Drop-Off

A/N: Counterpart to Overhang. 

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The rush of wind was disturbed by the trees, but Skulduggery was skilled at picking apart the patterns of wind and thus caught the movement in the forest. He sat up, scanning the sleeping bodies around the clearing. Huh. Echo must have been very quiet. She left her jacket, so rather then leaving her to walk in peace, he picked it up and decided to have a chat with her. The poor tan overcoat was just the excuse.

He was silent as he followed her movements on the wind- Hah, Echo-location! Sneaking up on her was so hard to do that he did it every time he could just to get a rise out of her. 

She stepped out onto the edge of the cliff as soon as he saw her, and he stiffened, throwing out a hand and gathering some air to stop her fall, but her first words caught him completely off guard. It took all of five seconds to realize that she was not talking to him at all, but someone he believed dead. 

"Hey, Ali. I guess it's been a while... Sorry about that." Cursing silently, he translated from Latin. He hadn't spoken it in ages, it figured that Echo would use it just to irk him- even though he was sure she didn't know he was there.

"Did you know that Apollo finally got a protegé?" Women. Shameless gossips, the lot of them.

...Wait did she just call him Apollo? Skulduggery crept up the side of a tree and sat on a branch, one leg hugged to his rib-cage as he watched her. The wind blew right through him, but he ignored it. This was worth investigation.  "Well- of course you didn't, you're dead. Her name is Valkyrie Cain, and she reminds me to such an absurd degree of Penelope. He acts like he's a... well, her father, when he's around Valkyrie. He... He teases! I was kind of scared. And it doesn't help that Valkyrie is practically the spitting image of Penelope! Not in her looks, of course not, but Valkyrie... acts like Penelope did, sometimes. She likes reading, and... Well, she's a bit of a smart-ass." Echo laughed, looking up and over the cliff as she talked. She definitely didn't know he was there, or she would have called him a smart-ass. 

"I'm not sure what that says about how Apollo cares for her- Guilt, maybe? I don't know." Skulduggery winced inwardly. That was a major blow, and he had to wonder if she was right- was it because of the daughter he practically left to Echo to raise that he cared so much about Stephanie? "Valkyrie would be pissed, though, if she found out that Apollo looks at her and sees the ghost of his dead daughter, so let's keep this all hush-hush, okay?" ...That was typical Echo, though, that there at the end. Only she would talk to empty air like it was a person and still have everyone convinced she was perfectly sane.

"Valkyrie's Reflection is what really interests me. You see, a while ago, Apollo shot it. Yes, he shot a Reflection." Damnit, she didn't get the whole story!

"I really didn't get the full story in any great detail-" Told you! "-But it involved escaping... Typical Apollo. After that, Val, as I call her-" A nick-name?! "-Gained a mind, and bam! We have a look-alike of Valkyrie Cain who hates Apollo's guts. Or lack thereof. Serves him right for shooting her." He winced again, his gaze dropping to the forest floor. Echo had that remarkable talent for guilt-tripping him even when she didn't know he was there. He wondered what that said about her ability to see what made people guilty... Then ignored that line of thought.

"Anyways, I met Val, and here's the part that reminds me of Penelope- She looks at me like her mother, or at-least a cool aunt. Just like Penelope." Way to be modest, Echo. "She still hates Apollo, but I think she might be getting over that. She also has this untamed habit for discovering secrets- Mostly mine. Probably because my secrets are the most expansive and have the most black-mail value." 

Skulduggery looked up at Echo again. What kinds of secrets did she have? She seemed pretty open to everyone... She had been for as long as she could remember. Echo didn't hide anything, it was part of what made trusting her infectious. 

"No, I'm not telling you, even if you are dead- or worse, if I'm talking to empty air (which I am)." He could hear the smile in her voice at her own accusation of insanity. 

"Yeah, she knows more about me in less then two months then you could figure out in... what, 200 years? I think I like her. Val, I mean. Valkyrie's also pretty sweet, but... I don't know, I feel a bit attached to Val. She's like the daughter I never had-" She stopped suddenly, and Skulduggery wondered what she had been about to say. Did she have a sweet-heart he didn't know about? Someone had passed the rumor to him that she had been soft for a barber a few centuries back... Had that been more then just a rumor?

He began paying attention again, and he felt his heart break slightly. He recognized that posture- that was teenage Echo, trying to pretend that she was alright when she was not. That was teenage Echo standing at his grave, trying to stop the tears from falling. That... was something he had not seen in years. "Yeah, I'm still single. Pathetic, I know. Sorry, no family genes passed on yet. I know you're very, very ashamed and all that, but, oh well. I just don't have the heart. I'm weird like that." The heart for what?! Skulduggery nearly growled at the frustration that he felt welling up inside him, before he realized that Echo was shaking slightly and he really didn't want to reveal that he had been watching her cry. 

"Anyways, while I'm here, I might as well tell you the really shitty news. I think that the job I tried to do last time I was here is about to be fulfilled- this guy named 'Nameless' has my given name." Skulduggery stiffened. Job? Here? "I have that necklace that binds my powers on, but if I'm to participate in the fight... chances are I'll try to kill someone, and that someone will have no choice but to kill me. I'm sorry, but it's a possibility." Oh God, she was referring to that job she tried to do here as DEATH! She had tried to kill herself! Skulduggery felt a deep ache in his chest, and if he had skin he knew he would have been chilled from the deep truth in her words. 

"I hope that it doesn't come to that, because the only person able to kill me is Apollo. He's already had the unfortunate duty to fight me once in the last few days..." So she remembered that after all. He had wondered if she just chose to block it out of her mind. The sad part, though, was that she was telling Alison that she meant for him to kill her if she went on a rampage! No! He couldn't! Skulduggery was frozen, transfixed, as Echo suddenly smiled- he could tell from the set of her shoulders... The way she looked up again...

"I... I hope it doesn't come to that. Really, I do. But if it does... Goodbye. I love you. You and Penelope both." Skulduggery could have cried with her. He wondered if she knew just how much this revealed about her... Well, she probably did; hence the middle of the night. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the 'greater good,' and if that was necessary, she wanted him to do the honors. Those were honors he could do without, though... 

He nearly missed her last words, so caught up by the realization... "By the way, since I'm going to die..." He leaned forward, moving the wind to catch her whisper. Even so, he missed it, except for one word: Daphne. 

So that was her first name. Skulduggery flinched as she turned and quickly pulled up her dangling coat, as well as his leg, and held very still as she passed underneath him, silently making her way back to the group in the clearing, leaving him sitting alone clutching her coat as if it was a holy relic and wondering just what made women so insane... or was it just her? 

And was it contagious?

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1 Haha, lol. I love the Copy/Paste button.

2 I can imagine Skulduggery learning languages only because of necessity. Really. 

3 ^-^ Skulduggery's still in the "Maybe/sorta/do I?" phase of Crush-hood. Poor guy. 

A/N: This is in the middle of Rippling Pool, so don't be confused... (And I'll edit it in the morning.)