The Shattered Veil [1x1]

[yamikuronue]

"Great," he says, his voice coming out stronger and brighter due to the weight of the suppressed panic in his chest. "How much do I owe ya?"

[accalia]

"Honored customer knows the price, It is written above the entrance to this very shop." The boy says before his mother cuts in with a more complete answer.

"In order to buy an item from this shop you must pay in something of equal value, neither in excess, nor lacking the full measure. It is not our place to tell you what that value is, you will know it in your heart. It is up to you to balance the scale of value, because an unbalanced scale will lead to tragedy. We can advise, but we cannot arbitrate nor assess value."

Her words strike Miles with terrible weight, she is right, he needs to pay the full value for what he receives, not one jot more, not one jot less... But what does he have that matches the value of Judgement?

[yamikuronue]

"Well now. I'd say this is worth about a hundred bucks, wouldn't you?" he says, genially.

[accalia]

"If that is the value you place on our services, then so be it, but i caution you to consider carefully. If the scales are not balanced terrible tragedy will strike. This shop demands exact payment, if you fail to provide it it will force the issue and it cannot be reasoned with at that point. Knowing this do you wish to reconsider your offer of payment for Judgement?"

Elaine glares directly into Miles's eyes. She's serious, more serious than anything he has ever seen before. He's clearly in a dangerous situation here, and she's trying to make sure he knows it, but she's not trying to stop him in his decision. Apparently what he decides is his choice alone right now.

[yamikuronue]

His pupils are dilated. Why? That would indicate fear, but his face is relaxed, smiling even. He seems anything but afraid.

"Come now, you know better haggling than that. Ante up," he says, his tone jocular.

[accalia]

"This is not haggling, That's not how this works." Elaine says sadly, turning and walking behind the counter "You want an item or service from us, that item or service has a value to you which needs to be paid. I cannot tell you what that value is, because our valuation of the item is different to yours, it is not our scales that must be balanced, but yours. I will not haggle with you, because that will only guarantee that you do not pay the proper price, and would guarantee that the difference in that price be forcibly extracted from the one who over benefited from the exchange."

[yamikuronue]

What's my life worth to me? he wonders, darkly. His smile starts to slip.

And then his brain re-arranges the facts, yet again, the wheels turning in his mind. His smile becomes more confident, his head coming up from where it had started to droop. No. Fuck that. The world owes me a debt. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this life. I didn't need to become what I'll have to become to use this weapon. So I don't owe anyone a damn thing. If I can make this thing work, become some kind of protector, that's payment already.

"Seems we're square," he says, and there's a confidence in his voice that rings true straight to his soul as he dares the universe to challenge him on that point.

[accalia]

"I see, in that case... Yes, I understand. Goodbye Miles Denton. It seems this will be the last time we see each other. James, Come here please." There are tears in her eyes as Elaine calls to the back room for her son then again as no response is heard "James Denton! Come here please!" Elaine calls the full name of her son as she turns to enter the back store room and find her son. As she does so the shop darkens noticably, the lights around the place snuffing themselves one after the other until the only light left that does not come through the front windows is the flickering of the neon OPEN sight, which in turn flickers once, twice, and goes dark.

[yamikuronue]

Denton...

Time stops.

Miles has never really been afraid of the dark. There's nothing to worry about in the absence of light; he can block out light just by closing his eyelids. His bravado and swagger carried him through just about any situation safely, from drunken rambles through dimly lit rooms on new moon nights to the metaphorical darkness of opium dens. There's never been anything to fear about the dark.

Never until recently.

Darkness was nothing to be afraid of, he kept telling himself, but that old confidence was gone. He knew the darkness wasn't the problem. It was the thing that waits in the dark that he had to fear.

He'd laughed off stories of children being afraid of monsters under their bed. He'd laughed at stories of people walking bodily into hell and coming back forever altered. And yet, after what he'd seen, the monster he couldn't quite comprehend, he couldn't laugh at that anymore. There were Things in the darkness. Hungry things.

As the windows flicker and vanish, he clamps his mouth shut, desperate not to let out any sound to show the thing where he hid. He strained to listen for footsteps, but perceived only the waiting quiet of the universe, expectant, listening. In the absence of white noise his brain supplied a soft hum, as if that of an air conditioning unit. The hum grew louder as he strained to listen, manifesting as a rumble in his chest, the low bass voice of a growl. Or a purr.

James Denton.

His son would never know his father. Would never understand that half of his heritage, would never appreciate why he was the way he was. Would grow up only knowing half his roots. Feeling abandoned, lost, alone. Feeling like he had to overcompensate, hold his chin up and bluff his way through life. Would always feel that sense of emptiness that Miles felt, that he refused to feel anymore about that bastard who left his mother when he was small.

He had done this do his son. His own flesh and blood.

It's not fair.

A violent, bright anger flares up in him, forcing away the fear. The growl cuts off -- or stopped ever having existed. The darkness stops having been a malevolent force, a deep shadow expectant and hungry, and becomes merely the absence of light. Miles' anger overcomes him -- and the universe shrinks back, ever so slightly.

I see now...

Miles lets out a low, confident chuckle. "Alright. You're listening. I get that. So let's talk."

He holds out his hand, and a brilliant grey light forms into a ball within it. It does nothing to illuminate his surroundings, but next to that infinite darkness, anything would look bright as the noonday sun. A moment later, and the weapon manifests: a handful of poker chips, which he tips to fall onto an invisible table.

"Ante up."

The front door of the antique shop opens, and Miles Denton walks into the shop. He looks no different than he did when she'd last seen him, but at the same time, he looks... older somehow. More determined. More real.

"Elaine," he says, with a tip of his hat.

[accalia]

Version 0.0.1 - The Before Confusion version

Elaine looks up, Her elfin face showing the remnants of the bruises she earned that day, but they are fading. Her arm though is still in a sling from where it had been broken as she was flung against the shelving in her store room. Miles hadn't intended to hurt her of course, but she had been between him and that..... hand of darkness.

It had risen from the floor of the shop and wrapped around the legs of his son, it was dragging his son into the darkness. He'd felt the surge of power from Judgement as he moved, the living metal flowed once more and formed itself into a razer edged halberd, a weapon with enough reach to cut the hand from the darkness before it consumed his son.

It wasn't until minutes later Miles realized what had happened and what damage he'd wrought. He'd saved his son but hurt Elaine badly. What's more Elaine had refused to leave the shop to get medical treatment. So all Miles had been able to do was splint her broken arm and hope it healed right.

"How long did it take you to find this place this time?" Elaine asks sharply, He was late. Of course she knew that, given the street outside the windows today was different than it had been yesterday. The shop really didn't like staying in one place, in fact this was the first day since the.... event... that it had even been in Chicago for Miles to even find.

Version 0.0.2 - The Post Confusion version

Elaine looks up, Her elfin face showing the fading remnants of the bruises, they look about a week old. Her arm is in a sling, where it had clearly been broken and then splinted with wooden staves and bandages.

"Look what the cat dragged in. What are you looking to buy this time?" Elaine asks sharply, and more than a little coldly. He hadn't seen her after the darkness enveloped him, when he broke out of it he'd been well outside city center in the slums of Chicago. It had taken him four days of searching to find the store again, He'd begun to think that Elaine might have been right and that he'd never find her again. But he'd refused to accept that and.... here he is now.

[yamikuronue]

Miles' face darkens, a storm brewing behind his piercing blue eyes. Someone hurt her. The sense of righteous fury boils in his chest, catching  Judgment's attention without his intending to. The days he'd wandered the darkness, he'd come to expect the weapon to respond when he thought about his son; he'd come to assume it was driving him to protect the boy as his singular destiny in life. To find that subtle warmth spreading in his palms even when thinking of Elaine was a welcome surprise.

I am yours, he had said, when the betting was done.

"Someone hurt you," he says now, his voice quiet.

[accalia]

"Yes, They did." Elaine snaps, a spike of anger directed directly at Miles. Her eyes are bloodshot, she's obviously been crying a lot lately. "What item are you looking to buy this time?" She repeats her question, wanting to deal with miles and get him out of her shop as fast as possible.

[yamikuronue]

"The name of the person who hit you." His tone is deadly serious.

It takes some effort to convince Judgement to stay quiet. He'd gotten used to working with the weapon in a few basic forms; the stupid thing couldn't do a gun, but it could do a sword, and a club, and a staff, and he'd learned enough over the course of.... however long it was... to be confident with each. He'd slept for the better part of a day when the darkness let him go, feeling as if he'd been awake for a month straight learning what he'd need to protect his newly-discovered family.

[accalia]

"That I will give you for free." Elaine replies with venom "Miles Denton."

[yamikuronue]

His lips tighten. "This isn't funny, Elaine."