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 Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:18 pm
So someone else was to be subjected to what he was doing to her - to Bischofite's particular twisted sort of therapy. Wonderful. She felt like a research assistant for an awful experiment - was this what the "learners" in Milgram's famous obedience experiment had felt, knowing that they would be the direct cause of someone else's horrified anguish?
Maybe.
And then suddenly, she was swept away, and when the teleportation was finished her legs were weak and shaking and she flew far too easily, feeling smaller than ever as she barely hung on in the branches where he'd thrown her.
The cold steel of the chakram against her throat just made her smile wanly.
"Here is a strange and bitter crop," she murmured, slowly lowering herself down. It took her but a moment to spot a nearby tree with branches of similar thickness to the one she had just been in, and she struck it with the chakram he'd given her. "Unfortunately for me, I can't help but be honest," she said, the same almost-smile still on her face as she sought the next.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:01 pm
He listened to her quote, and smiled.
"Ze manchineel tree."
He paced further ahead. Fallen leaves rustled across the ground, in their wake. In struggles spanning seconds that gave way to another marked tree. Persephone knew little of the chakram, of how to wield it properly, but that did not matter. She lacerated foliage all the same. "Haf' you seen one before? You would fancy it if you did. Small apples, green leaf's similar to a chinese tallow, grey bark. Unremarkable sing, but ze Spanish call it manzanilla de la muerte. Little apple of deas'.
"But Persephone did not ingest ze manchineel fruit." He remained silent for a time, eyed the forest for its trees. Studied their wake. Was this enough? No. "Eat it, and you will die. Take cover under it during ze rain, and you will suffer blisters across your body. Burn it, and its smoke will blind and suffocate you. A strange and bitter crop indeed.
"You are not a manchineel tree, Persephone. But for now we are collecting leaf's, for when ze rain falls. But tonight you will earn one of its fruit, to gif' to your enemies when zey stray into supple gardens. Mark my words - lead zem here in a few days' time, and see zem disappear." More fodder for the fire.
A funeral to suit the pyre.
"You are not ze sort to bear ze label of White Moon Court, Persephone." He cut a tree, too deep. Sap traced the circular blade. A single droplet landed atop his boot, and he parted from the trunk. Led her still deeper into the woods. "Zey are liars, deceivers, petty little schemers. To zem, honesty is a weakness. You are a weakness. You strayed into a forest, but you found a grof'e of manchineel trees." Another cut. More sap.
Would his victims bleed so freely? Do stronger flowers sprout from blood? Are forest, grandiose and green, born from adversity? From murder?
He halted. "Komm hier." He beckoned for her to follow, and rounded to face her fully. "I said before zat ze manchineel fruit is as an apple - smaller, but notably similar." As Eve in the garden, you stand before me. Do you recognize me here? If you can see me, can you tell me - am I Adam or the Serpent? "So tell me somesing - would you eat ze fruit of knowledge, wis' ze understanding zat it would kill you?"
Do you stand in Eden or in Gethsemane?Songstress Kitsune Komm hier means come here, but is homonym to the English version.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:48 pm
Persephone marked another tree and then turned back to him for a moment, tilting her head to the side. Still, even to listen, she only stopped in her work of marking the oldest, strongest, most solid trees long enough for him to ask if she'd seen one.
"I haven't, no." She admitted. Another plant of the dead, just like her own. Yes, perhaps she might fancy it, as he put it. She scored another tree, letting out a soft breath. She wondered whose torment she was preparing for. Some innocent Senshi or Knight would stumble into Bischofite's hands, and would suffer. Would probably be the cause of civilian deaths.
Delightful.
She wondered if there was a Senshi of Manchineel. She would like to take that girl's place - to wield a plant that choked and stung and burned and killed, rather than a fruit that offered healing even to her enemies. "Was that an offer to dispose of people for me?" She asked, her tone light. She marked another. How many was that now? She hadn't been counting his.
"So what then? I belong with Chaos?" Persephone asked. Sometimes she thought that, too. Leto had planted the idea in her mind. With Chaos, would she be a goddess of death? Or the same smiling goddess of springtime?
She came when called, a dog clad in a white dress. And she exhaled. "Perhaps, for a moment of perfect clarity before I died," she said, "though not everyone sees the fruit that Eve took from the Serpent as an apple. Some say it might have been a pomegranate, for the apple only appeared in the Latin translations, where apple and evil are both mala. A fun little pun."
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 10:54 pm
"Consider it as returning your favor." Who would she bring, if anyone? Only the dead lingered in Hades - would she have anyone to offer? In her times among life, did she find the need to reunite with death? "It's fitting zat you reap some benefit from it, yes? As you sow ze seeds, you glean ze fruits."
Bischofite studied her, offered his remaining chakram to her in the same dismissive gesture. She would not wound him with measured trust, for she learned the submissive loyalties of Cerberus while she loitered in the realms of the dead - the realms that he graced without break, without the very months she spent in ceaseless revel of the sun and life and warm breeze. "I did not say zat - it is folly to assume zat absent life means dead. Absent good means evil. You simply exist outside ze constraints of your Court, not as a prodigal daughter of ze Negaverse."
Outside of reality. Like the dream that still teased the edges of his wakefulness.
Did she feel bones beneath her heels, popping and cracking while she walked? Did she view trees full of eyes that watched her relentlessly, beneath a bullet hole of a sun that bore down on its victims? Did she feel the pressing need to stray into forests, as that same lingering hole in the sky sought her death?
Was she plagued by that very trepidation?
By the manner in which she stood at ease before him, he found his answer.
So you know my name. You know me, and you know where we stand. You know, and are unafraid. You know, because you understand futility. You know, because in the realms of death you swallow pomegranate seeds to ward away starvation.
But famine lingers in your peripherals, doesn't it? I can break your fever. Your hunger. Your mind. You can feel free again, within the depths of Hades.
"Mala. How maladroit." He smiled. Looked down on her. Shifting trees echoed whispers through their conversation, a backdrop both eerie and soothing. "Tell me about your attacks, Persephone. Do you echo ze Greek sentiments, or are you somesing else entirely? Ze pomegranate fruit adorns your outfit, I can see zat much, but..." He touched the single fruit pressed against the bow above her chest. "Everysing lies. Order, chaos - different words for ze same broken idea."
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 11:31 pm
Persephone smiled wanly. "And what if I deliver to you one of your comrades?" There was no officer she wanted dead, ironically - not even Bischofite himself, for all he had done - so it was entirely rhetorical, but she was curious.
She took the offered chakram, not thinking for a moment of attacking him with them. She was sure they'd simply return to him if she tried, and she wouldn't even have the chance. "Fascinating." He didn't see her belonging anywhere. "Fascinating," she repeated, a little sadder.
A lost child, no home on either side of this war.
She shifted her grip on the chakram to rest the back of her hand against her hip. "I am Persephone in the spring, to go by the mythological metaphor," she replied. "My attacks take away fatigue and heal minor injuries. In other words - they're useless." She laughed faintly. "Fate is a b***h - if she were a little kinder, I'd have been the Queen of Ghosts."
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 12:59 pm
"Zen zey will die." His gaze lingered on her, neither compassionate nor cruel, though always curious. He found it of little import to linger on such a notion - everyone dies, agents and senshi alike. Should he be the reason behind a singular death on their side, the Negaverse would surely seek to punish him for it.
Kill him.
Youmafy him.
Strip him of all rank and privilege.
But his ideals weighed beyond his life, beyond the Negaverse, beyond their exchange amongst a forest, discussing tripwires and manchineel trees and myths long since past. He understood it in passing, as he watched her, while she expounded upon her power as one of the White Moon Court. "You must change if you wish to find your place, Persephone. As it stands, you linger between two worlds - but you must change one, if you truly want to belong somewhere. Are you prepared to do somesing like zat, Persephone? To alter yourself for ze sake of finding complacency among ze ranks? Or are you content to wander between kingdoms, constantly searching for somesing zat does not exist to you as you are now?"
In a moment, he crouched, and his chakrams returned to his grasp without ceremony. He clasped them together, as if in a prayer, and pointed them in slackened grip at her feet. "You're already halfway zere, child. You mark zese trees wis' me knowing zeir fate, and zis does not sway you from partaking in it. If you like, you can earn my entente, and be free of my sreat of deas' for a time. Zis may yet help you change, to find your place in zis surreal realm, so I encourage you to try it.
"But I fear you may not survif'e ze ordeal." He looked toward one of the trees in the distance, sporting a heinous gash across its trunk. Would Persephone endure the same fate? Would she exist as the trees in the wood of suicides, ever sieged by carrion crows? Maybe so. The thought coaxed a mirthless laugh out of him.
She was correct on one front - fate was a cruel mistress. But she was a mistress with intent.
"Fate dealt me a unique hand, but I respect its outcome. I would not be as I am were it not for adversity, and..." He breathed a sigh. "Zat is neizer here nor zere. I digress too readily wis' you; you're dangerous." He stood and flashed her a playful grin. "Do you want to cross ze border Persephone? To follow ze fif'e rivers and find your home amongst ze damned? It's a simple task, but we may haf' to relocate. It's a n easy matter in seory, you see.
"Kill someone, and you will earn my reprief'e."
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:31 pm
Persephone made a small humming noixe. That was an interesting bit to consider - usually, she had heard nothing but affection for teammates from officers. But Bischofite would kill one as easily as he would a Senshi. He was a wonder to her - so very different from every other officer. He scared her in ways no one, not even the General-King, could, and yet. And yet, she found him fascinating.
"I don't know if I want to belong anywhere," Persephone murmured, not properly addressing him, not really. "It almost feels more proper to be a wanderer between worlds." Except she did want to belong, and while she wanted to find something in the White Moon, something to hold her to it and root her...sometimes she wondered if she could.
She had to laugh quietly. "I wonder what it means that I can make you talk so readily and so charmingly," she said dryly, and then she turned to face him, reaching up to brush her fingers through her hair. A dread settled in her chest.
Of course it would come to this. Because for all she bantered with him, he was dangerous. The most dangerous man she had danced with in this war. "Kill someone. You say it as if it's so simple. As if it shouldn't go against everything I am. I'm a magical girl, I'm supposed to save people."
Or was she a witch already?
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Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 10:23 pm
"It is easier to wander, because you do not haf' to commit." He watched her readily, sharply. "Zose wis' weak spirits wander because of zis. Wis'out a need to commit, to choose someplace to stay, to make a decision, zey are free to entertain zeir need to spectate zeir own lifes." He smiled sardonically. Curiously they were both wanderers, not quite fitted to their chosen factions, though for differing reasons. Persephone did not share the same sentiments of her Court, but Bischofite found that his peers resorted to half-measures to subdue the enemy, and thus prolong the war to little gain. They hated him for his strange machinations, and for that he was ostracized.
But that made little difference here.
Finally he stood once more as he felt an edge of excitement pervade his veins. Akin to adrenaline, the rush spurred him on in his curious pursuit. "You're right, you're supposed to saf'e people. But you can't, my girl, because everyone dies. You cannot prevent zis, for it is folly to sink zat you could. So what must you do zen? Protect zem in ze mean time? If you'll recall what happened ze night we met, you helped wis' protecting a few civilians, but one died almost immediately afterward. Why didn't you stop zat car, Persephone? Why didn't you do your job?" He gripped his chakrams fiercely, and eyed her with a fire that only recently found its kindling. "But you did do your job, you might argue, because two went free. And perhaps two of sree is ze best to hope for in a situation like zat.
"And to zat I say: what of your situation now? You're told to kill one of ze very souls you seek to protect. If you do not comply, zen you will wind up wis' ze same fate as ze many who will hang in zese trees. I will not relent for you, Persephone, so decide for yourself - is saving a single sheep wors' ze life of ze protector, or would you forego a soul to prolong your futile efforts to protect strangers from certain doom?" He took careful measure to telegraph his attack before actually executing the swipe - swinging toward the senshi to force her into movement. And if she withstood a slice across her body, then she deserved it nonetheless.
Those who stood helpless in the face of danger were the first to die for good reason.
"Go, Persephone, and don't stop running until someone lay dead at your feet. Only zen will I stop hunting you."
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Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 2:18 pm
Persephone made a quiet humming noise. "Not all who wander are lost," she quipped, quoting Tolkien easily and automatically. "Hm. Don't mind the platitudes." She exhaled. It seemed like the type of thing he would hate. "I'm unfortunately rather low on original thoughts, I suppose."
She frowned. "I saved two. I beat you, and saved two innocent people, and that's plenty for me." Even if one had died in what could only be called a freak accident. "People die in car crashes every day - am I supposed to save every one of them? That's ridiculous. Neither my ego nor my hero complex are large enough to think I could even begin to." That fire in his eyes frightened her. What would excite someone like him? Surely nothing good.
"There's a difference between failing to save someone and killing them myself," she said, and then she jumped backwards to avoid the strike, landing surprisingly well on those stupid impractical heels of hers. "And what if I refuse? What if I won't become a murderer? Will you dog me until the end of my days? That seems a lot of dedication."
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Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:07 am
"Zere is no difference to zose left behind, Persephone. Loved ones still undergo ze changes foretold by loss, and srough such adversity, zey grow. You should'f learned zat from when we first encountered each ozzer. Haf' you considered learning ze names of who you saved? Zeir families, zeir friends, zeir loved ones? Surely it would be interesting to see zat zey show gratitude for a time, appreciate ze return of someone zey considered lost for a time, but..." He sighed, shrugged his shoulders in a dismissive gesture. "No lasting impact. Life is taken for granted wis'out a solid reminder of mortality.
"And zat is where you come in. You haf' ze opportunity to instill such great change in a group of people - to gif' zem ze chance to see ze world as somesing beautiful and fleeting - to savor experiences as ze last time zey might haf' one, for zey haf' experienced loss before. You will be zeir jarring reminder zat all good sings come to an end, so every one of zem must be seized upon regardless. Kill a wife, a son, a boyfriend, a best friend. Kill someone wis' a large family. Kill someone wis' a lot of friends. It doesn't really matter to me, as long as zey'f got sufficient connections."
She possessed the reflexes to dodge an intentionally telegraphed attack. She did not falter and submit to a blow so obvious. She still retained her survival instincts, and that rendered her useful to him, despite her flippant and often condescending attitude toward him.
So be it.
When she asked for elaboration, he looked toward the sky. A profusion of leaves painted in dying chlorophyll obscured the majority of the stars, but a few bright pinpricks peered through the peppered leaves. Small civilizations harboring senshi aplenty - he wondered if a telescope of sufficient power would offer him a glimpse into their pasts. What was Persephone's planet like a million years ago, if anything at all? Was it part of her bloodline to question others, especially those who would deliver on action?
"I can't afford to waste time hunting you down, Persephone. It would benefit neizer of us - you would learn nossing and I would accomplish nossing. It's far easier if I just kill you here for your refusal." Inevitably, people would change from this encounter.
It was up to her to determine who: her own family, or distant strangers?
Six degrees of separation could only foretell so much.
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:40 am
Persephone eyed those chakrams, eyed the trees scarred around her, and took a breath.
"I don't do this for recognition," she said, and then she took a few steps back, a little extra distance between herself and the General, the beginnings of a defense. "I don't care if the people I save know my name. They could spit on me and scorn me and call me a terrorist, and I would still do this. I'd still go out every night and fight and save people and make sure that even the ungrateful ******** in this city don't have to live in fear of Chaos." A half-smile appeared on her face, and she folded her hands in front of her chest.
"I'm a magical girl, and I'll be damned if I give in and become a witch tonight." She was watching him, eyeing for an opening, or for any movements to attack her. "To give in to despair - to accept your ridiculous binary, kill or be killed, is easy. Hell, death is easy. It'd be easy for me to say that I'm not going to kill because I'd never be able to wash the blood off my hands, because even if I die I'd die knowing I'd stood up for my beliefs and would be able to face my family et cetera et cetera moralizing bullshit." For a brief moment, she moved one hand, waving it as if to brush all that aside. "But I'm not going to let you kill me, and I'm not going to let you force me to kill someone else. Not even you, frankly, because that would be handing you what you want too."
If he pressed, her only choice was to run, because she was well aware that fighting him would be suicide. He was stronger, bigger, had deadly weapons and she had energy-boost seeds. She'd have to time it just right - but she was not going to lie down and die tonight, any more than she was going to throw away what she believed in.
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:15 pm
Though he listened, the general approached her slowly and steadily. His eye contact did not waver, even as she denied him. No - if anything, it held his gaze. She already expressed her fear of him earlier, and her knowledge that he'd follow through with his threats and seemingly whimsical intentions. Yet, she still found the strength to deny him her life.
He considered it a satisfying discovery.
"You don't know what I want," he returned in a quiet voice. Almost intimate, given its volume. "It's just as easy to fall back on judgments, isn't it? It's just as easy to assume zat I am a monster, zat I am interested in destroying myself, zat my sole goal tonight is to ruin you and everyone else around me unless someone steps in and stops me. I'f noticed zat all ze senshi do it - you included. But..." A corner of his mouth twitched upward, almost passable as a spasm. Bischofite lowered his head slightly and shot her an inquisitive glance. "I sink you would agree when I say zat sometimes ze hardest choices are ze most fruitful." He didn't bother to acknowledge the pun.
"You don't know what I want," he repeated again, and halted his advance. They stood the same length apart as before, due to her steady retreat to maintain the distance. She knew she was gambling; she'd seem him throw a chakram at her from greater distances, and with precariously close aim. This was a tactical move - she wanted to both prove her ability to stand on her own and to defy him during the process. In essence, it was a dominance challenge, but he had little interest in granting her the boon of his anger. No, she earned something else tonight. Something she might not even see, because she might not even understand the intent behind his binary choices.
Binaries were easy. Take the offered way out and survive, but acknowledge a loss, or take the challenge and stand up for one's morals and beliefs. Strive for a victory against the odds, against some crazy Negaverse agent that proved a lukewarm fighter regardless. And one might think back on those events later, reflect on a victory earned and another harrowing opponent defeated, or another life lost to some monstrous bogeyman, but nothing changes in those instances. No realizations or revelations eke out from those binaries.
Most people missed that point.
And where most opted for the binary paths, Persephone struck out on her own. She acted on what he truly intended - that through troublesome odds and dismal results on both sides of the binary, she instead forged her own path. She looked beyond the rules for her own most suitable path - something he longed to instill in others. She sought freedom through her own means, and he would allow her that, if only to say you've earned my pride and my reprieve.
For disregarding the rules was the first step toward anarchy.
For anarchy was the first step toward priming the city for Chaos.
"Zen Go," he urged, and nodded toward the woods behind her. "Go, and I will desist. Defy ze rules, and learn zat freedom exists beyond zem. You'f taken ze steps to see beyond your binds, and zat is ze first step. So leaf' here, and do not dream of gallows trees tonight." Though his sharp gaze lingered on her for a moment longer, he turned from her visage and drifted back through the woods.
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