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 Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 11:32 am
She'd been sleeping (well, half-sleeping; more out of a desire to Not Be Awake than any actual sleepiness) until a few minutes ago: but there were footsteps coming, jingling, and that made Chrysocolla incredibly nervous. As far as she could tell, they seemed to be mostly leaving her alone; any screams she'd heard and couldn't rationalize away as waking hallucinations, they'd almost always been adult vocalizations. So -- maybe that meant she was okay. And Sylvite, too. Sylvite didn't deserve this happening to her. (She couldn't say the same for some of the elder Negaverse soldiers. She'd seen them in action. She knew what kind of things they did.) If Amphitrite hadn't been taken -- and Amphi was smart, talented, ferocious, how could they -- she'd be looking for her sister. And that'd -- be okay. That'd be alright. It'd be a few days, the school had probably called Sylvite's parents, called Amphitrite... But - at the same time - the aura approaching her -- it was sickly-sweet in the back of her head, lights gone rancid. It almost hurt to feel. So Chrysocolla kept her head up, took a deep breath: and waited for the entrance.
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 3:22 pm
The expression on his face, when he entered the room, was one of annoyance.
So young, Celsus thought, as he watched her shift around, the door to the cell creaking as he slid it open, bars rattling. Are they always so young? Does the Negaverse seem to make a habit of recruiting only the young and the simple?
The door clanged shut, and Celsus stood there, eyes hooded and dark.
"What's your name?" he asked.
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 5:57 pm
Chrysocolla pouted in a way that might have been intended to make her seem innocent -- more likely, it was just a childish measure of displeasure. As soon as Celsus began to talk, though, that all fell away; baring raw desperation and worry. "Before I tell you anything, I need to know something: is...is Lieutenant Sylvite alright? She's a child -- you people took her when you took me -- I need to know that she's alright."
She knew she didn't wield any power here. That wasn't hard to feel -- even through the dampening, she could feel his aura faintly, the ugliest sort of bright-light possible she'd ever known. And with the cape, with the trailing glow: third-level, undoubtedly. Fully realized.
He could kill her here, and nobody would know.
(Amphitrite would come for her. Cinnabar would come for her. Someone would come for everyone here. It'd be alright.)
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:13 pm
His eyebrows rose.
"I'm afraid I don't recognize that name," Celsus said jerkily, shifting where he stood. The whip had not been summoned yet; instead he just observed her, from the top of her head, to the cracks in her forehead, to the non-militaristic uniform she wore.
"You're one of them," he said flatly, swallowing back a rush of bile.
"The corrupted. The traitors."
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Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 1:22 pm
"Don't tell me that," came the retort, eyes narrowing. "But -- fine, okay? My name is Chrysocolla. Super of Moods. Is that it? I-is that what you want?" Her voice was shaking like a leaf, and Chrysocolla tried to scoot backwards, away from Celsus. (She didn't get awfully far; it wasn't like the chains keeping her hands cuffed allowed her too much range of movement from the wall.)
"If anyone's a traitor, it's you -- get off our planet, get off our world - you're not wanted here." She spit, aiming at his boots.
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Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:11 pm
"You don't get to make the rules here," said Celsus dispassionately. "What I choose to tell you and what I choose not to remains within my own power, last I checked. And yes," he added, with a slight inclination of his head that might have been a nod. "That is what I want, Chrysocolla, Super of Moods."
Her aim was good, but Celsus had the advantage of years of moving; and even if his body was weaker than it should have been, he still was able to shift slightly out of the way, so that her spit did not hit his foot, but the floor instead. His gaze had not changed, but something in his eyes had flickered.
"This world is not yours," said Celsus quietly. "Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The Negaverse does that, after all," he added, as he began to pace, his hands shaking.
"They'll tell you that you're a part of them, but you're not. You never will be."
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 6:39 am
Chrysocolla flinched when he shifted out of the way and began to pace, shrinking into herself, struggling to find the appropriate words to get her tongue in check. "The Negaverse gave me everything," came the retort, "and they treat me better than you ever did. They gave me a family. Friends. Training."
"T-those are things I never had with your people." (She was lying: Chrysocolla barely remembered anything from when she'd been White Moon, except flickers of - images. Outfits. A feeling or two, when she saw people. But - in this case, it might work better to lie. To make him upset, if it was successful.)
"I h-have a team. And if anyone says I don't belong, they're jealous, because I get better results than they do. Don't project onto me, Knight...it's not nice."
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 3:41 pm
A laugh escaped him, harsh and bitter.
"A family," Celsus said softly. "What a peculiar word for the Negaverse. I would have thought that they saw you corrupted senshi as nothing more than their own sort of...mascots to parade around. A trophy, really, nothing more, nothing less."
He gave a little shrug that was more of a jerk of his stiff shoulders than anything else, and another laugh escaped, hollow and entirely devoid of feeling and humor.
"Anyone who automatically assumes jealousy in situations such as these really doesn't understand anything at all," said Celsus quietly, as he turned his head to look at Chrysocolla once more, the dim florescent lighting catching on his glasses and turning the lenses nearly opaque. "It sounds much too like you're compensating for something lacking instead."
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:16 am
"N-no, I mean -" she sputtered wordlessly for a few seconds more, fingers jerking into shapes they couldn't complete - "...I mean an actual family, jerk. My sister, Sailor Amphitrite...she'll be here. She's a lot better than I am." The look on Chrysocolla's face grew tender for a second; but then she schooled her face back into glaring again. "W-we're not trophies or tools, we're soldiers just like every other member of the Negaverse! And if Officers don't like us, they can keep it to themselves!"
At his implication that something was lacking, there was a huff. "I don't know, um...maybe all my memories before last summer? Those would be nice?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 5:58 pm
The connection between the two clicked into place. Celsus gave a knowing nod, filing this information away for later and wondering whether or not she should have given it in the first place. He'd told people in the Order that he had a twin, but he'd never given so much away about Tolliver to the Negaverse, and he never would.
"You sound like a child," said Celsus, casting a look her way with narrowed eyes, his heartbeat erratic against his ribs; and he felt the distinct wrongness of it all somewhere in the haze of his messed up thoughts, as though everything was just off.
"Come to think of it," he continued, giving her a closer look, eyes narrowing slightly.
"You are a child, aren't you?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:57 am
Another time, another place, another person: maybe Chrysocolla would have been angry at being called a child. But here, now, with Celsus? She didn't mind it all that much. It was a way for him to class her away - is what she'd say, what she'd think, if she was in that rational section of her mind - but she wasn't. She was panicked, worried, scared and angry - her self-interest, self-preservation, and everything else were all boiling and swirling without a drain to excise them away.
Her heartbeat fluttered in her chest like a frantic fledgeling.
"I m-mean -- I'm fifteen, so -- yes, I'm a child -- what's it to you?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:15 am
He stared at her for what seemed like hours, though in reality couldn't have been more than a few seconds at most. His throbbing head was like a beating drum in the dim lighting of the cell, and his pulse quickened unsteadily, his breath stuttering out of him.
And then he began to laugh.
It was not humorous laughter, but something hollow and bitter, something almost desperate and strained. Celsus pressed his hand to his mouth, half muffling the sound, and gave a short, sharp shake of his head that made his vision waver, made his head spin.
"Fifteen," he managed to get out, and it sounded almost pained, incredulous. "They send - they send - children into this war like they send adults, they think - why should they - "
The stupidity of it all, of his own actions, of everyone's actions was sinking into him, and his pale face grew paler still, Celsus' eyes fluttering before they fell shut, the laughter still trickling weakly out, his fingers rising, the heel of his hand pushing up his glasses and pressing against one of his eyes.
"I can't believe this," he whispered, and it was almost not to himself. "What are they - what am I - "
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Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:51 am
At Celsus' laughing, her heart stuck in her throat -- she was so scared, so angry, it hurt -- and her breathing picked up, pitching up an octave, tears forming in her eyes.
"D-do you want to know something, Knight?" Chrysocolla stopped, taking a shivering breath. "At least we don't recruit nine-year-olds. Lit-literal children...I w-was --" a second of consideration -- "fourteen when one of your cats woke m-me up -- I killed for you until I couldn't take it anymore - " It was only mildly founded on reason - she barely remembered anything except what Umber had told her (and flickers of images, sounds, feelings) - but that was enough. "Y-you let children do that, teach them how to bring blood -- w-we're the bad ones? We're the bad guys?!" Her voice hit an ugly peak, half-yelling, cracking over the high notes.
(Her throat hurt, now.)
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:45 pm
He couldn't even argue against it. He couldn't even tell her that they didn't, that it wasn't he who recruited the younger senshi. The knights all tended to be older, but the senshi - he couldn't make excuses for them, for the fact that there were younger ones.
Celsus shook his head slowly, and his eyes were too bright, glassy, though no tears had been shed.
"I never made anyone kill," he whispered. "And I never killed. You can't take one bad egg and make it rot the whole barrel just because you want to."
Isn't that what you're doing right now?
Celsus closed his eyes.
"I'll leave you alone," he said quietly, the laughter long since dying away. He took a step towards the door, hating every part of himself, hating each and every cell inside of the body he was trapped in. "You'll be here a while; get used to it."
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Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 1:13 pm
"B-by letting this happen to us -" her hands moved in an aborted gesture, kept in check by the chains - "you're killing us -- you're just as bad as they are." Chrysocolla's breath came in harsh gasps, and she desperately attempted to meet eyes with Celsus in a fruitless attempt.
"You're not doing anything to stop them. I hope you rot."
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