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 Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:35 pm
Would she take her oath to the grave? Yes. She promised, and only one of them need die. The General wouldn't attack one of his own without reason right? The crazy General who strung up civilians and tricked her into killing them. Of course he would never attack anyone without reason. Of course not. Never. She shook her head. She felt certain. She would die here. This...chatter. He played a game. Toyed with her. Wanted to glean information from her before he destroyed her, so he could plague others after her death.
Maybe Buddy. She had to protect him.
"It's a secret."
Bodies rotted. She would join you, stars. Body goes under and soul flies high. Up above the General where no one can see. Up into the clouds. She stared at Death. She said, "I'm sorry." How she hated to disappoint. Even here. Even when the purple-haired one towered over, she hated to disappoint. She hated it almost as much as she hated the chakrams or the wires.
What words did he plan to share with the purple-haired one? Advice? Encouragement? Certainly he wouldn't defend her. No, he seemed far too interested in destroying her for that, but with these dark ones, she could never tell. They slipped between the cracks of normalcy, always wanting to distract and surprise, to remind her that those stories were untrue, but she never realized this, and especially not now. Not when she broke into the memories flashing through--of his smile, the box of candy, his glove, the factory.
How desperate. How longing.
And when she looked at the General, she looked at him softly, distracted by these imaginings, hoping he would take it away. Erase her. Make her vanish.
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Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:11 pm
Bischofite recognized he lacked patience. He knew that just as well from his time as Alois - from his jail sentence, from his failed relationships, from the longest plane ride from Germany to America. But he entertained a ghost of a notion, some facsimile of that virtue, if only to stave off the voracious hunger that spurred him toward sating his curiosity. What had she done with Buddy? What charismatic tune did he play, did she dance to? Have they enthralled each other, or did he recently begin his dance of courtship for her soul? Worse yet, did he pursue her for reasons outside the Negaverse?
But her answer came with little merit - he gleaned nothing but another wall from her. Another empty box, buried amidst the forest. A corpse housing nothing more than still-warm viscera, not unlike the others. They cooled, they soaked in the rain, they swayed in the wind - but she did not. She wasn't quite like the others, who exposed the last of their tired lives, fully invigorated just before embracing their finality.
Her apology coaxed a smile out of him. No - a snarl. His grip tightened on her shoulders. They sought bone, malleable and flexible, sought to snap it in their bear trap, hidden amidst the forest - beneath the tripwire and the malice and the unmitigated ideals, he would break her piece by piece.
She denied him, and that was a mistake she may not be able to endure.
"What did you do wis' him?" He pressed again, leaning closer. Watching the pinpricks of darkness in the center of her eyes. "Tell me, you wretched c**t." But even as he sought answers still veiled in her meager innocence, his search yielded nothing more than a tight-lipped, frightened little girl. She didn't believe him. She didn't see the animosity that riddled his bones, powered his thoughts, She didn't think he could maintain such lofty threats, that he could execute the tall orders he expelled with such ease.
She thought he was bluffing.
But bluffing was a tactic maintained by Buddingtonite, not by Bischofite. She would learn, and she would lament.
"Deas' is too good for you," he proclaimed suddenly, and stood in equal time. He never relinquished his grip; the general forcefully dragged the senshi through blades of grass, thick with mud and tears and trenches carved from fingernails fighting to survive. Sometimes he stepped atop an acrylic nail, still painted red and slightly chipped from abuse. They were superfluous now - even the dead found no need for aesthetics.
He stopped in the center of the clearing. What was he doing? She didn't deserve the reprieve granted by being dragged around via her shoulder. After dropping her suddenly, he usurped a handful of her brilliant hair and began his trek anew, trawling the dirt and worms to the surface with her writhing body.
She would uncover the viscid muck and filth of the world through her own futile actions.
The wires snapped beneath his weight. Beneath her weight. Choking began anew, highlighting his coming tirade in dreadfully sharpened detail. He sneered, growled, scathed toward the trees and all the hapless lives they nurtured within their branches. "You sink I am so easily dismissed, Medea? Zat by telling me it's a secret I would suddenly reign in my inquisition and let you return from whence you came, unmarred by ze night? You sink it's zat easy?" With little effort, he hoisted her off the ground and thrust her against the nearest tree with enough force to snap the budding twigs beneath her weight.
He wasted little time summoning his chakrams once more. However, he refrained from targeting something as arbitrary as an arm. Rather, he pressed the blade against her side, enough to cut the bodice and draw a line of blood. "I'm not going to settle for secrets girl. I won't ask you twice. You will tell me what you know of Buddingtonite, or I will ******** cut you in half. You won't get anozzer chance."
Did he ******** her and think about her place in the Negaverse?
Did he ******** her and think about her place in his household?
Bischofite's grip on her hair only tightened. He wanted to rend every last violet strand from her scalp. He wanted to boil her face with hot grease, to besiege her body with such deep lacerations that she looked as though she crawled out of a blender. He wanted to deprive her of her fingers, her toes, just enough to look off. And he wanted to barbecue her tongue, to smell the sweet, gamey scent of muscle that filled the air and sizzled and popped from the underlayer of fat.
At what point would she be too ugly for Buddy? How much did it take?
It didn't matter. She would know his suffering to its fullest extent, doled out in a matter of hours. A slow descent, like The Pit and the Pendulum. She earned every second of his unfettered fury.
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Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:19 pm
Summer days were just a magazine...
No one had to die. No one had to suffer. She could offer truth like a lamb. Maybe it would save her. Maybe it would save Buddy, but those odds. The general raked her across earth, grabbed her hair, bled her onto the grass. Let out the bad. Peeled away the layers of a cake and blew out the candles. Where was your mother, General? Did she weep over you, who scarred the violet-haired or sneered at the sad ones? Maybe she didn't know, but how could she not? These secrets would leak through twitches, confusion and lulls in conversation on Sunday mornings or debates over TV, right? Or maybe not. Maybe she couldn't know. Maybe he didn't even have a mother. Medea fantasized so much about her maybe killer--toyed with her imagination to numb and forget.
Could she even feel? Was she a body or a mind or did she float above or deep within herself? What was drifting? What was dying or life or cruelty? What was his threat?
Cuttin' grass for gasoline...
"He rejected me," she whispered. ...So I can see ya soon. A lie. They kissed in the moonlight. Fall swooned, left me drunk in a field. Would he believe her? She couldn't tell. Maybe he felt desperate to believe. Maybe he rejected all arguments so he could justify killing her. Would he do it? Dandelion wine for a year. Would he torture and then kill? Maybe just torture? Hand her off to a colleague? So many ways...
Why did Buddy even matter? The general obviously cared about their interactions, but he was just another agent, right? Did the general fear she would convert him? What could be so important...? She frowned.
Everything hurt.
And I packed up the dust
of all that I owned.
Handkerchief hung from a pole
When would daylight shine again? Could you light blown out candles? Could you uncut a cake?
I rolled out the day the apples fell...
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Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:00 am
The general's fury gave way to something darker - deeper than the blackness between the stars, deadly in its meaningful intent. Free from all manner of discouragement, of punishment, of negative reinforcement, he would enact this iniquitous desire without concern for the future repercussions.
He smiled again.
The mood darkened.
Clouds deteriorated what little moonlight peeked into the vale. Prying eyes were sewn shut in water vapors. All those stars, now blind and dumb to their vitriolic interaction.
And it started to rain again. Droplets cut through the leaves, sieged the ground, matted together and tumbled down thick ravines between the bark before spilling out across the grass. Mud sucked and squelched underfoot; sometimes the branches snapped under the weight of body and water, so the conclusions drawn during their chase lay half-drowned in cementing mud. The clearing lost its innocence - no longer did the moon loom, casting its enchanting blanket across the opening - its propaganda fled the place in turn.
Only the truth remained, heavy and rotten and putrefying slowly.
But she didn't see it - her eyes sported two golden moons staring back at him, citing an end to what he considered a love story, a chance to start anew, a fresh endeavor into sights unseen. But Buddingtonite didn't want it - didn't want her.
That was fine.
That was good.
That was what turned time.
"He rejected you," he echoed in a harsher tone than she could manage. "Is zat what you do, Medea? Do you pursue Negaverse Offiziere? And what could you possibly hope for in zem? Someone to leech over to your side, to beguile and blind wis' all your petty little secrets, your lies and blathering insults, and your insinuation zat ze ambitious and ze hard-working are monsters baptized in insanity? Are all of your court ze same? For I am sure I'f' heard zat story a sousand times prior."
His grin deepened; at least she was fun.
"Or are you so... desperate for someone to love Medea, in all her purples and whites and skittish golds, to tuck her away into ze forest, to coax her out of ze rain, to dry her tears, to fix her cast?" The general gasped slightly, as if suddenly graced with a budding insight. His grip on her loosened, though he kept her pinned at eye level. Pitiful how her legs dangled, beat against the trunk behind her, echoed the brewing rumbles of thunder in the distance.
No lightning illuminated the clearing; only darkness pervaded the place. Deep beneath the stormy cloud cover, he could no longer discern the colors of her uniform - only memory served him there. And memory served once more to taint his inclinations with such darkness that it would warp her into an event horizon, should she try to overcome it.
She would twist and distort and decay everything she tried to represent. And at her core, he would linger.
"He rejected you. Why?" The chakram left her side, found the ground in an unceremonious sendoff. "Did you seek to sway him from our fold, or did you seek his heart?" The pockets of his coat felt deep - too deep. But it lay at the bottom - warm, diamond shaped. Damp, but not soaked. Only a little tainted by the elements surrounding them. "What held him back?" And he watched relentlessly, awaiting her answers.
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Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:24 pm
She sighed when the chakrams fell. A heart beat slow. Spots in the vision and hair split and torn. To continue a lie. She accepted his hold. To continue a lie required patience and consistency. She grew limp. Letting him in would reveal the flaws. Could she craft a lie like a perfect diamond? She said, "Both." True. She wanted the heart, mind and body, and to convert him--free him of his orders. Painite scared him, he said, drove him to murder. Why not provide alternatives: Her court?
Now the hard part: What held him back?
Duty? Honor? Probably not. Too cliche, ordinary. What about friendship? Maybe. Friends didn't let other friends hook up with Sailor Scouts, or maybe even loyalty: He couldn't betray his colleagues like that. Or what about...
"Sympathy." She coughed. "I was pathetic." She gave into woods. Take her away. Drain her out. Make her cry. "He couldn't bring himself--" Thunder. Distant. Soft. Somewhere rain. Somewhere water. Mud rising into the grass.
Was this the end?
Body sink into the loam. Eyes stare at tired worms. Arms fall at the sides. Reach for tiny light if you can see it. Stars in pockets like stars in sky. Medea felt the general's aura heavy and dark, consuming her. The snake ate the mouse. A cold moon waning. Children played on swings--flew off and landed on their knees, bleeding as she bled, cried as she cried, sung the nursery rhymes she heard before sleep. Somewhere, someone protected them--protected her, but from this? Who could love her out of this?
She gave and gave, and the general took--would take until nothing remained but purple hair, torn skirt, yellow ribbons and starseed, flickering in his grasp. Light. Small. Trembling and good, like the wavering light of a candle.
Did she love Buddy?
Yes, she decided that she loved him. Mathias told her to give him everything if she loved him. Was this the price of loving you, Buddy? Breath? She cried. Consistency, consistency. She couldn't stand it. That...rejection. She loved him so much more, and she protected him, but when did he protect her? He attacked Mariposite, sure, but was that enough? It wasn't preventive measure. It didn't save her from starseed gank. She cried even more. How sad. Poetic melancholy. Weeping Medea. He didn't love her back. Couldn't love her--not like this. Not how they were now...
In fact, one species of solanum is known as the "sunberry".
She said herself goodbye.
Alternatively, the name could originate from the Latin verb solari, meaning "to soothe"...
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Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 5:56 pm
Bischofite's gaze lingered, expecting more. Peeling away the layers of her skin - they grew excessively pink as he descended - until sinewy flesh rose to greet him. Until cords of muscles blossomed and parted, revealing organs. Revealing bone. Revealing trachea and spinal cord and the amygdala, all bare before him. All flayed out and parted, parsed out for lies and deceit, for any measure of blackened hate lingering therein.
Nothing.
"He couldn't bring himself to join some pasetic little wench, stupid and meek, who wanders srough ze woods at night wis' a cast on." He finished her statement with a marked lack of tone. He spoke neither coldly nor cruelly. "Buddingtonite is smart enough to know what he deserves. Zough he overreaches himself, he has ambition. It is only a matter of burning down ze man inside, stripping away what paltry morals he has left, before he will serf'e as an excellent soldier of ze Negaverse. It requires a great deal of suffering, he may nearly die from it, but he will be complete soon enough. Zat is my promise to you - after zat point, you will mean nossing to him. Your name, your face, your repeated actions - all zese sings will fade in time, and one day when ze star of Medea fades from ze sky, he will know nossing more zan victory over anozzer nameless foe.
"Anozzer adversary, broken at ze seams and mulched into ze ground as feed for new soldiers." The general smiled, though sadness tarnished its typical fervor. To see Buddingtonite meet such success, yet he would trail behind... Perpetually trapped in the concept of transcendence to a youma, yet never finding fruition in the task. Now a general, he lacked any method to change his shape, his existence - he didn't know what else to do. Damned to humanity forever, all he could do was distract himself with these paltry toys, these pointless mind games, these pathetic attempts to silence the enemy.
To plant seeds of doubt and unrest across their ranks and cultivate them with steady chaos. To feed their growing dissent with occurrences so dark and harrowing that they could no longer accept the White Moon propaganda as truth - that no matter their attempts to stop the violence, their efforts met with nil.
Bischofite sighed silently - the wind's low howl stole away what little forlorn tone came with it.
"To love him is to fool yourself," his voice rose to surmount the growing toil of the winds, tugging at their clothes with fingers steeped in harsh syllables. "For only jesters deal in mirs' and happiness. Only charades yield zat kind of innocence you offer - because it is fake. What you're seeking can't exist as anysing more zan fraud. But I will gif' you a taste of it, and you will know it as a shoddy imitation - you will recognize it in ze way zat star-crossed lovers look at each ozzer, in how parents hold hands in front of zeir children. You'll feel it in anozzer warm hand closing over yours, holding tight, too tight. You'll feel it in your lover's breaths. You'll smell it in their clothes, in zeir passing. You'll taste it on zeir tongue, on zeir skin just after a shower.
"False innocence is ubiquitous. You're drowning, Medea."
The general procured a single starseed from his pocket, small and gleaming hopelessly in the deadened storm of night. In one easy motion, he placed it onto his tongue, pressed it against his gums much like a coke fiend sampling new wares. The energy practically leaked out of it - warmed his mouth and reinvigorated his resolve, and through it he hadn't noticed how worn he'd become through this toiling endeavor.
He would've liked to crack it between his molars, crush it into splinters lining his tongue, but it served a greater purpose here - one he dare not waste on whimsy.
With his free hand, he usurped hers - entwined gloved fingers between cold, brittle bones and pressed the back of her hand against the tree. Bark engraved its clammy skin as minute reminders of how easily he would impact her. This forest would eat her alive, devour her with its corroded fruit and steel veins and stifling privacy. But this was not the worst of it; even while he held her hand in tight grip, she would not meet suffering just yet.
She would taste the innocence she desired so greatly - to consume Buddingtonite in her quest for puppy love proved folly in its greatest measure. In turn she would suffer accordingly - she would endure a corruption to those very ideas, so great and so contorting that she may never champion them again.
So he kissed her, starseed in tow, cold lips against feverish warmth. Revolutionary ideals. And in their ancient, wordless language, he passed along the meaning of innocence in its purest form.
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Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:38 pm
If you are kind, then you will like me. Hand to hand. Mouth to mouth. Touching she would love, but too close. Too eager. Too near. Warmth she would love but too warm, and lips not warm enough. Yellow eyes like hers, but frigid. The first time she cried during a kiss. She fell like that day in Luxembourg when her aunt pushed her into the pool. Ink in the water. He polluted the soul. Heat in her mouth warming the rest of her. She collapsed against the tree, relinquishing. She hated it, but she couldn't--
Why body?
What was your name, General?
Smile wanted to know--the smile she couldn't erase from the physical contact and the shine that seeped into her. From the wrong. She frowned. Too late. No no no. She pretended he didn't feel it. He didn't see it. A smile that never was. That never could be. He would ignore it like he ignored her pleas. He paid no mind to her except as an audience in some elaborate scheme, yes? And the heart! Slow down, heart. He couldn't influence her so deeply, right? No, this had to be fear. Fear that made palms sweat, that darkened eyes, that reddened cheeks. Fear that hurt and left small and weak. She sobbed deep, ugly animal sobs and said, "Please."
End it, she thought, bark digging into her. If you are kind, then you will end it. Weak. Hopeless. She fell forward, pressed against him. "Do it." He had a starseed too, right? They all did. He knew. He could understand. She wanted him to understand. She leaned against him. Dependent. Tiny. Empty. "I'm a failure." She couldn't protect Buddy like this. She bowed her head against his chest. "I want you to do it."
Please, General, if you understood--
She shook.
She couldn't look at him. Cold front meets warm front. Cold eyes meet warm eyes. More water. Water he didn't need. Water she didn't want. The flowers seemed watered enough already. The bodies seemed drenched. The world slowed deep deep deep and she felt frozen and crushed and broken, like he wanted, like Xe wanted, like her arm, and she could be like him or Xe or any of the others, but no, please no, she just wanted to die.
Anything but this.
To grow stronger, maybe. Could you do that, General? Could you make her stronger? She didn't have a clue, and you, you seemed so knowledgeable. If I must die-- She closed her eyes. If I must die--
There are sad people and there are good people and there are quiet people pressing against black and golden jackets, waiting for a sign, wishing on a star, praying for their end, surrounded by corpses and sleeping crows. Their sobs quiet and the wind breezes over as they beg for someone to take them to a land far far away--to the other side of the mirror, castles far below the earth, fading stars, a sun that cast shadows and a blackening, pearly moon.
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Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:29 pm
His mouth now absent its burden, with only the lingering sweetened taste, Bischofite pressed a gentle hand to her throat as a means to detect its passing. Into the core of her, past its twin, beneath her means of maintaining life and into her means of digesting it. There it melted, shattered, dissolved, and renewed her in its passing. A facsimile phoenix she was, liable to burst from her own broken, tear-stricken ashes. Thus, he took special pride in burning her to the ground, and in finally lifting her famine, he razed her from the inside out. Liver cooked to steak, sickly sweet and paired with spinal fluid, bubbling out with its sharpened partner blood. Soon they coagulated, evaporated, deteriorated - and all became ash.
She acquiesced his offerings, she sought martyrdom as readily as he offered it. She marinated in putrefaction, she capitulated to darkness and derision. And in turn, she expressed those intimacies he would expect of the innocent, the sweet, the hopelessly blind. Violet hair clashed violently to his coat, blended to shades of grey in the dreary darkness. Perhaps indiscernible from mud now, mud hair and mud jacket, cohesion and cohabitation, pressed into one another, folded out and mixed into the same faceless entity.
He hated it, so he ceased her sudden displays of affection. He pressed her back against the tree with the same force he showed earlier, anger rekindled anew. Rain assailed them like gasoline, and twice her ashes were rekindled, distorted to mud and lit once more.
In a motion almost intimate by nature, he pressed a hand to her chest. Through it he felt her heartbeat, the warmth radiating from her ribcage, the unyielding firmness of her sternum. Despite exhaustion, despite all the hurt and loss and suffering she sustained, her bones guarded her heart with such undying strength. Yet beneath it all lay her starseed, and the tips of his fingers passed beyond sinew and bone to greet that ethereal space. "Life is no right, child. It is a trial. One you will endure until you'f earned your reprief', not requested it."
One hand still resting half-inside her chest, Bischofite reached toward the ground and seized a handful of snapped tripwires that laid scattered in his previous virulent reactions. In letting go of her, he pulled a tripwire taut over her stomach. It retained a great deal of its previous length, so he completed a pair of revolutions around the tree before tying another piece to the end and continuing to truss her. It took nearly a dozen wires before he was satisfied with both the tautness and the overall composition of the endeavor. Finally he began tying the final knot, and in doing so, he leaned in close to her ear.
Errant strands of violet hair sought to protect the shell, but his warm breath would penetrate regardless. "And it's all I lif' for, ze air I breaz'e - so, it's all ze same to me." He completed the lyrics in a matched husky tone and pushed off from where he lingered, just before kicking his discarded chakram closer to the base of the tree.
"Before I forget... If you need a name to curse, a label for a face, some whispered swear when you're scared... It's Bischofite." He smiled. Mock bowed. He didn't linger, didn't overly gesticulate his corruption of a more sensible introduction. Instead he turned on his heel and began his trek out of the forest, back to society, back to the streets that bore far too many chances to implement new ideas. With his remaining chakram hooked loosely on his finger, perpetually spinning with centrifugal force, he hesitated in his step. "Medea, if you plan to leaf' zis place, you haf' until I power down to escape. If not... Well, it's all ze same to me."
He laughed, and soon after was no different form the shadows that hunted the forest.
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Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:57 pm
Medea fell against the tree. She cried out. The bark scraped her arms. Hand brushed starseed. Her heart raced. THE END? Goodbye heart. Goodbye mind. Not at all like when Mariposite touched it. He touched it to hurt, and he kissed as if it helped, but it didn't because Mariposite probably kissed all the girls, and it wasn't special, but with Bischofite it could be special. Une petite mort juste pour elle.
Do it General. She wanted it. His breath against her ear, she closed her eyes. A blush. A faint, gentle, sweet blush--the first lilies of May--and then--
Why wouldn't you hurt her? She asked for it. She wanted you to win. Why wouldn't you let her let you have her/win? Did you fear or ignore or want suffer? Yes, probably you wanted suffer. Suffer her with life and prolonged inevitable. Buddy, what would he say? Could she tell him? Would the General tell him? So many things he could hear. Good things, maybe. Bad things. Maybe he would hate her forever. Maybe he would leave her alone. General o General what would you do?
He reached for the cables. Her eyes widened. He slipped away. No no no. She fell forward. If he refused this, she would hurt him later. It would seem obvious. A glaring mistake. He tied her back. The cables cut in. She gasped. Breath, where did you go? He would hate her enough to regret--if he could regret, and if not, then she would punish him through suffering or pain or perhaps awaken softness. Vulnerability. Anything to make him realize his error.
Bischofite.
xxxxxo1: The bad man in the night cloaked in feathers and gold and black. His eyes gleam like honey. A bitter smile. A horrid outlook. The man who plays games with prey. The jerk who won't let go. A target. A menece. Evil incranate.
xxxxxo2: The man with sickle-sweet eyes drenched in rain. He kissed you once, in the rain, in the park. He hurt your hair and stomach and arms and you said, "okay do it because I don't have a clue maybe you do." He believed that lie about Buddy. He brought smiles and blushes xxxxxxxxxand collapsing against him felt safe and okay even though it wasn't. He didn't want it, but did it matter? Did it really matter? What was the real issue here: That he didn't want it or that you, a Senshi, did?
He dropped the chakram. Goodbye. She shook her head. No more tears. Logic time. She slid her foot under and into the chakram. She grasped the edge. Skin against chakrams. Skin against cables. Take the edge to the binds. A golden-eyed girl and a raven-haired general. Metal dripping from the rain. Lace plastered onto skin. Hair torn at the edges. Rain rain go away.
Bischofite.
She took a deep breath
"Okay."
She cut the cable.
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