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 Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:25 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| Sage Advice
xxxxxxxxin which Dragomir reflects on what he should do !
xxxx There was a strange silence in his room. There was a nothingness, a vacancy, an absence, as he tried to think and process what Wickwright had told him. Really, nothing about it was surprising. Of course Wickwright would tell him to leave the cult - it was the easiest and the smartest decision. The House was, obviously, the least stable of the groups and Dragomir felt like he was putting his life on the line every day just by being there, by not leaving. He wondered, vaguely, if scientists had the same problem - or if mages did - or if normal people did. Of course, some of them would, but the cult seemed like the altogether fastest way for him to sign his own death warrant, considering he believed in nothing that the House of Obscuvos did.
xxxx But Dragomir had promised the strange little book plague, promised that he would not kill again. He laid there, still silent, still thinking, his fingers slowly shifting the weight of Chayele on his chest around as though she were some form of stress reliever. He would need a plan; he couldn't go into this all on his own, blindly charging. It would be the fastest way to die - as the only thing worse than being in the cult was leaving the cult. So what would he do? How would he get away fast enough to make sure that his life wasn't in danger at a very severe level? Singing, leading to commit a sacrifice . . . That all seemed so high profile, so obvious and in the light of it all. Perhaps they knew; perhaps somehow they'd . . . sensed his betrayal in the making and had done it because of i- no. That was absurd; Dragomir realised instantly that he was just being paranoid.
xxxx He would need to orchestrate it quickly and fluidly - but where would he dump the fledglings that they'd put him in control of? He couldn't just leave them behind; they'd see through it almost instantly and if they were really intending to become members of the House than the authorities - like Andromeda, he thought with an involuntary shiver of disgust and deep fear - would be after him before he could even escape Shyregoed. If he didn't plan this well... Well, he didn't even really want to think about it. He shrugged his shoulders gently and cracked his neck. Perhaps he could do the ancient, "Wait here!" trick while he got as far ahead of the numbskulls that he'd surely be trusted with. . . But how stupid were they? Was that a fair thing to risk? It seemed like all he was doing was putting his own neck on the line and making it more likely that he'd die. . . Is there any plan that doesn't seem to end almost immediately in my own head being severed? Dragomir thought as he groaned, shoving his face into the straw pillow that he'd had for far too long. It seemed like this was simply a way for him to pick his own demise and whether he wanted it to come fast or slow, whether he wanted it now or put off, physical or mental. He shrugged his shoulders again before standing up and pacing as he thought and tried his best to come up with something.
xxxx Dragomir wandered forever, for hours; there was nothing. No ideas, no plans. He would just. . . He'd have to do it. He'd have to try and sacrifice someone new, try to keep himself sane through it. It was reprehensible to him, as it would be almost any normal human, but there was no way out except perhaps an act of Obscuvos himself. He sighed, sat back down, and tried his hardest not to punch a wall.
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Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:28 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| A Friend Again
xxxxxxxxin which Chayele adopts Lettie !
xxxx reserved for a reflection on A change of heart.
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Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:02 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| A Traitor at Heart
xxxxxxxxin which Dragomir accepts responsibility as a Grimm !
xxxxDragomir had no idea what to even begin to think about the meeting he'd gone to; there was only abject terror in his mind as he gripped Chayele in his fingers as though she were a lucky charm. He knew he had to go - Shyregoed, with its harsh clime and mages, was no longer for him; he needed somewhere where he could be, could feel, protected. He knew, instantly, that that was Auvinus; Auvinus, the place he was supposedly born, the homeland of the Obscuvans - with their obsessions with plagues (the memories of his parents collecing plagues still vivid), he hoped that they would allow no harm to come to him.
xxxxHe needed to go - but first he had something else to do. If he didn't do this first, then there would be no hope for him; he would have to take them . . . have to join the choir and lead them to their fates . . . And then he could go. He fingered the coins in his other hand, coins that were warm from body heat. He stared down at them, then glanced back at Chayele. He understood now; this had been blood-money, a pittance in exchange for the emperor relieving the Grimms of the burdens they had been forced to bear.
xxxxDragomir did not much care for the Shofar plague, that much was for certain; he felt she had few endearing qualities, other than being dumber than a rock, but she belonged to him. And, at the end of the day, that mattered to him. One of the few constant things he was discovering in this world was the tiny plague who wouldn't leave his side - and that gave her some worth, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And so, to keep her safe on top of keeping his own a** safe when he wouldn't give her up when they demanded it, he would have to use this could-have-been blood money to get there. The idea of parting so soon with the rare coins he held in his hand was quite upsetting to him, almost an offense, as he had been a penny pincher for far too long to become completely empty headed with his money. He supposed, of course, that saving his own life and the life of something that he considered a possession wasn't "empty headed," but it certainly wasn't thrifty; even as his brain screamed at him to go, to leave and find a new home in Auvinus, a home likely freer of the emperor's clutches, his fingers wanted to keep a grip on it.
xxxxHe sighed, collapsing in his chair, no longer having the energy to pace aimlessly about his home, dark blue eyes settling on the disquieted lump in the corner that was his usually upbeat plague. She, almost listlessly, crossed the room and climbed onto his shoe. With some hesitation, he leaned down and put her on his lap instead. If they were going to run, they would need to bond. Seriously this time, not as he'd thought before. But he needed to get away, somehow - needed a way out, a way he wouldn't be missed by anyone until he arrived in Auvinus like a ghost risen from the grave. He sat there, his fingers resting over Chayele absently as his eyes fell closed, trying to think of something - anything - though he was only coming up empty.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 7:08 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| A Traitor in Soul
xxxxxxxxin which Dragomir reneges !
xxxx On the chosen day, when Dragomir should've packed up his belongings and ran for the hills to get to the scientists before the cultists got him.. Dragomir chickened out of chickening out. He couldn't; he felt as though there was impossible about it - like that no matter how far he ran, he'd never outrun Andromeda and the cult's clutches and that running away was only hastening his death instead of prolonging it. It was as such that, though he had promised Wickwright that he would leave, he trudged out of the house in the heaviest coat he could manage. He had left Chayele at home, still curled up with Lettie and asleep. He didn't want them involved in this; he could think of nothing good that would come of it - but even less would come of leaving. He left a note, written and put near where they slept, only realising once he was half way down the street that Chaeyele couldn't read and he had no idea if Lettie could. He hoped that they would be able to puzzle it out - then, at least, if he never came home, they had some idea of what to expect.
xxxxNo. He couldn't think of it that way; he could - and he would - make it home. He just needed the time, needed to be careful - cautious. It was better to assume everyone was watching, everyone knew about him, and everyone would use deadly force with little provocation. That way he could see the next day - which, as he drew closer to the meeting place, was all he wanted - and hopefully many more past that. He sighed as he stepped in, the bird mask slipping over his face, obscuring him. He was no longer Dragomir Meschke - he was the man who had killed a man - he was a servant of Obscuvos. He breathed deeply, evenly, a cruel smile appearing along the base of it. His voice was louder than it had been in months as he herded himself towards the choir that was standing there practicing. "My sincerest apologies."
xxxxNo one seemed to pay him any mind but it was good enough; this part was innoculus on its own - singing, he could do singing - but it was the ending part that he was already steeling himself for. It was important; he knew that failing the mission given to him would land him in the same spot he would have been in if he'd just taken off, so he would do it right. He smothered the part of him that denied, that screamed in its vehemence that you can't kill! because it was accomplishing nothing other than making his thin, already milk white, hands tremble. He would submit for now - he would remain quiet, he decided, as he followed the other Obscuvans, the other choir, out there. They got there soon enough, of course; there was nothing to keep them from getting there, nothing to slow them down. When they stood there, when the leader motioned his arms to begin them singing, Dragomir's voice stuck to his throat, trying its hardest to refrain from coming out. He shook his blond head and forced it, forced the notes out roughly at first, until it raised in volume. He wouldn't risk not being heard; he needed to be heard so that he would get away with this, so that they might leave him alone for longer instead of continually sending him things to do that would likely result in his death or the death of what little sanity he had remaining. He tilted his head quietly, loosening his neck as he kept singing. His voice, clear but a bit too high for a singing voice one would normally assign to a male, he continued singing until a small crowd of interested people gathered around them. The choir stepped out of the way as the leader, the conductor, motioned Dragomir forward.
xxxxDragomir's mask remained firmly in place as he stepped forward and as the cruel smile returned; these were his. He would have to teach them, to show them, the correct way to do this so that they too would become one with the Glutton God. The strange dissociation with his normal self was almost completely severed now - there wasa faint, screaming voice still in the back of his head but the Dragomir who was not Dragomir was becoming proficient at ignoring it - after all, it only repeated itself, begging incessantly for this to stop, for them to do something else, something better . . . To run somewhere, to run anywhere, to get out of here. There were better things to do than to sell his soul to Obscuvos again, to sacrifice his sanity. "I'll be leading you," Dragomir pronounced each syllable so very clearly and with a strange amount of venom. He half expected the cultists-to-be to scorn him, scorn his tone.. But they didn't. The stupid, naive cultists turned towards him as though he were the Glutton God Himself delivered to them - as though they were first seeing the light and the true nature of things, though Dragomir was doing anything but. He waited a second, waited for them to gain their bearings as following the thin, short man with an oddly gruff voice altered their perceptions of what was happening; some of them clearly thought that it was a joke.
xxxx"You follow me." It was low, hoarse, but demanding and had a touch of . . . power to it - a strange quality for him. They seemed like they'd trip over themselves with how fast they aimed to line up in front of him like good little animals. He chuckled softly, shook his head. Dragomir Meschke was screaming inside, now totally mute to the man-who-was-not. Screaming in horror, in terror, in what was happening, what was he doing! That part of him was wrestled down again until there was no sound, no sight of it. Dragomir Meschke could not screw this up; he would not. He had come so far, he was here now, with the cultists-to-be following him willingly. He had so little left to do. He had to get them started; if he did that, then he was done.
xxxxThey followed him, a herd of awkward little baby crows, he supposed, all wearing the most common mask, all given to them by the leader of the choir. The steps went evenly, fairly flawless for quite awhile, until as they turned off of a main street, it all went to hell. Obscuvans singing in the middle of Shyregoed could not honestly expect to get away scot-free. Dragomir had made the mistake of expecting that, however, and it all came crashing down at him at once as they rushed at the small group. The Obscuvans-to-be were terrified, perhaps rightfully so, and scattered before Dragomir could do anything to stop it - before Dragomir had the sense to even get himself out of the way. He felt the knife before he registered what had happened; he saw the blood and thought about it and stepped back, away from the knife, away, running running running, until he realised that what had just happened was that he'd been cut. He'd been sliced open by a knife and he was dripping blood everywhere, creating a path, a dribble, of blood as he continued running. There was a mindless panic as Dragomir-who-was-not relinquished control and the real Dragomir came shrieking back, unable to think or formulate any normal thoughts except run run run, flee, get away, and pain! it hurts it hurts!. By the time he got home after running blindly for what felt like several hours, he was slowly becoming more aware of his situation; he was home, he was alive, and he was in - more or less - one piece.
xxxxHe supposed that he would have to take small victories where they came; being alive was enough for now - he would try to salvage more of the morning when it came. When he looked up at the sky, he saw that the sun had not moved much; his "hours" of running had been, at most, thirty minutes, as the sun was just starting to give the sky a blue cast instead of the pink-orange sunrise hues. He stepped inside, checked that the two plagues were still sound asleep so that he could work in silence and concentrate, and started ripping a shirt to act as a bandage. To anyone else, it would have been obvious that Dragomir would need care and a tight bandage to allow the skin to grow together, but Dragomir refused to accept such a thing as true - he would be fine if he kept it covered.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:59 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| A Child's Tale
xxxxxxxxin which Dragomir's past is revealed !
xxxxDragomir sometimes remembered his past. It wasn't really a place he liked being, the memories of his parents and of love he had not experienced in so many years, but frequently he was offered no choice in the matter. Something just -- just triggered the memories and there he went on a trip down memory lane, completely unbidden, and taken so against his will that it was almost like mental kidnapping, kicking and screaming the entire way. That day, it hadn't been anything in particular. The sun had just been fierce and the sky that peculiar colour of blue he hadn't really noticed since he was twelve and out hunting.
xxxxAs a child, Dragomir had been a bit of a worker for his parents. Of course, it wasn't uncommon to use one's children as a workforce, as they were free and often there, and Dragomir's parents were no exception, but it was the items he was gathering that made him an oddity. He'd been looking for plagues - they'd been new, at the time, and they'd been in high demand to study. So young Dragomir, with a seemingly callous disregard for any possible diseases he might catch, was sent out to collect the ones he could find. While Dragomir had been particularly disliked by the children in the small town in which he lived due to the fact that he was small and frequently unwilling to play more violent games, the plagues had been a different story. They had been quiet and small, like him, and playing the games that the other boys played might have actually killed them, injured their tiny bones (though Dragomir was not so sure he even had bones, nor what made them up). His parents had been hesitant to let them spend so much time near their son; while they were potentially sacrificing his health - and knew it - just by letting him collect the little plagues and bring them home and round them up for the house, but they weren't exactly ecstatic about giving him more opportunities to die a miserable death. It wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, and they tried to ignore it as best they could, and frequently tried to separate Dragomir from the small plagues as fast as they could, but Dragomir tried to hide the small ones away and keep them. They were smart and they were friendly.
xxxxSmart was a relative term. It was used easily and lightly, though Dragomir knew that he was smart and that other people really weren't, especially not the other boys that battled each other and came home with black eyes that they wore like badges of honour. Dragomir knew, no matter what anyone else said, that these boys were stupid. The plagues, on the other hand... Even though some of them were stupid and mean and cruel and crude, some of them were very kind and smart, possibly even smarter than Dragomir's parents (who, to the young boy, were the most intelligent, benevolent, and wonderful human beings in existence) which was utterly mindblowing. The young boy did not know what the House wanted to do with the plagues he was making friends with and he wasn't completely sure he wanted to know at all - the House was so scary, even though his parents supported it, and he wanted nothing to do with it. This fear of his friends being harmed - or worse, being mutilated, was terrifying.
xxxxBut all good tales start at the beginning. When the plagues had started becoming more and more wellknown and the small stunteds started becoming more common, the young Dragomir was sent into the town to pick up those that he could. It wasn't hard, since they were widely scorned, and Dragomir saved more than a few from immediate death by snatching them up and running off before they got a clear look at the dirty, blond haired boy most assumed to be an orphan. He did this for a long time - he was good at it, and bringing home lots of the little beings made his parents smile proudly and pat his head when a cultist in a mask, making him featureless and with eyes that were so shadowed that they were black, came to pick them up, murmuring his thanks to Dragomir's parents.
xxxxAt first, he had been scared of the small things. They were so little and Dragomir was not used to the idea of towering over something or someone, and frequently didn't know his own strength when it concerned the small, sometimes palm sized plagues. He was horrified when he heard their squeaks of pain and surprise when he gripped them tighter and instead strove to treat them gently and with some form of respect. Most of the little plagues were surprised by the small human's motions to be kind and friendly when most hated them and would rather them dead and Dragomir became fast friends with quite a few until they were all cruelly ripped from him for the sake of study and knowing what made them tick and what made them become real humanoids.
xxxxThe idea disturbed him greatly, when he found out that's where they were going. All sorts of horrible visions filled his head - the small beings being cut open, caused harm, and generally made miserable supposedly to help other people get better and not die of the plague. But in Dragomir's mind, as long as the people who were getting sick weren't his family (and were the family of those bullies in town who had always made his young, meek life miserable), there was no need for it. As such, he created a small stockpile of plagues in his room, trying to get them comfortable when and where he could, giving them small things to act as beds and covers, sacrificing them for himself so that they could have it and be happy. When his parents found this small nest, however, they were suitably angry. In fact, they were a complete force to be reckoned with, ripping everything apart and removing Dragomir's friends forcefully the first two or three times - but Dragomir, no matter how terrified he was and how much it hurt when his friends were stolen, was not about to let these (in his mind) harmless things be taken into unknown torture. And while there were some he collected purposefully to give up so that his friends could remain harmlessly in his bedroom (the first time, that had been the reason he had been caught - he'd gone from collecting a few nearly everyday to presenting none at all and his parents were appropriately suspicious, considering they knew that Dragomir was fond of them), cuddling under blankets and hiding at every noise. Some of them chose to go to the House and though Dragomir likely thought them insane and their intelligence fell quite a few points in his esteem, he wasn't about to keep them from what they wanted and so off to his parents they went.
xxxxThis continued for several months and Dragomir was amassing a small city that he was becoming increasingly worried about. There were so many of them - and the ones that had been there the longest were incredibly close to the lonely young child - and everyday seemed like it was so risky, like his parents would come in at any moment and take them away. And, eventually, they did. Every single one of them - his favourites, those that annoyed him - all of them, all his friends, and all taken. All gone. All gone and Dragomir was alone with his parents who were so upset they were trembling and trying so hard not to scream at the little boy who looked so lost and dead inside that it made their hearts ache. Their decision was unusually harsh, especially for parents who treasured their child as much as those two treasured Dragomir. But he had to understand - they had to make sure he understood why the plagues were so terrifying, why they were to be scorned and not loved. So they sent him to the House - they had him educated, whether he wanted it or not, and he was indeed educated. He could read, he could write, he could do any number of simple things.
xxxxBut if they expected Dragomir to come back the same boy he'd left, they were sorely mistaken. He came back quieter, moodier, more withdrawn. He did not want anything to do with plagues - he refused, loudly and emphatically, when his parents tried to send him out. No matter what punishments he received, the boy stuck to his decision; he would not, did not, budge. He would not see those things, those horrifying things of death and destruction - those horrifying things that he loved most of all; he would not see those things, those lovely things of friendship and laughter - those lovely things that he hated most of all.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:20 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| some title
xxxxxxxxin which bleh bleh bleh !
xxxxreserved for reflection on rp with road, cant remember name -- gonna take a stab in the dark and suggest this is deleted and i retcon something in?
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:24 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| some title
xxxxxxxxin which bleh bleh bleh !
xxxxreserved for reflection on rp with koters/seppu
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 8:32 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| some title
xxxxxxxxin which dragomir finds a new home and gets a surprise !
xxxxThese barracks were like so much of a prison. They were nice enough and Dragomir wouldn't have complained in a general sense, had it not been the House, had it not been a place where most of the people around him were fanatic supporters of the Glutton God, and he might have enjoyed having a place to stay that wasn't required to be defended by his own wits. But it was a place of the House, it was the home of other followers of that damned God, and it was a place of unadulterated misery for one Dragomir Meschke, one lonely man who looked younger than he was and that his experiences would make one. But he'd settled in, in a sense, found some sense of comfort and relaxation amongst them because Obscuvans could be rational people whenever they weren't incited to the point of insanity during services, during attention to their God, and Dragomir had, over the course of a week, made one or two he might actually refer to in a less than completely malicious sense (which, in Dragomir's world, meant friend).
xxxxDragomir had expected to never see this again. He had hoped he was done; he knew he'd failed the last mission, failed absolutely miserably, but he'd tried and that had to mean something. Except apparently not. Here was a letter, sitting all prim on his pillow, mocking him - he knew it was from them, because it was always from them, always... always waiting until he got comfortable, thought maybe he was home free, and then they sent a reminder like this. They still existed, Dragomir was still a member, and they would still rely on him to do things. His body was drenched in an icy sweat - and he hadn't even picked it up and read it yet - as his mind provided him with memories he spent the better part of his waking day willfully ignoring, like the sound of bones cracking and the feel of a heart now removed still pathetically floundering in his hands and the smell of blood screams of fear the smell of death chanting in his ears -- as his mind worked overtime reproducing these horrific waking nightmares, his body locked. He was vaguely aware, in a distant sense, that people walked by, perhaps even bumped him, that one had clapped him on the shoulder, that there were living people around him. When he snapped back (however long it was later), he found himself studying the faces of those around them. It was highly unlikely any of them had been in Imisus with him but he wondered: would any of them recognize them? did they idolise the service he had given (which had resulted, in a terrible, horrible way that had made Dragomir want to sob pathetically, in some accolades for a strong service his first attempt)?
xxxxThe idea of it made him paranoid, made him even more nervous and trembling and jumpy than he already was. Gingerly he placed himself on the bed, his fingers wrapped around the paper, flicked it open, and slid it out. The words - they could barely stick in his mind as he skimmed it again and again, dark blue eyes wide in abject terror. It was like - it was like the cult was able to truly get into his mind, truly able to read into his soul and see every damn dark fear, every inch of him that he hid from others, and that it was truly as though they were determined as all hell to bring it to the light. He sat there, alone in his bed, quiet and pale and unmoving enough that no one was quite brave enough to go up and make sure that he was still alive, still drawing breath, and still thinking - so he stayed until Chayele in all her stupidity hopped up the bed from wherever she had been, from whatever new, horrid cultist thing she had picked up, and settled in on his lap.
xxxxShe had taken but one glance at the paper, shoved her face very near it as though it would somehow help her read better, help her recall the words and letters and paper-scratchings that Hopkin had shown her was writing. It didn't - but being so close allowed her to pick up the scent of it, allowed her to smell that this was from a cultist by the heavy scents of incense, of things she had come to associate with the cult, with church services. And that was all she needed. She squealed, her delicate fingers coming down to stroke the page with something that could best be described as affection, as though the pages were whoever the actual sender had been and they would feel the feather light touches no matter where they were.
xxxx"We have to go somewhere, Chayele," Dragomir murmured. This was a suicide mission, he knew - a mission that meant he wouldn't come back in one piece or even with all his pieces in tact, instead of strewed everywhere and likely lightly smoking from a well placed mage attack - and it was one given to him by the cult. He knew the cult was fond of Chayele - simply by merit of the fact that she was a plague and they were valuable - so if they were going to kill him, he would kill Chayele with him. That and the only chance he had to live was bringing a plague, looking useful, looking as though they would, for some reason, need him around and trust him. His status as a Grimm was all he had; perhaps a wayward teen instead of a young man would help, should he be able to pull that lie off (he was sure he would)
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 8:33 pm
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| some title
xxxxxxxxin which dragomir and chayele try a new skin on for size !
xxxxreserved for reflection on rp with snoof and mage npcs.
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