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 Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:42 pm
Reap liked the shrine, it was pleasant and somehow reassuring. He had never noticed the empty plinth before, and at first felt nothing more than curiosity as he read the plaque intently. It didn’t make much sense to him, the names were blank and gave no hint as to what their prior contents had been.
He almost jumped out of his skin when the goddess spoke, giving her a startled look.
The bag was the first gift anyone had given him, other than the blessings of course. He couldn’t hide his disappointment when it was empty, but was resolute to help her fix the situation. He took the scissors carefully and nodded. “I will, my lady.”
Beyond lay doors, three of them of varying appearance. The door with the tree however was the one that held his attention the most. There was something familiar about that tree, even despite the strange aura that seemed to linger upon the doorway itself like a terrible shroud.
“I am not afraid” he reassured himself aloud as he stepped inside.
 It didn’t help.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:22 pm
The door closed and there was darkness. Pure blind dark that pressed in from all directions, he wanted to run, let the adrenaline take him and dash into the dark like a wild animal, only rational thought stayed him and kept the fear at bay.
The only direction he could go was forward, and he did, slow and careful groping in the dark, seeking helpless and sightless through the indefinable space. He could swear that the hall itself twisted and turned along with his movement, but madness that way lay. Instead he trudged onwards, unsure if he would ever reach an end. His grip on the scissors in his hand was white knuckled.
Hitting his shin hard on the crate was a relief; at least it meant that he wasn’t going in circles, that something could be done to escape this place and that he could find what the goddess sought to retrieve his gift. He felt his way around it, discovering the lid open and searchable. He grabbed the arm and traced his hand across it, the thudding became a heartbeat.
He needed it more than them.
He smiled to himself in the dark as the fear melted away like shadows in the light. This would be fine, someone who didn’t matter, an easy retrieval.
What followed was horrific to say the least, he had no ******** idea how to perform heart surgery, so it wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t graceful, it was a maiming with scissors, hunting through spilled blood and gore. The moment he made what could only be termed the incision because gorehole wasn’t a medical term, he was seized, clawed at by sharp nails. “Willy!” It screeched in surprise and terror before falling limp and still in the dark.
For a moment he was no longer there. He was somewhere else, somewhere warm and sunny, a rare sunny day, light spilling in through the open window and highlighting the dust and mess in the room strewn with cheap clothing and second hand possessions. It was far from glamorous, but he knew it, the door to the kitchen was open.
And she stepped out, stepped into the living room, gaunt and thin – she’d always been so very thin – and inclined her head to the side and gave him a smile. A genuine smile, one of the rare times when she saw him, truly saw him without the cloud of the drug, with nothing in the way. He never really saw her clean, and it gave him hope. “My wee Willy, ye will always be my boy. No matter how big ye get, ye’ll always be yer mammies boy.”
It hurt, oh how it hurt to see her, and he reached out to touch her, to hug her.
And found only ripped flesh and warm fresh blood. He cut the heart free and wished it was his own.
He was warm and safe in her arms. He was no longer afraid. She was the world and she would never go away.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:41 pm
There was nowhere to go but onwards, carrying his grisly prize, covered in sticky terrible blood and plagued by the voice that had called out a name he couldn’t know but which felt familiar in so many ways.
As the water rose and rose he didn’t resist, he kept onwards, like a lost soul through Hades, perpetually trying to ignore the pleading, to ignore the steadily climbing goosebumps that rippled and prickled across his skin. He told himself he wasn’t afraid again and again but it was getting harder to believe it. When the water reached his neck he could go no further, couldn’t escape the pursuing voice, the terror that snapped at his heels making the chill water all the more stifling.
He was seized, sharp nails, twisting and turning in the water in a frantic, desperate attempt to surface, to survive, his hands clawing at the air, splashing unheard on the surface. He was sorry, sorry and he didn’t know why, he just needed the heart, he needed the goddess, he had to bring it to her, it was important.
He couldn’t hold on, he was going to vanish, going to disappear here and no one would ever even know.
And he remembered. He remembered who she was. His mother, the one who’d raised him, the most important person in his life, who’d shaped and directed the currents of who he was. The woman who’d made him a man.
“You love the drugs more than me. You ******** do! I ******** hate you! I wish you’d ******** die you cheap slag!” And he’d hit her. Struck his own mother, the sound like slapping a board of wood as hit hit her gaunt cheekbones. It made it worse that she barely flinched, as if it had happened a hundred times, a thousand times before. She just looked at him, a bottomless distance, a thousand miles behind her eyes. Even striking her she didn’t see him, she was far away. He saw himself reflected in her eyes and saw nothing but the people he hated.
Reaching out to clench a hand in her clothes, a desperate plea for forgiveness, he crumpled to the floor, wracked with sobs.
Back under the water, he almost wished he'd lose.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:02 pm
Still. Ultimately he couldn’t die. He couldn’t die because he was a coward. Because even noble actions were out of the reach of a coward like him, too scared to die even when he deserved it. He thrashed and clawed, struggled and writhed.
And remembered the scissors.
He was sorry. Sorry for surviving as he dug the scissors deep, felt the flesh give, felt and heard the shriek.
And then he was alone again, coughing in the dark, dragging himself to the door, just in time to look back and see them. Not gone. Betrayed. Waiting in the dark.
He was sorry.
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:46 pm
He wasn't sure where he was, it was cold and it was brighter than he had ever seen. He narrowed his eyes against the light and flinched. Everything about this place was wrong, uncomfortable in an uneasy animal sort of way. He stood, feeling small and out of place and made his way to the door - he didn't expect it to be open - whoever had brought him here surely didn't want him to leave.
The fact that it did was somehow more chilling than if the handle had remained unresponsive and locked.
The hallway beyond was no different, empty and too white.
When the door slammed he froze terrified, his heart starting to race, adrenaline flooding his veins. He wasn't sure if he preferred being he was alone or knowing something was here with him. He checked the hallway, and the door he'd just come through but nothing had changed. His hands shook as he skewed it more ajar and looked inside.
There was nothing there.
Taking a slow deep breath he took the only option available to him and like a rat in a maze, followed the hallway, closer and closer to the exit, pushed onwards by the light as surely as if they were the acid rain of the ruins.
Thud.
He checked behind himself, gritting his teeth. Nothing.
Thud
And there was someone there. Waiting and watching. He remembered the heart, remembered something terrible that was gone.
And he did the only thing that was logical, the only thing that an unarmed person could do faced with those brutal scissors.
He ran.
And it followed.
You are just a ******** loser. You are a mistake, yer ma was too stupid to no get pregnant and now here you ******** are. You brainless, scrawny ginger waste of space. Come here.
His breath caught in his throat as he rattled frantically at the doors.
We are just disappointed WIlliam. Disappointed in everything you are. Everything you will ever be.
He didn't know who they meant. He didn't know what he'd done wrong.
They don't deserve you, you can never do anything right.
"Please. Please stop."
45 feet.
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:13 am
Paper. He wasn't in the mood to read, not with cold certain death practically breathing down his neck, but he had to escape, had to get out of here and make it to freedom somehow, it was all that mattered.
He read the letters. That word again. Ace.
His chest felt tight and desperate the more he thought about it, he almost felt like calling it out, but only stayed the urge because with his ragged and terrified breathing, words were almost impossible.
He had to get out.
40 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:18 am
Nearer and nearer and he'd never been so scared in his life. He knew who was behind him vaguely and it made things so much worse, worse than his mother, worse than everything.
You widnae even make a good slapper, who would even want a ******** ginger?
He wished with everything he was that the door would open.
35 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
1
Total: 1 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:21 am
He looked around and immediately regretted it, the strange shifting figure pulling him down into another memory. He fought it, but it was futile.
He looked to her then, looked to her for help, to save him. He didn't rely on her for anything any more, she was always so consumed by the drug. She wouldn't meet his gaze, he felt like he disgusted her, like he'd let her down. No one would believe him, it wouldn't matter.
He realised he was alone and the only way to escape was to run away or get just as mean as they were.
He leaned his head against the door and his breath caught in a sob.
"Just ******** open. Please."
30 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:40 am
He didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear the words, they didn't make sense to him but they were toxic and cruel.
I wish you'd stay ran away.
25 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:44 am
Another piece of paper, desperately snatched and he knew what he had to do. He hammered the number in the moment he made sense of it. He had to put as much distance between him and the terrible footsteps moving ever closer.
He ran through the door.
25 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:48 am
The bridge looked precarious at best ahead but there was no option, every time he looked over his shoulder even for a moment the figure remained, pursuing him relentlessly, hissing about how he had it's heart, how it needed a heart, how his would have to do, even as tainted - as worthless and broken - as it was.
He still gasped in ragged sobs as he ran, terrified to the very roof of what he could tolerate, the most blind primal dash a human was capable of. He could feel his life in the balance and it was all he had, it was all he had. He had to get back to Iron, he couldn't wind up dead here.
Half way across the wind rocked the bridge and he teetered on the very balls of his feet as he tried to regain his desperate balance. Even this hesitation was enough to feel clawed nails on his shoulder and the prickle of scissors-
He leapt like a wild animal, forward and along the bridge, and ran as fast as he could without looking back. He had to ******** survive.
30 feet
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Baneful rolled 1 6-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-6)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:54 am
He found himself trapped, cornered in front of a building, there was no time to enter, no time to mess with doors or look for codes. The dagger, the useless dagger glowed in his hand, like a memory, a reminder he'd been white knuckle clenching it all along.
He wasn't unarmed at all.
He turned to face the oncoming figure, giddy with adrenaline but with a dark, black bitter and terrible fury uncoiling in him. Holding a dagger like this felt somehow familiar, somehow reminiscent of a place just out of reach. Before.
Before what? He didn't know. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the blade he held. The chib, the shank, familiar and weighty.
The figure leapt for him and he was ready for it. He remembered fleetingly once upon a time he'd decided to stop running. He'd killed all the monsters so far, this was just another monster, another creature he could kill.
His wrist sung with pain as he clashed dagger hard into it's - her - chest
"You'll never have my heart again."
And he didn't know why he said it, but it felt right.
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:33 am
Task Three : Teas
Marati - Confusion
Redawn - Envious
Loffie - Helpless
Shasa - Malicious
Amity - Shame
Rojand - Helpless
Simmy - Confused
Fayre - Confusion
Palem - Cherished
Repoem - Shame
Reap had given the Longing goddess a wide berth when she spoke, manic and erratic there was something familiar about her too, but mingled with a lingering and animal mistrust, as if instincts told him to beware the madness that seemed to resonate from her. Ultimately his fear remained irrelevant, when a goddess invited you to tea, there were not many real options available to you but to join her.
Obediently he made his way to the strange table laid before them but was startled half way there at the crunch of fallen snow underfoot. Snow. He recognised it from some far off place and for some reason it too made his heart ache, as if it too had been part of some important memory lost to him like the others. He reached his hand and let one of the flakes land on it, brilliant against the dark hue of his skin until the heat of his palm dissolved it away.
Turning his attention to the jars he considered them in turn. Something drew him to the pink that he couldn’t explain, and because he could not explain it, he suspected it innately. Instead he went for its fellow, picking up the blue jar to examine it.
Drink Me.
His better judgement said not to, but he didn’t want to ******** with a goddess in her realm, he was dumb, but not quite that dumb.
Chocolate though didn’t take even a second’s hesitation, he loved chocolate and knew it the moment he saw it. It was rich and made him feel strange, conflicted and overburdened, a worrying change from the reassuring pleasure he expected. He reached for the blue cup to slake his thirst in the hope that surely it could be better than the dizziness the blue jar filled him with. He brought it to his lips and sipped and his world seemed to darken like a looming thunderstorm, it was as if he had sipped from a cup of raw power. White hot rage flooded him overwhelming, dancing in his veins, and he exulted in it. He could tear the entire world down. And would given half a chance, hate became power and multiplied exponentially until it was all that he was, until it was all that mattered.
It was all that had ever ******** mattered.
And as it became so intense as to be suffocating, he felt himself slip, down, down into a memory where those self-same emotions felt at home.
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:17 am
WARNING OK: DARK CONTENT + VIOLENCE. NOT FOR YOU IF YOU WANT HAPPY NICE MEMORIES. You have been warned.
He remembered.
He’d gotten his weapon back after being reduced to the worthless scrap of vulnerable flesh he’d been before the island. He was once again more - more than human, the place where the rising human met the falling angel and together became a weapon. Both of them hated humanity for different reasons and that day he’d had the taste of vengeance on his tongue. He’d found her there in the life labs, pinning those pale, delicate arms to her sides as he snarled the challenge in her ear. Women. The roiling fury and anger coalesced into cold malice as he considered them - as he sidled into the memory proper - he would end every last one of them if he had the chance. She’d accepted – of course she had accepted – he was the predator, he was power and sensuality. She was forever less, his twisted flawed reflection, the reflection yearned to touch the real and always would.
He loathed her and yet like a drug felt like he could drown in the all-consuming fires of his hatred, it was what drove him, made him able to kill without mercy, able to callously and indifferently execute orders. When he let hate in it looked out through his eyes and possessed every inch of him. He channelled the fury of all who’d ever laid hands on him, ever abused or insulted him. And the real ******** kicker, the thing that made it impossible to resist.
It felt incredible.
Sasha. That name, soft and deceptively sibilant like the exhaled hiss of a waiting snake in the darkness.
He wanted to break her he remembered, wanted to break her and in doing so shatter the pain and the hurt, the endless cycle of loathing that left him broken and drained, able to feel every bit of hate in the universe as though it was aimed at him. He wanted to slice open the binds of the madness that took over and made him a threat to others and himself.
He remembered too the give of flesh under the bite of nails and the way she never surrendered to him, kept the fear on a tight chain even as he marched her to her reckoning.
He didn't even pretend that this would be the last time, that somehow he'd be reborn in a blaze of victory if he defeated her. Whoever won here, they were both lost, and somehow, it didn't matter. All that mattered was the struggle, pain and hate and pain and hate until there was no difference, until emotion flatlined. He felt like his insides had been scraped out and replaced with nothing but straining twisting fury that ate away at him. It was her fault. Stress. Violence. Delusion. Fighting his shadow, as if conquering the darkness in her would conquer it in him.
The training field was a sanctuary. Anything goes. It's just a spar. Nothing personal.
But that had been a lie, it had been personal. So very, very personal.
He’d fought, striking against her shield, tasting the very fear itself that coursed through Nona, her weapon. He could drink all of her, pull her into that great dark void that was his rage and consume all that she was.
She fell to her knees and it was sweet, it was where she belonged, it was where they ALL belonged, but she defied, she didn’t stay, she was up again and whirling, those ******** hooks, the hooks he hated. But he'd made her see him, he had her full and ******** mortal attention. And he'd felt Tracey there, shadow dancing, so close to him that there was nothing keeping them apart. Tracey who was resentment itself, black and terrible as he swung and twisted, denying her traction, denying her all. Her snarl was music to his ears, frustration the bastion of the losing party, and he'd known then she would fall, had known then fate had thrown him a victory in their incessant feud.
"Look what you've made me."
And it was spoken not just to her but all women in his life. They'd made him a monster.
And still she'd refused to break. Refused to surrender. And his anger had been a rearing dragon, cold and furious. How dare she.
Without Tracey he'd have killed her, unable to stop himself, too far, too fast too soon, a runaway train that had no hope of ever jamming on the breaks in time.
"No matter what I ******** do to you," he said, seizing the handle in both hands and in a brutal movement shunting the blade up and up. Until he was pressing the edge of one wickedly sharp blade to her throat. He didn't take the pressure and weight off, still pinning her, still restricting her breathing. He didn't give a ******** if her ribs broke, she'd broken his enough. He made a sound like a snarl as he leaned forward. Close, so close, an echo of that intoxicating instant in the infirmary, a moment that had lingered in his thoughts afterwards and become tangled up in the brutality like everything else.
"It will never ******** be enough."
The hate took his breath away and it was as though for those few moments, as it played before his eyes, that even Reap forgot to breathe.
In a twist of anger as whiplash as a blade striking bone, he drew back, biting down on her lower lip with all the force he could muster, soft flesh giving way in the most satisfying fashion. Let her try and ******** smirk at him after this, let her try. Blood. The rich metallic tang bubbled up and hit the back of his throat. He smirked into the twisted parody of closeness, relenting only as the soft shift of Tracey in his thoughts reminded him that even monsters needed to breathe.
He'd marked her. He was afforded glimpses of her later, the scar on her lip a sharp echo of that moment incessantly replayed in his thoughts.
He'd told her to beg.
"I will never beg y-you." "And you w-will never break me."
And it had been exactly what he wanted to hear, that the game wasn't over, that the wheel would turn again and again, that they would fight like tiger and dragon on and on, that his deep and icy loathing would be leant wings, able to flex its talons and taste the twisted elixir of their brokenness. It was what he needed, what he longed for.
"One day b***h, I'm going to prove you so wrong. And you'll never see it coming. I will rip out your ******** heart, and you'll beg. You'll kneel."
And as the memory faded slow and terrible, he wondered who he'd really been talking to all along.
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 12:17 pm
Tea Guest Log Colour of Tea Tasted: Maroon Description: Hate. Drowning in hate. Violence. A woman. A ******** game? Your commentary on its flavour: It only takes one sip for Skaaal to realize she utterly hates this tea. This tea is hardly pleasant. The taste of malice and hate and hostility is bitter, but not unfamiliar. In fact, it's almost as if she's caught the owner's malice like a disease. Her fingers tightly clench the tea cup as she recalls the hostility toward the woman. All women in life? She tries not to vehemently spit into the tea. Look what they made you? Skaaal says nothing, but the words seem to come across anyways. Why don't you look at what you've made yourself? Foolish man, you reap what you sow.
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