|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2018 7:21 pm
[ tw: pg-13 violence ]
“Did you know that your General Umber had a brother? An….interesting creature.” The Green General sucked her teeth a moment, but no better accuracy that was neutral presented itself. “One that has caught my attention. And investigation. I will know all there is to know of them both. “
Amazing the difference that walk in closets were to hallway affairs- but still the boy could be hunted out by smell, moonless nights outside the steel mills from Frick’s Veranda and silver tea set, if time and place was at the whims of missions.
“Tell me, tell me,” came the song, “Of your few meetings with your last superior, Fidelis. You will not have forgotten dear General Umber, or your time in service before I found you scruffy and lost on the street, as it were. I need specifics for each, as much as you can tell about why you met, what he said, how he said it.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:20 pm
Funny how a person could really darken a room. How they throw black as well as a lantern throws light and cast palls over sumptuous affairs and simple rooms alike. How their acrid would melt paint with a breath, would eat holes in fire-licked steel. That privilege was ever owed to Schörl, who presumed herself as if each moment was hers to eat. As if she could roll her words into others — sharp little needle pains that kept every foot too sore for stone floors. As if no one could challenge her.
But she was right in her assumptions; everyone let her get away with it. Everyone including the general who served her, who now case gaze up from a soot-stained draft. Pen to inkwell, Faustite listened. Odd was the request to visit a general nearly forgotten.
General Umber seldom mentioned his brother but as a disappointment. Little came of that mention, less that Faustite never asked about him. Was he a new acquisition for the green monster? The question settled; Faustite spoke. "All were spars. I'll give you the three most recent.
"He had me fight him the first time. Nearly broke my jaw. Left me a mess. When he thought me beaten enough, he chewed up a starseed and spat it into my mouth. Made me swallow it. Told me to stop powering up at night alone, that it was a waste of an investment if I got myself killed. He postponed spars for two days and sent me home.
"The second, he beat me again. Said he'd reassign me to a captain for a fairer spar, that generals trained captains and captains trained lieutenants. I accused him of abandoning me and he said my body needed to learn pain and endurance.Said I needed to learn survival first. I tried to retort but he put his hand in my chest, said an enemy wouldn't spare me time to speak. That was the only time he raised his voice at me." Faustite crossed one leg over another, left his metal-laden heel to bounce energetically. Even as the general sat back against the tool, restlessness pervaded fingers and body angles, twisted spine and cocked neck. Eyes rested unwaveringly on Schörl. "Then he stabbed me in the leg. Said I'd been given starseeds long enough; I needed to find one myself or bleed to death. Once I did, he took me home." To my place, ey thought about adding, then left it like the waste it was.
"Some weeks passed. We met again to see what I learned from the new captain. We sparred, I tried to starseed him. He held me down and told me to explain my actions so I tried to rile him. I was obstinate until he broke my wrist, then I told him about the warehouse specter. He claimed my mind was damaged, that I should go to an infirmary. He departed the roof. When his aura disappeared, I searched for starseeds. Ate them. Youmafied myself.
"He never returned." Perhaps Chrysocolla told him. Smoke left the general's nose as ey exhaled. Attention groped the green general's shoulders, the line of her arm informing the sleeve, the way her claws poised over the head of her cane. "His speech was always authoritative, but colorless. Robotic. Like he saw me as a science project, not a subordinate."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:15 pm
Baby birded all the life before. Not so much a silver spoon as someone else’s spit. Schörl smirked without initial comment, but paced and drummed fingers against fingers while words puffed about like ambient ash for sorting. Blanket had given over his notes of interviews and search, but unreliability may as well be the middle name to the creature. Uncharacteristic entertainment, so long in the tooth of their interpersonal association, in his assumption of facetious first query. “You missed one, pet.” “ ‘Given long enough,’ but only one cited fed to you for that incident. Your associations with starseeds when I first took you on were notable. They are now, even. How often did you eat them, how many, as you learned? What did you learn from your captain.“ How much did they meet out of uniform? Ever? That first is important. Was he seen or known outside of training to follow that lead of who or where he was seen last of all...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:04 am
Restraint was such a clever word, impossible to spell without strain. But strain implied a flexibility barred from a body in a cage.
Words seethed like water over a hot griddle, too heat-quick for sense to catch. They rolled off the tongue with spats of smoke and fury. "Don't gaslight me, vituperative wench. I answered everything." Faustite rose, eir hands poised dagger-straight over gored wood. Ire died down as ey recovered a measure of sense. Cooled like coals that wanted to unstoke themselves.
Regret,
like pity, changes nothing really
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:59 am
“Plaudite!” The Green General laughed, golf clapping while crossing with casual stride back towards the other. “Plaudite!”“Acta est Fabula, so dry your throat. “ Out hand sped, grabbed thick purchase in dark hair. Hard yanked to force his neck to bend where his middle no longer could. The best part about someone resisting, about showing moxy, was how indignation opened lips. “Did. you. Know. the. Brother. “ She spit gathered water of all her mouth into his. Words can’t be answered if he is dead, if he is punished too far. “Absolvo te.” “Rusty, Dear, I’ll need to remember to lubricate my little, brass, windup boy. The Brother, and Umber, in and out of uniform. How much, where they lived. It was not idle words. ” This is your fairytale, boy, do not make me ask the third time.Strickenized 'Applause! Applause! The play is done' - referencing a quote attributed to Augustus Caesar 'I absolve you' - mocking the words of the Latin Mass said by the priest when forgiving sins.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:49 pm
We say to ourselves and, less often, to each other, each time swimming a bit farther
The words, rapid fire, ended wet. Sizzled down throat to hiss on Faustite's core like fat drippings. The snarl hadn't yet faded from eir face. Swallow swallow swallow. Feed me enough and I devour you next, O Mother Mine.
Eir apple bobbed to clean away her taste, to chafe it with muscle and smoke. "I never met Umber out of uniform. Never met the brother at all. Umber referenced him seldom — only as weak, meek, and ill-suited. Only twice.
"I never knew where they lived. Umber kept himself a secret from me; I didn't know where to find him. Never tried to look." What simmered fierce now dulled and guttered, so much ash. "Umber was thrice a week. Down to weekly near the end." When will you end, said the glower.
Craned, ey wanted eir leave of this wretched parent. Shifting in the chair only meant so much. Blowing smoke a grating insult away. How hands tremored when under duress.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2019 10:00 pm
Thrice thrown dice is twice as nice as one, when done the son as he’d begun to overrun. Shunned, and one-to-one the unknown...undone. What is the easiest, the simplest of the scenarios of missing days. The last to see alive and none other and never knew the brother is ...here. When his aura disappeared he teleported. Did he? I have ordered and waited myself in plain clothes to watch, to ambush, to gain reconnaissance. There are more than one way to lose an aura. A cat could cover. But no dates in his ledgers, no further check ins, no other trace but this one where Umber has gone. Did he stay to watch what his damaged charge was about to do? Like a hunter. Or just to walk away disgusted. Not fearing a wounded cub with an addiction. Did he know you were addicted, coin-operated boy? She smiled, did not let go and kept gaze peeled over all of him and every twitch of his hands. The dragon cane waited. I wonder if that instinct is still in there. I'll bet you wonder, too. “And the starseeds. Your addiction progression? Your captain. How did you dispose of the bodies. Continue. “
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:05 am
She needed eir answers. Looking up at that domineering, sneering face, Faustite's neck atwist with discomfort, eir torso locked straight, those eyes of hers the color of rotten garbage, the color of mystery mucus, peering down at eir face, looking like she'd won another game, like she ever kept the upper hand. Like their conversation was foregone and these words were meant to fill empty spaces, to fill all the space in the room to push Faustite toward a precarious conclusion, a punishment ey didn't want or deserve, all for Schörl's amusement.
Amusement. Eir death like a party trick. Like a show put on for a dinner theatre.
Faustite looked to the space where her lapels met, to the head of her cane, then back to her grinning face — I'll break your heart, break mine — then eir choices were clear, which provided more leverage and which provided less, which provoked the rod, which begat the spoils. Faustite worked eir jaw to swallow enough rage, return to baseline, ey prayed, but the words already fled eir mouth.
Hate for her still rankled; ey felt that spit churn and fizzle into the air. Pop like bacon. "I've given enough. Keep feeding me your dregs and I'll swallow you like fire. Don't try to frame me."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:36 pm
Make not promises you cannot keep. Pity for the poor glutton that threatened swallows all because folly circumvented his dirty mouth. ‘Frame’ was important, lending the opposite itself in credence. Her broom was coming to similar conclusions, without confirmations from journals. Schörl swept forward to lock mouth to Faustite’s, driving forward her cane to secure insurrection from forearms neatly away.. Buried back and under, lingual arteries and veins were a nigh zero threat to life. Her jaws bit and claws caught, pulled away triumphant with her cherry’s stem to turn between tongue and teeth. She poked the bloody appendage back out her mouth at it’s owner. Stew in your black soup. Truth to me, or not at all. Strickenized Trying to balance speed of actions to text and points for his reactions- let me know if anything needs edited
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 10:04 am
Faustite drew a black-mouthed, shuddering breath before the pain struck em twice, ramping up like a wave on a vessel. Each breath grew wetter and wetter, harsher and raspier, spitted up with black and more black like so much wasted ink. Words were a liquid thrown out from mouth, discoursing in the language of pain. Cane-caught, eir fingers wrenched and wrung about. To her insult, Faustite cast a brimstone glance.
Worse was the hot ash backwashing into eir too-empty mouth. That acid sting, that hot cauterization burrowing into and down to eir throat. More and more ey spat to the ground, beyond eir lap, a hand curled over mouth to guard the pain. No further eye contact was made.
Ey took up a pen and began over eir topmost papers — Heliodor's report, Faustite realized with detachment, each word written with blood and spittle and drawn up from where it pooled onto eir desk. The occasional letter shook violently.
Bodies = sky burial
Captain drained energy for me. Covered quota. Said he would 'look into the Umber situation'. Never did.
Starseeds = 1/week, sometimes 2
The pen was struck down against the desk, pinned under splayed fingers. Throbbing in eir mouth was all the hurt and anger. Ey shot it dagger-sharp back to Schörl in a resentful scowl. All but one finger retracted into a fist over that pen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:30 pm
What need do I have of deceptions when the truth is become weapon enough. ‘1/week’- She’d known enough addicts of enough walks of life and enough tastes to know that claiming ‘sometimes’ meant that was the norm and the next tier up was looming hard. She smiled at violent pen and suggestive, speaking finger. Smiled around his tongue before leaning close enough to stick it in his ear to distract him. The dragon roared down on the offending hand. At last the free hand got the tongue, instead of the cat (so far), and black was let to run with spit and words down her chin rather than risk its poison swallowed. A nice visual contrast on blueblooded pale, probably. “ The dates ‘frame’ out the true story. You swallowed your general, without need of my deceit to help you along. Without my Broom, so early on, to help you clean up the mess of yourself. Umber kept logs.“ She could wait through his paroxysm. “He misjudged you. Or your addiction. Dropped his glamour and you never knew him, couldn’t have anyway through the Need and munch, munch, munch. What big teeth you used to think to have: better a fireplace than ending up just another baying Feckless.” The cane remained at the ready as she offered the knuckles of her other hand, fisted around his appendage, “Kiss and make up or the only thing you’ll eat is your own words." I like your fire, but it is caged. It is Mine.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:46 am
When Faustite uncoiled, all hurt and sick and delirium, all poor decision and defeat, eir self still curled around that broken hand like a masochistic protector, like a white knight, ey could not keep vowels in eir mouth. They spilled like black blood for all that was done to em. Wet and wired for all that impotent rage. All that wasted expense.
For Schörl would not be swayed, her heart untouched, her manner still scathingly delighted. Dejection was a word, but it didn't fit the way it should.
Whatever story she plied, it couldn't be true. Shouldn't be. Youmafication was an inevitability — not a curse, not a misstep. To eat and eat and eat made the man into monster. And what was eaten — shouldn't they taste different? So saturated, so stained in their own black, shouldn't one so iniquitous taste like their sins? Umber disappeared a different way, regardless of her books and tricks. Faustite gritted blackened teeth against this unknowing vengeance, this so-empty gift of freedom into full fire.
But there, lurking, lilting in eir burning gut, clinched like abs that weren't, then released in a heady, blood-flecked sigh was relief. There would be no more Umber. Among the dooms, possibly no more Schörl.
In time, no more. I'll break your heart, break mine. Black lips pressed wordless to knuckles, signing them in ink.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 2:17 pm
"Better." Schörl's fist dropped to the desk and traded, opened out the tongue onto the desk. The top paper of Helio's report, with the black scrawled admission, was claimed for her own use. Heliodor could fashion another as banal with as little thought as he'd no doubt afforded the first. It was folded carefully and tucked into breast pocket. The cravat pin, a starseed, came loose next. "Open your mouth, and 'hold your tongue', as it were." They both had business to attend to beyond his getting re-tongue-tied.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 11:12 am
What a cold mess. What a dig. What a black-bound drag, how Schörl pained em. How he mumbled and muttered and groaned like some pathetic, cowed thing, like some indiscriminate better belonged to the Rift's many faceless companions. Ey hated emself like this, a bone-festering, visceral hate, goaded into flame as ey looked up at her. Her, prover that the acquainted devil is the better. That there's so much more to fear about the unknown.
Worse than youma were the humans that commanded them. Faustite snatched, in eir left hand, the disembodied parts of emself to follow Schörl's simple command. Pressed together, Faustite opened for the starseed. Received it like a petty ward. Broke its shell between teeth once, twice, thrice, only seconds passing before a youma's glee rose in em, approaching crescendo, wicking away eir pain while someone else soul-died to heal eir body. Muscles knit and tightened, winding up with unspent energy until the starseed ran its course and all tension siphoned into a rekindled flame.
Faustite's temperature peaked five seconds in — long enough for Schörl to release her grasp. Faustite swallowed back the acrid remnants of blood that congealed sticky to the seams of eir mouth. Wincing, the general tested reconnected tissue.
That thrill would not abide fear, but Faustite knew it to be an inevitable visit. Schörl held cards enough to accuse him of a crime he didn't commit. And what would come from that but worse punishment? As ey felt the black crawl up eir arms, Faustite expected as much and worse, for Schörl always subverted expectation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
