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xxxxxxxxxxxSHARP NEEDLES, SHARPER SWORDS
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xxxxxxxx »[SOLO] - by the pricking of its thumb, something wicked this way comes



After a few days, he had become accustomed to being alone. She, Dr. Jannisari, would leave him, and not return for hours. He supposed she was a very busy, very important woman. Her steps rang like tuneless bells in the hallway, her movements precise and neat. Nothing was wasted; she showed him nothing more than her elegant, restricted self. And still, when she returned, Dr. Jannisari's narrow fingers did not touch the thin wood that separated them. Instead, she scratched words into parchments, tapped those thin, long fingers against her desk and did not touch him. Alone, the Plague learned how to crawl slowly and carefully from the cabinet, folding the linen into a neat square, and to lay on the floor just so that the waxing and waning sunlight caused him to glitter. He watched the sky, eyes flickering from cloud to cloud, and did not think of very much at all. Or he tried not to think. The doctor had called him fine, and gold, and better, but she... left him. Alone. The stone floor was always cold and he scraped the points of his fingers across it until the noise wormed its way inside his head.

He decided he did not like to be alone.

He wondered, sometimes, in the pale sliences between clouds, what the doctor would do if he followed her. But an emperor did not follow, he did not plead or beg or say 'notice me'. And so, the plague waited. And the days seemed to pass more slowly than than the changing moon. For she left him then, too, when she went wherever it was that Jannisari went when her day was done. But the plague stayed, alone and silent, with only the sound of wind against the windows to keep him company. The laurel-crowned plague began to venture out at night, to hide in mouse holes and bug's dens, kicking futilely at things with far too many legs and eyes whose avaricious gleam rivaled his own. It was then that he allowed himself the few small shreds of anger that had flamed in his chest: a beating tattoo of neglect. Is she ashamed of me? But, when morning rose, its sleepwarm eyes wandering, the plague always came back, beating grey dust out of his purple robes. It rose in the light like the forgotten ghosts of histories. Sometimes, the sunlight made him feel very, very small.

As these long days passed, the plague began to doubt, to wonder. What would he do when she came for him? Not if, but when. When, when, when, when. The linen twisted in gold-tipped hands and tore.

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xxxxxxxxxxxAND WITH ONE CUT, ANOTHER
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xxxxxxxx »[SOLO] - The heart is a human construct.



He looked up at Jannisari, mouth a tight golden line. His eyes were luminous and the candles reflected in them, bottomless, flickering. The Plague always watched her. She walked with sure steps, perfectly measured: that efficiency he so admired. But, such efficiency left no opening for speech. Despite this, his mouth had opened several times, but fruitlessly. The Plague was entirely unsure of how to begin his question. A quiet corner of his mind made a note to read more conversational journals. An emperor never waited for an opening, he made one, took it, stabbed his words into something until everyone listened. Jannisari continued to gather her things, unaware or simply disregarding his stare. Nevertheless, the words bubbled up from deep inside him, near his heart perhaps, if he had one. One gold-tipped hand pressed briefly against his chest. The chains of office draped across it jangled quietly. The heart was a human construct. A small breeze whipped the candles' flames, causing wild shadows across his face. His fingers clenched, then fell.

"Doctor, are you certain that I do not need a name?" Something about Jannisari always made the normally arrogant Plague shrink within himself. But his words were strong and clear and held no quaver. His voice carried cleanly in the air, like a golden bell. It was his hands that gave agency to his anxiety, though; they plucked and fisted in his robes, crinkling the heavy silk. The Plague closed his eyes for a moment. The question hung in the space between them, full and daring, and her footsteps stilled. Jannisari's gaze was fierce and her eyes narrowed with some emotion he did not wish to identify. "I had noticed," he spoke again, then paused, voice dry, throat dry. The confidence of his previous words had not yet deserted him. "All I have met, both plague and human, have possessed names given to them from others. It is a natural progression of events." As he spoke, Doctor Jannisari moved to stand before him, towering over her laboratory table. His boots scuffed against the scarred and gouged wood. It was of indeterminate hue, having seen too many types of experiments to hold its original shade. She sighed, a near silent breath, and drummed her fingers on the tabletop, each thin digit sending a reverberation up the laurels' spine. tap, tap, tap. He did not savor this silence between them, but neither would he press the question or beg. It would be beneath him. He released his robes, folding his hands instead in front of him. The Plague would be the emperor he was born to be.

"Perhaps," she said finally, carefully, dangerously, her words measured out by deliberate spoonfuls. "I was not clear enough." Her voice - measured, clipped, clear; it was as though she were repeating a lesson that should have already been engraved on a student's mind. On his mind. The Plague refused to flinch under her icy gaze, instead fixing his own pupil-less eyes on hers. They glowed unnervingly. "To me - you do not need a name. You are a Plague: the only plague I own." His mouth formed an 'o' of surprise. He was hers; he knew. But in this moment that quality of ownership felt less like chains and more like an odd comfort. The Plague did not need a name because he was the only one for her? Was it her form of commitment? Something warm spread briefly in him, tingling his golden fingers. It was unfortunate, then, that her next words extinguished his burgeoning hope into damp ashes. He would later swear he tasted them, thick and heavy, in his mouth. Her lips twisted thinly.

"You will not receive a name from these lips. You are not normal, not natural, not human and the time needed to give you a name is wasted, Plague." Her words hissed out, distaste swirling in each one. Her thin fingers reached out as if to pluck a leaf from his laurel crown, but her hand snatched back and crowded against her chest. She sucked her breath in sharply, the silvery-grey of her professorial sash rising with each breath. Something flickered briefly in her eyes. One corner of her mouth turned up in a delicate sneer. "If you wish, you may take 'Plague' as your name. You deserve nothing more. You are nothing without me." Jannisari's voice had become harder, mocking. His eyes widened, and a vague ache settled in the Plague's chest. His hand fisted once more in his robes; fingers itching to claw out that unidentifiable emptiness. It was weakness, The heart is a human construct, he reminded himself. He would be better than it. He faltered. "Oh," was all he said, his voice smaller than the leaves on his crown. In that moment, he thought he would fade away - nothing more than Jannisari's plague. Unnamed kings are not remembered. But.. It would be unseemly, after all, for a lowly general to assign her king a title. The Plague took Claune's words and held them close. If he was not good enough to be hers; he would be greater. The Plague would only be limited by his size.

If Doctor Jannisari noticed his moment of distress, of conviction, she said nothing. Instead, she briskly set out a series of items. They lined up neatly, perfectly on the warped table; she would have nothing less. The previous conversation swept from her mind like fragments of an annoying cobweb. It was of no consequence. Imperfect candlelight winked along each tool: a widely curved and shallow glass dish, neatly rolled gauze, a small pair of scissors, a bright scalpel. The metal of it coldly gleamed and the Plague grimaced, remembering the blood dripping down his hand. It was a cruel reminder of where the power lay. "Give me your hand." Without waiting for his response, she reached for it. Belatedly, he realized Jannisari had donned her mask and gloves. The scent of camphor clouded around him, choking. Reluctantly, his hand uncurled in her palm, exposing the tender new flesh. A line slashed across his small palm, slightly lighter than his dark flesh. It was a mark of science and a grip too tight. Her fingers pinched and prodded. With a noise of annoyance, she dropped his hand. The old wound throbbed painfully, but the Plague made no noise. "Too deep," she muttered. "Your leg, plague." He sat down, unsure what else to do and her fingers snaked around his calf, pinching coldly, "Ah," he called out in a voice that almost trembled. "So soon, Doctor? But you only just-"

A sharp pinch cut off the rest of his words cruelly. "You are questioning me?" Jannisari's fingers were a vise he could never escape. "It is not your place, plague. Are you afraid of such a small pain?" The words dripped from her lips, sticky and cloying - fragrant as a rose, deadly as a pestilence. They burned acid into his chest. Doctor Jannisari was tired unto death of pointless conversations with plagues. Unworthy of her time. A tide of disgust surged in her, and snapped. "Does a king sit upon his throne and complain of a p***k in his leg? You are not worthy of this shine." The fingers of her free hand tapped against the golden laurels encircling his head. "You, with the 'blood of kings'? You are nothing better than what you were born to be: a plague, a small abomination wrapped in gold and death. You are nothing; you will never be anything more unless you do as I say. There is something bigger than you at stake. Silence." Her lips had drawn back in an almost snarl and the scalpel gripped in her hand glittered darkly. Jannisari hated this - that she had to touch, talk to, own a bit of disease that had murdered so many. As she took a deep breath, the sickly sweet smell of death filled her nostril, choking her ire. Face suddenly blank, she calmly, carefully slid the scalpel up the plague's thin leg.

"You could become the cure, be greater." He looked up at her words, pain coursing up from his calf. The Plague wanted to believe those words and the tiniest sliver of hope they offered. He needed to. And so, he did.

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xxxxxxxxxxxTALL, WAS HE, AND FAIR
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xxxxxxxx »[PRP] - someone waited for Caduceus' returm, a song heavy upon his lips
xxxxxxxx »[FEAT] - Claune the sweetly-tuned violin and Caduceus, plus several small bits of shredded cloth
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