The blasts of flame drowned out the sound of the shields, Deiv's shadow, Akija's shadow, both deafening and blinding, but at least he'd been a little forewarned. Not enough, but a little. Hands still clapped over his ears against the continual roar of fireball after fireball-- which really didn't help much-- he hunched in a ball against the house wall, eyes squeezed shut against the blinding light, waiting for it to be over!

Coward! Fucking-- coward!

Really, now, Almadir, can't you think of a better word?

It fits! That's amazing! He's a fucking coward if he doesn't like it!

If he is, so am I!

Aaah, I wish I could do that....

I don't!

Make it stooooop!

And then-- it did.

Where'd it go?? Where'd my Fire go??

One eye cracked open. Akija stood where she had been, looking around with a bewildered expression on her face. Then she focused on Deiv, her shadow spat a curse in a realization that escaped Cacopheny entirely, and she sputtered an indignant, "Hey!"

Deiv just laughed and shrugged, grinning, "Well? Now what do you do?"

Akija's shadow was very talkative, at that: Not fair! No one can drain me 'cept another daemon, and I'm not goin' up against any of them! And he knows it!

Well, that explains that....

"Explains what?" Cacopheny muttered absently.

What she was so annoyed about! Listen to Deiv; he's got all her Fire magic.

It was true. He did. No wonder Akija was so annoyed; Cacopheny figured he probably would be, too.

What followed was too confusing for Cacopheny to figure out: magic crackled and flowed from Deiv to Akija and back again, never manifesting more than a flicker over Akija's hand. Her shadow was growling to itself, but he couldn't hear it over the magical battle and the equally confusing riot that sprang up in his head, as if trying to drown out the outside noises. He tried to focus on her, the one shadow he really wanted to be hearing, as much for an anchor in the sonic storm as to spite his own shadows.

What am I doing wrong?? he caught, Come on, faster! -- Gods, this is starting to hurt! -- Is this stretching him, too? -- Distract him! -- Am I getting more sparks? Keep at it! -- I feel like I'm going to explode! -- But I can't-- give up yet! Just a little more!

Her hand burst into flame again, but with a flicker that actually sounded like fire, almost died again....

Then a roar from every shadow Cacopheny could hear drowned out Akija's shadow's defiant scream, and in sudden terror he buried his face in his knees, hands still clasped to his ears and personal shadows suddenly gone quiet. All the other shadows had come alive, he could hear them-- smell them, touch them, feel them, taste them-- and the ones in his head didn't want them to find him any more than he did! He was, after all, theirs.

The roar died into an ominous but muted rumble almost as soon as it began, and Cacopheny cracked open an eye to see Akija staring at a hand encased in darkness-- in shadow. The roar hadn't disappeared: now all those hundreds of voices had converged on Akija, swirling around her, only a few wisps of it manifesting enough to be visible, but even that was enough wrap around her whole arm. 

The shadows-- had Akija?!

With a demonic curse of alarm, Cacopheny scrambled to his feet, very nearly tripping over his own long limbs, and, ignoring a chorus of warning and mocking from the shadows which hadn't joined the rest, made a stumbling run to her-- stopping when he hit the shield that Deiv still hadn't dropped. Hit it, in fact, with his nose.

Before he could start pounding, though, or try to take the shield apart, ignoring the fact that his nose now hurt, the shadows suddenly gave a sigh and dispersed, fleeing back to where they'd come from. All the magics Akija had gathered bled out into nothing, disappearing from sound, sense, and sight, and Akija just continued to stare at her hand-- completely mute, right down to her shadow.

"Akijza?" Cacopheny coughed, not quite frantic-- the shadows had let her go, after all-- but what if they'd hurt her?

She turned her head at the sound of his voice, expression dazed and blinking, and she said, quite distinctly, "Uh-oh," before she started to list a little to one side. Cacopheny had time for one pound on the shield with a fist before the whole construction collapsed to the sound of something Deiv cried that Cacopheny wasn't paying a whit of attention to. He stumbled through what had a moment ago been solid magic and reached out to try and catch Akija, just barely in time: he caught her.

In time, but probably not as helpful as he could have been. Unsteady already, when Akija quite conveniently fell into his arms-- and she really fell, practically a dead weight!-- Cacopheny, despite his good intentions, actually ended up going with her instead of steadying her. Thankfully, though, he hit the ground first, with her landing squarely on his chest, so even though the weight of her forced all the air out of his lungs, at least she didn't hurt herself!

Once he was actually flat on his back on the ground, though, Akija's weight wasn't quite that bad; She had sat on his chest before, and Akija wasn't nearly as heavy. He could at least breathe again, after the force of the impact had left him wheezing. Which, he realized as Akija lifted her head briefly only to drop it back down on his shoulder again with a dizzy-sounding groan, was probably a good thing: she didn't seem like she was going to be moving anytime soon.

I knew it, I knew it, they hurt her--

Relax, stupid, she's just tired out.

Remember when you used too much magic?

Weaking for a week....

"Are you two all right?"

Cacopheny opened his eyes-- when did they close? He didn't remember that-- and blinked up at Deiv, staring down at him, or more likely Akija, whose hair was tickling his chin, with an expression of surprise, concern, and wonder.

What's his problem?

"Dumb question," Akija groaned, and Cacopheny got an elbow under him, one arm supporting her so that, when he levered himself up to see if she was all right, she wouldn't go sliding off and onto the damp grass.

Come to think of it, he was now laying in the damp grass... damn.

"Fine... fine. Akizja? All rrrrright?"

"Head's not," she grunted, taking a swat at her father's leg which, despite the fact that her eyes were closed, actually connected. "That was not fair!"

Deiv dropped to a crouch beside them, and Cacopheny managed to sit himself up a little further without jostling Akija too much. His shadows were fairly quiet, but he thought he heard Tiger... purring?

What are you doing?

Being content. Shut up.

Be glad I'm not doing anything right now.

Definitely glad that Flash was very far from control, Cacopheny focused again on the conversation outside his head.

"Well, I didn't quite expect you to do what you did," Deiv was admitting.

"Didn't expect!" Akija yelped, both eyes open and fixed on him in surprise. Her shadow was as silent as it usually was, but she was as expressive as always. "You said hit it with all I had; what else was I s'pposed to do?"

"You wouldn't listen to your enemy if they told you to attack a certain way, would you?" Deiv asked, tilting his head. Cacopheny cocked his head enough to get a better look at Akija's expression, because from that stunned silence it was likely to be interesting. It was; he snickered as Deiv continued, "I thought you'd just tear down the shield. I had no idea you'd attempt all you did-- which was very impressive, by the way. Very creative. I'll have to think a while to find new challenges for you, my little mage."

Impressive, my ass....

Was a damn battlefield!

It was fascinating.

I wish we could do that....

Keep wishing. We're not a mage.

"Tear it down," Akija repeated, still stuck on what she "should have" done, sagging back with what Cacopheny expected to be dismay-- or chagrin, perhaps, for not thinking of that? Cacopheny expected he never would have.... He was, instead, quite content to watch, no matter what Genner, Almadir, and even Tek had to say! And, apparently, act as a pillow for the exhausted daemon.

No objections here.

"I coulda done that," Akija continued to rant, only vaguely coherently, "I managed t'tear down-- but ya said-- and after all that I still didn't touch yer shield!"

"Even so, I still say that was a fine bit of exercise for you," Deiv told her. "You're resourceful, and that's not something that can be taught." Then he chuckled. "It's been a while since I've been wowed like that. That Dark energy you grabbed surprised me."

Dark?

"Dark," Akija repeated blankly, then winced. "Oh, that." Slowly and carefully, she turned her head enough to look back at Cacopheny from the corner of one eye; he tilted his head a bit further to accommodate, hair sliding off his shoulder to brush the ground. Her expression was odd: almost pained, like she'd just bitten something she shouldn't have, whether on her own person or someone else's. "I didn't pull that from you... did I?"

He blinked back at her just as blankly. "Errrrrrrr." Another blink. "No? I ssstill haf all my zhadows. Ssose vere frrrom osser places...." And, with the realization that she had pulled those shadows to her, he admitted embarrassedly, "I ssought-- ssey vere goingk to hurrrt you. Attackingk... you did ssat?"

Akija nodded in answer, but quite promptly shut her eyes again with another pained expression. Immediately concerned, he started to ask if she was all right-- again-- but she seemed to recover quickly enough, and started to explain: "I was in such a rush t'grab any magic I could.... There's little pockets of magic all around, and I was grabbing fer anything I could feel... I've never touched the shadow that falls outta you before, but there I just needing something, and then, there it was," she flapped a hand expressively, "all that shadow instead of fire. I was worried someone mighta got mad at me fer, well, stealing."

"Never stopped you before," Deiv merrily stage-whispered, and then fell back on his rump with a laugh as Akija shoved at his knees rather than just swatting. Cacopheny managed to swallow the further snicker that threatened; he still wasn't entirely comfortable laughing at Deiv, no matter how silly or kind he was.

"See if I ever ask you fer lessons again," Akija grumbled, rather insincerely if Cacopheny was any guess, as Deiv gave her a grin more suited for one's younger sibling than one's father. "Parents," she muttered, looking back at Cacopheny with an exasperated expression which earned only a blank stare.

"Arrrre parents sssuppos't to be diff'rrrent?" he asked. He only knew so many, after all, and his own... "parents"... didn't seem like good examples.

No comparison, at all.

"Supposedly," she replied. "Supposedly there's this thing called 'maturity' they're supposed to have."

Heh, and that you'll probably never have.

Shut up.

"And now you know why you don't have it, either!" Deiv chortled.

"This is where I pretend I didn't hear him," Akija smirked with a stage-whisper of her own. "Thanks for the quick catch," she added after a moment, switching topics. She proved her humor returned, then, by clasping her hands together and playfully crooning, "My hero!"

So startled was Cacopheny by that, that not only did he forget to laugh-- which he probably was supposed to have done-- Tiger, who was paying oh so much attention to the conversation, actually slipped in a comment. "And you'd best not forget it," he rumbled with a mock little sniff that fell quickly before a grin, "translating" into her head for her as lightly as he could.

One of these days we've got to learn dragonic, he grumbled more privately.

Cacopheny shook his head sharply. "Rrrr. Tiger, shut up."

He wasn't listening. Akija didn't help matters by bursting into laughter.

See? She likes me.

You're just pathetic.

You're just jealous because she doesn't like you.

She doesn't even know about me!

So?

"Well now that you've got her grinning again, let's see about getting the dizzy damsel back inside, shall we?" Deiv's voice only barely cut through the mental conversation.

"Oh don't make me move...."

Startled by Akija's sudden shift, reaching up, and Deiv's sudden intrusion into space he hadn't previously been in, reaching down for his daughter, Tiger stiffened and let out a warning growl-- which, the instant Cacopheny caught himself voicing, he swallowed, looking horrified.

Surprised, both daemons swiveled their heads around to stare at him. He winced back, certain he'd made some horrible mistake; he had no business growling at anyone in this family. Or, more appropriately, Tiger had no business growling at them.

If you had a body, I'd hurt you!

That could always be arranged.

Cacopheny prudently ignored that comment.

Stop growling at people!

I was surprised! And he's taking Akija away! Why shouldn't I growl?

Because he's-- what if he's--

Oh, please. He's nothing like He was, you ought to know that by now. Look at him.

He did. Deiv had recovered from his surprise quickly, and apparently didn't seem to take offense, or even concern: he was smiling. Cacopheny blinked in mild confusion.

"Easy there, tiger," the daemon soothed, throwing him from mildly confused to completely shocked, and for a second he forgot to breathe.

Tiger?

What?

He knows!

He can't know.

But he just said--

That wasn't a name, stupid.

Then what was it?

Uh... a nickname?

Sure sounded like a name, to me.

Well, sure, it sounded like mine.

"I'll leave watching over the little lady to you just as soon as she's inside and resting somewhere."

Akija's wordless little squeak proved that she'd caught the ironic choice of wording, too. Deiv couldn't possibly know just who had growled at him-- in fact, unless Akija had been telling stories, he didn't know anything about his shadows, perhaps not even that they were there. It seemed like Deiv's comment was just that: ironic, but harmless.

Tiger, himself, was just amused, much to Cacopheny's annoyance.

Calm down. At least he didn't hit you, right?

Oh, just shut up....

Going to have to, since that nice fellow couldn't understand me if I tried saying anything.

Don't you dare--

Even though Cacopheny was trying to stutter out a quiet apology, Tiger brought him fluidly to his feet and straightened out his clothes with a single, smooth movement. Deiv looked as inscrutable and smiling as before, but Akija looked a little confused-- probably expecting his usual, clumsy scramble.

Why can't I move like that....

Too focused on us, I expect.

I bet I could move like that.

Could not; you'd trip over your own feet.

Would not!

Let's not find out!

"In we go then," Deiv suggested, looping his arm around Akija's waist for support and starting for the house. Cacopheny drifted after them-- or, rather, Tiger drifted after them, feeling carefully at his nose-- which hurt, in a kind of distant way, since Cacopheny himself was at a slight remove.

What the hell did you do to yourself?

Belatedly, Cacopheny remembered he'd smashed it into Deiv's shield. Since he did, so did Tiger.

Ah. Well, it'll probably be turning pretty colors, here, in a few minutes... at least I don't think it's broken.

Could I please have my body back? Cacopheny grumbled.

Why? I use it better than you do.

Because it's mine, dammit!

Just a minute....

Right then, Akija had glanced over her shoulder and her father's arm, perhaps still a little bemused by the distinct dichotomy between his less-than-eloquent speech and feline-graceful movements. Tiger, who had been just waiting for such a glance, gave her a fanged grin and a wink before finally allowing Cacopheny control back.

Thank you.

Akija's expression had gone from mildly confused to... well, a little amused, grinning as she'd turned away. Cacopheny smiled a little bit, himself, and Tiger responded smugly,

You're welcome.