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 Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:32 pm
As she entered the shrine, Raumias felt as though something was off, but she merely disregarded it and waited for instruction. Instruction, it turned out, would come from an animated goddess this time around. An animated goddess who was messing around with some wires, snapping and hissing from the fog. Her mouth twisted briefly, as she watched the Goddess work before handing her a bag tied with string. Raumias took the bag, key resting in her hand. She ran her fingers up and down it, feeling its shape.
"A gift?" she asked, her eyes narrowing briefly. She did not believe gifts came without a price, even if it was a Goddess offering it to her. She opened the bag, nevertheless, and it was empty. Well, that made sense. Perhaps a gift that didn't exist would, in fact, have no cost.
However, it equally seemed like that was not the case this time around. The goddess said she could fix it, and it was only an error? How could a gift existing or not existing be an error? "I suppose I cannot refuse," she admitted, and tried to keep her face blank. It wasn't hard; she seemed to have a remarkable inclination towards being unexpressive. She accepted the scissors, without any particular qualm. "Only the heart? Fine," she agreed, and found that she did not feel any of the remorse expressed by the Goddess.
"I will not be gone long," Raumias said, moving towards the opening without hesitation.
On the other side, she found three doors: they were marked, each of them, by a sigil and a word. The first door, she all by passed by entirely. The second one, while she was intrigued by the symbol, did not make her linger for long.
It was the third door, malicious and uneven, that made Raumias stop. Third time's the charm, after all; wasn't that the way it went? "What is there to fear?" she wondered. She pushed the door open.
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Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 6:43 pm
There was, apparently, at least a small thing to fear. As she wandered down the corridor in the dark, her internal sense of calm didn't even ripple, not even with a little bit of fear: she just kept calm, and went slowly. Sure footing. Raumias did not startle easily. She couldn't really figure out what she was supposed to do, though: had the goddess of paranoia condemned her to walk forever in this corridor?
The thudding wouldn't stop.
If Raumias shut her eyes (and she did, briefly), it almost sounded as though someone's heart was beating. A beating Heart, just what she'd been asked to recover. Would she have to cut it from someone's chest, though? If it beat, still. Would the goddess send her on such a task?
Somehow, Raumias didn't doubt it. A part of her, buried deep, resented being sent out like a dog for its master. She gripped the scissors in her hand, tighter, knuckles draining of blood. She latched on to the feeling of anger bubbling deep inside her: the anger drawn from pain, the desire to reflect what she felt as a weapon.
Eventually, however, she came to the source of the thudding. Her eyes narrowed, and the soft tissue felt very clearly like flesh. She had to cut into it, using the scissors. At first, she merely used them to create the wound. After that, she had to extract the heart, slicing away the tendrils connecting the tissue and veins and arteries.
The arm reached out, clawing into her, screaming her name.
AMARUS
She took a step back, genuinely in shock, and felt a sob wrack her. Something long-buried broke free from her memory, and the arm fell still. Neil. He was funny; always happy to hit on ghouls, but not really her. After all, she had a different outlook on things then, didn't she? She hardly even knew how to talk to anyone. A lot like now. Neil, and his sensitive nose. Forcing herself to step in, she carved in with the scissors more.
Pulling the heart free, she remembered:
A gimblewolf, tail wagging. Destroy a castle~ Er.. Um... Yeah I suppose thats cool I mean..? The chime in his voice, the way he looked at the boxes before he utterly demolished them with her. She remembered. She remembered his face, his hair, his ears. She remembered how he'd been one of the first friends she had ever made. Back when she was lonely. She had built a castle out of cardboard boxes, Neil's cardboard boxes, and then invited him to destroy it.
He'd won, too. The jerk. She still hadn't beat him at anything worth beating him at.
And if he was dead? Then she never would.
She had needed him then, needed a friend. Needed someone to fight beside. She had always needed someone to fight by, sure-- she didn't need anyone, now, though.
She wasn't lonely any more. She felt like she needed to fight, and she needed to fight hard, and someone would suffer for what she felt.
She'd been weak, then, needed someone to fight beside, to keep her company. Back when she was lonely. Loneliness, she'd always known, was weakness.
There was nothing for it: this memory played in her head, and she held the heart she severed from Neil who was not Neil. How could it be him? It was true, she hadn't seen him in over a year, but how could he be dead?
How could she have cut Neil's heart from him? Once, she would have done it without remorse. Once, long after that, she would have wept for him. Now, she did not know what she would do: she was empty, and it was dark in her mind. The heart felt heavy. Each of her steps felt heavy.
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Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 7:09 pm
Raumias walked away.
There was nothing to do, now, but try to get out. With the heart that may have belonged to Neil, or it may not have. Who knew? "Neil, neil..." she whispered his name, her hands slick with blood, the scissor handles digging into her fingers through the slime.
The floor became sticky underfoot, an unfamiliar sensation, and something sloshed around in the water behind her.
Please give it back.
Raumias turned, slowly, a sick feeling welling up in her stomach. She choked back the discomfort of feeling afraid. She just wanted to leave this place. Return to the Spires.
"I can't give it back!" she called out, trying to keep her head above water, as it asked for something and she dind't want to know what. Hands grabbed her, she was already so close to the surface. She couldn't breathe, sputtered, inhaled water, pushed back down, pushed deeper into the depths.
She was slipping away, in a different sense: the part of her that was herself was fading, and sliding into darkness. It wanted its heart back, whatever it was. This was not what Neil looked like. Was it? Could it be? Her memories of Neil were murky, the feeling inside her that she'd worked so hard to bury deep. The warmth, the affection. She had cared when he was gone, hadn't she? She'd cared, and she hadn't wanted anyone to know. She didn't. She couldn't afford that luxury.
With a bitter swell in her heart, she pushed the truth away from her, but it kept surfacing. You cared.
A nagging voice, in her own self: You know his heart isn't yours. And he's gone. But she had the heart for a different reason. It was just flesh; it carried nothing of what he'd felt. IT couldn't, just like this creature trying to kill her couldn't possibly be Neil. He would never do this. Never.
She remembered: Neil with a box in his mouth, hurling it off, destroying everything in his way. You gotta show me how you do your fighting style some time..
I would if I could, she thought, sad for a moment, a fleeting moment, in a panic. And then, suddenly, a moment of clarity: You asked once, Neil-- I guess it's time to show you. she thought, before stabbing the scissors into the open cavity she'd carved by which to rip his heart out.
She escaped.
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Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 7:14 pm
The water was gone, suddenly. Raumias was on her hands and knees, coughing and hacking. Her throat felt raw, and almost burnt by the water, by choking it all up. Light filtered in, from a door somewhere. Any light seemed warm, by this point. Any light seemed good. She just wanted to make it out of there alive, to make it into the warmth and the goodness of the Spires-- even if she'd have to go to the shrine first.
Hand in the heart. Was it even worth this much trouble?
It had to be. For the Goddesses. But... but what?
She turned to leave, pushed to her feet. Sore. Empty.
And as she did, she could have sworn she saw Neil staring back at her, holding the scissors. Her throat tightened again.
Raumias shut her eyes, and blew a kiss to the spot where she thought she'd seen him. "Can't make up for it. No one can know, but I miss you, friend," she whispered, through her sore throat.
She walked into the light.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:56 pm
"I do like more," she whispered in reply, shutting her silvery eyes. She opened them, to see the Goddess looking down at her, stroking its scythe. Absent-mindedly, Raum reached down to stroke the back of one of her pistols, appreciating the feel of it. They'd become more and more familiar to her over time.
"Another time? When would I be anything but the, ah, Eater?" she wondered, narrowing her eyes briefly. She could not imagine ever falling to another; not when every last fibre of her being cried out that she would not fall. Never fall. Never crumble, give in, or give up.
Not until her last breath. She held out her hands to accept the jeweled dagger, and stroked a finger along the flat edge of the blade, toying with the charm that dangled from it. "I already had a weapon," she pointed out, confused. This one wasn't exactly that much more impressive than the ones she'd already learned to enjoy. Not to mention the blade started to rust, and she was fairly certain it would be relatively useless now.
"Going," she agreed, pretty much humouring the Goddess.
Whatever it took to receive more blessings, more strength.
As she woke up, Raumias was shivering, and she didn't even remember sleeping-- hadn't she been about to do something? Something important. The table under her was probably the culprit, and the sound of the lights made her feel like many small, upset voices were talking at her. She shifted, sat up, and left the table to take a few steps.
"Ah, is there someone here with me, perhaps?" she asked aloud, after leaving the first room and hearing a door shut immediately behind her. She spun around, as if to check, and noticed that it was still open. False alarm.
She looked at it, playing with the handle, opening and shutting it slightly but never so that it would click shut all the way. The room wa still empty, too.
"No, I'm alone, I guess..." Raumias let her voice trail off. Why was she so cold? She started to walk, then, and then heard another sound. Turning, it was still open.
More steps. Another thud.
This was frustrating. She finally turned, having already prepared to see nothing, but instead a scraping sound made her shiver. A creature dragging a pair of scissors approached. She didn't think, just ran; she didn't want to be cornered, she wasn't ready. Where could she go? She stopped in the corridor, and tried to pick a direction. It doesn't matter, because before she can get anywhere at all, the door's padlock stopped her. Passcode required.
Raumias shut her eyes, and tried to focus.
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Face your demons rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:03 pm
The figure was pursuing her. She knew that. If she could just make it through this alive, perhaps all would be well. Not all, but... surely, better than it had been. Raumias refused to look back again; the less she did, the less time she'd waste. No matter how calm she tried to be, she felt her pulse quicken and her mouth felt dry. She kept trying to wet her lips as she concentrated, searching for any clues, but her tongue seemed entirely unhelpful in this endeavour. Raumias spotted a paper to the left, with A=0, B=1, C=2 written on it.
What the hell did that mean?! The figure was approaching, she didn't see how she could use those yet. She searched more, refusing to look over her shoulder.
Raumias was 40 feet from the spectre. While searching for the paper, she became 35 feet from the spectre.
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Face your demons rolled 1 4-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:12 pm
Roses are grey, violets are grey, she whispered in her head, calming herself with those simple words. Gonna live another day, she added, almost laughing aloud.
She searched to her right, and she found another piece of paper:
ACEG.
She smiled to herself, taking the papers and putting them together to punch in the code: 0, 2, 4, 5.
Raumias was still 35 feet from the spectre. She found the code, and burst through the door.
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Face your demons rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:18 pm
 She'd made it outside.
Raumias took a breath, slow, and ran into the trees, hiding from the figure. She looked behind herself, finally; she'd waited long enough to do so. She hadn't escaped it; she wondered if shutting the door would have helped at all, or if it would have just wasted her time. No matter. It was there, looming.
The figure started to speak. "Hey, baby, don't you want to play?" she asked, her voice fading in and out, as if she was a machine, or something had caught her voice and only let it remain audible for certain parts of the words at all. "Or are you afraid I'll win again? You know I will, sweetheart, you know I'll bite you and chew you and spit out tiny bits, skin stuck in my teeth. I'll turn your hair into a wig," it threatened, and made a gesture as if it was flipping its hair.
"And then I'll get my heart back, and I'll take yours while I'm at it. It always belonged to me, anyway. You know you can't get me out of your skin," she said.
Raumias had no idea what she was talking about, this spectre with a glitchy voice. She kept running, and as she made it out of the trees, she came to a bridge.
A wicked glint came into her eyes, and she smiled.
She was 30 feet from the pursuant, and she crossed the bridge without a single problem; she'd flipped her way across the one in the Aether cliffs. Make this a flamethrower lava bridge, then they'd talk.
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Face your demons rolled 1 6-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-6)
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:22 pm
The dead end at the end, across the bridge, was marked only by a haunted house. It cast shadows that shifted and moved, sinuous. Raumias watched them, and once more, allowed herself to look behind her shoulder. Perhaps the chase had ended, when the bridge collapsed.
Not a chance. It was still hounding her, following as closely as it could get. Raumias could not escape it, could she? The rusted dagger glowed, bright red. She plunged the dagger into the pursuant.
It was out of desperation, but as she did it, a memory surfaced:
--
"Hey, Amarus," a voice called her name, from far too close. A hand reached up and gripped her hair, yanking on it. "Did you think I wouldn't figure out how to get to you?"
She felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, as the manicured nails raked down her neck. No matter how intangible she tried to make herself, Ricci always managed to inflict some kind of lasting wound.
"I put nothing past you, Ricci," Amarus said, her expression empty.
She turned to look at the ghoul: Ricci looked so similar to Amarus' own appearance. She wasn't sure why. Ricci smirked, which was an expression Mar had never quite managed. "Ricci... if we fight, perhaps you will leave me alone?"
"Oh, baby bird, I'll never leave you alone," Ricci said, sticking her long tongue out and flicking it. Ricci's eyes glowed. Her skin flickered with a soft pink aura, matching Amarus' own glow. Ricci was adept at mimicking, and for some reason she'd spent the last six months of the school year pretending to be Amarus.
And what was worse, it was working. She had been woken up every time she'd tried to sleep for maybe a month straight, just incessant hateful jeering.
She'd be the monster they thought she was, because it was what she knew best. Ricci was just helping her be more herself, wasn't she?
But as Ricci took a drag of a cigarette and Amarus stared blankly at her, she said: "Are you so afraid of your own appearance that you steal mine?" she began, "Do you hate yourself so much that you prefer to spend time in my life?"
Ricci stabbed her in the gut with a sharpened writing tool, and left her there.
The memory ended.
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Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:16 pm
She felt no remorse.
She did, however, feel the scissors stab into her.
And she burned with a desire for revenge. She didn't cry out, but rather smiled, a cold glint in her eyes.
"That's not where I keep my heart," she told it, as she watched it cut that very same object out of her.
She heard the snip, felt the scissors disappear into her, and the figure was walking away, holding her heart.
She wasn't scared, she wasn't upset: right before she died, she felt incredibly angry. That was it.
She'd have her revenge, and the desire burned inside her, a beacon that lit up her whole core. Everything she'd felt, everything she'd seen. She'd make Ricci suffer, she'd ruin the Goddesses, she'd make it all burn.
She would return to her real self, if it was the last thing she did, and they would all burn. And they'd thank her for it, too. They'd learn to love the pain. She watched her heart leave, and felt only reassured. Hearts were a weakness. Love would weigh her down. Friends would ruin her. She had no family.
Some small part of her resisted the sting of this lie: I love my friends she insisted, and they would never hurt me like this.
And another voice, her Revenge, answered: Who saved you when Ricci came after you? Who saved you when the scissors snipped away your heart? No one. No one was there.
No one came to save you
and you were alone.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 7:33 am
Raumias looked around the room, and tried to figure out how, exactly, she was supposed to reply to the goddess’ offer that she make herself at home: how was this, in any way, possible? Lately, her home had become the battlefields where insanity creatures spawned from the grey fog. This was hardly home, by any means. Nevertheless, it took her very little effort to maintain the cold facade and empty expression she’d come to know and love. It was far easier to just show nothing, than to let the Goddesses see how much they had affected her.
Things she couldn’t even quite remember, the spectre of memories.
She bowed slightly, trying to be polite, as she refused the offered snack. ”Ah, no, I am not... hungry,” she finished, as though that was the only reason. Raumias listened to what the Goddess had to say to her this time, entirely skeptical. ”Love?...” she began.
Many of those emotions, she thought she knew, or at least understood. Love was not one of them. But how would a tea party help? Raumias came forward, entered into the area with the hedges. She would oblige, because she always did. She didn’t have enough power yet, she didn’t know enough to best them.
Ideally, one day, she would. A rebel in hell? How original, right.
The music playing in the background seemed a little strange. She heard bells, especially, and something deep in her stirred in reply: bells. Why was that so important?
Apart from that, she felt something white and crunchy beneath her, and for a moment all she could think about was the crunch of bone. She hoped that was not the case. On the table, when given the choice to pick one jar or the other, Raumias selected the pink jar. She could not have known why, exactly, that colour was made for her: it was less to do with its happy vibe, and more to do with things lost to her.
The sheer thought of eating that decadent cake on the table made her extremely unwell; she suspected she did not much care for cake. The cookies, however, she thought they seemed familiar for some reason. She ate one of those, without much of a qualm.
After that, she felt a bit calmer, back to how she felt she was supposed to be. Thirsty, however, she started to consider the cups: a floral pattern would be no good for her, and the yellow tea cup was too... bright. She took the delicate one, thinking about the times she felt as though someone wished to protect others, or wished to protect her. She did not understand those individuals, she was not motivated by the same goals and ideals... and yet, somehow, she wanted to protect them and allow them to keep on believing in the good side of others. To protect them, even though she laughed at their desire to protect others.
Her heart leaped, as a memory came to her, and finally she knew: this is me, the true me. The one I have been searching for all this time.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 7:48 am
Pulling back to a wider view, she heard someone: "Waaaaaaaatt! I has the treasies if you comes out!"
She froze in place, with Jin in her arms. Her firelands wyvling. Not part of the memory, but she knew: he’d been lost to her since, disappeared, though how or when she couldn’t remember. She glowed softly in the darkness of the hallway, and she remembered stepping out to see Mort: a gangly undead guy with glasses, who’d just called himself dumb.
He couldn’t be that bad, she remembered. He couldn’t be bad at all. So she had introduced herself, and offered to keep him company. To search for Watt. And, most importantly, he had said something to her then that had lodged inside her for all this time, giving her hope:
"You think usual on that? But if we be dead, no need to think," Mort replied simply. "And if we talk and move, we has souls, right? Soul not need heart or blood to work."
Amarus couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice, in the memory. She felt silent, but she knew she was talking. She thought there had to be more to souls... Wasn’t it what powered everyone, wasn’t it the core inside real living creatures? A ghost, she couldn’t have a soul. At best, she would be the soul extracted from a body. That’s what she thought, after all. How could a soul be complete, alone? A soul without the flesh, like wine without a vessel, pouring into the earth and disappearing into the hungry soil...
But Mort made her calm. The memory blurred, and as she looked right at Mort, he seemed to be older. She was saying something, congratulating him on his successes. She felt pride bloom inside her, and she felt ...calm. Happy. Mort was loved, and on Student Council, and...
”You’re not dumb, big brother,” she said, with a soft smile on her face. ”And if anyone ever says that about you, I’ll make them suffer!”
She would, big brother. For you, for her. Amarus loved power, but there was no one she knew with a power like the quiet one that she felt he had: the one to change, to grow, to progress, even though he was dead like her. He still cared about others.
She didn’t know if she could even feel that way about anyone, and even after all this time, he’d shown up to be her big brother at the school.
Lost inside the memory, Amarus felt her heart pulse: she’d created a family, fabricated one out of stories and trinkets from The Collection, but Mort was as much family to her as anyone ever would be, and he would probably never know how much he meant.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:58 am
Tea Guest Log Colour of Tea Tasted: Pastel purple Description: Familial love. Trust and support. Your commentary on its flavour: Sweet, but subtly so; the taste also lingers. A big brother figure... It proves that strong bonds can be forged between people not related by blood. The way he advised her and made her feel better, and the way she was so happy about his achievements as though they were her own were heartwarming. It must be nice to have a relationship like this one.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:15 am
Tea Guest Log Colour of Tea Tasted: Pale purple Description:Friendship and trust Your commentary on its flavour: This one seemed very simple, mildly sweetened with love and respect but not overly so. It was clear that the girl in this memory had strong feelings for the boy, but not in the same way she had seen couples in other viewings. No, this was more familial, friends that were closer then being just simply friends, but no more then that. Maybe it was actually much more complicated then she gave it credit for.
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:14 pm
Tea Guest Log Colour of Tea Tasted: Pale Purple Description: Affection, a bit of Loneliness and Desperation Your commentary on its flavour: Acerola tasted the loneliness of losing and searching for something important before the tea's taste shifted to one of affection that slowly grew and grew. There was even more affection and pride as the person's memory skipped to a few years later. The bonds between the two in the memory were more than that of friends. They were like family.
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