very slowly Aurelie came back to herself from wherever it was that her mind thought she had been, her face wet and her heart still beating too fast but otherwise no worse for wear. She shivered, still, the taste of terror on the back of her tongue. The taste of saltwater.

What had that been? It felt-- Aurelie had never had a spell performed on her of such magnitude, but that's what it felt like. A spell, but not at all like the sharp sting of a healing spell like the one cast on her hand. The grip of it had released her, but she felt weak and shivery all over still. She tried to stifle her persistent sobbing, drawing her knees up close into herself. No one is coming to save you, Aurelie, not ever. So just. Just stop that.

And like that, the spiders and shadows retreated from their assault on Ernst’s senses, back to the cavernous tunnels and dark confines of his mind where skeletons did not encroach upon day to day activity and only dared creep from their hiding places in the dead of night. The sweat on his brow and on his palms had cooled to icy temperatures, sweat mingling with mud that he had grabbed at in the throes of terror, green strands sticking underneath his finger nails.

Breath heavy, he straightedned out from that curled position on his knees, mud caked to his once so immaculate blue uniform. What his next move would be, Ernst couldn’t be sure, rational thought lost over the sound of blood roaring in his ears. He was still badly shaken from the wound and subsequent throbbing pain in his head, heart beating fast from the false fear his body had been subjected to, hormones whizzing and synapses firing, lighting up like circuit boards. And what of all that he had seen? The nightmares would always be hard to shake, he could still taste blood in his mouth, feel the faintest impression of needles in his neck. Always could do, always would do.

There was no fight left in him though, not like before. True, the hate still bubbled and boiled and looking at Joe he felt himself simmering just he had done before but there was no power behind all this blind passive rage, that animalistic roar he always felt somewhere deep inside was more like a whimper. But still, snarling Ernst hauled himself to his feet, baulking under the strangely heavy weight of his own limbs.

Coughing, Ernst tucked his shirt into his trousers, doing all he could to regain composure so much that it hurt to keep his back poker straight, his arms aching as he smoothed over creases and fixed his collar. What did a passive say when their diablerie went off? It was so out of the ordinary, so unpredictable that Ernst had to wonder what the mona and the universe wanted from him if it was not to play the role of the ever obedient servant.

“Abernathy,” he finally rasped out, voice gravelly with unmistakable fear, gruff too with hate and anger. “Abernathy, that level of violence towards a superior will not be tolerated. We must learn from the incident with Pascual, if my diablerie had gone off in front of a student…since you have proven yourself dangerous and clearly unhinged,” he pointed to the cut above his eye, “this matter is out of my hands. Rest assured the head patron will have to hear about this.”

If the passive patrons hated Ernst then they at least gave him a grudging degree of respect and tolerance then the galdori head patrons were different, they had a suprising amount of appreciation for what Ernst did contributing to his free reign of terror, aided tenfold of course by Professor Mulch’s influence.

And it was this thought that allowed a slow curvature to grace Ernst’s face in the wisp of a smile.

Joseph wasn't on his feet by the time Ernst recovered, but he was crouched, wobbly, on his hands and knees. The mop he'd re-acquired in a shaky hand. His nerves still felt external, still felt raw and sliced. Though the feeling of horrifying helplessness had faded, a tiny scared voice keened in the back of his mind, drawing his lips tight with inner pain. He lifted his head to fix Ernst with a defiant eye.

Shakily, he got to his feet, drew himself to full standing, his mop handle gripped tight enough to turn knuckles white. His knees wobbled and his stomach shook, but his eyes remained fixed. He spat at Ernst's feet.

Sack the head patron, clockstopper.

Stalemate, was it? Possibly. Joseph was still armed and Ernst was not. He'd still done plenty damage to the back of his head....

This wasn't over.

Maybe it wasn't over for Jo, maybe it wasn't over for Ernst. But for Aurelie? Oh, she had long since been quite done with all of this. There was something sharp on the floor almost within reach of her leg. She stretched it to the fullest extent, contorting in a most painful fashion to try and give herself the extra length. So close, it was! Just a little bit more...

Her foot came down too fast and whatever it had been, it skittered across the floor and far away from her. "Bells and chimes!" That was enough of that, then. She'd been dragged about, yelled at, touched and tied up in a coal shed, not to mention terrified for reasons completely independant of any actual happenings in her life. She couldn't hear the two of them outside, so perhaps they'd killed each other.

Good riddance.

"Clocking Joseph Abernathy!" She hadn't meant to shout, but she did. It even felt good, yelling at him even if he wasn't around.

Abernathy wasn’t done, grasping the mop in shaking hands. Violent, dangerous, unhinged passive- Ernst had really dropped the ball on this one, he thought, hating himself for the way Joseph responded. Not even Aurelie Steerpike, locked in her shed would do it.

Ernst laughed. Ernst laughed long and hard, high pitched and manic. “What do you want to achieve little Joey?” he chuckled. “You can’t win. Never, never. They own you.”

Aurelie’s angry voice piped up, piercing through the tension in the air
“Aurelie is calling you,” grinned Ernst, taking the keys from his hip, selecting the one he needed, silver key just like the lock on the coalshed. “Go be her hero. Maybe the passive whore will show you her tits, her little burnt chest…I did that,” he smiled, caressing his own chest, smiling with a horrible sexual satisfaction “I can do lots of things to her, if you’d like me to.”

He played with the keys with his long thin fingers, “Pretty little bird all locked in a cage. You win. Now choose your reward, revenge on me or saving the girl” Turning on his side, and pitching his arm back, Ernst sent the key flying through the air and into a flower bed, fresh manure spread along the earth. Roses. Blood red, rainwater still cleaving to the petals, thick stalks twisting, thorns sharp and poised.

“But you don’t care do you Joe? Not about her. Which is fine. Passive bitches are disposable, aren’t they Joe? Just bodies to work and to be worked with. We both know that. Will anyone really mind if Aurelie Steerpike stays in there for a week, for a month?” his lips twisted into a smile, “a year?”

He spread his arms wide, “Beat me, Joey boy. But you’d better hope it kills me, or you’d better find away to get that little ginger bitch out of Brunnhold,” his smile curved again, “unless both you and me want to find out whether the curtains match the drapes right here, right now?” Ernst cackled “You hold her down while I pull her skirts up?” And he was laughing again, wild and aggressive like some strange wick circus clown. It stopped, all too suddenly “I’ve got you figured out Joey,” he snarled.

Hesitation left Joseph's mind. A foot dug into the wet earth and he lunged forward, mop slung back and ready for another blow.

Get Aura or get me, said Ernst now. Have life and submission or have freedom and death, said Brunnhold every moment of every day. Joseph wanted both. He wanted all of it. Even the lowliest of half-breed flea-bitten wicks had freedom and yet he, born galdori sans a single limb—his field—could not have it. This was no fight for any physical freedom, he knew, but this would be a freedom.

If only he could attain it.

Joseph swung hard at Ernst head, eyes alight with the sight of all he ever knew he deserved, and roared defiance. No more shaky limbs, no more terrors. No more magic in his blood.

Ernst would die.

Die.

The mop careened through the air and landed with a resounding crack! across the sodden yard. The echo hadn't faded before a voice boomed back across the way, "What on Vita are you doing?!"

A lanky man strode across the yard with unnatural speed-- or perhaps that was the feeling of time stopping again.

It was Patron Guarani, and he had just seen Joseph strike Ernst.

Ernst smiled a slow, curving smile just for Joseph before turning around and bowing low to Patron Guarani. Ever the respectful passive, he did not look the Patron in the eye and it was strange to see the full blown horror of a man become something so subservient. All that strange power was gone, he seemed smaller somehow, like a tiny toad croaking on a lily pad. And when he looked at the Patron there was something missing from his eyes. No hate there, just a willingness to please.

And this was no act. Not really. Ernst respected the galdori more than anything. “Thank you, sir” Ernst gushed, his tone like that of a soldier before a commanding officer, utterly devoted in the heat of battle, short barks of words, emphasis on the sir as he stood to attention, hands at his side.

“Thank you for condescending to save a lowly passive such as myself and with such skill. Sir, Joseph Abernathy was blatantly slacking off and purposefully choosing to perform his duties to a substandard degree, sir. I took it upon myself, Sir, as I have been given liberty to do, sir, to discipline him and another passive who was also refusing to perform- but not before giving him many oppurtunities to correct his work and insolent nature. It had been my intention, sir, to give them a short spell in the coal shed to think on their actions, sir- I know that corporal punishment is no longer allowed- and I was able to contain one of the passives but he resisted and attacked, sir.”

He bowed low again. “I am sorry sir, but I felt I had no choice but to defend myself. And I am ashamed, sir, to say that the intensity of Abernathy’s rage, and the mercilessness of his unfounded attack caused my diablerie to go off.”

Hanging his head in the shame that this caused him, Ernst added sadly, “I am ashamed of this sir, but I was simply trying to do my duty. To enforce the rules. Passives must stay laborious for Brunnhold to stay glorious.”

He looked up now, an intensity in his eyes as his voice trembled- perhaps with awe or fear or even a sick delight.

“As you may know ,sir, and your knowledge of passives and your caretaking of them is second to none that this is not Joseph Abernathy’s first time causing trouble. He is insolent and a poor worker, but not only that sir, this incident shows that he is also violent and unhinged. Sir, I can only praise Alioe that no galdori students or faculty was here to experience the diablerie that he set off. And, without meaning to be impudent sir, I fear that he may bait more passives, be violent towards them and set off other diableries- and perhaps this time around students if something is not done immediately to discipline him.”

Alarms and bells sounded off in Joseph's mind. Patron. Galdor, they said. Magic. Captor. Enemy. Danger.

Drop dead.

Joseph found that his hands were empty. He did not bow to this one. Not to a Patron, he wouldn't. Wouldn't bow to fekkin' Azumus or Ophelia Servalis. Instead, Joseph straightened up and looked the Patron in the eye. Bruises swelled one side of his face and blood flowed freely from a lip.

Yeah? And I did all this to myself.

(( sfsp! ))

Patron Guarani listened to Ernst's account, nodding now and again as he spoke. He glanced only a few times at Joseph, an unreadable expression on his face, and then focused back on Ernst.

When the passive had finished, he stood back on his heels, seeming to process what was said and what evidence was present.

He pursed his lips momentarily. One could see his thoughts churning behind his eyes, but just what he thought were still a mystery.

"Ernst, might I see your hands?"

“My hands? Uh...yes, of course sir,” said Ernst, smile slick and oily but underneath the faintest trappings of fear.

He held out his hands, unmistakably passive of course, blistered and burnt in places- but his fingers long and dexterous. All those evenings practising his scales and his apperegios with mama had left them nimble and practised, even if Ernst hadn’t been near a piano in coming up to eighteen years something in those finger tips betrayed the notion that, given the right instrument he would still be able to draw to mind sheet music and patterns on the black and white keyboard, that he used to practise silently, bent over some surface, while being whipped. Oh, the good old days.

His hands were caked in mud and blood, from having gripped the grass and his knuckled had a tell-tale bruising on their skin.

“I was defending myself, sir,” Ernst said pathetically, “he was armed. You saw for yourself.” And then he hung his head, ashamed at how much he was speaking, a good passive was contrite in his language, "my apologies for speaking out of turn, sir."

Patron Guarani made a small sound in the back of his throat. Something like "Hm," but with greater authority, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"Where is the other one to which you referred?" he asked simply.