She was a Hunter. A Human. This was a bone-deep truth that could not be denied and, even if she had tried, there was no arguing with ALICE. Mimsy had made it clear in more than a million ways how the AI program was always right, was omniscient, was a kind of goddess to her sister.
Bare feet scuffed against the hallway floors as Cami did something that would give Caroline a heart-attack should the redhead find out about it: she was going to visit her mentor. The Nothing was incredibly different physically from Mr. Lawrence but he was nonetheless the same person and, by all accounts, as dangerous and wicked a human as there was. But Nothing had been so good to Camixi. There had been admiration, affection, a sort of relationship that was...well. It wasn't fatherly but it was some sort of mutual respect and enjoyment of each other's company.
Honestly the whole thing was upsetting, confusing, and instead of trying to figure it out for herself Camille was going straight to the source.
Barely considering that Lawrence might have had his own crises going on she rapped sharply on his door. "Mr. La...Noth? Are you in there?" It was actually probably best to use their assumed names for now. You never knew who was in on this and who wasn't.
baneful
Character's name: Camixi Character's clan: Famine Sage Character's journal link:[ x ] Character's Arcana: Justice BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER: Surprisingly young. 5'4" with big pale blue eyes, dusky skin, and delicate wings usually pressed against her back like a cloak. She never wears shoes if she can help it and has a tendency to go towards 'traditional' famine dress.
Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 5:58 pm
Lawrence adjusted to his new reality with a resignation bordering on the insane. It was simply a fact that he was a famine horseman, it was merely a fact that he was called Nothing. It was another persona and so long as he wore the costume he would continue to play that part.
The only problem was that he didn't know how.
The thing was, the most distressing thing of all - that other self had been in possession of emotions. Genuine ones. He knew it in a hazy way, like the way you knew who someone was in a dream in spite of them looking nothing like themselves. He had felt. But now he was awake he no longer had any grasp about how or even what it had been like. He could recall decisions but not the logic behind why he'd made them.
Nothing had been monogamous to his two partners, never acting out, never feeling bored or hungry for more than he had. He'd wanted to care for his student, he'd wanted to raise his kid, love his partners and learn. It was so alien, too alien to even replicate going forward.
He was very distressed.
The only positive thing was that whatever he was now had such a long lifespan he couldn't even imagine the length he'd lived. There was that, but it didn't take away his concerns.
Hearing someone at the door he headed over to open it, even walking feeling strange, the weight of his wings causing him trouble. "Cami." he said, not sounding anxious but looking oddly frazzled in his posture. "Did you remember too?"
nessihime
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Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 7:01 pm
Agitation was written in every line of the poor girl's body as she nodded. "Unfortunately." Which was a sentiment she prayed that he shared with her. "I remember everything about the island, and being human, and how badly I wish I didn't remember at all." This wasn't the first time she had forgotten everything and it made her wonder if she would remember being 22 again. Or if she might become 22 again!
From everything she could piece together about her life on the island prior to whatever the hell had made her a kid again, her life had not been a happy one. Not at that point anyway. Not to mention little!Cami thought that big!Cami had some rather ******** ideas about the world.
"This is too complicated so I uhm...I came to you. Since I remember trusting you." A dangerous thing to say to Lawrence but she wasn't talking to him. Not really. She was talking to the Nothing. "Can we talk about it?" Her look was hopeful.
baneful
Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:21 am
She remembered trusting him. He remembered that too, even remembered a strange altruism towards her that made no sense, a desire to help her even at cost to himself. It was alien to him, illogical and nothing like any decision he would make now. Thinking about it was sharply humorous to him in his right mind. Either it was love or masochism, but perhaps both were one and the same thing just under a different name. It wasn’t the sort of decision he’d make now, that kind of meandering and aimless good will had no place in his life. He was always asking what was in it for him? The only reason he’d endure such humiliation so long right now would be in the hope of some future tryst and what on earth was the point in waiting however many years for someone to mature who would doubtless hop into bed with anyone when the time came. It wasn’t special, she wasn’t special.
So why? On the island, he kept her around because she was interesting and it annoyed Caroline, but here he didn’t even think it mattered as much, Caroline here was even more of an exaggerated militant bonehead feminist than she was anywhere else, she barely even knew he existed. None of it made any sense. “Sure.” He said. “I’d be happy to, and I’m glad you trusted me, I’ve told you plenty of times I mean you no harm, I hope that if nothing else this world drove that fact home, I have a lifetime of caring about you and right now all I want is ... I just want to help you, I lost a daughter to my own foolishness, I want to help you.”
In front of him was a shard of his perfection, a decision made on the back of emotion, the very thing he’d been pursuing for decades without gaining any ground, she was an artefact, a creation of his efforts. She was a divine creation and reverting to her former self, that crass and manipulated lost cause who swore fealty only to Caroline and and always would was all but heresy. There was a coldness, old and familiar that sloshed into his chest like the settling of liquid mercury, a steely resolve which filled in the gaps in logic and made sense of the chaos of feelings.
This was a dream, an untraceable world where Deus couldn’t reach them and there could be no consequence. If Cami did not wake then it would be a tragedy but he would be unrelated to it. Her memory would endure here simply as the little horseman he’d loved, if indeed it was love. A testament to the fact that he could, that he had, that he was perfect.
“This other self had a method of inducing memories that I recall. A simple ritual. If you will trust me again I want to try it, to see if it can help you communicate with the world outside of here, to send a distress call to them and get us out.” He withdrew a strip of fabric from his robes. “All it requires is a blindfold and some of the nectar you are so familiar with in your false life here.”
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 4:28 pm
Having taken a seat without invitation Camille had her head propped in her hands as she listened to Lawrence talk. A part of her was screaming that trusting this man was such a poor idea, that it was dangerous, that she was going to get hurt this way but it was a faint voice at best. A glimmer of a world that she wasn't sure existed despite what ALICE said.
It was his comment about her 'false life' that had her raising her head enough to scowl. "Is this really the false world then? This happy life?" Where she had a family that loved her, a mentor that cared for her, a place. A purpose. On Deus she was a burden more than anything else and it tore at the edges of her very self to be such a thing. She'd been a burden her whole life to someone who did not care for her even a fraction of what Caroline and Mimsy did.
Did she really have go to back?
"What if I wanted to stay in this dream? This place? I...I can help send your signal if you'd like but you'd have to tell them to leave me here. This is where I want to be." Because obviously she had a say in the matter. If Deus had taught her anything in a scant few months it was that yes, being a child gave her some freedom, but it was an invisible hand that was guiding her.
Shoulders slumped. "Or at least can you try?"
baneful
Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 1:40 pm
"You'd stay here?" he asked with curiosity. He couldn't imagine trying to stay here, to fit into a shape he could never fit, unable to emulate the emotional range of his other self. "But if you want to stay here I will do all I can to make sure that you do."
Because he hoped that there would be a permanence if he managed to trap her here, a permanent beautiful echo of this version of her that cared about him. "I owe it to you for his sake."
He held out the blindfold.
[quote="nessihime']
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 12:17 pm
Taking the blindfold Cami turned back towards Lawrence and looked at him with new eyes. Before she had been confused on how to think of him, the mistrust that Caroline had been determined to seed within her child reflecting out of her blue eyes. Now there was the trust that Nothing would have been so used to seeing from Camixi, a fragile new bond forming out of this exchange.
"Thank you." Her words were quiet before she reached up and tied the cloth across her eyes. There were a few moments of adjusting to make sure that she couldn't see anything more than shadows passing across her field of vision before holding her thumb up in the affirmative. "I'm ready to help."
baneful
Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 1:19 pm
He smiled and it was a cold and brilliant sort of smile, well practiced but somehow frozen. When she put the blindfold on it faded, set aside like a surgeon setting aside a scalpel. "Then we can help one another. Thank you cami, I truly can understand why this version of me thinks so highly of you."
He knew the nectars, knew each shelf and label and he retrieved one which faintly glowed purple in the dim light. Around him the moths danced a strange fractured sort of dance, some colliding clumsily into walls, others moving in bizarre erratic and jerky flights around Cami as if they'd forgotten how to truly move like moths.
Pressing the cup into her hand he gently said. "Take this and drink from it. I think it will help."
If she took a sip, the effect was immediate, sense clouding and hallucinogenic.
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 1:44 pm
The poor child was too young to understand why the phrase 'this version of me' spoke volumes about Lawrence and so it passed by her completely unnoticed. The bodies of erratic moths bumping against her skin was too distracting, the blindfold disorienting her so much that she nearly dropped the glass pressed into her hands. Had he not still been holding on, still pressing it against her palms, it would have hit the floor and been wasted.
Blowing out a slow breath that shook a little around the edges she lifted the glass to her mouth, the taste both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time -- it had likely been mixed into something else before. Then, she really didn't remember much of anything.
Colors swam behind her eyelids as Cami's head lolled to the side like she was drunk on whatever it was he had given her. A soft giggle filled the space. "Wooooooahhh..."
baneful
Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 5:22 pm
It was wonderful to behold and took him back. He could only wish that humans had the vast array of elixirs that ranged on the walls here with the vast and equally impossible range of effects.
Moving away for a moment, he retrieved a different sort of implement, a razor sharp scalpel which had been sharpened to the finest honed edge.
Reaching out he took hold of her jaw carefully and the moths stopped, falling out of the air and dropping twitching to the floor around them like rain.
"Help me to help you." he said intently and reaching out dragged the blade across her throat, taking extra care to sever all the major veins and arteries he knew were there, the poison weakening the shield into being no longer too much of an issue.
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 7:15 pm
The touch on her jaw made her jump the slightest bit but Lawr was calm enough, determined enough, to wait for her to relax again to end her life. Pain bloomed against her throat as the glass shattered now against the stone floors so that her hands could creep up towards the ruin there. They did not make it before her body dissipated into nothing but pure Fear.
Hours later she would wake in her bed as she had at the beginning of that hour of clarity remembering nothing at all. There was no blemish to her skin to remind her that she had been callously murdered. All Camixi remembered was that she had felt so very tired and had, apparently, slept much longer than she wanted.
