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 Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:09 pm
It's a bright night, oppressive cloud cover overhead reflecting streetlights back onto the pavement. Despite the lack of stars and the occluded moon, the two AM stillness seems more like dawn or maybe the last moments before dusk transitions to twilight.
Thorne makes the transition to the otherworld without even knowing it, and there on the other side waits a lady in formal dress.
"Oh," she says. Her face is shadowed blue from raindrops and her expression cannot be discerned. That lovely low alto is disappointed. "He's broken. Poor thing."
"Humans heal, mistress," something says. "He's still ripe. Can't you taste it?"
The lady sighs. "I suppose there isn't anything else to do for it..."
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:17 pm
The night is hungry, and dark, and Thorne starves for it. He had been restless, too restless for sleep, too restless for comfort. And now - now he is here. And there is someone waiting on the other end. Adrenaline, mute and cavernous, flares beneath his skin, deep in the marrow of his bones. The words catch and tear at him - he knows danger when he sees it. He knows to tread carefully here. Asking the wrong questions - what, who, why - will do nothing but get him killed faster. "Whatever it is you're searching for, you can find better than me." He tilts his head at the woman, his eyes narrow and watchful in the dark. "As you've said yourself, I am broken." A pause. Brittle. "I doubt there is anything I can do to be of service to you."
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:25 pm
"He demurs," says the lady to her companion. "Perhaps another?" There is a sound like breathing through mucus, a gurgling inhalation. "You don't find this one pleasing?" "It isn't as if humans are pretty dresses. They aren't just for the summer solstice." "That creature of--" A sharp sound, and the voice breaks off. "You find him beautiful, mistress. I know you do." The woman reaches down. Fingers cool as bone and smooth as marble trace Thorne's face, capture his jaw in her palm. The geometry of her face is Euclidian, beautiful as a building collapse, cold as deep water. "Humans heal," she repeats, thoughtfully. "And look at his lovely eyes." "Like fresh soil," supplies the second voice. "A wild rose. Is that what you are, my pet?" Her tone is detached. Disinterested. And yet she hasn't left.
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:41 pm
This conversation is set entirely beyond Thorne. The gurgling voice and the woman act as though they're talking dresses instead of people. You should run, the smooth voice of reason hums, pressing its influence on him. But Thorne isn't stupid. He knows where he is. There are other things lurking here - and without a way out, it might just be as suicidal to run as it is to stay. Thorne doesn't balk when he's held by his jaw, the woman filling his vision with her beauty. She is terrible and wicked and makes everything in Thorne weak with surrender. She is beautiful in the way that gods and monsters and myths are. Apart from all the rest. It reminds Thorne of Other Ashdown. More than that, it reminds him of what he is. "I am nothing," Thorne replies evenly, tilting his head down to look her in the eye, his expression wild - an animal gaze. "I am nothing, however poetic you want to write me to be." His smile is slow and crushing - the sort of smile that carried the weight of adrenaline being suppressed. My pet, she called him. But he wasn't something to be owned."And I am certainly not yours."
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:48 pm
She smiles, the gesture sudden and horrible like the flash of a flick-knife. It's gone just as fast. Her eyes, pitch black in a stark face, bore into his. "Nothing," she repeats. "What a clever boy. Like a dog that's learned to speak." She releases his jaw, but only for a moment. A moment later, her hand has covered his face, strength inexorable. "Go back to sleep, pet. I'll see you again soon…" As Thorne's consciousness fades, the woman's voice says, "Corr, to work," and after that he hears no more.
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:58 pm
Thorne knows at once he's said something wrong - but then, when has't he, in his life, made all of the wrong decisions - before he is taken over, all at once. The woman's voice slices through him, every word like a lash. A dog. That's right. That's right. That's - Thorne thinks he's drowning. His vision is swallowed in black, in something so dark it is beyond night. He hears her words, her vicious command, but it's lost on him. His lungs collapse in his chest. Everything burning. And then - Nothing. Nothing.
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