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bristling vale || 10/25 || walk of shame

Vale was remarkably good at shrinking himself down to a harmless, withered state, pathetic in the way his hands curled toward his chest and his feet shuffled across the ground. He jumped at shadows as they moved, flinched at her words when she spoke. Sometimes he muttered softly to himself, almost nonsensically, when they found hallways with no one but themselves.

„Y-yes mistress,“ he answered sullenly. He shuffled on with eyes cast downward. He counted the tiles as they passed under his feet.

Where are they, he wondered to himself. Where are they that none will come to my aid now? Corr? Mynn?

Vale knew, by virtue of living in his skin, the fate that awaited him if they reached Alois. Hate and fear marinated in the very core of him, wretched through and through, though he wondered precisely how much hate was his own. Was he still living in Aloi’s mind, a foot in each domain?

He must be, he decided, for the skin of others gave him the freedom to act for himself.

bristling vale || 10/25 || simpering

Vale crept along behind her, dejected. He offered no further words to break the silence - there was no need. Quietude was, perhaps, his worst enemy here for he could’ve drawn attention to himself, but Vale found often enough that playing safe freed him from terrible situations.

He looked to the door only as Autumn knocked, and quickly let his gaze fall once more.

alois scholz || 25/25 || wot

Alois drew open the door quietly and faced Autumn, his face no more decorated than before. He wore no mask yet, which evidenced his procrastination. „You found somesing?“ He opened the door wider, spared a peek, and snarled in disgust. „Ew,“ he exlaimed emphatically. "Ew. I don’t want it. Put it away.“ He slammed the door thereafter, affirming his disgust.

A second later, it reopens. „No really, what ze ******** is it? It’s ugly. And dead-looking. Did Spinel Skank s**t zat one out? Ugh. Come in, I guess, since you’re going to fob it off on me anyway.“ He stood aside and gestured toward the back of the wine cellar where the wine-tasting spread still stood.

alois scholz || 25/25 || not amused

“I’f never tasted c** eizer,“ he shot back, then paused. „Wait, I haf’ a Doppelgänger.“ He finished, smug at his perfect pronunciation of a native word. A shoulder checked the door shut and he stood against it, arms crossed, as mirth faded. That creepy thing Autumn dragged in behind her unsettled him somewhat.

„Zat… is not me. I don’t look like zat. Right? s**t, do I really look like zat to everyone?“ Panic started to seize him, but in checking his own bare arms against the creature’s, he found no similarity. There must’ve been some magic to blame for the discrepancy. „So you’re saying zis was ze masked me zat was wandering around tonight. It doesn’t look anysing like me. Explain zis, because it doesn’t make much sense. And where is its mask?

„And what’s wis’ ze name?“

bristling vale || 10/25 || simpering

Several moments passed before the creature stirred up enough voice to respond. Initially the words came slowly, quietly, and mournfully. Soon he built up enough volume to make himself heard. „… It is true. I imitated you for the time that you were with Father. I resumed your life so that no one would know that you were gone.“

„And it worked, obviously,“ the German shot back.

Withered fingers gathered together near his stomach, holding inside all the fear he grew. „I had specific duties. I was to change things for you, so I did. Your place of residence, your demeanor, your friends. After I lived as you for a while, it grew easier. Most people didn’t suspect.“

Alois temper flared and he clamped jaw, left himself to simmer. He closed eyes for a time and drew a slow breath. He could feel the burning. „What was ze point of dragging him down here to tell me zis? My life wasn’t great in ze first place so I don’t know why you’d want to take it from me and scramble it. I doubt your Daddy sought I was much use to him. Please tell me my dog was smart enough to bite you on ze a**.“

Vale paused, and looked to Autumn pleadingly.

“You shot my dog,“ Alois echoed numbly. Temptation drew him in all directions - to weep, to anger, to hate, to resignation, to dolorous surrender. He read of unrealism once before, in old war novels, telling of soldiers so stricken with shellshock that the world ceased in its stability. Events and thoughts and feelings all stuttered about independent of each other, insignificant, staccato and legato and vibrato in a mess of a meat grinder symphony. He heard it ascribed only to war, this sudden absence. When feeling leaves, one is to call it shock, but Alois found this term a misnomer in that moment. A shock, he decided, is a powerful jolt - a tenth of a second at most. This was a long, slow drain. A nothingness.

Ich bin zutiefst erschüttert.

He tried again. „You shot my dog.“ No emotion came. He walked, but he didn’t feel the ground.

„Is he dead?“

„I had no choice. He was beginning to suspect!“ Again those pathetic fingers sunk inward - no, his whole body curled inward as he backed away from his former victim. „He knew, and no one else could! I couldn’t risk the attention if he drew them to me!“

„Is. He. Dead.“ Hawkish eyes remained fixed on the shuddering creature. He drew to a stop not far from Vale, but not close enough to pose a threatening presence. A softer voice came from him then, one that sounded unlike his usual guttural language. „It’s alright. Just tell me. Did he survif’e it? Is he still alive? I just want to know if he’s okay.“

Vale faltered, considered himself, and kept to his whimpering form. „No. I’m sorry, no-„

And Alois found motion. It was peculiar, he thought, for mind to simply separate from body. For the two to act independent of each other, he considered it impossible. The mind manipulates the body and that was that. Nerve impulses did not fire on their own without outside influence. That idea was preposterous, disproven in the early years of psychology and biological influence. A shock, he reminded himself. A shock operated the body on its own. A shock chased away deep wells of depression with the twitch of a foot. One by one by one by one the seconds passed and that foot twitched and all crippling despair withered away. One shock, he thought. Just one shock and your body isn’t yours to command anymore.

Perhaps a shock really was the right term.

For when mind rejoined body, he found himself amidst a scene - one hand froze just underneath Vale’s jaw, fingers pinched frightfully white at the adjoining sections of skull and mandible. Vale’s mouth, frozen open in gurgling hate, spat red at him with glistening shards between stained bone. His fingers, he realized, clasped over the creature’s mouth. Beside him, as his gaze started to take in his surroundings, he found a handful of wineglass stems. Broken and jagged, they rolled across the table in ineffectual half-moons. They only progressed further in their rotations with Vale’s struggle against him. Curiously, he could find no shattered remains of their cups.

He lifted his hand from Vale’s mouth and clear gravel, spattered with spit and blood, were spat back at him. They ran down his bare chest in slow descent before falling to the floor entirely. His own palm bled with the myriad cuts and nicks obtained in the process he could not recall. With both hands now pressed against Vale’s chest, he leaned forward until his lips poised next to the hole where an ear once lingered. „You shot my dog,“ he whispered carefully, „and now he’s gone.“ A hand left his chest. A cold tube of glass touched his palm and he gathered fingers around it. „So I’m going to hurt our father.“

alois scholz || 25/25 || not ok

Vale’s brightened screams formed a backdrop to their conversation, obscuring them from unwanted eavesdroppers. Alois regarded it as coldly himself, as unfeelingly. He flexed fingers but the numbness still cursed the skin of his arms. His hand bled from its own cuts. Wiping it on the sarong did little good.

„No,“ he echoed quietly, „we are not like zem. Zey haf’ purpose, and reason, and see and understand a world beyond our own. One zat we just barely haf’ ze eyes to see. We are ze prisoners in chains, wrenched by neck and legs to look at a wall full of animalistic shadows. Zat is our world to lif’ in, and we’f only barely turned from our paltry little world to see ze fire. Zat much I haf’ learned on my own. Out zere, beyond our caf’e, zat’s where zey lif’ in understanding of ze world at large. You’re right, Autumn. We’re not like zem. We’re less zan zem.“ His anger grew cold like the fire on his Father’s back.

His hands began to quake. Feeling threatened to return. My dog is dead and I don’t understand why. „Zey aren’t simple like us, Autumn. Zey don’t respond to pain as easily as we. Out zere, do you sink I could pin Ezra down and do ze same to him? No - I’d be a witch over a bonfire in half a breat’. Zis sing, zis creature zat you brought here, he will be enough. I know…“ His voice began to quake, and he loosed a steady breath. His eyes closed to the scene. „It’s easy to sink he cares for me like he says. I know it as a falsehood. We are of two different worlds zat ultimately don’t reconcile. How could he lof’e me? But him,“ he pointed a finger toward the fetch, „Ezra would lof’e him.

„So I’ll sreaten a Fat’er wis’ losing a son. I’ll buy his vote in ze committe.“

bristling vale || 10/25 || getting healed thank ******** style="font-size: 10px">Coughing and sputtering around Autumn’s tending fingers bloodied them deeply. Claret and clots. He gasped in air even as it hurt terribly to do so. With every rasp and wheeze he looked to her, and with his gaze, the pain fell away slightly. She helped him - was helping him. Gratefulness found no words around glass, however, and he continued to spit up chunk after chunk of rocky, bitter shards.

He touched her hands in thanks, even if it meant nothing to do so.

alois scholz || 25/25 || quiet

If that’s all you think we are, then this is all you ******** deserve.

„… Ah.“ The word sounded stiff and useless in their stagnant silence. Autumn was enraged, and Vale lay bloody against the counter.

You did well, to apologize. I know it doesn’t come naturally to you, dear boy.

A hand found the wall - the bloody one, of course. He followed the brickwork toward the door in a long smear of progress. Step by step he trod over dirt until he found access to the thick oak that barred him from the party outside. His free hand found the handle and threw it open. Still, the crowd sounded far away.

The hand slipped out, leading its bloody trail across the door jamb. Soon the door closed softly behind.

bristling vale || 10/25 || <;

When he thought he found the strength to speak, he tried to wrench out the words. „Thank you.“ While spotted and caked with blood, the words were real - as real as the withered creature that laid beneath Autumn’s hands.