Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*The landscape around him is flat and pale. The sun has just begun to light the clouds across the fields but it hasn't risen high enough yet for warmth and this pre-dawn light gives everything a muted greyscale appearance. It has has taken Regulus days to work up the conviction to leave London and stick to his decision to destroy the Locket, and even now he cannot say for sure if he will be able to make it though another encounter with a Dementor.

He stands in the center of an old dirt road, with expanses of land on either side of him, holding his wand so tightly in his hand his knuckles are completely white and his tendons stand out like taught strings under the pale skin of his hands. His figure stands out against the flatness of the landscape around him. He looks like a short, understuffed scarecrow, dressed all in black but for the sickly golden gleam of the Locket around his neck. He stands there silently for several minutes, trying to become used to the unnatural weight of the Locket and gathering courage to try his plan though part of him hopes it doesn't work.

With the Dementors gone from Azkaban, Regulus doesn't know where to find them. The idea of them roaming the countryside without control or regulation makes his skin shiver, but perhaps it will help his idea to work. Keeping his eyes wide open so nothing can sneak up on him - human or otherwise - and ready to disapparate at a moment's notice, Regulus focuses all his thoughts on his memories of the Dementors. Alone and vulnerable, he turns himself into a emotive beacon reaching out to anything that can hear him, telling them to come.*

Comments

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*The creatures hear his call, even from miles away, they turn from their paths and continue down a new one. Their encroaching chill hits Regulus first, a November wind in the midst of August.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*The gust of cold makes his shoulders pinch inward in protective alertness, but he tries his hardest to not let his budding anxiety counteract his message and dissuade them from coming.*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*It starts in his knees - a curious sort of fatigue and a sudden wrench of the gut as hungry mouths find a hook. The swaying grass seems to grow longer, its swaying calmer, the uneven and violent sweep of the wind replaced by a calm and ethereal oscillation.

Water begins to lap at his shoes.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Regulus sucks a measured breath of the unnaturally sharp, damp air in past his teeth, fighting not to close his eyes and the grey countryside wavers in his minds eye into the glistening walls of a cave. He knows his worst memories will just be there to greet him more strongly if he closes his eyes - and without looking he might miss as the dark gliding figures eventually appear in the distance.*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*His cloak begins to emulate the now kelp-like grass, wrapping around him before fanning out again. It grows harder to see, the countryside becoming a jumble of murky shadows and half-shapes.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Clenching his fingers tight to his palms and taking breaths he holds without noticing, as though preparing to be deprived of oxygen, Regulus tries to stop his mind from drowning in the past by reiterating his message. It's a summons, and a promise for meals.*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*The rattling seems muffled and far-away - too far, surely, to belong to the considerably closer, encroaching shapes. Their swaying hair had blended seamlessly with the kelp so that only now do they become apparent - too close and too tight to escape.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*He knows he mustn't look at them, that he has to ignore the grotesque and emaciated bodies encircling him in his watery mind. He had spent the entire night awake before coming here, telling himself if he were to see them to look away and avoid seeing their colourless eyes and their spidery, claw-like hands, and he is too determined now to let his self-training go completely to waste. Teeth clenched, he looks above their heads, holding his chin up as high as he dares to.*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*Grey hair suddenly obscures his vision as something grazes Regulus' exposed jugular. A long dead, toothless old women vainly scrapping away at his neck with useless, decaying gums.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Repulsed and discomposed, he can't help but jolt backwards, so wrapped up in the realness of his memory that he only barely hears the dry scuff of his shoes on the dirt country road that he stands on in reality.*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*A tangle of limbs unfold around him and the hungry corpse, pressing on him and pulling at his clothes, hands and ankles. The world around him is nothing now but endless green and eager mouths.*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*He can't see beyong his own memory now, he doesn't know if the dark creatures he had called to him are close enough to hear him clearly but he declares it anyway.

"I am NOT-" "-offering-" "-" "I am NOT-" "-offering-" "-"*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*The mess of bodies, hair and water disintegrate, cave edges reforming into stone walls. A young Gryffindor girl sits across from him in detention, giving him a steady, questioning look, "-then where is everyone?"*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Regulus' mother replies, her words spread years apart but her face the same. "They're here-" "-on one condition."*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*There is little to no chance these dementors are the same Regulus encountered at Rothbury, so what is spoken next, in their strange hodge-podge tongue, is truly puzzling.

It's Filch who speaks for them now, Regulus pants after Barty's bobbing blonde head, weaving far ahead of him, the caretaker's words pushing on his back, "You've done it once! You've done it once but you wont do it twice! You wont escape me again!"*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Regulus is much more confused than the deadpan Regulus who speaks his lines for him now, as he looks in at his old dormitory four-poster with the curtains suspecting drawn and containing a Barty. "Is that you?"*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*The creature's words pick up speed, the memories forming them popping in and out of existence before they are readily identifiable - so many mouths speaking together, transmitting the reality of dementor existence in an abstract sense all on its own. "-there is no-" "YOU." "-only us-" "--" "Rememeber-" "-AS ONE." "-feast?" "-AS ONE." "-no trespass-" "-against our-" "Brothers!" "-goes-" "-forgotten."*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Dread poisons Regulus' stomach. Individual monsters with individual consciousnesses are escapable, avoidable, but having tricked a collective species is something he could not have been prepared for by any books on the matter and makes for far more sinister of odds. He clings to his wand and picks his words carefully.

"I haave..." "-come HERE-" "-to-" "-repay-" "-debts and-" "-to-" "-offer you-" "-a gift." "You wouldn't!" "-have-" "-gotten it if-" "-you had-" "-not LET ME-" "-go."*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*Cold hands, very much like those of the corpses in the cave, close around his face - he can only feel the sensation, the dementor not allowing him to escape his mind and his memories long enough to see what is physically occurring any more.

"-your-" "-soul?" "-is an-" "Adequate enough." "-PRESENT?!"*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*"-it's not mine." "It's-" "-something-" "-greater than-" "-you've had-" "-before?"*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*"--" "-know of-" "WHAT?" "-you've brought-" "-but-" "Tell me." "-why should I-" "STOP." "-there-"*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*"Because." Regulus isn't interested in stalling, he's come here to make a deal. "IF YOU-" "-kill me-" "-you'll never get-" "-the- "-Rest."*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*"-your-" "-mind?" "-is-" "" "Oh." "EMPTY." "You've barely-" "-BREACHED!" "-the surface-" "-of even-" "-mortal-" "-understanding?" "-you know nothing!" "Least of all-" "-where the others have gone?"*

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*"I dunno-" "-where-" "-they are now, but-" "-I know how to-" "-figure out-" "-where to?" "-FIND THEM!" "Once." "I do." "-you'll wish you-" "-had-" "-them-" "-won't you?" "It's very valuable."*

[batshitscary.livejournal.com]

*"-it's only-" "Due to-" "-sheer coincidence." "-you have even-" "SURVIVE." "-ed." "--" "-have little-" "-FAITH?" "-in your-" "-fragile-" "-human-" "-state-"*