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 Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:55 pm
Mont Saint Michel was cold and unwelcoming. Shadows stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and somehow seemed to cling to every corner regardless of light source. The pressure of the room was immense, like the whole place wanted to collapse in on itself. There was something magical about it, something smothering.
The structure was sound; the walls were made of stones that rose to meet an incredibly, probably unnecessarily tall ceiling. Towards the very top, small, barred windows. The sound of water lapping at the shore was distant but echoed in the room and made it sound like water could spill in any moment.
The room itself was unmistakably meant to be a dungeon.
The room was circular, maybe forty feet from side to side. The stairway leading into the room twisted just out of view, making it impossible to tell what this room connected to.
Once, the room might have been designed to accommodate six cell’s worth of people, judging by the remnants of bars and reinforced flooring across the room. The bars had been removed, but it was impossible to tell when. There was no bedding, no commodities. There was a metal slab bolted to the wall, and a six foot long chain connecting it to the heavy collar he’d snapped around Faustite’s neck.
If he’d needed to, he would have used the manacles as well, but Michel doubted he could break through the metal.
He’d tried to break one of the other sets in the room long before now, and even when he’d given it his best effort he hadn’t been able to dent it.
Faustite was a scrawny little thing. Michel couldn’t imagine he could muster any more strength than he could, even with his fire.
He’d removed his clock hand from Faustite’s abdomen after he’d fixed him to the wall, not to make him more comfortable but because he knew he might need it. He’d stabbed his weapon into the ground with enough force that it could stand on its own. Michel sat on the steps of stairs. His feet were flat on the ground and he hunched forward a bit, resting his elbows on his knees as he waited for Faustite to wake up.
He didn’t know how long it had been since they’d gotten here. An hour, maybe less. Time had gone so quickly and then felt like it was going so slowly.
There were spots for torches on the wall but they were empty, as if Michel had decided he didn’t want anything flammable around Faustite. Instead, pale and glowing runes covered the walls, casting an eerie glow across the room. Sometimes, there was movement from the shadows. The sound of scurrying feet high above.
Sometimes, a larger, more menacing scratching. Occasionally, dust fell from the ceiling.
Michel was uninterested in any of this.
He sat quietly, twisting the signet ring on his finger. He wasn’t used to quiet, and even on his own Wonder, the stillness was unnerving.
But, he had time.
Ilse had made it out. She could make sure Lysithea was safe.
Faustite was here, he couldn’t intervene. Couldn't ******** anything else up. Couldn’t drag Lysithea deeper into ruin.
Now, he just needed to figure out what to do with him.
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:30 pm
The burning thing twitched. It inspired a great breath of air, and the candle in its gut flared to a warming orange. The light from its middle overcame some of the cold, dour runes decorating the otherwise darkened space.
Faustite grunted low when his pains woke with him. Blunt, throbbing reminders, they were — taunts about the fight he'd lost, the two-timing b***h that escaped. Gingerly, as he tested his body, he rolled to one side and snorted out great globs of sticky, tarry blood from his nose. He coughed, flinched from another spasm of pain, and spat up more dark blood. Heard the unhappy whisper of iron rings clanking together as he tried to curl in on himself.
He started to sit up, then felt a tug on his neck as metal tried to strangle him. It hurt too much to consider turning around to see what had hold of him, so he felt about the manacle he normally wore — and found it gone.
Replaced with a different one.
Feeling along for the direction of the chain, Faustite yelped as soon as he leaned on his left hand. Saw that it swelled something monstrous, and with it came a new surge of fresh, blistering pain. Gritting his teeth, he relied on his right hand to scoot himself around to face this new point of attachment.
It took an effort and an age, but he saw it — metal slab with a metal fixture and a metal chain connected to a metal manacle. Something different from the one he wore, which was now missing. Not that he would need it now.
Faustite drew a shaky breath. Held it. Released it. Made to melt into fire, but the manacle dragged with him, broke the spell of his transformation as soon as it drew taut. "********," he choked out.
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:08 pm
Michel didn’t know if Faustite could see him, could feel him. Didn’t really care. He stayed quiet and watched while Faustite woke up, while he examined himself, while he processed that he was <******** didn’t interrupt it. He wouldn’t deny that a part of him was enjoying the process. He got to watch Faustite as everything sank in.
Michel sat in silence for a few seconds, or a moment–he didn’t know. Time didn’t seem to have much meaning to him. He had Faustite. He would keep him here for as long as it took to make sure Lysithea was safe. Maybe longer.
This place was filled with bones, what was a few more? He wasn’t going to feel bad if Faustite died here. He deserved it anyway, didn’t he?
When the novelty of watching Faustite examine himself and his confines expired, Michel finally spoke. “You look like s**t. You can try to break out if you want to waste your energy, but it’s not going to work. You’re stuck here until I decide otherwise. So you might as well get comfortable.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:38 am
Faustite paused at the sound of Michel's voice, then slowly lowered himself back down to the ground with his right hand. His palm stung, and the process was agonizing for each inch he tested before conceding to it, but his back finally touched the floor. Grunting for the crooked curve of his spine, he looked down at himself. His right hand tangled with the blown-out metal forming his grate, now reduced to shrapnel.
He breathed a long, smoky sigh. Watched it travel up to the towering, domineering ceiling.
One eye had swollen near shut, so his right eye roamed the room. Lingered on the pale runes here and there, roamed over each symbol a handful of times. Each slight turn of his head stirred more aches and pains, quickening his breathing or causing him to flinch.
Once, he sputtered and coughed more black down his chin. Afterward, he learned to swallow it.
Eventually, he stopped looking about the wet, derelict place. Shut his eyes to the whole affair. Listened to the foreign ambivalence that was the sea, though he couldn't tell where it was — like it bore down on the walls themselves. Skittering and scratching. Faustite opened his eyes, but saw no source for the noise. Place was an echo chamber, then.
After snorting out more blood, Faustite finally spoke. "Why did you take me." The question was soft, but for how the walls carried it around the place like a captive wind.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:01 am
“As opposed to letting you burn alive? You’re welcome, by the way. If I’d left you there you’d be a pile of char and ash.”
Would have been too good for him, too. Michel vibrantly recalled the flames on the battlefield. He remembered the rage when Faustite had taken Lysithea. It was a burning, festering anger that prickled through his blood still. Michel felt some satisfaction, looking at Faustite’s bloody, battered form.
Not enough.
He wanted to cross the distance between them and throttle him until he couldn’t speak, but. In his heart, he knew that wouldn’t be enough either.
So, he stayed away from him, seated comfortably where he could safely watch.
“Here,” he shrugged. “Well, you’re still alive. I haven’t decided what I want to do with you yet. I should kill you. You’ve been a pain in the a** for longer than I’ve known you.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:39 am
Poetic justice, it was, to let the burning one burn itself out.
He laughed, though it was quickly punctuated by hacks and coughs. A weary, uncertain hurt brewed behind his ribs, and no matter how he searched for its source, he couldn't identify it. He'd find out if it killed him, he supposed.
His attention found the lone doorway after he rolled onto his right side. Broken articulations to his metal grate scraped cacophonously against unyielding stone. He stared off for a time, gaze wandering once more, until it fell on Michel. He bit back a smile.
"Lysithea wouldn't forgive you if you killed me." He coughed again, then snorted out congealed black. "That's why."
Wiping his hand across the stone, he sighed. Smoke raveled out from his mouth, matching the steady stream from his grate. Given the bones behind evenly-spaced holes in the ground, Faustite assumed he was long from the first victim to find himself in this cell. But all those bones, they were clean. Bleached. The smell in the air was of seaside and damp stone, twisted with nostalgia and garnished with harrow. Those bodies died ages ago.
So Michel's Wonder was as much a despicable dump as Tanais's. If Michel sought his death, he hadn't another means to get away.
"Answer me something else while you decide. Why serve this place?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:40 am
Michel sneered some mockery of a smile. Faustite still had a few working brain cells. It hadn’t taken him long to deduce that part of Michel’s mercy stemmed from what he thought Lysithea would want. She didn’t have to be here to work through him.
“I don’t owe you any answers,” he pointed out. He wondered if Faustite was coughing up blood or some other innards. He had enough energy to move, to talk. He wasn’t dying. Yet.
“But I’d hate to give you any misconceptions. I don’t serve this place. It serves me.”
He had done little for it, and yet he had plenty in return. Weapons, magic. A monster at his beck and call. He could hear the beast from here; it was the only thing big enough to make those loud, scraping sounds on the roof. He suspected it was keeping guard over the Wonder, as if it thought some attack might come from beyond Mont Saint Michel’s borders. Or, maybe it was hunting rats again.
He didn’t look up when another bit of dust was shaken loose; there were a few shrill, angry chirps, and the flapping of tiny wings from the shadows at the ceiling.
Michel was used to the bats, though they hadn’t been there for very long.
“Why do you care to know? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve thought about leaving the Negaverse. I’m not going to be sweet-talked like Lysithea and all her little friends. You’re not pining for purification or you’d have tried to leave already. So what does it matter to you?”
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:41 am
Faustite hummed his agreement. His right hand felt about the manacle again, found just enough space to tuck a thin finger between his throat and the unyielding piece of metal. Stuck fast, it seemed. He knew Michel was the same way.
"Don't owe you anything, either."
He paused, listening, as more digs sounded at the top of the building. Heavy enough, he supposed, to imply something large. Little to say more than that; the distant windows offered no useful views.
"Suppose I would answer you if you answered me." His head swam, yet he tugged himself toward the wall. Sat up enough to lean against it, feeling the weight of his aches and pains as they settled with gravity. Then he slouched, and readjusted the manacle around his neck so its half-link no longer ground uncomfortably against the wall.
"Your Wonder's a ******** dump."
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:41 am
Michel scoffed. “You’re one to talk. But, yeah. Looks pretty shitty down here. Sorry I didn’t clean the dungeon for you. No one’s maintained this place for a few centuries. What’s your excuse?”
He didn’t expect an actual answer. Faustite was fresh out of a fight with him and Ilse, and to be fair, he looked like he was missing quite a few pieces. Michel eyed the grating in his middle and wondered why the Negaverse had bothered to save him. He didn’t look like any normal half-breed, he looked like he’d been soldered together.
Michel honestly didn’t care if he was uncomfortable. Dead was a little problematic, but from what he could tell he wasn’t bleeding out with such severity that he thought he’d have to worry. He’d keep him alive, maybe for information. Maybe for Lysithea.
“I want to know what you’ve done to Lysithea since you’ve had her. And I don’t want the shitty watered down version, I don’t want you to sugar coat things or lie to me. You can’t leave here unless I take you, so there’s no point in pissing me off. I’ll let you die a long, slow death, I don’t give a s**t. I won’t even clean you up, you can rot down here. We’ll see how long it takes the rats to clean your bones.”
Michel didn’t flinch as he said it; he was either good at bluffing or he meant it.
“You tell me everything you’ve got, and if you put me in a good enough mood, sure. I’ll answer something for you, too.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:42 am
"About a week." Pending the number of rats, the number of alternative food sources. He shut his eyes as he snorted out dwindling dregs of blood. "No. Less. Nothing to eat in the middle."
Michel's single-minded pursuit of Lysithea confirmed his Database entry. He wondered if the weapon jammed into the floor had much to do with the wards, or if they came from a different source. Wouldn't do to have a release mechanism so close to the prisoners, he supposed. Wouldn't do to keep him captive, either; neither one of them could reach Lysithea from here.
"Mm. Came up with an identity for her after she was indoctrinated. Made her my sister. Gave her a story of half-truths." He scoffed. "No good at lying outright.
"Found her an apartment. Got her starter furniture — whatever we could find at garage sales. Bought some knickknacks, anything we thought she might own. Then…" Faustite waved his good hand about, as if gathering up the threads of separate, yet interrelated, stories.
"Let her try to establish herself. Get subordinates. Lead a team. Went out to drain energy sometimes. Went shopping. Stayed at her place and baked. Domestic things." Painful, faulty little things.
"Found Malus with her. Would've killed him if she didn't spirit him away. So began the schism."
Eyes slatted open, he looked at the Knight. "What's your story with her?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:43 am
Michel had said he’d answer. He hadn’t said he’d be honest about it. And yet, there wasn’t a lie that could have justified why it was so important to see her. To save her. “You’ve met her. She’s likable. Passionate. Was helping me with some things. And then you went and ******** all that up. She doesn’t remember anything, does she?”
It wasn’t a question, it was a truth. He already knew. He’d pieced things together, gotten scraps of information from Malus and Soleiyu and Adria. He’d only shared what was absolutely necessary with them, but he didn’t want to burden them with what he was doing to get his information. And yet, arguably, they’d had better luck than him. They’d all seen her. Spoken to her.
Maybe it was supposed to be like this.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shrugged. He didn’t look away from Faustite. “You have no idea how much you’ve ******** up. And no matter how much you bleed, it’ll never be enough to make up for it. Surprised you’d try to kill Malus. Lysithea’d thought you all were friends. But then, she’s always been protective of her friends. Even the bad ones.”
Faustite was, obviously, a bad one. But then, she was friends with Michel, too.
“Why a sister? You so lonely in the Negaverse that you’re trying to piece together the scraps of a family?” He didn't care. Let him be lonely. It was a waste of a question but he didn’t take it back. “She wanted you to purify. She wanted to bring you into her family. Thought she could save you. So you corrupt her, and try to kill Malus, and–for what? Metallia scrambled everything between your ears or do you have any real reason for it?”
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:44 am
She was helping him with some things. She's passionate. Faustite didn't need a roadmap.
"Amnesiac, for what I know. Has some instincts left, but no answers to where they came from." It shouldn't have been surprising. The Negaverse liked their unwillings hollowed out, expecting its agents to pour something new in there. Lysithea was no different, regardless of how he or Michel saw her.
"Malus could've undone my truth. Sensible to kill him." He turned his head, spat black onto the floor.
His left eye had finally swollen shut. When he opened his right again, he scoured the bars. Pored over those wards, their familiar-and-not symbols. Michel implied that there was more to the place; Tanais had been the same way. These Wonders, they weren't singular buildings; perhaps their magic came from the ground itself.
He tried, then, to drain something, but Chaos wouldn't answer his call.
Sighing, he shifted his legs. "Everyone's dead. Identity was compromised." He smiled something thin and sardonic as grief resurfaced, and he scrubbed at his face. "Even if I cared nothing for the Negaverse, doubt I could leave it. Not when going anywhere takes its tithe of memories. Won't give them up for that." They deserved an indelible memory, even if it was only housed by him.
Not that, he suspected, Michel would understand. "Easier to say Metallia scrambled everything upstairs, isn't it.
"Everything there would've been claimed by Chaos or killed. You were there. Remember, then — no one put their hand in her chest."
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:44 am
If Michel hadn’t hated him, he might have pitied him. Instead, he felt a sickening satisfaction because he told himself it’s what Faustite deserved.
“Metallia brings out the worst in people. You can’t tell me you haven’t seen people change. The more she gets into you, the more she takes anyway.” Not that it mattered, he might as well have been talking to a wall. There was a very specific set of events that had led to him purifying, and he doubted there was any way to recreate it. To lose a bonded youma and nearly kill his own flesh and blood in the same week probably wasn’t something Faustite was going to experience. Michel had been willing to lose the memories if it meant he got to be free of Metallia.
Now, he was wondering how much of it was her and how much of it was him.
He thought he’d restrained himself. He hadn’t killed Faustite, hadn’t even come close.
“I remember that night pretty clearly. I remember the way she seemed dazed, lost. I remember how all of you seemed so eager to draw her into the fold. You didn’t let me pull her away.”
A part of him liked to think that he could have saved her. If he’d just gotten her away from them, if he could have just shaken her back to her senses. There were others there, weaker than her. Malus and Adria didn’t have the willpower she did, and there were a few there that weren’t even at her rank.
Taking her had felt targeted, and whether it was rational or not, Michel still blamed Faustite.
“The rest of us made it out just fine.” No Chaos, no death. It was the hubris of the Negaverse that expected any other outcome.
Sometimes, when Faustite attempted to access certain abilities, different runes would flare on the wall. Always subtle, never enough to completely illuminate the room. Something in the area seemed to hone in on the magic, seemed to try to absorb it. The symbols were odd–distinct, but not like anything found on Earth.
There was a distant, hollow echo that sometimes reverberated through the stones. Near or far, its source was indistinguishable. Michel never reacted to it.
One of the bats squealed above and he raised his eyes to the darkness. Two of them were fighting, and got just low enough to be visible for a few seconds before the chirping died away, replaced only by the sound of little scurries.
The longer they stayed still in the room, the more life seemed to make itself apparent. A crackle from the wall–a large spider was moving. Only a few steps, but it made a distinct sound. It blended into the darkness and matched the stones on the wall with near perfection. It neared three quarters of a foot in width.
On the ground, a few tiny silverfish-like bugs scurried. They were only a few inches in size, but one among them was nearly half a foot. A rat chased after them and caught one of the smaller ones, devouring it quickly.
This, Michel watched.
“They’re hungry down here,” he mused. “This world doesn’t have much to offer in the way of food and resources.” He didn’t know where all of these creatures came from, just that every time he visited he seemed to find something else. “I don’t think you’ll make much of a snack. Why do you look like that? All mangled and thrown together. I saw you explode, how did you come back from that?”
And why had someone decided to piece him back together?
He didn’t care. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to know. He wanted Lysithea back, wanted to let Faustite rot here. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t risk that he’d get out.
Anger still broiled in Michel’s gut at the idea of Lysithea being a blank slate, of her remembering nothing.
It had been his choice to forget, when he left the Negaverse. He knew the risk of what he could lose. But her? She hadn’t had any say in it. And now she’d lost everything? Replaced by weak lies and a false history.
Maybe he just wanted to hear how Faustite had suffered, too. Just to see if there was any fairness in this universe.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:45 am
”You survived because the Sovereigns withdrew the line. Because the Queen called an end to the operation.” He shifted, hissed when pressure inadvertently found its way into his left wrist, and tried to pull himself away from the wall. An awkward venture, full of stiff attempts to maneuver, and punctuated by the rattle of that long, stubborn chain.
“She’ll come back to it. The White Moon. But it won’t be for you.” His attention found Michel again, far beyond the bars.
Far beyond the dance of different scavengers as they preyed on each other. He heard clicks over stone, but couldn’t turn enough to see what caused them; instead, he watched a rat catch some roach thing, crunch down on it. Reminded Faustite how terribly famished he felt. The burning thing trapped his too-long nails on the stone floor.
“Don’t know what makes a youmafied officer look one way or another.” He was quiet, studied the grinding noise that his jaw made as he spoke. “It’s always been a struggle. Mmm… Couldn’t breathe when I was first promoted. Took someone stabbing a pen into my back. Second time,” he paused, his attention taken up by one of the visitors.
A silverfish crawled between the bars. He waited, steady, then snapped it up between his fingers and threw it into the hole in his side. It disappeared in an angry puff of fire.
He leaned against the bars thereafter. Watched the rats again. Rat — a better snack than a bug, he supposed.
“Second time, my organs boiled and fell out of me. Had to keep me together, somehow; my General thought this was quaint.” He motioned to the ruined grate. “Gave her a laugh.”
The latter question — he sighed something smokey through his nose. Watched his captor for all that stillness in a world with twilit life. “You know she’s with Ilse now, don’t you? You know she doesn’t remember anything. It won’t be the same life she comes back to; might not want you in it.
“For how I came back… Don’t know,” he answered with a cracked breath.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:45 am
Faustite didn’t seem to be so much different from any other scavenger. He hardly looked like a predator like this, small and beaten down. Michel wondered if his claim was another lie, meant to antagonize him or push some other agenda. And yet, Faustite didn’t seem to speak with any sort of maliciousness.
Michel had been so certain that he was little more than a snarling, feral beast.
Like this, he just looked young and fragile.
He didn’t respond when Faustite said Ilse’s name. Ilse had said nothing of the sort, but then, he hadn’t exactly asked what her relationship with Lysithea was. She wasn’t here to verify fact from fiction, anyway. It made sense that Faustite would have lied to him. Michel had come to Ilse’s aid, of course he knew that the two were acquainted in at least some way.
There was too much to unpack in all of it, so he just leaned back. Faustite did not miraculously heal, did not put up more of a fight here. The magic of Mont Saint Michel was overwhelming, and the pressure in the air seemed laced with sorrow and regret and anger.
He didn't know if it was him, or this place, or all of it together.
His Lysithea was gone. Moved on already, maybe. Michel didn’t grieve, not now. This path was far from its end and he wasn’t going to let Faustite witness him come crumbling down.
“She wanted to save you, you know. She’s always been like that. Trying to piece together the battered and broken. There’s a light in her that just won’t quit. She’ll leave the Negaverse, it’s only a matter of time. You can’t burn out a light like that. She doesn’t have to remember me, or anyone. She’ll do it, herself. Because you weren’t enough. Metallia isn’t enough. The only thing you’ve done is waste time and throw away someone who cared about you. For whatever reason. She sees things in people that I don’t. That I never will.”
She looked for the good and he looked for everything else.
“Malus, too. He’s foolish in the same way. Pities the youma, wants to save them. You could have been her hero, you know. She would have been indebted to you if you’d told her the truth and ‘saved’ her. Now you’ve burned that bridge. And who knows what others. I guess it doesn’t matter if you rot down here.”
He moved only then, to grip his weapon and pull himself to his feet. He didn’t care what had collected on him, but the floor was cold. He brushed himself off and had an unwavering air of indifference about him.
Faustite was right. He was still alive because that’s what Lysithea would want. But if he didn’t have her, what was the point?
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