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 Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:29 pm
'Very rarely do we seek to change until there is something that hurts in one way or another.'
Do I remember a time when I wasn't in pain? Was I simply perpetuating hurt, or had something festered beyond the self-destruction I religiously wrought? "I'm so immensely tired of pain," he confessed, enduring a pang of it when the words found breath. His gaze shifted to the tattered remnants of his coat that sported no protection where it tore down the middle. One sleeve rent to an entirely useless degree hung off his back just below one wing, and now pooled on the floor not far from his elbow. Vast stretches of skin stood exposed, absent the scars he remembered incurring in all his dark endeavors. I remember hating this skin.
"I shudder to sink zat was your only reasoning for joining ze Negaverse." He shot Persephone a sidelong glance, one that showed a spark of his former disposition before fading to the same glazed, melancholic glance. It may as well have been. What more does the Negaverse have to offer us? Totalitarian leadership. Betrayal. Reprimand for those with the gall to think.
His gaze returned to the warp hands pooled in his lap, how the curved nails sprouted from his nail beds. "You don't want to be yourself anymore - not when you mean so little to everyone around you. It is eizer very freeing, as it was for me - or very crushing, as it was for you. Once you gain meaning to zose around you, it's easier to stomach yourself. I suspect as much, because ze reverse is also true - when I found myself immersed in someone's life, zat freedom... It didn't matter anymore." But now those binds will break you.
"I never sought I would catch myself admitting zis, but Leto was right." I always thought I would lose everything if I lost my memories, but now I find it a fitting release, though far above my station. "I left behind so much." Sorrow crawled up his throat. "I left behind ze smell of wet concrete and groundwater after a long rain. I left behind ze touch of polished granite, how your fingers slip across ze surface after zey come in contact wis' water left behind by a cup. I left behind ze sound of my own language, uttered as if a secret cipher known only between lovers." Tears welled over and sprawled across the sockets of the mask, spilling over the crest as tar rejected their retreat into the mask's confines.
"My failures... Zey mean s**t and piss by comparison. I was never meant to succeed. My Harrow is Malicious - my body ze tome of my crimes. I can't survif'e zis, Persephone. I can't."
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Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 11:05 pm
"Pain is exhausting." Persephone agreed softly. She lifted her head, blowing out a sigh.
"I was being facetious - but at the time, I thought amnesia would be a blessing. I was...hoping to forget being Persephone. To wipe that slate clean. It seemed like such a good idea after what had happened..." She shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't get what I wanted, and I'm glad for it."
She slowly uncurled herself, leaning back against the wall and shifting to a somewhat less coiled-in sitting position. "Maybe once I start thinking of myself as a person, and not the shadow of a girl that doesn't exist anymore," she said, but it was mostly to herself.
When she realized that Bischofite was crying, her response was automatic. She couldn't properly wipe the tears away with the mask in the way, but she did move to sit in front of him and lightly rest her hands on his cheeks. Comfort was such an easy response for her, even towards someone at whom she had been so furious not long before.
It was hard to be angry at a broken man.
"I'd like to tell you it'll be alright, but we both know that would be blind optimism. So instead...instead I'll say that you can survive, and you will. It won't be easy, and you won't be able to get back what you had, but you will survive. And eventually, you will be able to leave the Rift, and see the city again. Not as you were, no - but it might look different, now."
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Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 11:35 pm
The hands that touched his face drew not the reaction he came to know, of recoiling, but Quenton's own conditioning - wary acceptance. Beyond the further press of mask to his face, her fingernails teased toward the edge of his jaw where no tawdry obstruction maintained separation. Clawed hands reached to grip persephone's slight wrists - had they always been so small? - and a slow, bitter rage unfurled in the depths of his gut. When his grip tightened, hot tar seeped from every pore of skin until it dripped down his forearms and seethed with a warning hiss upon touching her arms.
"Survival is pointless when ze offending object offers no merit, if dead or alif'e." His tone maintained quiet resolution. "Look at everysing I'f done, Persephone. Can you name one damnable instance where I actually lent benefit to ze Negaverse? Tell me, because it's all I haf' left. I am a creature zat no one will follow, and I haf' only my asinine ideals to blame. Do you know what an idealist becomes when stripped of all conviction, Persephone? I'll tell you: dead weight." Finally he relinquished his grasp, though sticky tar bound the pair together until the afflicted chose to break free.
I could sink into better dreams. Bitter dreams. Nightmares of my own volition, and those surreal lucid dreams just before reality chases them away. I could dream of everything I lost. I could survive inside my own mind. Is that not a better alternative?
I could have him again, if only as a facsimile. My own flawed recital of Quenton's brilliant mind. A Phönix drawn in cold chalk across the walls.
Albtraum und Nachtmahr*... I could sleep for an eternity if it meant another dream of you.
"Persephone. We're fractured portions of people now. You, a rehearsal of a girl missing eighteen years of basic human experiences. I, a monsters whose heart was lost to days I never deserved. We're youma of a different sort... While our starseeds remain intact, somesing integral shattered. It can't be repaired." Is the Negaverse founded on broken dreams?
"I need you to do somesing for me. It's... just a personal request." Swallowing hard, Bischofite rose to his feet. Each attempt assured his unsteadiness. With one hand braced against the wall, he started back in direction of his new living quarters. "I need you to steal somesing for me/ Somesing small, somesing zat won't be missed. A scrap of paper, an old shirt cut into cleaning rags, or perhaps a half-finished sketch tossed into ze wastebasket. It doesn't matter what it is - but who you steal it from. I can gif' you ze address."Songstress Kitsune *[German]Nightmare (current version) and nightmare (outmoded version). Reference to a previous RP
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Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 11:57 pm
Persephone gritted her teeth, and a soft hiss of pain escaped her lips as tar made its slow way down her arms. That was certainly new, and she wondered, as a way to distract from the fact that it was painfully hot, how much of it Bischofite could control.
"I don't know everything you've done." She said, and there was a firmness in her voice that was probably not deserved. "And anyway, when we were draining for the crystals? It was amazing. That was something good - I can't recall the last time I saw so many officers working together for a common goal." Discounting the White Phoenix ambush, since it had ended with Negaverse drawing Negaverse blood.
She withdrew her hands, but only in an effort to get the tar off. She found herself nodding to acknowledge the truth of his comparison. "Chaos takes more than it gives, I think, but we've both made our choices, and they can't be unmade." For him, to go back was impossible. For her, it would mean to sacrifice the little pieces she'd cobbled together, the bits of a life she'd made, and that was as intolerable as dying.
His request was simple enough, and so she didn't hesitate to agree. "Of course. What's the address?"
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 9:04 pm
Eyes found the floor in a downcast gaze. He frowned slightly, shoulders sagged in defeatism still rampant in his own mind. "Ze Negaverse found glory in how well everyone coordinated for ze task at hand - no matter ze true intent. When Buddingtonite, Benitoite, Serpentine took to leadership... Everysing fell into place behind zem. Zese moments showcased ze capabilities of each general when placed in a role suited to zeir ranking. Yet... I am nossing like zem. Placing lives in danger is my only knack in zis fetid position." Laurelite was right to demote me so long ago, but I've learned nothing in its duration.
"We will give our lives to chaos in ze end. Zat much I accepted long ago. It's not... bittersweet. Moreover, I suspect it's a benefit to all in my case. Perhaps I place too much value on my life here - ze redistribution of Chaos supersedes what egos are assuaged by my passing. It is of no consequence." He raised a single hand to gesture the end to that strain of thought. Idly he wondered if she even glimpsed his gesture beyond the looming wings wrought into his back. Luckily her acceptance of his favor offered a better change of subject - one he could settle into more easily than the current, even if pain flared anew with the simple thought of him.
The youmafied general recited the address immediately; though he spent only a month in cohabitation, every detail found painstaking memorization in the depths of his mind. "You can arrif'e anytime during midday. Avoid evenings, mornings. Zere's a cat wis' an attitude problem - try to steer clear of it."
And Quenton... If she happens upon him? "If you meet ze man who lives zere, you will recognize him by a long scar zat cuts from cheekbone to just beneas' his lower lip. Blonde hair, long. Glasses. Eyes like fire. Do not harm him, if you can avoid it. More damage is incurred by your presence alone zan any legitimate strike. He's not part of zis insipid war, nor do I want him involved. Not now." Not yet. Quenton... One day I will see your face again. I'll know the touch of that scar to these warped fingertips. I wonder if you taste different with this tongue, these senses.
Maybe I just crave another breath of you.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 9:28 am
Persephone exhaled. He was right, one day they would both give the last full measure of their devotion to this war. So, she suspected, would everyone - even those who made it out in body would be forever scarred in soul. It was what the cats and the Generals didn't tell you when you first signed up - this war would take every piece of you it could.
For some, that meant far more than it did for others.
She repeated the address back, to ensure that it was fixed in her mind. This was obviously important, and it surprised her a little that he would ask it of her - but part of her felt she owed him, for helping to make his last moments as a human more painful. At the time she had been guided by rage, but with all of that gone, it seemed a harsher reaction in hindsight.
"I'll be careful," she promised. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally bring another person into this disaster of a war. "If I see him - well. That's what teleportation is for, no?"
And then, she did something that might have been foolish, given what had happened last time she touched him - she reached out, lightly taking his hand in her much smaller ones.
"Bisch - Alois." If nothing else proved that there was still a person in there, a person worthy of being acknowledged as human, this did - concern for another person, a desire to connect with his old life, even if it was a little desperate to send her to break into someone's apartment. "I promise, I'll be back with something for you as soon as I can."
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 6:30 pm
Hands usurped his own, drawing his gaze downward toward the clawed appendage he once knew so irrevocably well. That once knew the touch of piano, of keys white and black, drawing melody from composers' prose; that once knew the touch of lover's skin against his own, all the slight brushes of fingers to muscles named and unnamed, every bit as potent as a tryst. She drew memory, readily, of a time when he grappled so fiercely with himself over the merits of taking Quenton's hand in his own. Yet she offered no outward sign of contemplation, of weighing the drawbacks to the rewards of such a small gesture. She never revolted, recoiled, or reviled him in disgust.
He, a creature impossibly warped by the intentions of a monster. Intentions he never fully knew.
"Sank you." Even gratitudes came out flawed with an imperfect accent, but it shouldn't matter. He never once found reason to offer thankfulness before, until she accepted the task of assuaging (or further burdening) a heavy heart. It bade well, regardless - either the organ would repair itself or he would destroy it with every last shred of bitterness and derision fostered for his current condition.
And Quenton, what of Quenton?
He knew from her prior actions that Persephone found no will within herself to harm others unless absolutely necessary. Even the slap that stung his face moments ago held no intent to kill. Even if it did, even if he still nursed some misplaced suspicion that Persephone might seek to tear the starseed from Quenton's chest, he knew the man as every bit capable of prolonging his own life. If he survived youma and weapon turned on him, then Persephone offered no further challenge from that. "Bring it to me when you can. I'f nowhere else to be." More accurately, nowhere to go.
"I should leaf' before ozzers more keen on my demise come srough here." Weakness due to a lack of proper food slowly assailed him. He began to remove his hand from hers, but paused halfway. "And Persephone - call me Alois sometimes. Maybe just in small discussions outside Negaverse duties. I haf' ze feeling I'll only hear it rarely, if at all." Even the wings at his back that punctured silence with raspy whispers knew no names beyond Quenton, Bischofite, Iscariot, Malicious. They cited what he suspected were Malcious' final aversions, her last flecks of hatred in what still stirred uncontrollable in his new body. Small twitches, the light flutter of wings not prompted by his own thoughts.
As an afterthought, once parted from Persephone's grasp, he glanced toward the small corrupt over his shoulder - beyond the feathered cusp of his tattered robe and beyond the wing spread outward to afford better visual. "And tell Natron he's still only good for b***h work." A small smile teased the corner of his lips, even if only a ghost of old.
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