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 Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 4:08 pm
Progress was slow. No further signs of Sylvite, no information on whatever kind of Knight she became, and no hints about where they may find Ganymede, or anyone else that might have known her. If he could've had that lattermost one, he would have another body to search for leads. Alas, he had only the one, with however many months of memories stored in her otherwise empty head.
A shame that he had to keep visiting. A shame that he had to see her. A shame that she wound up like this, some captured, crusty thing buried in the bottom of the Farnsworth. A shame she wouldn't know where she would die. A shame they couldn't have a more pleasant acquaintance with one another.
Perhaps that was what galled him most — that stubborn margin of respect.
Faustite materialized in another fit of smoke. The room lit; flame danced light and shadow over the burnt out walls. It was in that orange glow that he saw her.
His face contorted into a snarl. His upper lip twitched. Half a minute passed before he was able to suppress the expression, smooth it over into something less vulnerable. Something less telling.
"Wake," he commanded, and he nudged Cybele's foot with his boot. He had already called his strange bracelet to hand.
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 8:14 am
The darkness remained. The pain remained. Now, even sleep and waking were blending together. Cybele saw Faustite often in the snippets of dreams that came to her. His face was always unreadable, his smoke choking, his fire too much. Once, just his fiery gaze was enough to make her dissolve into ash, toes first, then the rest, a little at a time. There was nothing left by the time she woke up, gasping, to darkness. Her feet never stopped hurting, even in the nightmares. Faustite's treatments might have kept them from getting worse, but they weren't much better, and when the real Faustite nudged her, she started awake with a gasp. She glanced at his eyes, glanced at his bracelet, and did not move farther.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2022 4:09 pm
No words — helpful. Silent was a better way to go, a mute transaction.
He crouched next to her, mindful of his injuries. Easier to go slow, then, and draw the bracelet over his right hand. He reached for her chest.
She was waifish now, ever ready to conserve her energy. A slow, quiet death awaited her. One day, there would be no more waking up to a blackened, burnt-out building with no money to continue renovations. The place would sit derelict until investors snapped it up, found the skeleton in the basement, and quietly passed it off to the authorities. Perhaps they could blame a paltry insurance payout, say it was the system that shut the Farnsworth down and caused Cybele's demise.
Cybele — whoever she was, if she was anyone at all. Better a starseed, in the end.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 6:17 pm
Briefly, watching Faustite, Cybele wondered if he would try cleaning her feet again, or bringing her food, or if he would just take whatever visions he was getting from her in the time between now and the time she passed from starvation, or infection. She wondered if even that would take too long for him, if eventually he would see something that would drive him to do more than punching her in the chest, like he had before, or whatever other wounds he could think to inflict. He wouldn't let her overstay her use. He seemed the type to reach inside of her and claim her starseed before it flickered out. If he was planning to do that tonight, she could not see any hint of it in his eyes, but she did not see mercy either. There was not much there at all that she could read, but she watched him anyway. She watched as he pressed the gem to her chest, and looked at something that she could not see. It would take a few minutes for him to finish watching.
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Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 5:28 am
He was frozen for a time, as usual. Then he was not, as usual. When he came back to himself, when the echoes of despair and relief ceased, he turned his burning gaze on her. His hand left her chest and he had already begun picking the bracelet off of his palm.
The trail she first offered had gone cold. Sad for her, he supposed, but frustrating for him. And with Albite always begging him not to make her a youma, not to take her back into the Negaverse, there was very little that he could do with her now. Albite vied to give her a good, clean death, but Faustite refused to give her such an easy out. So what was there to do with her now?
Perhaps nothing, he decided, as he searched her fever-glazed eyes. An infection took, and he wasn't interested in dragging Bloodstone down into the bowels of the Farnsworth to determine which one. She would likely die down here while he was following up about Revenant's tip.
Sad for her, he supposed.
Straightening into a stand, he braced his hand against the cold pipe. "No point feeding you now. Soon you'll lose your wits, then your legs, then your life. Won't matter what we do for you now.
"Back soon," he finished, and he turned from her, and vanished again in a fit of fire and smoke. In truth, his duties amassed, and he would not spare her any thought until those duties were addressed in full.
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