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 Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 12:11 pm
You know what? ******** the horsemen.
Especially that Medea. Riyo had been pretty okay with charging into battle and seeking out revenge at first. She had been fine and dandy with running up against those a*****e human hunter things in order to save friends and be the hero and all that other s**t.
But considering the fact that it hadn't even been her own revenge she was carrying out, the whole situation grated on her. That wasn't why she was upset, though.
What pissed her off more than anything in the WHOLE WORLD right now was the TRAMP STAMP that pony-loving b***h marked on her. Riyo had never wanted a tattoo. She had never wanted to mark her body with anything other than proud battle scars. Those? Yeah, she could live with those. This was too much.
Standing with her back to a mirror and her top up just past her the lower half of her torso, the ghoul seethed. It was time to try and rid herself of this, but the only thing she could think to do was something that would be difficult to do alone.
With any luck, the cracked door would invite an unsuspecting volunteer right in.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 12:32 pm
The ghoul leaving her door cracked was an invitation that the neighboring bakeneko couldn't pass up. Hell, he invited himself in when the door was closed, so Deacon wasn't going to think twice about sticking his head into someone else's room when the door was ajar. Especially when that room was Riyo's.
"Riyo?" Deacon called as he pushed the door open further, peering in. "Your door is ope-..."
He saw her standing in front of the mirror. He saw the reflection of her low back and the 'tattoo' there in the mirror. Deacon's eyes widened in shock and he stared.
Something in the back of his consciousness urged him to run, but he'd gotten a little better at ignoring those voices in his head. He probably should have listened to this one.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 12:42 pm
Riyo's head snapped to look towards the voice that called her name. At first it might've looked like she was pissed at the way Deacon stared at her... But it soon melted into something... More devious. Yes Deacon. You should've gotten out while you still could.
"Ah. Yes. Just the boil I wanted to see." Really it could've been anyone, but surely the cat boil could complete this task. "C'mon in."
Pulling down her top momentarily, the ghoul scooted into the kitchen and... Came back out with a knife. DANGER, DANGER!
But instead of charging at her supposed 'welcome guest', she handed it to him and turned around. To anyone who might've dared to gander a peek, this was... Quite a sight. "Do me a great big favor and cut this off." She uh. She didn't appear to be kidding.
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 9:10 am
When their eyes met, Deacon swore to Jack he felt a deathly chill run up his spine. He dared not so much as twitch a muscle while she held him in her gaze, but he visibly relaxed when she invited him the rest of the way inside. The particular look she'd given him didn't seen to raise any red flags. She hadn't come at him screaming, so he'd taken the invitation.
Hey, she'd actually said she wanted to see him. That was a rare gift.
Deacon had shut the door with a soft click, looking up again just in time to see Riyo return with a knife in hand. Then the reg flags raised, along with the hair on the back of his neck and the base of his tail. He stood frozen in place, and would have been seriously doomed had she actually wanted to stab him.
But instead, she offered the handle to him. He took it, looking utterly dumbfounded.
What the-?!
"Are you crazy?! We're not going to cut you!"
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:40 pm
Crazy? Oh, Riyo hated when people called her that. Deacon could at least venture a guess why. Glaring back at him, the ghoul took a deep breath. "That would be the kettle calling the pot black, don't you think?" The feline hissed, immediately regretting the words she let escape her mouth.
Riyo scratched her head much like something of a nervous tick, trying to sort through her slowly building rage. "It just infuriates me to know that there's a mark on my body, and it had to appear RIGHT. THERE." The ghoul grouched. "I've spent hours in the shower just trying to scrub it off." And that much was obvious. It was starting to look raw.
"So I think the only way is to cut off the skin in the area. Maybe it'll grow back spotless, yeah? If it's scar tissue, well that's still better than a tramp stamp."
But it appeared Deacon was out of the question. Well... Maybe not. "Of course..." The ghoul started, gently tugging the knife back. "I could do it myself and just deal with how mangled I might turn out if you're so against it."
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Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:09 am
Deacon's lips were shut tight after Riyo's retort, his eyes adverting themselves from hers. True as the statement was, it still stung.
He was looking at the mark as she spoke about it, confused.
"What do you mean 'appear'?" He was... Clueless. "How the jack did it get there in the first place?"
As she went to pull the knife back, his expression became stern and he reached for it. His fingers tightened around what of it he could grasp to get it away from her. If it was the blade? Well, right now he didn't much care.
"If it's not a regular tattoo, what makes you think you're going to be able to get rid of it so easily?"
He lowered his voice pointedly.
"Take it from us... We tried. All the pain, none of the solution we'd hoped for." Of course, when it came to inflicting pain on himself, he couldn't go very far.
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Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:52 am
Yeah. She definitely regretted retorting to that one...
"It's... A long story."
The ghoul froze, immediately relinquishing the knife to the boil. Cutting herself was fine, but she didn't want him to get hurt because she was being stubborn. "Jack Deacon, don't do that s**t."
She sighed, tugging her top down. Riyo didn't like how guilty he made her feel. About everything, really. About thinking she should try and cut a small problem away when he had it all over. About asking him to do it because she couldn't do it herself.
But none of that would be said. "A lot of people were taken by those humans. One of them was... Somebody I knew." She wouldn't say 'friend' out of pride. "The horsemen offered us a chance to take out revenge, and I went on an impulse... As I usually do."
Pulling up her office chair, the feline had a seat and leaned back. "But it wasn't just our revenge we were seeking, apparently." Riyo tapped her chin as she thought about the whole incident, her eyes narrowing. "Don't trust the horsemen, Deacon. They see us as tools to be used. Nothing more." That was how she saw it, at least. "Anything they offer you will probably be a monkey's paw. One of the stipulations of us coming along was to drink from this cup. That's where the tattoo came from... And I worry about it's significance."
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Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:35 pm
Although he frowned, Deacon didn't immediately seem interested in hearing the aforementioned long story. He could imagine. At least, he figured he knew well enough from experience... And from the other stories he'd heard of trips he'd thoroughly avoided.
He also seemed not to be phased by her scolding him for grabbing hold of the knife. When she released it, Deacon set it on one of the nearby bookshelves.
"Hunters," Deacon said with distaste. "What we wouldn't give to have the chance to use tooth and claw against just one of them... We would have made the same decision."
He leaned his hip against her writing desk, crossing his arms as his ears tilted back. "We don't need to be told not to trust someone. The other way around is harder for us.... Especially now."
Deacon didn't look pleased at the idea of what the mark could be for, either, but he didn't want to make her more upset about it than she clearly already was. "Only time will tell. Right now, what will wondering about it change?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:24 pm
The more Deacon spoke, the more Riyo seemed to calm down, but by the same token, the more introspective she became. Her hand rested on the desk, nails tapping gently as she listened to the fellow bakeneko.
It was a blue moon chance, really. What he said, the way she was thinking, and just his overall posture. "... Nothing, I guess..." Riyo finally said after moments of silence, actually looking at him for once. Not looking through him, but into him. Seeing him.
What she saw was a little frightening. Everything... Reminded Riyo of herself. The passive statements of distrust, that probably underlined the vast seas of bitter loneliness. Did Deacon have friends? The only one he had ever spoken of to her had failed to have his back (even if the circumstances were for the better..). He had deceived her, yes. But how could she hold her head so high when she had done worse to better people?
Apparently this was the ghoul's first taste of empathy, because she almost didn't know what to do with herself. She looked... Bewildered.
"Deacon..." Momentarily she tore her eyes away from him, reaching into one of her drawers for something that hid under her palm which returned to the top of the desk. "Do you trust me?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 9:18 am
There was little satisfaction in the fact that she seemed to accept that nothing could be done, because... Well, nothing could be done. She could either stew over what may or may not happen, or just force herself to ignore it and hope for the best. He'd been there, was there, in a sense.
The urge to tell her that it shouldn't spread seemed a distasteful thing to say, as though passive aggressively noting that she didn't have it as bad as he did...
"You dress modestly. No one will be any the wiser." Despite trying to say it to make her feel better, he figured it wasn't going to change anything. She was upset about it, and he knew that if he were in her position he would have been irritated as well. Even if his body was no longer as perfect as he had once believed it to be.
When Riyo looked up at him, he kept her gaze. The way she looked at him was different. It wasn't just that it wasn't a look of anger, annoyance or general disgust, either... He didn't know whether to try and smile or be concerned, so his expression remained neutral for the most part.
He hadn't realized that he'd held his breath until she looked away, and he released it in a soft sigh. Her question wasn't quite as unexpected as the look she'd given him. After all, not long ago she'd asked him if he saw her as weak. He had been honest with her then, and he'd be honest with her now.
"Yes," he said. "We know you wouldn't hurt us." He paused, a slight smirk tugging at one side of his mouth. "Well, aside from when we piss you off... But that's not what we mean. Uh..." He honestly didn't know how to word himself. "Despite everything, you haven't shut us out."
"And you haven't gotten us dragged off to join Riley..."
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 9:51 am
Hurt him? Sometimes it felt like she did every time her mouth opened. Every thoughtless comment that just ran free and charged at him like a bull. Still, he always came back for more, but sometimes she wondered if it was just because of the desire to stifle the loneliness and not because it was her.
But at the subject of Riley, Riyo's brows furrowed at the thoughts of where she might be kept. "Confinement solves nothing. Shut out from the world like that, all you can do is stew in the sickness you have, being denied the opportunities to replace them with something fresh and new." Like keeping the same bandages on a gaping wound. You needed to change them to keep from festering.
Perhaps all these thoughts were just a product of the stars lining up just right. That it was mere coincidence empathy struck her at just the right time, but such feelings held important realizations. Indeed, Riyo had friends now. And yes, she was sure that to some degree, they trusted her (as ill-placed as it might've been). It did occur to her, however, that all of those friends had other friends. Most likely, friends that were subconsciously held higher. Friends she imagined they would go to for any sort of problem. Friends they would undoubtedly take an arrow for. The feeling wasn't bitter, for once. It was simply a stern realization of the potential to be important to someone else. Yes. Important.
Riyo could've been hateful about the whole situation. Let Deacon suffer alone because that too was how she suffered. Alone. In her own little black hole of confinement, bitterly watching others as they passed without a care in the world.
Or she could give him everything she had ever been denied.
Swirling through her thoughts was the occasional shriek of fear. The fear of holding out a hand to a helpless cause and how it might break her.
"I've got something for you." She stood. A gentle hand reached out to take one of his, placing a thin, circular object in his palm before guiding his fingers to curl around it.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:40 am
Deacon looked away at her words, unable to help but inwardly wonder if Riley would sink into utter madness being locked up as she was.
No. No, Riley's real friends wouldn't leave her alone. The tabby, though, was certain that if he were in the same position, no one would come to him. No one, that is, except Riyo. Not to laugh at his misfortune like when they'd first met, either. Maybe to ask him why he'd been so stupid to get himself caught, sure, but he knew she'd still be there for him. Why she decided to care for him after all of their disagreements was astounding even more than the simple fact that she cared for him at all.
Still, even with this in mind, he wouldn't have guessed that she would do this.
Deacon looked down at their hands curiously, his eyes widening when she pressed something into his. He questioned if it was what he thought it was, or perhaps she was being dramatic in giving his pin back... No. Even she wouldn't be that cruel, would she?
He wordlessly relaxed his fingers, just enough to catch a glimpse of crimson. When he saw the pin in his palm, he exhaled in relief. He didn't know what to say. Even if he did, his voice wouldn't have worked for him to say it.
So instead, Riyo would suddenly find herself being hugged gratefully by the boil. He might have been trying not to cry, too.
To think he used to believe he was a bad a**.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:15 pm
It was an interesting dynamic, the way they'd continually surprise each other by doing things the opposing party hadn't expected.
Really, any extra words than what had already been said might've over-complicated the situation. A situation that was already a little complex in Riyo's mind. It almost felt like she was graciously accepting a death sentence.
There was nothing to be reaped from this, she thought. Then the arms pulled her in without a second chance to step away. What was that?
This small moment felt like an eternity in a little pocket dimension tucked away from the true world. There was nothing negative between them or inside them. The overwhelming weight of burden hovered instead of pressing itself against her shoulders. It was almost as if she might float away if there wasn't someone holding onto her.
She had done something good for someone else. Riyo could feel the gratefulness pouring from him like an overflowing cup. The feline frankly couldn't understand the thoughts and feelings in their entirety. Maybe she was even a little scared by them, but she wasn't scared of him or anything he might've known.
Shaky hands which could've pushed him back instead rested on his back, gently patting the poor schmuck who seemed unable to cope with something so simple as being given a flattened piece of metal. Her eyes had been closed for awhile, but really she hadn't noticed until then.
"Don't you dare cry. I'll pinch the s**t out of you."
Moment over.
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Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:15 pm
The fact that she was at least halfheartedly returning the hug wasn't as acknowledged as her words.
Deacon laughed. Sure, that in itself did well enough to reveal that he was struggling against emotion since it sounded like a mixture between a chuckle and a sob but... Damn, when was the last time he could say he laughed? And not in cruelty?
After he was convinced he wasn't going to be all pathetic and teary when he looked at her, Deacon drew back and released the ghoul. He was smiling and probably for the first time she was seeing him genuinely happy. What she had presented to him with that simple little piece of metal meant more to him than she could have realized.
She not only accepted him, but trusted him.
He still didn't know what to do with himself. He practically felt like a kitten again. "Thank you," he managed to say without sounding too giddy.
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Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:37 pm
Riyo's ears folded back as the big softie started laughing. "... I wasn't joking!" The ghoul hissed, pouting because she wasn't sure what to do this time. Was he crying? Was he laughing? ********, she didn't know!
But when he finally drew back, she could clearly see that Deacon wasn't crying. No, on the contrary. He was smiling. A smile that was so genuine and heartfelt, The feline couldn't help but stare at his face in awe. It was the first time he had ever smiled like that. The first time she knew of, at least.
When the boil pulled back, Riyo folded her arms and turned her nose up. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I just gave you a piece of metal." The demoness mumbled, trying to downplay the whole scenario. Really the overwhelming gratefulness was a little disconcerting. It hit her so fast, and in such a quantity.
"Just uh..." Her finger tapped against her arm as she pondered. "... I can't take away the suffering... Or the pain. Or the insecurity, but... You don't have to suffer by yourself." It seemed like such a measly thing when she put it that way. It made her stomach clench in pain. The bitterness. The desire to let him suffer alone. Her bottled up anger.
But Riyo had made her decision, and there was no way she would go back on her word now.
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