Daemon Meme

[omggirlonthenet]

In the universe of the His Dark Materials trilogy (or the movie The Golden Compass), every person has a creature called a dæmon that accompanies them all their lives, and is emotionally and metaphysically a part of them. Dæmons are often described as sort of external souls (while the part of the personality in a human's body is the spirit).



Basic Dæmon Facts:

- They take the shape of animals
- They can talk, no matter what their shape
- Children's dæmons can change form at will; around puberty they 'settle' and become one animal permanently
- Neither the person or the dæmon chooses the final settled form, but it always reflects their personality (although not necessarily in obvious or simple ways)
- They are almost always the opposite sex as their human
- If a dæmon feels pain, so will their person, and vice versa
- Being physically apart from one's dæmon causes horrible emotional and physical pain
- Dæmons frequently talk to and touch each other, in ways that reflect or complement their persons' interactions, but dæmons talking to humans other than their own is considered strange, and touching humans not their own is extremely taboo; it generally occurs only between long-time lovers. Touching someone else's dæmon without permission is a terrible violation.

How it works:

Just design a dæmon for your muse and put as little or as much information as you like about them (shape, name, link to a picture or species wiki if you are so inclined) in a comment, with your muse's name and series in the subject. Check out other people's dæmons and let your dæmons interact too.

Comments

[punched_hitler]

Since finding Bucky and bringing him in from the cold, Steve and Jo (his yellow mongoose daemon) are painfully aware that... it's just Bucky. It's just Bucky, and not Bucky and Ginger, and they both miss her with this deep, hollow ache that they're sure can never compare to how Bucky feels without her, but they miss her all the same. They're determined not to treat Bucky any differently, though, and Jo, just like Steve, has never really been a stickler for the rules - it's why she talks to Bucky just like she talks to Steve, and there have been several times, since taking Bucky in, that she has very deliberately put herself within touching distance, nearly touching him, because they both feel that if Bucky needs anything they have to offer at all, it's his - including Jo.

Steve still goes running regularly, with Jo usually riding on his shoulder; this morning, when they get back, it's with two cups of coffee and a little paper bag with some pastries, glancing around the apartment. "Buck?" Jo jumps down, and starts scouting the apartment for Bucky - whatever the serum did to them, it lets them get a little farther apart than most. That... only got more pronounced after they crashed the plane and almost - but not quite - died.

[iknewhim]

The trigger phrases weren't gone, not really, but the connections were, which was just as good, since without a chair to re-implant and reinforce them they were as good as useless, might as well have been gone. But even the King of Wakanda could only do so much about a missing Daemon, one that by all evidence was well and truly gone.

Someone, presumably Natasha from wherever she was, had sent Steve a short video, grainy and worn, something that had clearly been salvaged after an attempted erasure. Bucky and Ginger had definitely been severed from each other, that much was clear, but the second clip, with a much later time-stamp, the Soldier being ordered to kill the cat, that part was inconclusive, the video wasn't damaged, it was simply non-existent, as if the recording had stopped.

For his part, Bucky still believed that he'd killed her, as far as he was concerned there was no other explanation. He appreciated Jo making herself available, but he wasn't going to monopolize her time if Steve needed her, and he hadn't yet touched her except once, by accident while rolling out of bed after waking up from a nightmare.

At that particular moment he was sitting out on the fire escape, cigarette in one hand and a scrawny black and white alley cat rubbing meticulously against the metal one. He knew that the neighborhood cats couldn't fill in the gap in his psyche where Ginger should have been, but they all liked him well enough, and that was fine with him.

[punched_hitler]

Frankly, Steve's in this no matter whether Bucky thinks he's dangerous or not. It's probably stupid, and it's definitely not smart, but it is what it is, and after watching that video, which had made him almost physically ill (and he and Jo had spent more than 24 hours in constant contact, unwittingly, just because that footage had bothered them so much), he had been more determined than ever to stand beside Bucky, no matter what. Bucky had been through so much, it made Steve simultaneously want to cry and want to raze everything associated with HYDRA to the ground with his own two hands. Jo felt the same way - of course she did - and while she wouldn't push touching on Bucky, she wanted him to know that she was there. Steve, for his part, honestly felt nothing but right, at the thought of sharing his soul with Bucky.

Jo finds Bucky even as Steve's still putting down his keys; she slips up onto the fire escape beside him, just waiting patiently for Steve to arrive; he does, setting down the coffee and the bag next to Bucky, just leaning out the window for a minute, given that it can get a little crowded on the fire escape with the two of them now, and he doesn't want to crowd Bucky, or frighten the cat. It's not Ginger, but she seems to be satisfied with letting Bucky pay her attention, and he seems satisfied to do it, so Steve thinks it's a good thing. "I brought breakfast. If you're hungry."

[iknewhim]

"Thanks." He replied, "Appreciate it." He swiped the back of his hand across his nose, taking one last drag of the cigarette between his fingers before stubbing it out. The movement was more or less to cover the sniff, he wasn't crying then, and he hadn't really been crying earlier, but he had definitely had more emotion than he knew what to do with, which was why he was where he was at the moment.

"This one's Nibbles." He said by way of introducing the cat. He hadn't named all of them, many of them weren't actually strays, but lived in the building or the buildings nearby, he hadn't even named all the ones who didn't have collars, just a handful of them. Nibbles demonstrated how she'd gotten the name by opening her mouth to reveal one snaggletooth that she went about gnawing at the metal fingers with, something that made Bucky smile, just a little.

[punched_hitler]

Steve and Jo had always been careful to... not ignore it when Bucky got emotional, really, but sort of to do what they'd always done, which was offer silent but solid support. It was why Jo spent so much time and effort putting herself within reach, and it was why Steve sat shoulder to shoulder with Bucky when he could, not bringing up the looks he saw cross Bucky's face so much as just... letting Bucky know that if he wanted to say something, Steve was there.

"Yeah?" Steve grinned when she started chewing on the arm, and reached out tentatively to pet her, if she'd let him. "She come around a lot?"

[iknewhim]

The cat definitely allowed the attention, though she went about teething at Steve's fingers as well, still purring away, though it sounded just a little slobbery with her mouth open, more like someone snoring than a cat's purring.

Bucky nodded, "Yeah, she does. Sometimes she'll sit out here and wait for me." None of the others did that, they'd come hang out for a while if he was already outside, but they wouldn't wait outside for him if he wasn't.

"I figure it's because she knows she'll get first crack at the food if she waits for me." Because that was usually what Bucky was doing out on the fire escape besides smoking, leaving food out for the cats that came around.

[punched_hitler]

Steve laughed a little - the cat's teething tickled more than hurt - and grinned when Bucky said the cat would wait for him. "She sounds like a smart girl, to me - it's important to know where your next meal is coming from," he pointed out. Jo nodded a little, smiling (as well as a mongoose could smile, but she managed), finally slipping up Steve's arm to sit on the shoulder closest to Bucky, as Steve petted the cat, and let her drool on him in equal measures.

"Do you want to come inside?" he asked, just curious, not making a big deal of it. "Or do you want to eat out here?" He liked spending time with Bucky - wanted to, desperately, and so did Jo - but he didn't want to crowd him, either, if he'd rather enjoy the peace and quiet.

[iknewhim]

"I could come in." He replied, giving a shrug, "Might as well pretend I can still eat meals at the table like a civilized person, right?" This was mostly a joke, he'd made similar jabs before, and mostly in the same vein, pretending he was, or acting like he was still a person.

He knew he was, even without his Daemon, but he also knew what other people thought and while he had no intention of proving them right, sometimes -often- the joking was easier.

[punched_hitler]

By now, Steve didn't cringe at the joke - in a way, it was familiar, because he and Bucky had always joked about stupid shit, and the more things hurt... the more they'd tried to play it off.

So instead, he laughed (even if it was just a little weak), covering it by reaching out to smack Bucky lightly on the shoulder. "That's implying you ever ate like a civilized person, and I'm not sure about that."

Jo, never one to be left out of teasing Bucky - or Steve - turned and hopped down to slip inside, brandishing her tail like a haughty cat might as she did so. "Neither of you know how to eat like civilized people, Steve."

Steve looked appropriately sheepish, and shrugged. "I can't win for losing. Come on. Come in and eat your breakfast, pal."

[iknewhim]

Jo's response startled an actual laugh out of Bucky, shaking his head as he turned to slip back inside the apartment, landing lightly. He reached back through the window to scratch Nibbles behind the ears with a quiet: "I'll be back later."

He followed Steve to the small kitchen table, detouring only long enough to get plates out of the drying rack on the counter. He figured if they were going to pretend to be civilized they should at least have plates. Coffee could still be drunk from the paper cups, no sense dirtying up mugs when the paper was serviceable.

[punched_hitler]

Steve just gave Jo's retreating rear an affronted look (she didn't need to see him to know the expression on his face) and shook his head a little at Bucky, waiting for his best friend to climb in the window behind him before shutting it most of the way, careful of the cat still on the fire escape. Steve set the paper bag on the table and opened it up, divvying out pastries onto the two plates and pushing one toward Bucky. "I just sort of bought whatever looked good... except they all looked good," he laughed, tearing off a piece of one of the pastries on his plate as he sat down and offering it up to Jo, who sniffed at it delicately before grabbing it and clearly savoring it, the picture of good manners.

Of course, Jo was really just being contrary, because she didn't generally give a damn about manners either, she was just trying to show the two of them up. Steve just smiled a little helplessly and, catching Bucky's eyes, rolled his own.

[iknewhim]

Bucky bit back a smile at the Daemon's antics, just eyeing the pastries on his own plate before nodding, "Yeah, see what you mean." They all looked good and he wasn't sure where to start, finally deciding on the danish that was closest to him, some kind of triangular faux-pinwheel sort of thing that had cream cheese filling and berries of some kind that he couldn't identify, even by flavor, but it was good, as predicted.

The coffee, however, was what finally had that smile emerging, just a little, thinner than it once had been, but very much in evidence, "That's the good stuff."

[punched_hitler]

Steve maybe kept sneaking little glances at Bucky while he ate - it was stupid, but he liked seeing Bucky enjoy things, he liked seeing expressions on his face, because it was such a far cry from the Winter Soldier that still haunted his dreams. He'd never, ever doubted that, daemon or no, Bucky was a whole, real person worth saving, worth working to make happy. But sometimes... a little confirmation was nice, was all.

"You should come with me, sometime," he said, after a minute, almost testing the waters. "I mean... the bakery isn't far. They know who I am, and they never make a big deal about it. They're always teasing me about the lucky person at home that I'm going to serve breakfast in bed to," he added, then looked a little embarrassed, because he hadn't quite meant for it all to come out like that. "I mean - I tell them it's for a friend. They keep giving me looks like I'm lying."

[iknewhim]

"That's because most people don't have friends that they buy breakfast for practically every day." He replied, matter-of-fact and without any sort of accusation or heat behind the tone and barely the usual level of teasing.

It was something he was mostly being serious about, but with Bucky those moments of seriousness could often take a turn for the worse, or at least for the dramatic, though generally to the tune of claiming that he didn't know how he knew, he just knew.

He shrugged then, smile returning as he stuffed the last bite of danish in his mouth, talking around it, "Not that I'm complaining."