|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:47 am
*Transfer from Google docs
Gevaudan
They had taken the other girl into another room. Much like Leto, she was chained to a metal chair. Gev made sure to follow as many details as he could remember, but there were some he could not follow. While Leto had kept them in the bowels of a warehouse, devoid of light, he could not allow himself that luxury again to replicate the same place for her. It set his panic attacks off, and the last thing he wanted to do was be unable to bear being in the same room at Leto when he hungered for this moment.
It was only a day, but he refused them food and water. If he saw their head drooping, he’d kick their chair. While Faustite had a time limit to his time outside, Gevaudan did not. He could spend as long as he wanted in this form, and he was willing to do just that. There was no reason to go home. No reason to send a text to Hawa. None of it mattered now.
This mattered.
Gev did not scrap the metal chair against the ground as the sound sent shivers down his own spine, and entered the room that Leto was kept. It was dark but had a window further up. Enough to keep him sane. Enough for him to look at and be assured there was light. There was a place to go. Of course this window was behind Leto. All she could see were the 3 windowless walls and the metal door. Setting the chair down, he sat down slowly, set one ankle atop one knee, and opened a fresh bottle of water to drink. He had brought provisions for himself among other things for this occasion, one behind a knife and a lighter that he was keeping in his jacket pocket.
Humming, he took a long drink of the water before looking back at Leto. “We have plenty of time to kill. Thought I’d check in.” He said with a smile.
“It’s been a while, Leto.”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:52 am
Leto
Tired -- no, exhausted -- was the one thing that Leto felt in the moments that she sat chained to the cold metal chair. Every once in a while her fingernails scratched at the chair, both out of boredom and anxiety, her wrists turning in her binds as if that would somehow free her. As if Wolframite (or whatever the ******** his new name was, she realized she actually had no idea), was stupid enough to have kept her restraints that loose. Her head hung forward, her long hair draped over her shoulders and parts of her face. Every once in a while her eyes would drift close, but she was sure she hadn’t actually been able to sleep. It was only when she heard the door open that her red eyes peered up, her dry lips cracking as she grinned at the man that entered.
She watched him sit and take a long drink of his water, her tongue running over her bottom lip. It was clear that he was doing it on purpose as he’d know that she’d be both hungry and thirsty by this point.
Sitting up as straight as she could in the chair, she smirked at him. “Cut the chit chat bullshit, Wolframite. We both know you’re not just checking in, as if you give a flying ******** about my well-being.”
She shifted slightly, her hands clenching and unclenching, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “What do you want?”
Direct and to the point, per usual.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:04 am
Gevaudan
He smiled at that. “Ever to the point.”
“You do realize what is happening don’t you? You weren’t wrong that I became a knight to go after you. Well, in some parts. After the collar came off and I served my time to you, I knew things weren’t changing. I wonder, did you think I’d stop suddenly because of that?” He asked.
“I’ve given up a lot to be here. This. Here. It’s not going to stop. You did this. You made this possible.”
He rose up, moving past her chair to be behind her.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without your help.” A hand pressed into the soft feathers of Leto’s wings as he gently stroked them. “What worthless wings. All show and imagery but useless. They don’t fly. You tear them off and they just return again.”
His hand continues to pet the upper bone down to the wingtips. “Do you remember those days? Back when you first took us. Back when we were all lined up room by room just far enough to so we couldn’t talk to each other but close enough to hear each other scream? What did you think when you heard that day and night? Did any of it matter to you or was it just a means to an end? Get the information you wanted? Bury the evidence. Hell, I doubted you’d even bury us in the end. Leave us there for some pedestrian maintenance worker to happen upon the corpses.”
A hand gripped tightly around the base of a wing. “You don’t even know what you took that day. From everyone. How much a talley you rang up with the rest of them.” A heel pressed to the back of the metal chair as he dug his nails into the soft feathers.
“Imagine what’s going through her head right now. That girl.”
And with that he pulled hard, remembering the strength he needed back when he had attacked Leto and pulled her wing free.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:06 am
Leto
“I mean, logic would dictate that if your superiors told you to stop, that you’d stop but,” she shrugged her slender shoulders slightly. “Clearly you didn’t give a ******** about what your superiors had to say, or we wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be…” She trailed off, her eyes looking him up and down now that she had a real moment to take him in. All in white, the sight almost made her gag. White was so righteous and pure- the exact things that Wolframite was not. Nor was she.
No, black definitely suited the two of them more.
Against her wishes, her body flinched as he gently caressed her wings as if she were a pet. She very distinctly remembered the feeling of his blade tearing into them, ripping them from the flesh of her back, before his hand pushed through her chest and wrapped around her starseed. She remembered the attack as if it were yesterday.
And she remembered the reason for that attack just as vividly. Operation Rota - the Blood Moon Court’s pride and joy. One of the very few successful missions the White Moon has ever pulled off. In fact, Leto could probably replay the entire thing scene by scene as if her brain had recorded it like a movie. Leto would never forget. And it appeared that Wolframite would never forgive - especially not now when there was no one that could stop him. No one that could brand him, or collar him.
Her head turned just enough so red eyes could settle on him. So she could see the pain in his eye and expression and much as she could hear it in her voice. She knew what she did- what Ares and the rest of the Court did. And the reminder made her smile up at him.
“Oh I remember. I remember every second, every hour, every day, every night. Every scream. Every dead body,” she said as he gripped the base of one of her wings. She held her gaze, cold and hard and as if daring him to do what she knew was coming next.
Imagine what’s going through her head right now.
“And I’d do it all over again without remorse,” she spat at him.
And then she screamed- loud, blood curdling, like a wild animal as he pried her wing from the skin on her back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:08 am
Gevaudan
It took strength and everything he had to pull the wing free, and there was a moment where the joint and sinew resisted before it all ripped free and sent him staggering back, the large wing twitching and jerking in his arms, the last memory of pain working through the severed nerves.
“That. That right there is what I wanted to hear.” He said, walking around her front to show off the wing and set it on the chair.
“So many want to believe that people change. That in the face of something they can only know as torture by label alone and wrong in their minds would somehow only be a one time occurance. That once done, remorse and guilt would fester and correct someone. How often did I hear that I should leave you alone. So often did others try and pass blame or offer kindness to you in hopes that you were used or wronged. That it wouldn’t happen again. That it was in the past. Coddling your actions. That you have changed. That you were absolved from responsibility because you aren’t Ares. That those deaths. Those days. Those nights. Those screams. All of it didn’t matter.”
“Just a poor little pawn following orders.” He touched the bleeding end of the wing as it jerkered and shuddered it’s last movements on the chair, speckling blood on the ground and splattering it over his hand. He left the gloves off. He wanted to feel this. All of this.
“But we know better.”
He turned and passed her again, moving to place his hand upon the other wing. “I haven’t found the others. Did they leave you too? Are you the only one left?” Was she the sole survivor of that time. Had the others rotted away like those he knew. Vanished. Decayed. Gone into the unknown without explanation.
He touched the wing foundly again, plucking a feather and sliding it behind her ear, his fingertips slick with her blood as they touched her earlobe. “Are we the only two who can talk about this now?”
Again, his hands gripped the base of her wings and pulled.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:09 am
Leto
Her entire body twitched and shuddered, blood pouring from the gaping wound left where her black wing had once been. It would come back the next time she powered up, she knew that- but the scar that it would leave would be one that she would have for the rest of her life. Her teeth clenched together, her jaw tight as she occasionally ground her teeth to keep from passing out from the pain. Her breathing was ragged, sweat now beading on her forehead.
“I was never a pawn,” she said with a shaky breath, her arms struggling against her binds as if she could possibly get away from him.
Her eyes closed as she felt him place a hand on her remaining wing, sure that she can expect round two at any moment.
“You should know by now I would never tell you a god damn thing about my comrades, former or present.” There wasn’t a chance in hell that she would give any of them up, not the ones that had joined her and Ares as Dark Mirror Senshi and not the ones that remained of the White Moon. They were all her family, and family doesn’t ******** snitch.
Trying to move her head away from his caress, she snarled at him.
“We have nothing to talk about, you piece of s**t. I should’ve killed you ages ago,” she said through clenched teeth, breathing heavily in anticipation with spit bubbling at the corners of her lips.
And then she screamed a second time, her fingertips bloodying while digging into the chair. Her small frame slouched forward and her head hung low, every breath becoming deeper, more panicked and desperate for air.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:11 am
Gevaudan
Holding the wing, he moved back and set it with the other, being careful to arrange them as if they were nothing more than a prop from a very high-end Victorian Secret runway show. Turning, he sat down, and he could feel the warmth of the wings against his back while one still twitched with its last deaththrows.
“You should have, but that’s long past now. I’m sure that would have been what everyone wanted in your court before it was stopped.”
Hands bloodied, he let them drip onto tho the ground. His expression had paled slightly, his breath a little more staggered, but not from exhaustion. Leto’s flailing had caused the chains to chime loudly against the metal of her chair and with the screaming it had turned his stomach and worked up the memories of the past again. Despite it being her, it was hard not to relate to those same noises. The way they echoed and bounced about the room and out into the corridor outside.
“No one is stopping us now. No one stops me from killing your court. No one will care if you kill a knight. It wasn’t even your court that saved you last time. The Negaverse had to help you live. I’ve meet your court. They’re afraid. Confused. Timid. You were all much stronger and organized under Ares. Is this your leadership.”
He pulled out the knife in his pocket and picked out some blood from under his nail, watching her.
“I said we have time, Leto. We can talk. Talk.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:13 am
Leto
All she could do was shake her head. It was slow, deliberate, her eyes eventually opening to meet his through the sweaty hair that clung to her forehead. She had to look at him, because if she looked down and saw the amount of blood she was sure she had lost, she would either vomit or pass out - if not both.
“Let her go,” she muttered. It was quiet the first time, ragged. She shook her head a second time and repeated herself, louder this time. Making a point. “Let. Her. Go.”
While Loreley was not in the same room as her, she could feel the dull thrull of a power signature nearby, likely in the room next to her. All it told her was that she was alive, which she supposed she could consider a win, knowing the Knight and his murderous tendencies. But alive wasn’t good enough, she needed her free. Safe.
“She’s innocent. They’re all innocent, they had nothing to do with this! It’s me you want, not them.” The more she spoke the more her anger began to bubble in the pit of her stomach, her temper flaring. She completely ignored his threats, his demand for her to talk, to answer his questions. Thrashing wildly against her restraints she desperately tried to get at him, as if she were a caged beast.
“Let her ******** go!”
The room began to spin and darkness pricked at the corners of her eyes- she was losing blood too quickly and the more she fought the worse it got. She slumped against the cold metal chair again, a heavy breath escaping her lips slowly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:16 am
Gevaudan
“Why?”
He stared back at her as she moved before he got up again. It was only a few steps to be in front of her, his legs against her own, and he knew she couldn’t get at him. Even if she could use those fingers to grab his body, she couldn’t throw her weight and do much else.
“What was your excuse when you took us? When you ambushed us. We weren’t high ranking officers. I can understand Tanzanite. She had power. She had rank. She had information. The rest of us? We were beaten in hopes of information, but we all know that’s a lie. It’s the same as the members of your court. They know nothing. They don’t even know your true nature.”
He tilted his head. “Does she know what you are? What you’ve done? Where you came from?” He asked.
“You took us. Bleed us. Beat us. Starved and kept us awake with the screams. Let us be eaten alive. Burns us. You cut Dioptase’s body down the center when we had no answers to give. Stabbed her and twisted her arm. You let Primase choke to death on her own blood. Did you let them go? Did you let Helicase go? Uranophane?”
He set a hand on the back of her chair as he leaned in. “I remember Tanzanite pleading. That the fight wasn’t with Dioptase. It was with her. That she was just 17 years old.” His eye reflected the pain from the nightmare he couldn’t escape. “And what did Ares say?”
“Meaningless.”
Turning, he rounded to her back. She had to stay lucid for a little while longer. Dying from blood loss before Faustite had time to take another memory wouldn’t be good.
Popping open a vial, he poured the lighter fluid onto the stubs of her bleeding back and pulled out the lighter. “Why should I care about her? Why should I care about any of them?”
The flicker of a lighter came and the soft glow of a flame. “Ares tore skin off Dioptase’s body when she bleed out on the table.” He pressed the lighter to her dripping back and watched it go aflame.
Closing his eyes, he turned back, away from her to cover his mouth and nose and tried not to wrench form the memory of flesh and fire. Already his heart raced. Already he felt the bile rising up into his chest and gag into the back of his throat.
This isn’t then. This isn’t then. This isn’t then. He tried to keep himself from throwing up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:17 am
Leto
A quiet laugh escaped barely-parted lips that formed into a slight smile.
"The Negaverse was the enemy, so we did what we had to to eradicate you. And while we may not have succeeded across the board," she shrugged again, nonchalantly. As if none of them mattered. As if they weren't even people- hell, some of them practically children. "We got a General King out of it, and I mean... Look at you," she laughed again. "It's been years and we're still playing this ******** game. So clearly we won. We got what we wanted."
Leto closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled, took a moment to focus her thoughts, to control her anger. When she reopened them, the pure unbridled rage was gone, at least for now.
"I know what I did, Wolframite," she said as it occurred to her that she didn't even know his new Knightly name. "And I don't make my business and what I did or didn't do or will do public knowledge, but I don't lie or hide it if I'm asked."
She paused, then added, "I was 17 too."
"And look at us now. 17 year olds turn into kidnapping, torturing murderers. We did those people a ******** favor if you ask me. At least they're not stuck in this endless loop of bullshit like you and I are."
Her gaze followed as he circled back around. Her teeth clenched when a cold liquid was poured onto her open wounds, the broken bones and flesh of her torn off wings twitching just slightly at the burning sensation.
Then she heard the flick of a lighter. "Don't," was all she managed to say before he pressed the lighter to her back and the smell and her screams filled the entire room. Bile rose in her throat, her face wet with tears that she didn't even realize she was spilling. Her entire body heaved a few times before the flames finally died out after drinking up all of the fluid that had coated her back. The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck burnt, her skin bubbled. She sat, hunched forward, body trembling. Leto was doing everything in her power to remain in her Royal form so her power signature would be a beacon for help to know where she was. But she was sure if she tried to keep it up, she would pass out- and she couldn't do both. If she didn’t stay awake, there was the potential that he’d go back to see Loreley and she couldn’t let him go.
With a groan she allowed her Royal form to disappear- her gold bralette shifting back into a black bodice, bare feet were now covered in black over-the-knee boots, gold bracers now silver, her sheer overlays returning to their familiar camouflage print.
“I won’t let you break me,” she said barely above a whisper, her voice rough.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:20 am
Gevaudan
He stayed behind her, leaning against the wall and sliding down till he sat on the ground. His eyes watched as fabric and skin blackened and smoke, both hands clasped over his mouth and nose as he watched with the same sickening recollection of his own burning flesh. He knew it burned. He knew it would scab and heal. He knew that anytime she stood bare after a shower or was on the beach that glimpsing it would remind her of now. That she'd have to lie to strangers and friends what happened. Tell them some plausible yet sad story of how she caught on fire but lived that was better than the horror of what was now.
What the ******** was he doing?
“You're wrong about them. They wouldn't be like this. They weren't. They didn't want to step into this dance.” He had been the only one. They moved on. The desire for revenge might have been there but it never dug its claws in. They broke that chain. They moved last it. Why couldn't he let go? Why was he here doing the damn thing?
He removed his hands to sit there and close his eyes as the smell of lighter fluid and burnt flesh floated out of the room from the small little window.
“I know I won't break you. I'm not Ares. I wouldn't.” He wasn't equipped to torture to that degree. Even this now wasn't savored or something he realised or relive in his mind over and over. It was a search for something. A feeling. A conclusion. That maybe this would feed the beast in him and let him go. That this could eventually end. He was tired. He was tired of giving to this.
He should have died that day.
It was quiet before he rose back up, wiping the cold sweat her echoing screams had caused with the back of his sleeve before walking before her. She was back to Eternal.
His green eye watched her. Took the sight of her in. Took the sight of all this in. This moment. These actions. The long stretch of history and events behind it.
“Maybe if I knew you could stop then I could too, but we're both too far gone. How do those chains feel?”
He rose a knee up and set it upon her as he slowly moved into her lap, taking her jaw in both of his hands to raise her face back up. He'd been only this close to her the day he took her starseed and now he didn't have that anymore. 17 years that day. She hadn't been much younger than him. She followed Ares’ orders just as he followed Tanzanite with faith and honest loyalty.
“How far gone are you?” But it wasn't so much a question to her as he stared from one of her eyes to another.
Turning her head to one side, he leaned in and finding the flesh of her neck, bit into it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:22 am
Let
The feeling of her bodice against her torn, burnt, blistering skin was agony and she knew that this would be the norm until it healed and who knows how long that would take. She would have to go home to her family and explain this to them - and warn them, because all three of them were Dark Mirror Senshi themselves and she didn't know what she would do if if was any of them in her place. The nausea from the pain had her hypersalivating, the bile in the throat threatening to spill at any moment. Swallowing hard, she shook her head.
"You can't know that for sure. What makes us so different from the rest?"
Why could the two of them not escape this? Were they destined to repeat history over and over and over again until they both died? And what then? If they went to the Cauldron, would they be doomed to this exact fate in the next life as well? If she was lucky, the Dark Mirror Senshi's starseed would never be reborn- that would be her saving grace. Death would be final for her and for a brief moment she wished for exactly that.
Shifting in her seat uncomfortably, she knew he was right. They were both too far gone, there was no way to come back from the s**t that they had imposed upon each other over the years.
"You know how they feel, don't ask stupid questions," she snapped at him as he climbed into her lap like the dog that he was. Clenching her teeth under his grasp, she narrowed her bloodshot, tear-filled eyes as they met his green one. As he leaned in, she tried to push and lean away from him to no avail. Teeth sank into the soft flesh of her neck and in any other situation she likely would have enjoyed the intimate act. But not here, not now, not like this. She knew from Romulus and the other body she had found that this was meant to be Wolframite's calling card, not an act of passion or desire. Against her will, she cried out as he tore into her.
"What--" she started, her body betraying her as tears spilled. The worse things got, the more her age of only 25 years showed- she was nothing but a scared girl, barely not a teenager anymore. Leto tried to be tough, she tried to be a leader, she tried to be stronger and wiser and braver than she would be as a civilian. But as Wolframite broke her bit by bit, no matter how much she claimed she wouldn't let him, she crumbled. She crumbled and she began to sob.
"What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?," she asked through choked sobs. "I can't undo things, I can't."
"I can't," she said one last time in a coarse whisper as she cried.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:24 am
Gevaudan
His mouth left her neck, and he sat there, the taste of her blood in his mouth and dribbling down his chin. It wasn’t enough to make her bleed out, and since she powered down one level he knew that there would be time for it to stay as a scar. Something to remember her torture among the burn too. Something that even when she was intimate with someone she loved, it could interrupt even those moments. It could come to her as a flash of memory when someone brushed their hand against it and, if they weren’t like them, weren’t powered this way, would ask in a caring voice what had happened.
Those everyday actions would rob her of happy moments. It would interrupt her feelings of comfort and happiness without warning just like they did his. Only this time, she would remember him just as he remembered her and Ares and everyone else from that court.
He could feel her body sobbing. Hear it echoing in the chamber. It was a plea. A question in the dark wanting an end.
Slowly he looked back up at those tear-dripping eyes. “I want you to fill the well. Fill it just as I’ve been filling it with everything I have.” With memories. With humanity. With morality. With pain and loss.
“I want you to pay your price into this void - because I don’t know what other way there is to fill it and I don’t know what else to give it.”
He had tossed everything into this well of revenge. His own respect for himself. His own ideals of nobility and honor. His own moral code. His memories when he converted. His loyalties when becoming a traitor. His friendships that he left behind. His love that was broken and strained. His marriage. Time. Blood. Pain. Sleepless nights. Sanity. Each of these were pennies tossed into the well with the distant hope that it would be filled and that this time, something would feel fuller and complete. That he could feel whole again and be able to move on as easily and freely as everyone else. But this time when he reached deep inside himself for anything, he couldn't’ find anything else, and he was left doing the one thing he told himself he wouldn’t do. He had captured Leto and someone else to torture them like he was tortured. It was one of the last pieces of worth, of value, the small pennies at the bottom of his barrel left. As far back as he could reach, and he tossed it into the well along with his promise to Zinkenite that he would not go that far.
And still here, now, the well was left gapping. Dark. Deep. With him at the bottom and the light looking no closer than it had been the day he was rescued from the warehouses the last night of his torture when he cried and cursed the name of the Blood Moon Court and the well first opened.
Years and years of it and he was only a hulk emptied out struggling to figure out what else he had left to give it.
The only answer was that Leto had to give into it too. Something had to be able to fill it. There had to be something that would make make this end.
Slipping from her lap, he whipped his chin as he moved to the door.
“This is going to end soon.” Because there was no other answer left to him. This was the final action his tired mind could give him - the last penny.
With that he slipped out of her room and shut the door behind him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
