There did exist in the world, morally reprehensible things, of this Syrus was highly aware. Cynically so. No drop of naivety existed in him, bitter little bit of ice chunk cored into his heart and dripped off his tongue - butter wouldn't've melted there.
All the warmth he gained came from others, was a learned thing, was practiced in mirrors and hidden behind transition lenses while taking notes on park benches mid day. All the ways he wanted to be *himself* - not knowing what that was, what it looked like on the 'outside', while also knowing entirely well that it wouldn't fly in the circles he aimed for. Narrow spiked arrows at finely targeted rings of red, and if he ever wished to hit his mark?
Himself got left in tiny boxes and under beds. His friends weren't friends, and his 'people' were spiked hurdles to spring over as quickly as possible--
And Waru ---- unshakeable flea of a man that bit hides and drank it's fill. Bred effortlessly, endlessly, like mitosis. Self-replicating himbecile who'd wormed his way into his thoughts, his hair, his bed. They'd met first in high-school, passing glances, and then again - his club, his girl, a rough brick wall at Sy's back and questions of 'what the ******** is someone like you doing here?', because of course Syrus looked like some dehydrated bit of prey who'd just gotten off a seventy two hour work week - study binge - self-induced agony cycle.
All his own planning, no one else to blame.
Waru seemed to turn personal strife into sustenance, gorged on it, for how often he managed to make time, come around, have 'others' come around after. Had Aramis, and Lina and --
All the ways Syrus knew things about Waru, deeply personal things, without feeling like he knew anything at all. As if the man led two, three, four, six-thousand entirely different lives while remaining consistently himself no matter which one he faced that day. For that? Syrus knew envy, and also? Whom exactly to call when he found himself in a bit of trouble ---
Because there did exist in the world morally reprehensible things.
Sometime? Those things were actually people in disguise? Or maybe not people, per say, but something like that. And Waru -- dearest friend, ever good, kind, helpful, easy to love Waru! Oh, he always seemed like the kind of man who'd could deal with people shaped problems in very permanent ways. Moved and spoke and smiled like he spent time doing those exact things, while only half thinking about the aftermath of it...
If ever he thought about it at all.
The oddity of that.
Syrus knew better than to question a void. He'd blink and lose a piece of himself if ever he stared too deeply the Waru shaped space of it. So instead? He made a call - and when that failed? Sent a text, and when that failed further? Found Waru standing in his kitchen as if he'd been there the whole time -- the hairs-on-end eeriness for that.
But! Voids, questions, beds ---
Conversations about the quality of a humans soul.
A bit of cold blooded murder?
All equally easy things for him to ask of Waru.
WC: 550
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 7:50 am
❇Room Enough for Rings❇
Syrus had been, by all accounts, trying very hard to focus on ‘himself’ and his abilities, and his ‘doing the senshi thing, oh great overachiever why can’t you!’ It grated every nerve, like raw ice over a blade. It dulled his senses to those things which lay outside himself - the brisk wind - the harsh rooftop - Waru’s endless, ceaseless, ******** — “I’m sorry…come ********> with that one?” and Cryolite held up one perfectly black lacquered finger. The nails pristine, his mind reeling, and he could see the ‘c** pun’ Waru wished to level at him even before it left his maw. Let the fingers fan into a whole hand of 'no please god dont's'; he had to stop him before the words spilt out..“You’re marrying him?”
“Ahyep”
“The man on fire?”
“Mmhmm”
“Legally? Or imaginarily or – Ooh-Oh, so you’ll no longer be 'single', then? Hanging up your d**k, putting all your side pieces away?” and there was something more bitter there than the bite of frost that came with Cryolites attacks. A crackle of frost that refused to thaw which came unbidden. Syrus hadn’t remembered calling upon his powers, they just ******** came, but he was moving before he lost their edge; before the sheen of freezing enough to burn left his all too exposed skin. A coat of armaments and if he could only just – * t o u c h *
“I haven’t been single since I was thirteen, Sy. I wouldn’t know what to do ‘alone’. N neither would he - not even alone with each other, I think?” and where his magic came naturally, Sy - Cryolite - oh, all the ways he seemed to struggle with being himself, at his core. He could do cold shoulders and icy stares? But letting it out in a way that would’ve saved his a**? Seeing him falter, when Albite knew he could be better? It was simply unforgivable, Waru would teach him better. Albite would – snatch an ankle back with binding, drag him off center like a struggling fish and schluff off the narrow kick aimed for his broad face. The observable difference in a poor strike – such an imbalance between Eternal and Basic. Albite smiled at Sy, with his deep frown lines, and jet-black nails curled tight into his palm with chagrined uncertainty. “I’m alot, and he deserves to have as much life as there is for him to live. With me, but also? With people other than me, obviously. Cause even if I *feel* like a room fulla people, I’m still just the one guy.”
Albite could whistle, could admire, that if he broke out the lash Cryolite had enough wit to move - rather than simply take it. To note with raised brows that if he hooked his boy with a bind at the exact wrong moment - at the crest of Cry's powered arc - then whatever he touched him with froze over - sheened solid and cracked like broken glass. The strange ways magic effected magic!
Waru counted seconds for him the way Faustite had taught him, shoved the concept into his friend with lessons made of teeth and words in equal measure.
Syrus would learn.
Even if the learning made him angry, livid, stole his breath because he was used to reading books godamn it, not people and flinches of movement that were false!
“And how does he feel about your current innumerable menagerie -” the binding freezing over enough to crack on contact, and albite letting him tear himself free, only to come in again - again - again - quickflash and flick of nails that drew blood, and the air froze between them. Left Waru to gasp, to grin excitedly at every close - closer - right ******** there - chance Syrus clawed in inches of distance gained. “--And the ones you take home?”
“And the ones you **********?”
And that comment? Hastily thrown as a slap - that one earned Cryolite the ground, got him dragged over grit and it clung to the frost while he hissed for the burn of gravel beneath his skin; the marks he knew it’d leave. Waru could talk and play though at the same time though, could laugh and bounce back over thick heels and braced boots - that endless moving mouth that taunted – teased.
Held important conversations like they were nothing!
“Yanno? I do tend to love all the people I do things with, to some varying degree of intensity. N it’s not always sex. Sometimes people just – need to be with each other.” quietly, softly, in the back of a car or a bed or on a couch eating hot cakes and sharing stories of their day while holding hands. Buried up to their necks in feelings and fleece; sobbing to – whatever was on tv? He liked doing that for people. Being that. Getting his share of it in turn.
N Sy knew these things, certainly he hadn’t questioned or cared before - so why all the snap n ire leveled his way now?!
A mistake - that Albite had loosed the slack on Cryolite, let him creep close enough to edge in with his mist and flash of freeze - and the fist he threw, Albite caught it, instinctively. A mistake. The way his skin clung over Sy’s balled knuckles, the way the frost traveled up and up and burned something terribly - a tongue to a light pole in the middle of december. The hulking man's response was automatic as his catching of hands seemed to have been, the binds that raveled free and yanked Cryolite closer still. Left Sy choking for air as he was snaked in and constricted chest to chest, forced to stare up to meet dark-clay eyes.
“S u h c h a hand-holding-ho, Waru.” any snarl that could’ve been was lost on the breeze, hard to manage when one couldn’t catch air - and still the binds tightened - the worst sort of corset round his thin ribs.
“N’ you’re a cuddle-slut, Sy.” such confusion, tilted head, and the places his uniform stuck. There hadn’t been any letting go before, and there sure as hell wouldn’t be any now, not unless he wanted to really bleed for it.
“Love you?” a wary blink - two - beats of silence shared between the hopelessly entangled pair on the roof. The slow realization of – ‘Oh – ahh – so that’s what it was all about?’
“Always”
And if the kiss ended in chapped lips? Fine. If Waru bled for it, and the frost all tore at the edges of what could’ve been. If what lived pressed between them, became crystalline copper trappings that melted in the creases of slow-to-warm skin. Waru knew Sy, and the man wanted eternal commitment as badly as he wanted a ball and chain. So not ever at all, too busy, to lofty of goals and clawing for man made towers built into the sky. He didn’t want to be utterly alone though. Didn’t want an ending he didn’t design, either.
An I love you, whether spoken or silent, an acknowledgment that he wouldn't end up cast aside under someone elses far brighter flames; and an open door to the nearest fire-escape, just in case.
Waru could give him that.
This was reassurance and affirmation given meaningfully. A fight, without fighting. Sy acquiesced as his magic gave way - gave out - exhausted little explosion of frost that left them coughing bemusedly, because he hardly knew his limits yet. That was fine too though. Espescially since Waru didn’t believe in limits and couldn’t've learned them anyhow. Even when they were explained to him endlessly.
What he could do, however? As Albite - was carry the blond home, and make a scenic route of it. He’d show Syrus how small those towers made by men were in reality; in comparison to true power given to them from the stars beyond. Little ant made things that existed far below, that crawled, and clamored, and cared about how people shared themselves. He was Senshi. They were Senshi. N’ if Praxidike of the past could’ve had this back then? Then Waru was damn sure he and Syrus could have it now.
There was room enough to be a couple - and room enough to be a whole damn group.
Room enough for Rings.
WC: 1,390
Shiningamisgirl
Ruthless Consumer
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Shiningamisgirl
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 8:39 am
❇Can't feel the Heat with Ice in my Veins❇
Heatwaves (11) : An unfortunate dry spell has come over Destiny City, and a heat wave has made it all but unbearable. The heatwave is only projected to last for a week but it’s been rough. Plants are wilting, people are wilting. The city is experiencing blackouts, which isn’t helping. Thankfully, the reservoir is always open. Just, crowded. It might just be the worst part of the summer. People are passing out regularly, and the hospitals are getting too many admissions to keep up with. It’s probably just the heat and not anyone up to anything nefarious, right? Better stay hydrated and try to keep cool, and maybe avoid everyone in weird costumes, just in case.
Syrus was in a mood most foul, sat stuck in oppressive heat, sweating through what little he'd bothered to put on that day. He practically felt naked compared to his usual standards -- and of course that only irked him more, sent his thoughts spiraling until he was cursing friend and foe alike.
Until he could only think how much he sometimes loathed the city itself --
Truly, honestly, he could've right then said ******** Destiny City - included Waru Ushindi -- and -- every other person he knew. Hell, every person Waru knew. Sryus typically didn't mind the heat, but this? Excessive mugginess that'd turned to drenching disgust. He needed cool air, clean sheets, a soft bed! He wouldn't go for -- any single one of the things anyone else had suggested, and oh he'd been texted a bevy of suggestions by then. The power for his entire building was down. Out. Grids firecrackled into non-functioning, likely also 'on fire' in some part of the city, but outtages were familiar during the middle days of summer, just - not ones like this. They were calling it a Heatwave, and for Syrus? It felt more like the world was ending prematurely. He'd sit there and die, a puddle of his former self, melted into his own tile in nothing but his underwear, clutching a hand fan.
Everyone else he knew, crazies who liked this sort of weather, who were born and bred in it -- set with safeties against it! Youma, lizards, people who liked hot weather. Where as he? Was definitely not. This led to times where Syrus could very well consider kicking himself for missing the most obvious of obvious things -- an easy way out, because he was a *Senshi*! Cryolite of Sublimation, and had far more options than salty tears and sweating ******** this, I'm going out!" exclaimed in oppressive heat choked silence, and to no one save himself. It wasn't as though he'd be putting on anything much more covering than underwear after-all, might as well indulge himself and get gone. He could Henshin up from the rooftop fire-escape, muse on Dione's moon as he skipped scorching tiles and heat blasting solar panels; it was only just the evening and nothing'd begun to cool! Not that it mattered, he knew a place.
A little paradise hideaway --
If the Ikea store could be considered a Paradise Hideaway - Syrus told himself it very much could have been - that if he pulled a page from his dearest friends book and dropped in from a skylight -- touched the thick outter shell of plexiglass and watched it shatter inwards -- followed it's tinkling rain onto scaffolding high above the neat little cut outs and displays. Perfect lives and perfect homes depicted in mazelike wonder - Cryolite tread the beams and coughed ever so often with each new muggy intake of breath, thanked every bit of luck he possessed that - here too - the grid'd been affected. He thought it as Perfect. As he dropped down into bedrooms, strolled shamelessly into the deeper basement and 'snack aisles', meandered up into a kitchen area -- and turned the fridge, and it's percaline kitchen, into a wintery wonderland. Iced a glass of grape soda and called it wine -- crunched on too cold Stroop waffles. Let his magic turn anything he skirted by into feet of cold that crackled and steamed the air as the two elements fought. It was divine. A whole store to himself for just a moment to play house in -- and if anyone got in his way?
Well, people shattered easily as glass under the right temperature. Anything was possible, the particular mood he was in right then. Hopefully by time the power went back on, the heat wave would've ended, and he could've gone home..
WC:550
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 12:48 pm
❇When in Doubt? Throw the Whole T.V Out❇
Regularly Scheduled Programming (3) : With Halloween just around the corner, television stations are constantly playing various spooky themed movies and episodes of your favorite shows. When you sit down to watch something in particular, the screen goes static. You try to change the channel but every one of them is static. If you continue to watch (or attempt to fix the television), an eerie voice comes across the speakers begging for help and that they're coming. No matter what you do or say, they only repeat the same phrases. When you turn off the television and turn it back on again, everything has turned to its regularly scheduled programming..
Syrus needed a night dedicated entirely to doing absolutely nothing, and who knew how to do nothing better than the absolute best? It'd been an easy thing to call Waru and beg his time, the blond was only a little surprised to hear him agree to something like a movie night so swiftly, but apparently Waru had been missing some samesong simplicities. Though it made sense that having local t.v shows running down in the underdark was not yet an option -- no interdimensional space cable or metallia directed media played twentyfourseven -- Syrus knew Waru paid no subscriptions for anything he could've gotten for free, and certainly his friends own home above-ground had just the basics. The rest was viewable via his phone -- possibly his tablet? Syrus didn't like the idea of being tracked through some ominous nega-branded I.T department that logged every bit of research he did on the damned thing though, so he avoided trying entirely.
He'd taken time to get everything set up, neatly, even. Popcorn with extra butter, pillows with less sequence and more softness switched out from a spare linens closet in the tiny picturesque hall -- texting Waru his knew apartment number when the man had ended up getting lost several times. Not that he could blame him -- switching floors and room numbers was quite a bit of mathing to do, especially since he'd gotten so used to Syrus being closer to ceiling access than he'd become.
And even though Waru was married now -- and even though he spent more time than ever fixing up his various properties -- wrangling his subordinates -- with any number of loves?
He still somehow made time.
Syrus was grateful for that, didn't like saying the words and so showed it in quietude as he curled up to the sound of old black and white horror shows, Days of Dead's and Munster's getting into shenanigans. It wasn't till he was halfway through the bowl of popcorn Waru'd insisted pouring sugar into --- because Syrus had argued long and hard about Chamoy and the fact that so many things in his home were white -- that the kindly scene before them turned strange.
Syrus was transfixed -- hand stilled halfway to mouth with morsels of lightly sweetened buttery white bites, watching the static ripple and reform into monstrous wailing -- begging from beyond -- a deer in the headlights who couldn't bring himself to flinch less something changed, for better or worse.
Waru? Ever so carefully unwound himself from Sy's embrace, before standing up and putting his whole a** foot through the delicately framed T.V. -- Cursing in a broken tongue above the stream of static sparks and echoed screams from beyond the screen, before it all fell into silence, save for the sounds of crunchy breakage while he promptly finished stomping the device into a messy death all across Syrus's pretty pretty floor....
"N o p e" panting and wide eyed and not a care in the world for what he'd done.
"You know....Waru....there are other ways to turn off the T.V....that don't involve ---- all of that...." what could he do but stare, but gape? But sit codfished and pale ogling the shattered remains of his very nice set-piece, its thin curved frame a ninety degreed angle of wreckage, it's lcd a ruin of sparking pixels. He bypassed the man to pull the plug from the wall, saved himself the potential for apartment fires that could follow.
"NOPE!Listen, Sy, buddy. I love you, but I'm not dying seven days from now because you wanted to 'play it safe' and 'turn s**t off normally' -- because that?! That my friend, is how you get ringu'd into non-existence and end up at the bottom of wells fulla slimy dead people. I re-freaking-fuse to be some well dwelling slime creature. I'm too gorgeous to dwell in a well!! ********, I think Faustite's allergic to wells even -- or water? Something like that, he's s**t for swimming is what I do know...Which's weird cause he used to do boat stuff, but, yanno? Youmafying ******** with all sorts of things..."
And Syrus had known Waru long enough by now to know full well that the best way to handle the onslaught of breathless sentences being strung together, was to simply wait them out. Much like a man assessing a storm; with a dour look and severe glare -- He could only bob his head in nodding without listening over-much, and then seek a broom and dustpan. He could only wait it out, till all the words blew over into quiet...
Apparently now he'd have to order a new T.V -- or maybe set his best friend to stealing one? As Waru seemed to have taken up a liking for doing so lately, how reserved he'd been before getting his wings n throwing an impromptu wedding ceremony. Syrus wondered if it was marriage that made people so bold, or if his friends natural inclination towards minding things had simply slipped further from center with his time spent as a Senshi?
It was certainly something to think on, watching that mouth run around in circles and stall out on staring distantly into the 'how' of disposing the broken piece of electronic.
"When you're done going on about foreign horror movies? We need to take this out..." spoken as he wound back into the room, above the dying din of wordsum squall, broom and pan foisted into Waru's open lap. Such a shame that the man didn't seem to be nearing any sort of 'done'. In fact all he'd done so far was 'damage', and blatantly disregarding the possible consequences of T.V bound ghosts only seemed to wind him up more.
"I'm not sorry for it, yanno. M'serious about this ghost s**t, Sy. Only gotta get kidnapped through so many tunnels, voids, n spare-spaces to know that freaky s**t needs killing on sight---"
"Yes, well, at least you didn't have to deal with a throng of soul stealing robots, cantankerous agents, aliens and enemies..."
"I have totally met aliens! And -- believe it or not -- lizard people--"
"Youma?"
"Nuh-uh, Lizard People. I bet you Faffls'll back me up if I call him."
"Oh--do go on and call him then," it wasn't the worst way to kill an evening, Syrus supposed they could still make their own 'movie time', eat the popcorn while trading stories of the past few months.
WC:1,072
Shiningamisgirl
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Shiningamisgirl
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:57 pm
❇Things are getting Dicey❇
Syrus slid down the steps of a concrete balustrade, backlit by fat, well carved pumpkins; all white, to keep with the owners choice of aesthetic. It was some small corporate affair, a mockery of a proper masquerade -- suits n ties stuffed into masks that were less false than the ones they wore on the daily -- Syrus appreciated the pretense of anonymity, the lie of it, being able to rub elbows with housewives of made men who spiked their wine with Percocets. Sipping on gossip while they went rounds with one another, trading carefully hidden barbs personal enough to wound, yet passive enough to be ignored by any but the intended. An endless parade of playfully petty chess moves, made while wearing stunning arrays of stacked stiletto's and custom tailored costumes.
Company sons and daughters paying to pass the bar, and those like himself. Interns and understudies kept afloat by steady diets of Adderall, caffeine, only barely functioning by the grace of twenty minute power naps snatched between hours of grueling prep-work. Nothing he could recommend to someone more sane than he.
He'd made his marks, had his fun, arrived fashionably late, and left late enough to still be considered as having left early
Some of them? He'd send to Aramis to source for tidbits that women only spilled to those they thought so little of, salon stylists, nail technicians --- other snippets he'd pass to Waru. Offensive names for the Senshi to be made aware of him disliking, in case that dislike ever turned into hate worth being acted upon. The most intriguing sorts of information? He compiled for himself -- in case he ever had a need of blackmail or bribe, the strangeness of the city never ceased, and he preferred to be overprepared for everything.
It was his hubris, maybe, his belief in his swiss army ready for everything scout-ness -- that led to him being so caught off guard by the shiny bauble he nearly slipped on; the thing just laying there in the crosswalk of the street. He didn't care for the color, or the shine, if anything that he'd nearly fallen over it angered him so much that he'd picked the useless bit of trash up to throw.
Only to find himself transported ******** was this his life?!
Quote:
Space 2: Something pale and ghostly slams into your back; you don’t see it, but it feels like it’s trying to push you forward–or to the side, or off the path. Thankfully, the magical glass walls stop you from going too far, but this is jarring–and might hurt..
No sooner had he had the thought, had he spoken the words, than he was being pushed forwards across the glowing squares by an unseen force. He fought it, to no avail, caught the sound of some scattering scrabble of stone on stone; saw the marblous little numbered pebble skittering and glittering alongside him -- as if tethered -- the thing might as well been laughing at him. Inanimate as it was, the die-face seemed to grin, because even after he hit the glass wall?
He continued to be buffeted by that force.
It reminded him of a crush at a concert, the rush of a wave, bodies compiling 'en mass towards the front of a source -- yet there was nowhere for him to go. His air left his lungs in a silent rush, and no heaving returned the oxygen his body desired. He scrabbled to the side, to the floor, found himself nearly shoved flat despite his forcing against it --
And that die.
He clawed for it, if only to use it as a point of pain, to inflict it's hard pinpoint surface against -- whatever the ******** had him pinned. In doing so it rolled free of his sweat slick fingers, flipped to a new numbered edge. Syrus caught a precious rush of air -- and narrowly grasped the die before being kicked through space and time along the path again.
Quote:
Space 5: A dog barks, fierce and frightening. You can hear its growl and the hackles stand up on the back of your neck. You can practically feel spittle on you. It’s close. And it’s big. And it’s angry. If this beastly dog could reach you, no doubt it would try to tear you to shreds.
"I've met bigger dogs, you noxious, impotent, b***h ---" he hadn't, it was a lie vehemently spat into the black as he heaved fresh air, less so for how stagnant it was with the stench of rank hound and wet mutt spittle.
He was a Senshi though, traded the bit of dice for his Henshin pen, traded one mask for another; from blanch country courtesan in peacocked brocade, into sluts on ice, the musical--
It was absolute madness to him. How many incomprehensible things could happen in one city? In a week, a month, a year!?
Cryolite exuded frost out of pure rage, hardly a thought as the magic came to him with more ease than normal; the shield of skin coalescing in it's truest form around the most exposed parts of his body. He hoped the barking menace chipped it's teeth on his hide -- that it got frostbite and it's entire jaw fell off...
But in case that didn't happen? He rolled the dice he recaptured within his palm..
Quote:
Space 10: A swampy smell fills the air. You take a step, and you seem to sink into it. Mud creeps over your feet, and you sink rapidly. Ankle deep, knee deep. Whether or not you squirm and fight against it, you are sinking. The mud is crushing and painful, and if you sink too deep it steals the breath from your lungs. There’s nothing to grab onto; you have to roll your dice quickly before that too gets sucked into the muddy quicksand.
The patterned footholds seemed to fly by, the glowing squares fading behind him along with waning sound of rabid barking, the howls evermore distant. Cryolite nearly sighed in relief, until his next step sent him into a panicked sort of flail and twist that set him on his a**. His sigh became a gasp, a scream--
The smell should've warned him, but for all that he was more focused on fleeing than watching his terrain? It soaked his hair, coated his skin, he tried to become flat and long like some stupid documentary of mudskippers or -- what were those things Waru so liked to watch? Lizards that ran on water? Snippets of comments about surface tension, etc. It was all a ridiculous blurr of thoughts as he calmed his clawing fistfuls of mud and tried to swim through like a splayed starfish.
It stunk...
He stunk!
But every attempt at gaining leverage, ever shifted move of a knee or bend of a foothold put him deeper into it; so he was forced into a slow, slothing sway across..
Till he found purchase enough to slap his die down -- and let it roll once more.
Quote:
Space 11: You hear a frantic flapping above you, but that’s all the warning you get before a hoard of bats descend. They scratch and slap and screech, but you avoid getting bitten. For now. You’ve invaded their space and they seem keen to defend it. You can try to fight them, but the only way to escape them is to roll again.
Cryolite cursed beneath his breath in the barest bits of latin he knew. The swarm overhead largely ignored, certainly his mood couldn'tve gotten any more fowl. He decided to let the winged bastards claw at him, he hoped they choked on the muck and bits of dried nastiness that stuck to his form. No part of him felt uncovered after that last square.
When he'd finally had enough of it? Another splash of power was used, wasted, but it flashfroze the mucky remains of the bog he'd waded through, and cracked it all asunder. Like a clay mask gone hard, peeling free like shattered porcelain as subzero temps touched it all. He even bemusedly caught a screeing bat with the power exchange - his body suddenly, unexpectedly to them, the worlds worst form of flypaper imaginable----
He ripped the body free of the wings, knew the blood and wigny-membrane would shlosh off with the oncoming thaw.
He rolled the dice again..and kept going....
Quote:
Space 13: At first, the square is quiet. Nothing seems amiss. It’s unnerving in how safe it seems. But then, it only takes a few seconds before you understand why. It’s just taken a moment for them to get to you. The patter of tiny feet is rapidly approaching. There’s no light to see them, but there’s a reflection in their beady eyes. Rats. Thousands of them. Chittering, frothing in the mouth. These are strangely grotesque, mutated abominations. They’re running at you like they haven’t got a fear in the world–only, hungry. And rage. If they get to you, they’ll eat you alive. The ground is trembling with their weight. You’d better roll quickly if you don’t wind up a meal.
Cryolite sweat despite the chill that lingered on his skin, worse than the frosty condensation that evaporated into nothingness, he shook with each new exhaustive step, whether it was adrenaline, fear, sheer pissed-offness, he couldn't've said, and finally? He took a break.
A grave mistake indeed.
The second his knee touched stone, the place lit up -- only not with lights -- it was the blinks of bright phosphorescent, the way cats eyes shined in light, those bright, red, hues all focused on the pinpoint of his lone form. The slow dissipation of the quiet into chittering fervor scared him far less than those too focused eyes. Predator meeting prey and cheering for it's weakness!
Then the earth moved--
Syrus wasn't fast enough to escape unscathed, only quick enough to escape alive, his magic failing him and his exposed skin wound up nipped and torn -- he wondered if he'd need tetanus shots, rabies vaccines....
If he'd ever get the crunch of overly large rat skulls and spine snapped screes beneath the feel of teeth gnawing fervently into his heels out of his head anytime soon. Probably not, but it was a hope?
The same hope that let him continue to wonder, as he escaped from one shifting bit of earth onto another -- How much longer he could wind through the straight maze full of endless snares, and survive it. Which fresh hell would the dice dump him into next? The light at the end of the tunnel meant the same as the darkness at the beginning of it. Meant even less, actually, when on his fifth step the path he'd been walking on caved straight through; and left him narrowly dangling above an abyss...
Quote:
Space 19: You’re so close! Almost at the end! But the space you’re standing on shifts and shakes and seems to crumble beneath you. You have to hold on; there’s nowhere to fall but down into the deep abyss. If you manage to hang on for long enough, you find some invisible purchase and can pull yourself back up, but it’s quite the ordeal. Make sure you don’t get cut on falling spaces! The ground restores itself once you roll again.
He felt gutted, his breath punched free as he scrabbled for grasp and caught himself on the first ledge, chips of solid ground falling out from beneath a knee like air, leaving his feet to kick before he slid back. His nails chipped, cracked, but he dug himself along the ledge until he could finally --- finally --- find enough purchase to get closer to the light -- everything burned under the strain of his own weight, his faltering attempts to pull himself up properly; he felt no shame, no loss of pride in screaming some primal, deep, noise of rebuke for his circumstances.
He wasn't going to die over a dice roll.
Certainly not alone in some septic, squalor of an otherworldly abyss that he couldn't either call help into, or teleport free of..
It was as the last piece of precipice caved, that he finally flung himself up it--and over -- into a glowing light of safety. Finding himself spat out, miles away, across wet grass -- he rolled over only enough to heave up all the contents of the party prior, until even his bile was clear. Then he was calling Waru, because ******** if he was getting an uber looking like a freshly risen corpse...
And who better to understand than him?
WC: 1,629
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:33 pm
❇Ask no more Questions, I'll tell you only lies.❇
“So, how's Matt been?”
Because everything had been silent lately, because Waru had noted an increased absence in Syrus that could not be easily explained away—because when he dropped by to visit he found Matt’s things, little personal touches that reflected not an iota on the personality of the man he’d known for so long. Matt’s things—but no Matt. Syrus could see wheels turning, could watch the tension that sat in Warus shoulders as he stood in the doorway that separated his room from the hall.
“I don’t want to talk about him with you right now—”
Syrus’s private life had never been on display, of course he’d also never hidden anything from Waru directly. Not here, with the man in his home, appearing casual as hell. But nothing felt casual anymore—it was all gentle waves and invisible ripples above, the surface appearance of calm, and then the tumultuous currents below, the kind that threatened to drag them both into matching sour moods.
“So, how’s Aramis doing, really?”
Always quick to change topics, to find windows in the ceiling and holes in the walls to climb through. Syrus would’ve answered him had he not found the question exhaustive, knowing what Aramis was now inundated in only piqued his ire all the more.
“You could stand to ask him yourself! I still cannot believe you–fffh…Waru–I can’t believe a lot of things lately….” It was hard to keep the momentum going, to keep shoveling coal to file the rage. While he sat on clean white sheets and pulled non-existent lint off the comforter. When he stopped fiddling with that long enough he did finally look Waru in the eye, he needed to for this. “Do you ever think that, maybe, just maybe? This has all gotten very far the ******** away from whatever your original plot was, mnn?”
“It’s about to go even further—” the words were ominous, dire, for all that they had the lily of play, for all that Warus smile suggested it could be a joke—nothing that Syrus saw in his eyes made him believe the man was kidding.
“The actual ******** does that mean?” Syrus found himself standing, pacing, wanting for a heavy object to throw, and in the end all he could do was find roots in his carpet and stare wide eyed and not the least bit amused.
“I want you as a Super—-scratch that. I need you to step up and make it happen. Like, ******** yesterday–” short, quick, to the point. So to the point that it was jarring.
“Then I want to talk to *Faustite* about it–the ******** is it for you to decide when or if I’m ready for anything?!” Syrus was quicker on the comeback, let all his brash dismay and pulled lip sneer show. His display of cold fang didn’t seem to puncture a damn thing, didn’t ruffle the wall of meat shadowing the exit from his room.
“He’s been—he’s ******** been, okay? Just like I’ve been. There’s Hess? She’s a joy, and Axinite’s gentle as ********. Hell, Jet’ll do in a pinch….” the second time he cut Waru off at the pass he could tell his friend was getting annoyed with him, not with being interrupted, never that, it was how he was being interrupted, it was Syrus’s tone and the way he pulled himself up like a yowling cat that was also trying to avoid freezing half to death. A cold thing that would’ve rather been warm—but no—the world had denied him, and so he hissed and spit instead.
“He’s always going through it, your whole damn team is one tornado of ‘going-through-its’---you can’t just come in here and tell me—” he broke into motion once more, fingers through blind locks like rakes through zen rocks, only far messier, dragged by a pissy child throwing a tantrum instead of a calculating man willing to listen. The second they started speaking of teams, a thought occurred, a realization, for all that Waru had explained so very little of what had happened to being Aramis in—there was even less explanation as to why the newly minted Senshi of Supplication was not under any of them! “And speaking of s**t you just cherry pick coming to me on? Care to explain why Aramis isn’t on that team?”
“Don’t you mean ‘our’ team?” as if waru was tossing out bait meant to tease, except Syrus was in no mood for taking it, for swallowing hooks buried in a world's worth of wealthy ideals—he didn’t want to play games today. Didn’t want to hear Waru try on charm like a second skin. He was a little to angry at being disturbed for any of that—for the impromptu visit, for the surprise with no call.
It hadn’t been like this between them. Not before, but now Syrus had secrets to hide and future husbands of his own to worry on…
He wondered if Waru could tell? He wondered if the man would take advantage of the fact that he probably could…
“I’m barely on ‘our’ team as it is, I’ve only ever cared for—and you know I’ll be there for all the most important parts? For you, when you need me. But you know exactly what I care for, don’t you? You know who? The small amount of people that sphere encompasses. For all that you did this to me selfishly—for all that I’ve tried to connect beyond and above the norm for me! Making attempts at connections to appease you more than further my own goals at this point!”
“Don’t be ********’ rude, Sy—” nerves struck and cut off, marimba mallets in a xylophone made of bones, the notes were discordant, and Syrus watched Waru try to bund himself back into the app range of a reasonable man wanting to have a conversation with a person he purportedly loved, rather than someone who he was technically superior to.
“Listen…I might be selfish, alright? I’ll admit that–that what I did with you was impulsive, okay? But m’not so far gone that I can’t tell when s**t’s hit the fan…So…So I don’t want Aramis under me. I don’t want him under any of us—not for lackuv love, or confidence in my own, but—uhmhmn…It's a safety thing, alright? Not cooking all my eggs in the same glass pot. Figure the ******** who stabbed me ‘n whomever Ze’s paired n partnered with might be more Aramis’s speed, might also be a bit more competent? Than me, at least.”
“You’re insane—” Syrus hissed the words under his breath, glared at waru for how little any of that made any sense to his own ears and then froze after he realized how those words were spoken. A bold look of realization on his face, for there was a blink of moment that lapsed into what felt spans of hours passing. The kind of moment which had become increasingly frequent of late, where Syrus felt the eyes of what had once been his friend upon him. Where, when he would look up, he’d find the eyes of a predator staring back instead. An unblinking creature avidly seeking weakness in its prey. Moments where he knew that if he flinched? Waru would seize on it, perceptive of so few things save those of the physical; especially those of people he knew intimately.
He knew that just because the other man didn’t call out every little oddity didn’t mean he’d missed them—It was only Waru’s kindness that kept him from pushing, that made him let things slide. Though Syrus was beginning to feel the chill of that kindness running dry at his own expense, and finding the vast expanse of desert that he would meet in place of oceans of warmth if he failed to keep up his end of things. Waru wanted him more deeply engrossed in all of this—it was no longer a friendly request. It was no longer the request of a friend. It was Albite — looking for Cryolite — it was Praxidike seeking to conquer Dione. The man before him was an Eternal Senshi, had been a Senshi for years now—however failingly before finding Faustite—but a Senshi nonetheless.
Syrus wondered, if maybe he shouldn’t’ve ever told Matt that Waru was harmless—-like a puppy who needed better handling—-who only bit harshly when asked nicely enough—-
Syrus didn’t feel like he was looking at a puppy right now. He swallowed that though, the feeling, the burble of brief fear as it welled up past his own icy veneer. He breathed the urge to flinch down and simply met Waru where he was at. With baleful stare, as though he was bored of this—being lined and prodded at aimlessly—being goaded without cause—
“Not gettn’ any saner by tomorrow—So! You’ve got a date with some fresh, new, energy, yeh?” It felt like too much time passed before Waru finally answered, before the void blinked back, the b*****d even had the nerve to sound playful about it.
It frayed Syrus’s nerves to no end—set cold fire to every new word he spoke, where he gave up and gave in — but not without the fight Waru seemed to be looking for.
“Alright! Alright…hhhfff…you’re not going to make this easy on me anymore, are you? You’re just going to keep looking at me expectantly, as though you don’t trust me like you used to….Like you don’t trust anyone to do anything, save kill you when you finally get too far away from yourself, mmn? You’re doing oh so well, aren't you Waru. Doing as you've been told, doing all that your lovers ask—-Skirting those dangerous edges so skillfully, and while you’re no longer actively throwing yourself off those steep steep cliffs for giggles? It’s only because, at this point, you’d rather someone just up and push you, isn’t it?”
“We’re not talking about me.” The finality there was unmistakable as a door being slammed shut in his face. As quiet as a dark shadow passing over blood painted doorways, and then Waru wasn’t looking for Syrus’s eyes anymore, he was distracted by a scuff of paint on the wall, rubbed at it surreptitiously, as if it suddenly had far more import than the conversation at hand.
“We never have the time to—you’re happily married twice over, throwing parties for princesses–” speaking with his hands as much as his eyes now—
“Dead princesses–” dismissive and corrective all at once, though Syrus wasn’t about to let the topic go.
“Do you even miss Cybele?” It wasn’t as though he’d known her, fought her, but he’d listened to the other man fawn over her enough times, while never actually hearing him use her proper name! If waru was going to suddenly ignore him while making demands though? Then he wasn’t going to pull any of his punches—he was only getting attention the one way it seemed, all on his superiors terms or not at all…..and that wasn’t how it was supposed to have been between them.
Never like this.
“Yes, but this’s better–she’ll come back, someday. I’ll find her again in our next life—“ Waru meant to go in speaking, and was instead staggered for being so briskly cut off a final time by Syrus’s next run on bit of reason. Waru stood there looking for all the world surprised when everything finally boiled over, like they’d both touched upon a fault line that had exploded into an endpoint.
“Mmhmmn, well then, a thousand blessings on your future reunion. Now, get the ******** out of my appartment–and don’t teleport out in my livingroom! I’m not changing what floor I live on again. Having to do it once in the last two years was more than enough!” The sharpness he received in turn, the blade that lay in Warus smile, in those deep amber eyes so full of challenge. Even if Syrus was the one throwing cutting words—he felt as though he’d bled for it all the same—like the sounds out his mouth were double edged things and nothing he said would ever pass without being turned back inwards. If he was aiming to hurt? Words were never the way—if anything? They hurt him more for having dared to speak them at all. They hurt him more than the quiet echo of his home emptying out without any protest whatsoever.
It felt like a mistake he’d someday pay for further down the line—-
Word Count: 2075
Shiningamisgirl
Ruthless Consumer
Offline
Shiningamisgirl
Ruthless Consumer
Offline
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:34 pm
❇All The Ways It's Worse that You're Right❇
The timing was terrible as it was right — the feeling was oh, so much like eating crow. It nearly pained him to have to ask Waru over like this. But Syrus knew there would be no better moment than this; with Faustite down but not exactly out, with months of that going on, to the point where he didn’t want to bother the man with something so trivial as the sort of feelings he’d been ever unable to get a grip on; spiraling, septic, tumultuous as a riptide at sea. And of course now? Now! To have to admit that what Waru had been pushing him into months before was something he’d come to actually desire? Something he needed quickly, actively, and minus the meddling eyes of a sovereign he didn’t know, or another so injured he didn’t dare stir the dying embers of their scrutinous ire.
This is something I need—
Especially with the team post celebration, with a ring on his finger that he wore as deliberately as Waru bore the tattoos that seemed to be as alive as the skin they were sewn into. A ring he, far too often, had to take off. The delicate silver chain he’d bought to hold it, to keep it hidden around his neck and pressed close to his heart–
His world had become a tiny thing, the circles of it constricted tight, tight, tighter still — and now Aramis was caught up in it — *bound*. Wasn’t that just like Waru though? To tie all his ends to the middle, to himself, loosely as those bindings may have been. Loving as they may have appeared to be! There they were. Endless and curled sleepily around the others like limbs waiting to be woken by the slightest disturbance; like they could smell disloyalty, could sense bloodhound sharp any and every escape attempt that was anything other than subtle. The arguments between them had been plentiful since the wedding ceremony. Since he realized he could never be *enough*, not like that, not in those ways. He couldn’t bear some fever pitched devotion, the weight of a promised eternity. He sometimes missed the way his friend was before — both of his friends — when everything was messy, but well within human realms of understanding. Well within his realm of understanding. He’d liked being the smart one. The one who made the terms, who held tightly his own control over every minute aspect of being—-
And now there was this—a hostage negotiation, of sorts. A reveal. A betrayal, and it rankled sour in the core of his guts, because it felt so very against his nature in such specific ways to be doing things like this. There wasn’t even that familiar level of intimacy he could rely on, heart strings and braided locs he could tug at with anything like a warmer look in his eyes. It was cold as legalese, a foreign language spoken on a dead and blackened tongue; both unfamiliar and strange.
Because this was never how he’d meant things to be— not what had once lain at the core of what they’d become to each other. It lacked oh so much. Was tarnished, ken doll droll, sexless and uncharming. Necessary, he’s. Syrus knew this, but oh, had the way things had been before had been nice on a purely carnal level! The friendship too — quiet moments curled up as a trio on each others couches — himself reading by the light of Aramis’s bouidiar, listening to Waru’s ceaseless chatter like background noise he could work to, and he could admit to himself that it wasn’t just the sexual components he missed.
That it was everything else.
That it would always be *everything* else, the all or nothing, the one hundred percent or zero sum. The world he shared with his friends was not one where idling existed as a frame of mind. The one he shared with Waru, especially. For the man was either awake at light speed or dead to the world. Probably wouldn’t have known what an ‘in-between’ was if Syrus spelt it out for him.
So he didn’t even try—
“So, about the fact that you wanted me to–what was it, go to someone? For–tsk, don’t look so smug, Waru. Is there someone other than Faustite? Less human than the other sovereigns, more human than your man….”
“Tama's gatcha in spades, Sy. But why now, huh? Thought you were all ‘don’t tell me what to do’ n ‘you’re not my General-King!’. The ******** changed that frame-ah-mind?”
“Fulgurite might be defecting—“ “You’re shitting me—“ though Waru didn’t sound surprised, didn’t look it, either.
“I might follow him.”
“The ******** you are —“ the first spark of anger, of genuine surprise, quietly snarled rage that juxtaposed the passivity Waru had been exuding so far; seated like a Dalmatian spot amid a sea of white, both utterly out of place and commanding all the space at once.
“Then give me a way to protect him—to protect them—from you.” and Syrus didn’t allow for pause, didn’t give Waru the chance to fill the accusatory lance of a space he’d made with words meant to steamroll his opponent. “Oh, don’t give me that look. Like you’re somehow betrayed and innocent in this all at once. You are many imbecilic things, Waru—the list of what flies over your head could blanket the whole of the Earth. But not when it comes to things like this, right? You’re not a puppy—not some soft, stupid beast—you have eyes and a vast audience and access to a mirror.” And once Syrus had gotten going? He wasn’t keen to let things come to a ready stop. Had problems to bear, his own hurts to soothe and masticate between his own clenched teeth. “You’re exactly as dangerous as you’ve always desired. For reasons all your own. Paired to someone even more dangerous than yourself—- I’m sorry, *married*, to plural someone’s. Regardless— you’ve obtained exactly what you wanted, haven't you?” And the words were laced with a congratulatory air, the nature of what could’ve been a compliment soured after by the fact it was all clearly backhanded in tone. “Then what’s this? <********>“ Waru didn't get the rest of his words out, wasn't given the chance.
“It’s an ultimatum, Waru." And Syrus cut him off, didn't allow enough time to pass for Waru to get going, to dig into the meat of an argument that Syrus inevitably wasn't ready to start -- not about this -- not here -- not now. He let his own certainty show in his slow change of pose, the rigid lines of his tense shoulders and straight back. He crossed his fingers as he crossed his legs, looked Waru down -- up -- angled as the height disadvantage should've been -- as it wasn't due to the fact that Waru always slouched somewhat terribly. "This is something I've now decided I want, all on my own, and while you were telling me to do this before? Which I didn’t ******** like, mind you…Being bossed at like that, honestly! Not that it matters now…Because now? You’ll help me get it easily, isn’t that right?” appeasing to the idea which had not originally been his own. The very thing which had been his friend's, lovers, superior's concept fully formed and thrown at him like a fast-ball! Something which he was only comfortable facing recently. Now that he’d gone through all his stages of grief and found something like acceptance over the honest facts at the very, very bottom of it all. He was ready to pursue it. To appease to Waru's pride -- his pushy ******** ego -- but only so long as he could claim the old concept as his own, remake it after his own image and in his own ways.
The waiting pause went on long, was filled with tension thick enough to be cut with a dull knife. Syrus felt the way crackled between them, and filled the spaces where Syrus forced himself to be loud enough to fill the silence over Waru's intense need to always have the sound-stage all his own. He wasn't having it this time, was getting all of it out at once. Only to find himself breathless and on edge as his words petered out and found their own natural end. Syrus wasn't sure what he'd expected from all of this--
Some new reaction -- a fresh burst of anger --the promise of Retribution. He'd known Waru well enough *before*, well enough to know that this? The man who'd become an Eternal, and the man he'd been before, were no longer one in the same.
Waru had changed so much---
And not at all.
To Syrus's palpable amazement, as said man stared him down long and hard, and then ******** smiled. Like Syrus had told some phenomenally hilarious cosmic joke. Like Waru had been waiting an entire life-time for him to drop the other half of the ******** punchline.
“You were always such a vicious ******** that, Sy? You still are. Only just so long as it’s got nothing to do with putting the skimpier n' you're used to ‘uniform’ on, huh? Always sharpest with the powers off, cuttingly so—" and he seemed more at ease now than he'd been before, melted into the uncomfortable whites that surrounded them both, became liquid muscle all over the harsh ikea-brand upholstery. "Seriously, if you ask me? You’re a-helluva lot softer with ‘em on by ******** far. Always softer-- and for all the wrong reasons. Softer in all the places you should be sharp—" He seemed tired behind his eyes, shadowed, contemplating. "M’warning you now, with him? With her. I know tyou’re all melted sweet water for them both. That it's some tasty new thing. N'itll stay that way---Right up n’till they betray you too. And they will. Eventually.” A sharp promise that Waru watched Syrus flinch for, that he leaned into as he leaned forwards and braced clasped hands between his knees. Watched his besties eyes-- the way they sat icy and unwavering as they probably looked in any mock courtroom. All of Sy's confidence on display, in spite of his obvious need to escape the uncomfortable subject. “Because eventually? You’ll do something out of pocket *enough*, mean enough, yourself enough— that they’ll reject you too. ******** all the explaining in the world when their minds are already set on how they could never be the ‘bad guys’ in any of this…”
The staring contest went on long, was filled with the gentle shiff of barely moving positions on opposite sitting spaces, a wary bishop artfully dodging a conversational knight with an unending smile.
“How they’ve purified all the meanness outta their own bones. Cause their worlds'r black n white, Sy. Ain't no room for your kinds of grays there.”
Syrus aimed to argue -- watched Waru throw his hands up, stand up, a pacifying move as much as it was a conversational ender, a sign to cut it all off because Waru was ready to, as he always did, give in to the demand with all the graceful ease of a landslide covering a highway.
“But m'not like that. Not me. Never me. So? I’ll still be here, waiting, supportive, ******** *kind*. The nicest godamnd guy. How in the nine hells can you pull this s**t? And for people who think so damn little of anything save themselves and their inner guiding compass of light bull…” A full stop there, a hard one. Because Waru didn't want to say that of Nectaris, who he didn't believe had a selfish bone in her body. Who was simply impulsive in her grand designs and good deeds. But of ******** Fulgurite? Maybe if he knew him better—more—had used him as anything other than a stand-in of a proxy to assuage his own guilty bit of loss over Sylvite with.
In his own back-asswards way he had tried to protect the man though, he really had, from some imperceivable backlash. From whatever nasty end and mire of scrutiny that should’ve followed her team like mud on the bottom of a shoe—
Whether he had truly liked Fulgurite or not at the time? He hadn’t wanted the ******** labeled a traitor by proxy — interrogated over something that had caught the whole of the Negaverse by surprise! And what did he get for being nice —
For trying?
For giving him access to his friends, his team, his husband—
Sharing his lovers—-
Misguided as all those half-open attempts had been. Regretful of them as he was today...
And the rest of his movements were born of finality. Were the act of a man leaving, gathering his s**t, eyeing the front-door like it was a portal to a new, better world, rather than simple metal hinges attached to cheaply painted wood. “But it’s okay—! You go on and do you, Syrus. I’ll take whatever you’ve written n put it in for you, vet it through Faustite. Through Tama. C'n getcha a crystal since our beloved Firebrand's still recovering from all them summer shenanigans. Whatever--I'll make it happen. Cause y'know I, of all damn people, can’t ********' blame you for wanting to learn this kinda s**t the hard way.” And it was Warus own recklessness, his deep seated desire to have friends as strong as his enemies and his enemies strong enough to be worth fighting against!!
*To be worth Killing*
All the grays he liked to roll in messily. All the ways this small instance of personal rebellion was something that felt like retribution in a way that soothed any inner turmoil the conversation had riled up within himself. He’d send Syrus off to get an upgrade in style, with flair, with accolades!!
“Because it's exactly what I'd do."
Syrus felt ill as he sat in his now empty apartment, utterly alone, and yet? His resolve in the matter remained unshaken. That this was ultimately the right thing to do -- the correct path to run himself along --
Just in case---
A backup for his backups in case everything else fell through, in case his trust proved fraught, in case he'd bet his every last feeling on the worlds worst ponies.
Just in case---
Word Count: 2,406
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:35 pm
❇When Even The Healing Hurts❇
Prompt 16 (Sounds of the Season): This time of year, seasonal music is heavy in the air, and you’re never far from someone’s festive music. You won’t be surprised to hear many modern tracks, and an array of timeless or nostalgic songs as well. Somewhere along the way, though, you hear something different. Someone puts on an old holiday record; you might not recognize the music at all, but you have a sudden, powerful image of someone you ‘used to know’. It doesn’t feel like an illusion; you can see them, you can hear them, you can feel them. Maybe it’s someone you lost contact with in this life, maybe it’s an old friend you haven’t seen, maybe it’s someone your starseed knows but you’ve forgotten, maybe it was a ghost from another life, a memory engraved in your heart but brought to life for a brief moment–whoever it is, it’s someone important to you. Whether you know why, or not. The song is only a few moments long, but for the duration of the music, they’re real. And then, on the last note, they disappear. Whatever magic was on the record has faded; even if you hear the song again, your companion does not return. (While you may converse with this person, they are an illusion and can only speak vaguely about things your character doesn’t know. They should not talk about meta information or detailed past life or pre-side swap information without staff approval but you can PM The Space Cauldron if you have something in mind!)
The weather outside that so many found frightful? He, Syrus, found delightful! Taking his place in the howling drift of onset snow, bundled less warmly than maybe he should've been, but he was aiming for style over function here. Even in the act of taking something so simple as a walk? It served to be well dressed, sensibly so. It wasn't as though he was planning to trek out into the deep arctic! This was a city, it had parks, and far tamer things than that!
I just need to get out for awhile-- down the elevator, around the block, through the slick hard streaks; down an alley that served as both dumping space and quick detour rout into the section of what was once green, and now ice. An astonishing amount of ice in fact! Syrus stood there, stunned, as he eschewed the obvious enough to have been trodden by other visitors walking path, as he followed the towering trees that were once wood -- and now? He couldn't really tell if they were icicle, crystalline, stone. Pure snow growing from root to highest bow.
They were marvelous though. Marvelous enough that he wondered if he should tell the team, tell Aramis, tell Waru, find that plant freak of a botany loving General and tell him too? Gather up details and send them in snippets of texts, about how they didn't smell like anything he knew how to place, how they were almost agonizingly frigid to the touch! He would have to lie about the frost-bitten looking blisters that coated his hands from daring to strip a glove off long enough to try his luck at playing with the sharp, shiny branches of one so childishly!
At least to his co-workers, but to those of the team? To Nikki, if he ran into her again anytime soon. Those were who he'd whisper the attempt had been worth it to, few as they were nowadays. Especially with Christmas looming on the horizon, with the world feeling small and slow, frozen over as the park looked.
With the ring he wore more often on a chain around his neck than on his actual finger--- He wasn't like any of those he knew who were so brazen with their affections, who wore them openly like earned medals of honor. Who shouted them from the highest towers and deepest seas. He couldn't wear it at work without drawing more questions than he had awkward or dismissive answers to, couldn't wear it around the *others*, it wasn't his fashion, and if he was oh so engaged, then to whom, and where were they, and the endless amount of why's. Better to keep it at his throat and dangling near his heart where the trinket mattered most, rather than risk losing it in all the biting gnaw of icy looking tundra that seemed to have blown into the city out of nowhere.
Such a damn strange sight to see, but hadn't he seen stranger sights by now on some level? Almost--maybe---
Syrus was almost so distracted by his enjoyment of the winter wonder land, lost in his own thoughts that drifted with the wind, that he nearly missed the low undernotes of a tune both familiar and not. That he nearly missed the towering figure of a woman with pearlescent blond lengths braided down to her thighs; adorned in shimmering cord, the ends braided into thick circlets that so resembled fallen rain, or that of freshly shed tears. Her eyes the color of an Icelandic spring-- and as he moved away, she followed, and Syrus felt hunted for it. Felt those eyes even as he ducked around a tree to get out of sight, to doge the itch between his shoulder-blades of feeling known and knowing all at once.
Too eerie, too strange, and on the heels of those feelings always seemed to follow danger, so much so that he was used to it now, to press through the snow and flee it, even as it called to him so heartfully. Even as the notes that had been a whisper clapped like thunder, shook snow from the branches, set the Earth awake beneath his feet---
Except no, that wasn't her making the thunder, that was instead the sound of an iced over slope of an unseen drainage ditch cracking open where he'd stood. He'd mistaken it for solid, snow covered land, a small hill, and instead found himself sliding down and through thinly iced water, stagnating atop rock embedded concrete. All the zen architecture meant to hide such things, to weave them into nature, and here he was paying the price for how well done the work was. It should've been easy to free himself, honestly, except for the small avalanche of snow following him down in a rush and coming up around his waist. How the cloying, muddy, sluck beneath his feet nearly tore his boots loose. How it all soaked into his socks, ate at his ankles, left him snarling in pain as he freed himself at a price--
Henshining the ******** up in panic as the song grew closer, more mournful, longing in a language he felt like he knew! Familiar enough to drive his fear of it through to the heavens-- To have him sweeping around to meet her no longer as Syrus, but as Cryolite instead, cloaked in crushing power instead of cold clothes, wincing for how his left ankle didn't care for his heroic attempt at trying to stand long enough to get the ******** out of that ditch and back onto more solid ground.
To take the practiced steps he required in order to teleport the ******** away. There was for a time an eerie peace, an ancient sort of a pause, and then the woman who looks at him as much as through him moves to embrace him as a mother would a long lost child, and in his shock -- the palpable, nigh tangible grip of fear colder than the air around him, Cryolite flinches; and in his flinching from the motion that looked too surreal to stand for, he blinks--
The song stops. She's gone.
There's no one and nothing. There likely never was. He realizes that far later than he should. That it's just him crouched low against the whipping wind, the icy snow, the strange crystalline trees that've begun to take over the areas foliage of late. No solemn lilting notes in a language he can only almost devise. No woman with too sad eyes *knowing* him in ways no one should know him, making him feel as if he knows her too, someway, somehow.
There is, however, fresh magic at his fingertips. Words that live in his mind unbidden and ready to be thought as they are for him to speak! Maybe it's the season, the urge to get up and move lest the cold play more tricks on his vision and skew what's left of his mind. He summons it up easily, dredges it from the depths of himself, whispering the words into the wind and letting them be lost to it--
It should hurt, he thinks, but the cold is as much his as he is its. To the bone, to the marrow, and eventually the stiff, cold fingers he wraps around his twisted ankle begin to feel far less like icicles and far more like they've been bathed in the soothing mists of a spa, than cold that burns hot as any fire. The ligament twinges, but does not give, it holds, even if the memory of the ache lingers and makes him give his weight to it slowly -- shakily -- until he's standing again on his own.
Taking ginger steps before he too is as far gone from the snowy space as he can humanly possibly be.
***** Super Sailor Scout Attack B:Dione's Sublime Embrace! Cryolite thinks of his distant, frozen moon, it's doomed goddess. Then feels everything in his mind go still as his hands coat in thick ice so cold it burns. Upon contact with any moderate injury the ice sublimates into an encapsulating fog. This gaseous, soothing mist seems to seep into the very essence of the wound he's laying his hands over, and the moderate injury heals. Range: Touch Duration: Instantaneous Number of uses: 2 Number of targets: One person at a time, regardless of faction.
Word Count: 1,419
Shiningamisgirl
Ruthless Consumer
Offline
Shiningamisgirl
Ruthless Consumer
Offline
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2024 8:45 am
❇Dione't tell me----❇
Heat Sick (9) : The temperature is unbearable. Heatwaves have made it impossible to enjoy some of these otherwise perfect days–and they seem to be having as much of an effect on the City as they are on the people. Strange tears are appearing throughout the city, as though something has clawed right through reality. Sometimes you can’t see them, but you can feel them–and the sweet relief of a cold gust of air billowing through the crack. The rifts mostly appear transparent but if you peek in at just the right angle you might see a terrifyingly dark realm. Sometimes items vanish near these weird tears, and sometimes people do as well. Items might be found thrown across the room or across town, or not at all. Thankfully, nobody seems to disappear for long; they always wake up unconscious somewhere else. Sometimes, they don’t remember anything except for a cold breeze. Sometimes they say they were stuck in a strange, dark realm where they heard monstrous wails and saw strange little imp-like creatures scurrying around them. Thankfully, they are ejected before harm can come to them, but the realm is frigid and frightening. Doctors are saying it’s heat exhaustion and that delusions and wandering are common, so they advise staying indoors and staying hydrated.
With a heart full of sickness, a head full of ache, and what felt like the beginning of heat stroke? Syrus dutifully decided to stay inside for the night. He felt like he'd seen enough weirdness to last him a thousand lifetimes longer than the one he was currently living, and there was only so much he could blame on the 'heat'. Which meant that once he was home? He was staying home. His thick, short drapes shut to all the world outside, and every light within the place shut off; save the brief, yet painful illumination of the fridge light. All the ways that seared auric levels of spots amidst his vision-- as he swung the door open and squinted into the blessed cold.
Which? Maybe he shouldn't've complained so much, even quietly. This was certainly better than whatever demonic visions had plagued him on his way home from work; early, as once the air had cut out getting anything done had become quickly unbearable. The things he'd seen yet would not name, so many of them appearing in pools that were clearly mirages of the most awful type!
Syrus started with water, turned it into wine. Found himself frowning at it later when the first chilled glass hadn't done it's intended job of making him feel better, or at least less sober! He frowned back into the fridge over that small plight, not being wine drunk, not yet, at least. He was getting there, hopefully soon. Realized he would get there faster if he discarded the use of a glass entirely and threw caution to the wind—
If he grabbed something harder from a lower cabinet and gave it a confused stare. For the glittering round vial labeled ‘chaser’ in a blurrily familiar and childish scrawl of block letters; the word wobbly and off kilter all at once. It looked a hell of a lot more like a fizzing red-bull bottled for a convention. No, closer still in resemblance to the buzz balls sold at any convenience store nearby. The kind of drink that only ever looked appealing well after 11pm. The liquid was a deeply golden hue, an overly sparkly tincture, it could’ve been from some witches' shop? From a gift store? He couldn’t quite remember who’d given it to him, nor when. If it’d been a birthday gift? From the Christmas he’d spent with his friend before last? The final one before his world had turned on its a**-end —
When Waru was still ‘single’; if only in the most technical of concepts. When Aramis was still just a *human*--
By the barest terms that defined that concept, and there were all the ways he’d begun to wonder what humans were anymore? How many had starseeds hidden within their fleshy forms held more than just the average ‘soul’; crystals fit to burst that secretly cradled a lifetime's worth of vastly overwhelming powers. Where gaining access to said wealth, blessing, curse. Powers kept solidly behind a paywall made up of magical cats lucking upon a body, or worse still? Becoming a modern day type of sorcerer – a warlock – meting one's life out to an ominous deity in exchange for what could’ve just as easily been provided by a cat that turned left instead of right on the sidewalk that day.
It was with a sour huff that Syrus grabbed something harder, splashed it over ice; chugged it the way he was taught never to do. Chased it with liquid gold that burned more than the cherry-tinged liquor had. He made it as far as the couch, fully clothed, blissfully watching his ceiling drift by in a swath of glittering stars and shattered glass shards.
Syrus could have heaved into his boots at the sight that haunted him next; a creature of divine light and flowing whites. His knowing of her, somehow. Like an ripple of a reflection in a funhouse mirror, and after a time he realized why the vision was so familiar. He recoiled at just how peppy and buxom his previous incarnation had been.
For every flash of how he might have been before---
Because she didn’t just giggle, this woman. No, she *tittered*, heaved, flowed; crossed some unknown water's surface as though slipping through a field of caressing silk. She healed through touch! The same as the vast pools from which she drew her name. Following the urge to heave was that of shame, a chest deep and swollen to the touch sensation. Shame for himself, and what he'd become. For he believed there existed no more opposite a pair of beings. Where his own hands brought only bitter cold, chapped lips; negative degrees that flaked flesh like burnt and dying leaves torn through a gale. Hers had brought a weightless, soothing balm. The healing waters of a fresh spring, the clutch of a teasing tide colored the stunning oceanic teals of a neptunian sky on clear nights.
And yet? Even Dione, breathlessly bright star, buxom platinum light! Had frozen over out of spite for her own dying. He watched it all like a barely believable blurr--
A trusting nature, a plea deal, the belief that she was and always would be more clever in all things.
How wrong she was.
The transformation of a world as the power that called itself 'goddess' even in chains! Power that sharpened an atmosphere once soft and inviting into the coldest, cruelest, cut of glass. That she carved herself in a fit of rage. Her last echos now lay dormant in a world of icy waves whipped solid by screaming permafrost. Where her waters had once seeped above, healing, warm, alive! Now? The surface only reflected her demise in eternity. A cold shoulder bared to the rest of space that dared any to make an attempt at conquering it again.
A warning.
It speared him -- the distant sense of rage -- its endless blackness.
The death of a world that was once his own, that was his now to inherit along with the magic-born cold that killed it. The piercing ache of a voice crying out in anguished finality: 'If it is lost to me, then let it be lost to all!'
The force of it all rocked him, that any one beings hate could be so mind-numbingly deep that it transcended cycles of rebirth, echoed within his-her-their starseed eternally. That someone who had looked so gleeful at a glance, and surfacely plush, would then curse each and every iteration in the same tones that froze an entire moon's remaining people away forever; every enemy, every ally, every histrath-cat, blaishear-bear, and heated spring. All locked away under layers of ice so thick it’d make even the deepest fathoms seem shallow by comparison.
As it once was–
As it always should be—
For what's deserved of those who fail to learn mistakes made once, twice, more times over than are worth counting? But to feel the count of those mistakes, the weight of them, to be doomed to repeat them endlessly!
Syrus felt them, surely. Heard them, endlessly. The sound ominous and passive at once, as the dream began to separate from the memory, and all of that from reality like weak, overburdened seams. It was so soft at first; a waking sigh breathed at sunrise, while standing amidst fluffily, falling snow. A gentle hissstt— The tail end of it, that final bit of softness, it twisted, crescendoed, cracked open wide across his senses and beneath his suddenly sublimate covered form. Like lightning shaped arks of rapidly-failing ice speeding along the frozen ground. The ancient sound of some glacial lake reopening at its surface, readying itself to swallow their world whole all over again. To take every breathing thing and embalm them all in the frigid tomb of its depths.
The world he crashed into suddenly hurtles away from him, the stars get left behind, those same cracks continue to spread, to arc aimlessly around him and him alone; like only he’ll slip through the very thin ice he's spent his time walking on so carelessly. Like he’ll be the only one to suffer the consequences of his ancestors' folly in this life.
Syrus wakes up shivering the next morning, sticky, sweaty, still in his own clothes. Most of his dreams are heady blurs and loose concepts that he forgets the details of as soon as he chases them. Ruined further by the headache that still plagues him. The need of a cool shower calls him away from the couch, the little chaser vial rolled beneath the table remains there, unnoticed, shattered beyond use---
Passive Enhancement:
At will (while powered up) Cryolite scuffs his heels gently as he walks, this causes glowing, icy cracks to appear to arc out from beneath his heels in a small circumference directly beneath his form. It appears as though he could fall through the surface of whatever he's walking on at any given second. The appearance of the imaginary cracks give off dry ice vibes, and seep gaseous, icy clouds for a few moments before vanishing entirely, only to reappear with every next step he takes. It's all illusory, there is no true cold there, but the the visual may be startlingly stunning to onlookers.
The phone did get flung onto the bed, it bounced and hit the floor with a thunk, its screen darkening as it lay there undisturbed for a time. Syrus followed suit, his pillow had teeth marks by the end of it. His face streaked with wet, reddened, salty tracks. His sobs were muffled, only barely. If it took a minute then it took an hour. He certainly didn’t keep track of the time, might even have fallen asleep, save for how damp everything beneath his face seemed to be.
The flowers were ******** beautiful—-
It hurts.
The calligraphy even moreso—
I’m sorry.
Matt was so talented. The way every stroke on the card had carved him open anew, every flash of what could’ve been bled him of his feelings. That he could have what he desired most if only he tried anything else— The sturdy, gentle, loving hands that made such a masterpiece.
I’ll take it all back if you take me back!
He wanted to break into Matt’s home, make demands, get on his knees, beg. He still had the ring. He’d never give it back! No one could make him!
Never never never never. Please, please don’t do this. We don’t have to do this—-
He wanted the man there, in his arms, in his bed. He wanted simply to stop crying. At least for long enough to save the photo properly. To send it to himself again on a separate text just in case. To store it all in triplicate. Until every soft color, looped scroll of ink, gentle wash of blue and white were seared into memories even dying in the spot wouldn’t erase. He hoped maybe they would outlive him, the flowers and their beauty. That they could be transfixed into some permanent effigy of sorts.
Looking at it again, once he found the will to crawl over the edge and reach down— looking at the bouquet he could feel like a tangible thing. That he could smell — the way Matt’s shop had been a pleasant paradise, the way those scenes had sometimes clung to the man when he’d come —
Home…
And Syrus wept dryly as he typed a reply, realizing he’d never been that thing. That his house was just a house and his heart a heart. He wasn’t actually Matt’s home, was he? Not welcome in it, not allowed to know anyone from it. Matt’s home that held his family, his shop, his talents. Things cordoned off and labeled ‘not for Syrus’. He could’ve laughed, had no voice for it, only a sorrowful whine that he swallowed as he rolled onto his back; redid the text five, ten, thirteen times—
And when he was finally satisfied—-
‘
Quote:
’Thank you so much for bringing my vision to life! I appreciate it, truly. I look forward to utilizing the shops services again soon.’
He let the device fall once more, into silence. Curled up and closed his eyes and breathed sheets that held imagined etchings of curry spice and floral notes.
He felt gut-punched, teeth sunk into the knuckle of his right hand, the way it failed to stifle the pained sound he desperately wanted to make. Some nasty snarl of rage met longing and withheld tears. He didn’t know how to feel reading this — felt everything all at once — understood, quite suddenly, the primal urge some people had to burn the world for the sake of feeling its warmth and dancing in the ashes of its dying.
He wasn’t that sort though, thought himself better than burning passions, and murderous heat, and flashfire rages. He swallowed it all down as he read the words over and over again, until they blurred and he finally had to wipe at his eyes or stain the page beneath them with salty tears.
It didn’t feel like her. Had lost the softer edges he knew she contained within herself, the boisterousness, the bubbly frills and heart filled sheen that seemed to encircle her in a halo-like glow. Or maybe this was her being mature? This was the leader that could order Pendours death, who could save princesses, and chaotic men…
He lamented that there was no way to respond. He had no means with which to—-
And even if he’d had them? What would he say: ‘Dear Nikki, he dumped me. Love, Cryolite’
It would’ve been laughable, it was, in fact. And so Syrus did, some wet, hoarse bit of cruel note. Because the world was cruel, even when logic prevailed, even when there was kindness!! This? Knowing he had no home in which he was welcome to send this too…
He nearly crumpled it into a ball at first; so tempted was he to make what felt like a mistake disappear entirely. It took everything in him to simply release the paper; pressing it flat on his countertop in the kitchen, smoothing the wrinkled edges where his grip had caused wrinkled creases to form. It was so hard to do only that — to not take the nearest implement of destruction and ruin rather than follow through and try to pass Nikis words on.
But no, maybe there was a way? It was that singular Chaotic idea that drove him, a daring spark of a thought that spurred him into shaky action. He was meticulous with it, taking meat shears instead of true scissors to the half of the note that contained her personal writing.
And that part he did burn, with black and purple matches that came from a club he hadn’t visited in over a year. The item rarely used, but kept pristinely. The box stored away next to birthday candles and other other odds and ends in the world's most organized junk drawer. He treated the cut off of words like a spy would an insidious message, a secret note, it didn’t make him feel better one single bit. But it did give him time to reflect — to watch the edges char, and dump the ash into the sink. To only rinse it all down once the fire had touched his fingertips and he’d been made to.
The rest?
He didn’t trust the mail.
No—-
This would have to be delivered personally, wouldn’t it? And now that there was a history of him being a customer? Syrus was even more meticulous with how he prepared the rest of Nikki’s letter. Taking painstaking care to fold it so, to neatly pack it into a plain envelope. To put Matt’s name and address on the front, add no stamps, and leave no return.
To — with ache in his soul — re-read for the thousandth time the likely automated response from the shop. His own cordial, yet clinical reply to that. The layers he knew were embedded in every letter of every short line. That it had to have come from Matt, that his own words had come from his soul. The way the picture haunted him daily—
Work so beautifully done, with such great purpose! Only now, in the name of an ending.
They would be Customer and Florist only, then. And he being in need of yet more flowers? He would of course go see his favorite florist.
