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 Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:07 pm
The air smelled of vodka and industrial rust. His fingers were cold and had long since lost feeling, the blood finding an excuse to detour to other areas of the body that still had function. Such as the toes that could barely touch the slimy ground.
Apparently dust and blood produced a lovely, but sticky clay of sorts that provided no traction whatsoever.
"Enough," X said lazily, yawning as he watched her lounge on the antique chaise before taking a sip of what could only be blood. The wineglass sparked in the harsh florescent lighting.
"I'll stop when I'm damn well and ready, guardian," a heavily accented voice snarled haughtily at his guardian. He felt a white flash of pain slide painstakingly along the meat of his rear. She grinned and carefully licked the blood off her clawed, spotted hand.
A dull, gnawing pain in his ankle caused him to strain his gaze downward, curiously watching as a feather duster of color with teeth seemed to be eating his feet. A large, spotted tail swished the bloody dust around like a windshield wiper.
Too much blood.
As if to answer his question, his eyes trailed to the body of a woman, gutted and left to die. Her face looked like a fleshy skeleton, but her hands were that of an abnormally large eagle.
The tail swished and hooked onto a piece of intestine, yanking it along the floor like a child throwing about party streamers.
And suddenly, the pain of it all slammed into him. He screamed, but found his throat hoarse.
Their laughter felt like drowning.
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:38 pm
Among the familiar faces in the room was that of Lethe's, who stood at a distance and demanded no attention, but unlike the others she was not laughing. She looked upon the scene with cold, empty eyes and a hungry, pinched look to her pale face. The way she looked at Nao was unfamiliar to her character and, on the whole, unpleasant.
This was not her dream. This was not her dream, but it was her Nao, and the sound of falling rain still pounded in her brain. Except it wasn't her Nao, and this thought stirred something deep within what she guessed were supposed to be her guts. He looked wrong, too tall and muscular somehow. Too much like meat. He was dreaming about being sacrificed.
She knew very little about what that entailed, except that she could feel the warmth of the oozing blood even as far away as she was, and it was enticing. Yes, no, she knew what they were for. There were sometimes animals sacrificed to her father, fat sheep slowly smoked to the bone, and the smoke had made him stronger. She had heard this. There was more to smoke on a human than on a fat sheep, so that meant more strength. Slowly she inched forward, silently and hopefully, staining the floor monochrome with her rapidly bloodied feet.
She had no ribbons. She was free to point to Nao with one hand and leave the other hanging limply at her side, as she turned to speak to one of the phantoms of Naolin's dream. "Can I," said Lethe in a voice that was distant and hoarse, "Have some?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:00 pm
Her verbal interruption rendered the scene silent, leaving all the players startled as they stared at the odd little girl. The women were confused. They didn't understand how this one fit into everything. They didn't know her.
Naolin did.
"Lethe?" He asked lamely, not used to really participating in these sorts of dreams. Usually, he woke up before any real damage occurred. Besides, he could often tell if his dreams were of the important, must pay attention to kind, or the manifestation of memories, current mental issues, and recent events. Most of the time, the former would bring about a tingle...
...At the base of his neck. Well ******** some what?" Naolin cautiously questioned while trying to think of a way to escape this situation. Somehow, he just knew that he would not like Lethe's answer.
For the moment, the entrance of such a little girl who left snail-like trails in her wake had distracted the women from their previous goals. Well, all but the feather-headed toddler eating his ankle, who attended to her task with utter rapture.
"Who are you?" Coyol finally blurted in an accusatory tone, as if Lethe's existence was not only this child's fault, but a burden to everyone here. "Where's your invitation, girl?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:54 pm
Lethe tilted her head at an unnatural angle; it was hard to tell, as there was some indistinct blurriness to her face that cause her pale features to become indistinct against her skin, with only the darkness of her nostrils and the thin line of her eyelashes to distinguish what was where, but she might have been looking at Coyol.
"He's dreaming about me, isn't he?" She drawled in a tone that was meant to imply that was all the invitation she needed. "And about being strung up on a wall." More and more her words were being spoken towards Nao directly, and she swung her head to gaze squarely at him accordingly. "Bleeding bloody awful all over the place. I could hear you screaming from miles away."
She gingerly began to make her way closer, choosing her footsteps carefully; she was still not within reach of him, though it became clear --a from her face angled downwards and her occasional sweeping gazes over the room -- that she was looking for something. Given the occasion, when she found it she probably wanted it to be sharp.
She continued speaking, carefully and in such hushed tones that were nearly impossible to hear, "But this isn't quite how I thought it would be. I don't think you've ever been up there. If anyone, I thought maybe your guardian..." She stopped. Looked at Nao, fingers curling into claws as she clutched them to her chest as if they would escape from her. "I took your advice, you know. Killed mine. It didn't make such a mess. Maybe I didn't do it right -- maybe if she looked like you do now -- maybe I wouldn't be..."
She made a noise in the back of her throat that greatly resembled that of a stomach growling.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:24 am
Naolin suddenly seemed extremely wary of all the women surrounding him. This was his dream, and he needed to even the odds a bit. He could do it. His guardian, he knew, had no dreamwalking powers, as she existed only as a vampire. A genetically altered vampire, but a simple vampire, nonetheless. The sorceress and the three, however, could very well be there on their own accord. And Lethe, well she obviously crashed this dream.
He concentrated on his guardian for a moment, while Lethe decided to answer his sister. She made a gasping sort of protest, but with Naolin's will, his guardian disappeared in a wisp of dream smoke.
Coyol grinned. "I like you," she said suddenly after regarding the child. Anyone that meant to cause her brother ill were friends of hers. "You may stay."
As more of Lethe's words and attention swam over to him, the youth began to focus more abruptly on the intruding Fa'e. He felt drunk looking at her. He then frowned, not just from her commentary, but from the obvious wrongness of her existence. It was as if her body was straining to exist, and that scared him. No doubt it had something to do with the reason she seeped into an otherwise tolerable dream.
Strung up like he was, Naolin could do nothing but hang, frown, and watch while his a** smarted and blood ran down the back of his leg. It dripped lazily onto the floor and joined the rest on the floor, both his and Nochtli's alike. So, he simply listened...
And then he understood.
"You're fading," he whispered, almost in shock. He had heard tales of such a terrible fate. Tales that had kept his guardian alive for such a length of time already. He glanced down at his toes as much as his current position could allow, too tired to even notice the dull ache that had spread to his calf. The three were hungry tonight.
"I've sacrificed men after they've hung like this... My guardian helped me..." He explained, dissecting his own dream with odd detachment and no guilt whatsoever. Maybe regret in the finer details of the murders, mistakes in choreography and what not. In the end, what's done was done, and his guardian, no matter how much he hated her, had helped him with the dirty cleanup of the mess he always made.
He slowly looked up, focusing his eyes on the water Fa'e. This focus caused both Coyol and the three to waver slightly, until they all appeared to half exist like Lethe.
"What do you need?" He asked, knowing full well that she wanted something from him. Something nasty and possibly life threatening. Maybe if he offered it willingly to keep her from fading that last drop, maybe then he'd be able to wake up from this nightmare.
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 1:31 am
There was a knife on the table; whether it was there before or whether she had any right to it was irrelevant. Lethe picked it up with a pretense of curling her fingers -- shapeless and of irregular lengths, which gave them the effect of looking as if they were badly carved from bone -- around the handle.
Unlike her former dream encounter, Lethe felt no wrath against her fellow still-living Fa'e. If anything, the blood-given warmth of the room and the way he spoke to her so familiarly calmed her somewhat, made her feel... as if she weren't on the brink of extinction. Back when she had a solid form. Here she was, and she was not too far gone to recognize the weak and needy state she was in, and there he was -- she had misjudged him completely.
That didn't change anything, except that she no longer wanted his blood merely for the sake of having it.
"Teach me, then," she said, and it was ambiguous as to whether it was a command or a request. "Give those experiences to me. I'll take them either way, I have to take something --" she was too hungry, she had gone so long without a single impressionable new memory that her blind, nameless, meaningless existence now seemed worse than death, " -- but if you tell me how to do it the right way, your pain here won't be for nothing."
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 8:57 am
He opened his mouth to hastily tell her all about the men he'd killed and how his guardian played cover up, but something stopped him. It wasn't suspicion or fear. In her condition, Lethe didn't have the option. Predators didn't get judged because they ate other animals. so neither should she because she needed this to live.
However, Naolin was curious as to the price he'd need to pay. While the appearance of the knife bothered him, he still took the time to think about what she said and his options.
During this intense focus, both the three and Coyol finally flickered out of the dream, and finally, the two were alone. Even Nochtli's body had disappeared, but her blood remained, mixing with his all over the floor.
"If I tell you... Will I remember them anymore?" He asked curiously, watching the child. "Because, I'll be honest with you... I'd like to keep my knowledge of how to kill people. It's fun, and I like doing it, but most importantly it is essential to me and my heritage. I cannot forget it..."
He paused, considering what he had said for a moment. "You probably need important though, because that's how it always works for Fa'e... Right?" The youth looked to Lethe as if she still were solid, even though they both knew the truth. That was the point of a dream, to escape reality in on manner or another.
"How 'bout this..." He finally decided, cocking his head awkwardly for a moment. "I will give you an important memory, but of my choosing. That and I will promise to tell you all about the sacrifices when we meet again in reality."
He spoke as if Lethe had hope. If anyone had the ruthlessness or gout to do horrible things to survive, Lethe did and he respected her for that. In fact, Naolin believed in her ability to right herself and find a guardian. A guardian... His brow furrowed. "Did you find a new guardian?" Curiousness got the better of him, in the end.
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Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:51 am
Lethe remained quiet and -- in a manner that was quite unlike her -- remarkably stony-faced through Naolin's curious questioning. She tilted her head to watch Coyol and the other dream figures fade from their surroundings, but otherwise either did not have the strength to or simply chose not to react to their disappearance.
"I suppose that," she said finally, "It would work the same way it did, once upon a time, when I was really a river. Any memory you tell me, I keep. I take it through words, not with human hands through your head as I did when I was a Fa'e. This is what I think."
Slowly the hand -- which gripped the knife strongly and had raised it in expectation of murder -- dropped to her side. Perhaps it was the absence of the others and their murderous intents that no longer reflected in her that suddenly made her lose interest in the potential slaughtering, or maybe she was lazy and much preferred a meal with less effort, or tired, or all three. "Okay. I will accept these terms, and defer to your judgement as to which memory would be an appropriate replacement. If it is not to my satisfaction, I will butcher you anyway."
Probably just to be mean to him, and not because she would get anything out of it. She wasn't him, after all, she didn't personally get any power from sacrifices -- if she had the memory of gaining power from sacrifice, knew what that felt like, maybe...
His question distracted her, and for a moment her features came into sharper clarity, as if she had suddenly remembered what she looked like in her human form. She looked tired, and defeated, and was lost in thought as to what to tell him.
"I found... someone. Yes. But I honestly thought I could go longer without a guardian, I should have... There wasn't enough time to talk to him. I couldn't talk to him at all, it took me too long to find him that by the time I came, I had lost the ability to speak audibly. He had a daughter, but she's dead now. I thought if I looked like her, he might want to help me. That I could explain later. But even fading we don't seem like human ghosts, and he already knew I wasn't, so... He brought a medium. He brought a medium, but I can't possess her, because I'm just water and I'm not a ghost, and I can't tell him what to do to be my guardian. I should have learned how to write. I should have talked to him before I killed my first guardian. I should have -- not come to be Fa'e at all -- I want to go home, honestly, I want to go back to the Underworld and just be myself again, that's all I want, but I can't and he can't help me now."
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:40 pm
After the dream figures faded, Naolin's pain and wounds likewise faded away. With that, he focused his magic through the chain links binding his hands, they grew red and orange with heat, just enough not to melt. They weakened, and snapped open. Naolin dropped heavily to the floor with a groan. Dream or not, hanging around by one's wrists was not kind on the body.
All the while that he managed this, the youth calmly listened and watched the younger Fa'e, or what was left of her. He was wary up until the point where she dropped the knife and murderous intent.
He stood, carefully using his tailfeathers to balance his tired swaying as he meticulously moved his arms to return blood flow as quickly as possible. At the moment, in a dream and with Lethe's change in heart, Naolin could afford his pride.
When her image suddenly sharpened and solidified, Naolin stopped and stared. Something inside of him wavered and ached, and he couldn't help but feel both pity and hope for the river Fa'e as she told her story.
So she had found a guardian, but it had been too late. Not only had she waited too long, but it seemed that she had given up entirely. That upset him more than anything, as Lethe could very well be a strong ally to him, and hopefully him to her. It upset him to see such powers of old attempting to come to grips with a lesser world than they had known. He knew all too well what it felt like to want to go home -- to want to be himself once again.
"None of us should have become Fa'e," Naolin agreed after a moment of silence, anger at all the women at fault bubbling and stewing beneath the surface. "But we exist as such. We are what we are, but we're also what we once were. We have to adapt, and we have to fight." He paused briefly, but only to calm himself, as he was scared her clarity would wash away shortly. "You need to fight, Lethe. Fight and take revenge..."
He hoped that she would survive all of this, because if she did, she would make a wonderful partner in crime. If only he could convince Guelms that she was one of the tolerable women, not like the b***h who started this all.
All of a sudden, it dawned on him what memory to give to Lethe.
"Can I tell you about the one that betrayed me as a god? I'd rather like to forget about her so that I can move onto more important things without the constant distraction she brings." He ran a red hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes as he watched the child for a judgment. "Would that memory suffice?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:01 am
We have to adapt. We have to fight. Nothing registered on Lethe's expression, except a slight fluttering of eyelashes to indicate that she was indeed aware that he was speaking to her -- but neither did her form fade into an obscure, misty specter once more. Her blue-tinged mouth was pressed into a neutral grim line.
"W...hat happens to us after we go? This isn't anything like dying, what's happening to me right now. I receive no funeral rites, I will have no body to bury. There will be nothing left of me to go down to the underworld, and I -- there will be no river Lethe to give myself to so that I can reincarnate. What happens to me then? Something cannot become nothing. The level of matter and energy in the universe remains constant, I know that as much as I know my own name". Finally, a flicker of emotion -- her nose wrinkled and she grimaced, but she was no longer looking at Naolin and her voice was barely more than a whispered dialogue to herself. "Would you forget me?"
It didn't matter terribly much, now that there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could not continue to exist by stealing people's lives and blood, not even Naolin's memories would help her with such a spiritually vampiric path. Betrayal: this was something she knew only by name. Did she betray her previous guardian? She did not know.
She crawled up onto the chaise his guardian was previously lounging upon, and carefully arranged herself quietly upon it, pulling her legs up to her chest and curling against herself. "I am a river," she told him in her voice like water rushing over stones, "You look at me and you see yourself, and you tell me how things really were. That is how it goes. So long as you talk, so long I will feel like myself again. So such a memory will suffice, and if it is mutually beneficial then that is fine."
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