The Fourth wall breaking of DEADPOOL meets JANE AUSTEN meets MAGICAL WEIRDNESS
When a mysterious new boy comes to town, seventeen-year-old odd ball, Peneloper Auttsley, must confront the secrets of her past in order to save her present.
...
Gideon's memory, much like his time, runs immemorial, but as he nurses his libation, it's as though he hadn't recently strangled the captain with his magic.
His companion, however, remembers and vows neither to forget nor forgive. Instead, Stormholden's demeanor leans toward the defensive, his fingers prodding at the weapons strewn across the table, ready at a breath to slash, stab and shoot.
Stormholden, doing exactly as he is written to do, disappoints Gideon greatly. The captain offers no more amusement than your average story hero, his threats dispassionate, trite, and recycled. His reactions predictable and contrived, but necessary to give the plot forward momentum.
Gideon sips on the remainder of his noose, emanating the menace required of his as the story's antagonist. The alcohol helps dull his senses, and makes the situation tolerable. Someone of Gideon's caliber, someone who manages to be both terrifying and compelling deserved better company than some Retelling trash like Stormholden, but he has no choice. He has been designated to wait, and so he does. His opportunity will come, chillingly, soon enough.
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• Keep It Dark •
"Captain." Gideon ran a finger along the rim of his noose, eyes glued to Stormholden's trigger finger. "Don't be like this."
Stormholden raised his pistol, cocked back the hammer. One bullet, that's all it would take and he could do as much before Gideon's devilry killed him.
"I told you," Gideon ran his sleeve across his mouth, wiping away the few speckles of black sludge and tattered beetle's wings that stained his chin, "I'm not going to hurt you."
The red imprints left around Stormholden's neck throbbed in protest. The dryness of his mouth, the rawness of his throat screamed otherwise. "You said you wouldn't kill me yet, which means you will eventually. I've been foolish, yes," the captain sank his bootheels into the wooden floor, green dust rising around his ankles, "but I will not be foolish again. You throw your sorcery at me, boy," he growled, took the shot Barnabones had brought him, and without looking away, threw it over his shoulder. The glass clanked when he slammed it back on the table, the remains of its ruby contents glistening like blood, freshly spilled, "and there will be no hesitation from me. These hands," he flexed his fingers, "have shed blood, and though I find murder repugnant, if provoked, if presented with the sole choice between my life and yours, I will lodge a bullet between your eyes and feel no remorse."
Gideon studied the captain, his gaze a restrained, tempered blue-gray like a cloudy day at sea, the thoughts behind those impenetrable eyes, unfathomable.
"You know," Gideon slid a piece of paper from one of his Altoid's tins, flattened it on the table, "you are making it very hard for us to be friends." The fingers of his gloved hand worked as if separate from his body sprinkling tobacco and rolling the paper tight all while Gideon's gaze lingered on the captain and his all-too eager trigger finger.
