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 Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:43 pm
What a sight — Laurelite the Qeen poised over eir new pick, the traitor heeled, the Queen's hand paring away all that named itself Toren Estel. Breaking bone, shaping flesh the way the sea shaped rocks, the way meat shaped skull. Errant chaotic energy still prowled over eir skin, teasing a brisk shudder where once hair grew. Now Laurelite had departed and left em to care for this new turn: a lieutenant whose beleaguered starseed couldn't sustain more than their most basic rank. Fitting for how he needed to climb further. For how he needed to assert himself again and reestablish the bonds he so readily left behind once.
But there was so much more. How much the Negaverse changed since then, how fractious it grew, how separate and soft its agents became, how sensitive to their own bloodshed, how fat on their nothings, how languid, how corpulent. How wasted their time here among their own slop.
But there were positives, Faustite knew. Corrupted senshi gained a foothold in respect, one largely undeserved but granted nonetheless. Ascension became an option for their ilk given Haumea's efforts. Youmafied officers became more prevalent, and Wolframite rejoined them at a juncture where Faustite aimed for higher respects assigned to eir class of officer. No longer would men of whole body be the ultimate face to the Negaverse.
So much awaited them in these short months. Faustite half-turned in step, fire faced to a cavern wall astride the old Citadel stone. A distant drip whispered next to an old groan and distant roar. Ever the place was full of post-life, and Faustite exemplified it in eir lantern light darting through hallways.
"I want you to know something." Faustite's gaze settled on sallow yellow, on violet tufts framing a cherubic face. "I thought you worth bringing back. So did Laurelite.
"But we need to temper you again." Faustite turned in full in that dim corridor. "We must retrain you. Teach you the new with the old. Break bad habits. It's a long, costly, turbulent thing."
On metal heel ey turned and began again, branching off down a corridor that bent in a light curve toward one of several stairwells. "If you have questions, ask. We'll be a while." Their destination would be some time yet. A deep place, not far from the Hall of Shadows, and brimming with all the stories that once painted the figure of Wolframite indelible.
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:19 pm
Moving was hard, and while his center felt the same, the rest of him was tender fire across his skin. There was a pounding in his head that sat upon him like a molten crown cooling, hardening and growing tighter. It made his eyes water as he moved, following in the dark the sailing firefly of Faustite as it floated ahead. There was no way he could stay in the Queen's chamber or even outside of the offices, but the floor looked cool and inviting as beads of sweat dotted his brow.
Walking, the dim light still had a halo of visibility and with it came the clear focus of renewed vision. It was one thing to not be blind, but to have both eyes had been so startling that he hadn't even considered it possible. Everything felt a bit off center as a result having grown comfortable in the shift of his world to then have everything shoved back into place which only furthered the pounding in his head.
There was an aching in his back and backside as the newly created tail bristled in the air, and while he was aware it was there, wanted to touch it, his arms were far too heavy and raw to do much else then lift them and stare. The skin just below his shoulders were raw as if he scrubbed with brillo pads, the skin hot and the movement of walking brushed the fur of his body that tingled down into his bones. It took effort to curl one finger and the other, the sight of them looked strange, alien, too detailed and alive to be fake and yet too large to look anything more than large, oversized mittens fit for Halloween.
What - was he?
Faustite spoke, and he pulled a hand away from touching one of his palms to stare back, a sudden wave of nausea coming over him from just that much movement of his head.
worth bringing back.
It hadn't been pity after all or some kind of sense of obligation in the moment. Or even still, a sense of being able to get favor for returning a traitor. After the risk taken to take him here and before the Queen, he had little reason to doubt those words.
But he had seen him fail to win. Had seen him at his lowest. Why feel as if that person, then and there, was worth taking back?
"ah....I see. I have a lot of those." He admitted. Stubbornness. Selfishness. Bloodlust. Grudges. Self-pity. Pride even at times. He had thought himself knowing so much and knowing what was right, what was best, and what was necessary. Ignored everyone else and went through with his own plans and ideals.
Could they even temper that many imperfections to make him a decent enough blade again or was the raw material too crude. Too manipulated and put through the furnace that the dents and marks were too set to hammer out?
They walked a bit more, and sighed out when he saw stairs. This wouldn't be fun.
There was little floating in the heavy slug of his mind that he could make out and hold onto for long. Had what happened just happened? Was he really here? Was he really a half-youma?
"I can see." He said, more to himself but also to tell someone, anyone, about the miracle that had happened.
"Why did you care so much? About me. Even I know you could find someone who wasn't as busted up as I was. ******** up?."
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:57 pm
"You sound like Heliodor." What scrabbled behind em was a wreck, ey knew. Newly spared, this creature stumbled about with newborn sight and newborn coordination, every step a jilting jaunt through these old, decrepit halls, feeling at once as worn down and broken as them, at once newer than the youngest babes to know Negaverse taint. Behind em walked history and Negaverse ingenuity incarnate. A reforging in progress. And yet, much like old Heliodor, he sounded already defeated. Like he lost a battle he never understood.
Like he lost a friend. Perhaps a friend in his old body. Alien it was to accustom emself to a new body sense. Worse still when Faustite learned to switch dialogues between human and youma as two different languages: the language of Eion and the language of Faustite. Now Wolframite would endure it. But as one who wore so many faces already, would that challenge him?
That dolor caked on Wolframite like a filth. Worse, it caked on his tongue and flecked off into speech. Intruded on their affairs. "Don't ask loaded questions. It's impolite." Faustite paused, hand on a half-rotten curve of a handrail.
They stood unequal. Wolframite needed as anyone would — how much a trauma to lose every friend and comrade so suddenly. Eir own journey wasn't built of grit and bone; the General had Chrysocolla to confide in for those early moments. Her hand led before ey grew out of it. Faustite drew a sooty breath. "I don't pick for privileges anymore. Money, connections, job benefits — anyone can gain them. But once they're lost, what good is that soldier? He knows he lost everything the Negaverse wanted out of him. He becomes enfeebled and insecure. The clever ones purify and the rest are recycled."
Faustite took each step of the slate spiral staircase with a measure of stiffness owing to the way eir back no longer bent. Pierced and studded split cloth dragged on the step before, then slapped against the next, and the next, and the next, always following, always trying to catch each hoop on the back of a boot piston. When Faustite reached the landing, ey turned about to stand in the center of those concentric circles, looking up, searching with blaze the curls of the banister for a fluffy ear or a curious eye. "Come downstairs and you'll know why I picked you."
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:17 pm
Who was Heliodor?
Despite the pulling, twitching muscles in his arm, he reached out and took the railing, watching how the crystal vanished under his hand, the sensation of the surface against a much wider, thicker palm, and the curves of his fingers. It gave him something to lean on, to hold onto, and the stability of the world echoed back a reassurance of reality. This was the Negaverse. They were in the castle again. He was back in the castle. No longer did the code speak to him. No longer did his wonder call. It had all been burned out and blown again, left disintegrated in the abyss about his starseed. Floating dustspots.
Faustite's answer had been less than satisfactory, but despite himself, he brought a hand and had to press his sweat-touched lips to chuckle but the noise was raw and faint in his throat. Tongue parched as he swallowed hard.
"What questions then?"
It really wasn't a dream. What had he expected from the General who started fights over personal questions? But somehow after taking him to the Queen, he had felt maybe in this stretch of time he could have weaseled something more out of the moment.
Seemed to be not the case. While Gevaudan had changed, Faustite did not. The world remained fixed on it's axis in his world.
The walk down was slow and his knees wanted to buckle while his arms leaned more and more on the railing taking them down, the sound of rustling fabric in the dim light. Here he watched the firelight glow on the chrome of Faustite's exhausts sway and with it the word grew too warm and swam with it and he stopped a moment. A moment to raise his hand to wipe his brow but paused quickly before it even came close. The hands too sharp. His eyes new.
He turned his head and wiped best he could on his shoulder, before going down again and meeting the other on the landing.
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:47 pm
Faustite held eir words through Wolframite's question, instead waiting with nothing but the still air between them. Despite pain, despite misery, despite the very visible sweat dappling his brow, despite all the ways his body changed and didn't, despite the thrumming ache in his starseed, the lieutenant descended. Navigated the steps like a drunk fawn, but he descended. Followed orders where one like Chrysocolla would cry, where Heliodor would snap back with all his pretentious bluster. Schörl would laugh at em for waxing so poetic, but in this space, bereft of her, Faustite only folded arms across the lopsided railing and smiled eir gilded smile. A possessive thing, it was.
"You obey." The first step made, Wolframite stumbled. Pushed himself. Where his body shuddered and grew weary, he pushed the rest of himself to compensate.
"You persevere." Down each step those feet went like jilted lovers. His motions were crude, clumsy, imbalanced. He looked as exhausted as Faustite felt upon coming out of the Rift, ripe with piss and sweat and mistake. Scenting failure into the air.
"You learn. You compensate. You fear no failure." Finally Wolframite breeched the landing, rejoined him. He still stood, tuckered and ripe with sweat, fighting Faustite's air pollution with the smell of body odor and wet dog.
Faustite let his pleasure be known in that gluttonous smile, if for a moment only. "You have so much to admire. That's why." Turning, Faustite began again down the next corridor. Each step brought them closer to Wolframite's soon-to-be first and most cherished possession. So much of that old magic Faustite once sought in stories, in trips and tales and gestures -- Gevaudan had it all trapped in his head. Wolframite too, with infinitely more accessibility.
But what dreams of memories could wait as pressing matters drew near. "Those qualities will inspire others, too. The Negaverse sorely needs it."
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:26 pm
There was more?
There was more.
He slumped against the railing as he looked down the corridor, seeing nothing that had answered him but more hallway. Possibly more stairs beyond even that. Despite the Rift, he knew they could have teleported. Knew a general could teleport more than once. Why all the walking? Had he not suffered the same when he became a youma? Would his gut not have ached to the introduction of molten fire and iron in his gut? The flames in his veins? The smoke in his bones? Or was this some kind of test. If Faustite had changed and endured, then he could too?
Either way, he really didn't care for ceremonial suffering and watched a bead of sweat drop down his nose and to the comforting, accepting floor below. It would be easy to lay there. He'd be no less of a person, no less of a youma, if he rested.
But looking through with labored breaths, more panting now then fully gasping, he watched the most peculiar of smiles on the general's face. One he hadn't seen before, and he wasn't sure of it's meaning or reason behind it. Not humor in seeing him near passing out. Not giddiness at misery. Predatory? Wolframite felt no sense of fear, no sense of panic in seeing the smile. Just a rustle of unease at it's introduction. A stranger he wasn't sure how to handle.
"Obey or die." He breathed out quick, summing up the very easy decisions of this new life.
But Faustite wasn't wrong. Despite frustration, without support, without the same abilities as before, once he had an idea of what he wanted, he kept trying. It was a bad habit if not a good one too. Biting onto a leg and not letting go despite being bludgeoned by the mule.
"Pigheaded more like it." He said as he rose the back of his arm and wipes against his face to see a bit better, the fur too warm, too hot, and now slick with sweat. Fur. So he wasn't a pig youma then. Would have been fitting.
What had Faustite thought of his attempt on Leto then? Even Gevaudan could see how risky, how stupid, how poorly planned and lacking resources it had. And yet - so much to admire.
He swallowed again.
Again Faustite moved and as distance increased, Wolframite grunted as he heaved himself from the comfort of the railing's last hand and moved to the corridor wall instead, moving slowly behind.
A youma inspiring. He wanted to laugh at that, but he remembered Tanzanite. Her booming speeches bellowing among a circle of enemies to others. Fearless. Proud. Angry and Prideful.
Could he be like that?
Admired. His eyes stared back at the lantern of light.
He could ask Faustite if he thought it was even possible, but he wouldn't have said it if he didn't think it. He didn't like just saying things to please someone, to fill up dead air.
"How much farther?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 1:55 pm
No one gave you leave to evaluate yourself.
Faustite cast about for a door in an old, reclaimed cavern wall. When eir fingers found the knob, it turned easily in eir hand, and let out a familiar, sallow glow into the hall. "We're here." First ey let emself inside, then held the door ajar for eir newly-turned lieutenant to enter.
"You act like you still remember where and who you are." Faustite stepped forth into the spacious but silent place, gold boots shining with screen noise on the dusky slate floor. Ey crossed just far enough to stand nearest the monitors, where a wall-mounted crystalline desk bespoke a number of keyboard entries, controls, and other electronics. Ey scooped up a single pen, seemingly cast aside in a hint of commotion, a personal scuffle or a vested opposition to one's superior, the results of which promised Wolfeite connection.
Faustite started back toward the lieutenant with new pen in hand. How different he looked now, how bogged down with colors too bright and too dark, with claws too big and a body too small, like bringing him back had imbalanced him completely. And while Faustite never saw much of Wolframite's visage through his own eyes, the youma general expected that he earned a quiet pride during his servitude. He lost all access to it in leaving the Negaverse behind, and returned far more humbled and cowed than he expected possible. He simply had to lose his eyes to see.
Faustite drew to a stop and handed out the device. "Your communicator pen. It folds out like a tablet, grants you access to the Database. When you earn your password, that is. For now, it's how you contact other officers. How we'll check in long distance.
"Remember this room and how to get here. We'll be spending a lot of time in it over the next weeks. If you have no more questions, I'll show you where to sleep."
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Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2019 7:43 pm
Finally.
He leaned against the wall as Faustite turned the knob and went inside. All he could hope for that there were chairs inside. It took a moment for him to heave himself off the wall and drag himself over to the door to see what all the traveling was for.
"Kinda." It admitted. Wolframite was there. He remembered Gevaudan. Both were pigheaded. As for anything else - he tried to think back but could already sense there was nothing left to retrieve. Maybe more would come but right now everything was a thick sludge and a squeezing pressure in his mind.
The monitors were not something he expected, and the buzzing lights hurt his eyes, making him want to press his fingertips against his eyes but again stopping himself when he raised the foreign claws up to his face and scared himself.
Leaning against the doorframe as none of this was rather impressive or felt worth the long walk here, he took a moment to just breath and try to cool down from the burden of walking or just moving at all. His own corruption before had not been this bad. Every part of him wanted to lay in ice and wrap up in blankets all at the same time, and there were the twitches and pulses to his muscle that made parts of him jerk and put him on edge.
Returning back, Wolframite opened his eyes and brought out both paws to cup like waiting for water to be poured and let the pen drop into his hand. A tablet and a pen? When had this happened? He couldn't remember these being around. "Pens now? That's going to be hard." His hands didn't exactly look fit for doing much of anything aside from giving a very aggressive back scratching.
If he had any questions, he didn't find them important enough to ask over wanting to find a place to sleep. As it was, his brain could barely fire off enough brain cells to keep him standing.
"No. I'll figure it out. I can remember - this." He glanced at the room and then closed his hands (paws?) about the pen. He'd put it somewhere when he got to the other place.
"I'd like to lay down." He'd LOVE to lay down. He needed to lay down or else he'd wind up falling on the floor.
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Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:54 am
"You earned it." That he could — and did — persevere after his body changed so significantly was commendable. It was a hope that Faustite nurtured for the likes of Heliodor, for others that would fall under eir leadership: the hope that will and drive would see them through the most intolerable circumstances. The hope that they would learn the fruits of what such feats promised. And here, for this moment, Wolframite earned that reprieve. He earned respect that the general so seldom afforded others of eir ilk.
Faustite found it poor that the best expression ey could spare in this short, unforeseen time was a room in a standard-issue barracks. Such rooms were spartan, affording only the barest essentials with no flair, no personality, no real room for anything more than sleep and solitary activity. There would be no comforts beyond a cotton blanket spared, certainly nothing cognizant of youma physiology imparted to a humanoid body. In so many ways the Negaverse still refused to see creature-officers like them. What a shame, what a pity. Faustite would see that changed.
But not yet. A solid meal was in order, a hot shower, and the promise of sleep. While Wolframite slept, Faustite could consult Wolfeite for lupine youmafied officer dietary needs. Ey could send Heliodor to fetch the supplies, and emself draw a hot bath for the pup. Better to assess all his structural changes that way.
No longer did ey need to lead Wolframite by the hand, so ey touched his shoulder with a single hot hand. Ey thought of the dozen-dozen identical rooms, owing to the same configuration and same mass-produced furniture and same layers of dust owing to their lack of use, and the pair phased imminently out of existence, with only languid curls of smoke and salt scents to mark their departure.
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