An Eve at the Heliquary, Part 3 & 4
There's more, there's more, but don't read three and four till you've read one and two. It won't make much sense... Not that it will anyway.
Ataxia's lips part post kiss, her hot, but mixed with lines of cool from her teeth, interestingly enough. Its not that she needs to breath, but the action itself still occurs.. "Breaking my event horizon could lead to a release of 663 billion tons TNT in potential energy, it would seem. (At least, I think that was the correct measurement - 1g - 80KT, convert one jackal to energy..) Puzzlebox would likely terminate me in such an event, though I think I would be restored.. but, exploration might be risky in that manner, Beta, so you know.." she continues. Thick claws slowly slide up and down the doe's back, palms pressing all the while, keeping her almost pinned to her front as she smiles, or grins down to her.. "But next time, we will explore."
You say, "Imagine how delighted _I_ would be if that happened."
Diafeara goes silent and still in the terrible embrace of her lover's tentacles, pinned to the ceiling, buried upside down like some lovely corpse. The expression she wears, on what can be seen of her face, is estacy of the sort rarely seen, even in this place.
Besax's tendrils slowly lower his lover to the ground, leaving her splayed and denuded on the floor, soaked in fluids hers and his.
Diafeara remains limp and still, wearing a grimace of joy and greed and lust. After long moments, her chest heaves, and she begins breathing again, calling attention to the fact that she was not, previously. "Oh.." She raises herself up slowly, achingly, on her arms. ".. oooh.." She hisses faintly, teeth glimmering in a wicked smile at Besax. "My god."
Hydra/Beta murrs warmly, "Yes, we will explore. Risks are acceptable even as they are known." Her teeth flutter down toward Ataxia's neck. A quiet quiver of her ear toward Besax. "I can tell you a story about the very Puzzlebox itself, for the very cheap price of a similiar story from you."
You say, "Make your price and wares more concrete, Hydra, and we will trade secrets."
Roque does her best to protect the 'privacy' of the moment, such as it is, eyeing the steps with some distaste. This was not the place or the time in which she wanted to practice, but since she's here, it would be rude to simply turn around and depart. She turns in place, then wheels herself to the more gradual descent, and pushes herself forward. The first step she manages easily enough, but once started it's difficult to stop, and the chair clatters down the steps harshly, making the rabbit grimace as she hits bottom.
You say, "Ah, Roque. How adorable, your legs are broken."
Diafeara laughs, nastily, and gets to her feet.
Brimstone prrps softly, and trots over to Dia, sniffing her feet. She's nudged away for her trouble.
Ataxia's head falls back to the wall, her throat offered, though its all so much darkness as she is. Her voice is loud in the air, but the vibrations even pass through her event horizon, lulling through to Beta's teeth.. "We may both find out new things. Its exciting.. I intend to grow. I was static for some time, and I guess time doesn't matter so much here.. but trying to move forward will help answer those guesses as well.."
Roque glances up at Besax's comment, her ears flattening. "Not broken, merely disabled. Phoenix did some rather ingenious nerve-disabling."
You say, "I will resist the temptation to throw peanuts at them. Congratulations, by the way, Roque, for your eyes. They are a lovely shade of violet."
Onya uncoils her tail from where she's been sitting, waving it in the air behind her lazily, still watching the scene. She smiles, politely, though.
Diafeara laughs again, a snide rude sound, and makes her way to the shelves where the liquor is housed. She helps herself to a bottle, and swirls a hand idly in the air until it thickens, darkens and grows slightly sweeter. It tastes of erotic nightmares.
Brimstone sighs as she's nudged, and moves to sniff at the wheelchair instead. That's new.
Roque tilts her head to the side at Besax's comment about peanuts, but then blushes at the compliment. "Thank you," she says softly. "I didn't pick them, but I am pleased with them."
You say, "In this place, Roque, you pick all of yourself, as much as you pick your crippling. When you could change the color of your eyes on a whim, you cannot escape responsibility for their hue."
Roque considers those words, then shrugs. "I meant only that my eyes are the ones with which I was decanted. I have not made any artistic changes to them, except for their closing, which has run its course."
You say, "But consider the implications of your words. If you did not pick them, then who did? Who now is responsible for the color of your eyes?"
Hydra/Beta sings out, a quiet offer streamed perfectly through nibbling event horizons, "I will tell a secret about how Puzzlebox found itself, which might offer insight on the matter of madmen." Then, she simply purrs with a quiet mumble reaching down Ataxia's front, raising back up toward her neck again. "And, dear Ataxia, we have learned great things from each other." She tingles delightfully with rechanging, reordering of her body merely from the shadowjackal's closeness.
Roque smiles slightly. "This pair? The engineers at the enclave. If I upgrade them, they will of course be my decision."
You say, "Oh, no, Roque. They are your decision right now."
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "You and your false dilemmas, Besax. Always probing, always looking for leverages to push people off edge with."
You say, "Nonsense, this is mere armchair philosophy."
You say, "Though I suppose I could build a foundation of mind shaking epiphanies upon it."
Onya offers, "With a decided lack of armchairs."
You say, "Who now holds power over the color of Roque's eyes?"
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "I hold power over the color of Roque's eyes."
Roque sits back in her chair, wheeling herself closer to the assembled. "Perhaps they are," she murmurs quietly, a slight smile on her muzzle. "Ultimately, I have control over them, Besax. They are, after all, my eyes, and I have no desire to yield it to anyone else."
You say, "And could you not, if you so chose, easily transform them to any color you chose, such as black, or brown, or gold, or even that pithy spiral that Darkon seems so fond of?"
Diafeara sips thick, blood-colored wine from the bottle, and slinks over to drape herself lewdly across Besax's lap, purring. She looks at Roque, her own eyes glittering and dark.
Roque smiles. "Perhaps I could indeed. The question then becomes why I don't, and what stops anyone else from doing the same. Perhaps we hold to these forms for a reason, eyes and ears and tails and all, because something in our psyches is comforted by them."
Ataxia's head falls over Beta's, draping far behind, her chin rubbing on her neck as her neck remains offered above. Such closeness.. She remembers meeting Beta - touches of the thoughts lulling through her event horizon. The exploration that everyone else looked away from, while she and the strange doe threw themselves into it, and discovered each other. She remembers the touch of feeling and emotion which bled through even to her mind by the end.. Audibly, she sighs, happily so.. "Yes." she responds, with finality to it. There is absolute agreement. Her claws trail down, over Beta's back, past her waist, over her bottom, holding her low and to her, ordering everything inside of her, from the biological to the normally less efficient nano-virus, the jackal seemingly soothed in the process of stealing all the disorder she can from the being before her.. "And we'll learn more. That's the true progression of time, perhaps.. not actual time, that might not matter, but the changes and the learning.."
Roque says, "You could, perhaps, by that logic, become a perfectly ordinary ferret, or any other species. Perhaps you might even be able to escape the cycle of feeding and desire, simply by wishing it so. Thus I must ask, why you perpetuate your own circles of violence. Is it because you truly are so motivated, or is reality not quite as malleable as you would have me believe?""
You say, "You could, but you _choose_ not too. Ergo, you have chosen to have purple eyes, and thus you DID pick them."
Roque laughs softly. "I don't recall having chosen. Perhaps it was an unconscious desire? Why purple, then?"
You say, "There is quite a bit of difference, Roque, even in Puzzlebox, between changing the color of one's eyes and the essence of one's personality. Both are possible, and both, ultimately, are personal choices."
You say, "Which, of course, surely says something about the inherent nature of both of us."
Diafeara takes a long pull from her wine bottle and eases to her feet again, prowling restlessly until she is standing behind Roque, purring loudly, swaying to some music only she can hear. The bottle sloshes as she moves, keeping it held lightly in her hand, sipping now and then.
Besax's tendrils slowly coil around Diafeara's supple body. "Reality is endlessly malleable, here, Roque. I am a rose glistening with dew on a fine spring morning. I am a harp of gold with silver strings. I am the dying scream of the murderer. Who can say?
Hydra/Beta points up toward her own eyes, whispering into all ears present, "I can determine the color of Roque's eyes even now." Then, she seems to forget her own statement in a frenzy of nibblings, herself trailed over with warm clingings of chaos to Ataxia's claws. She does not recall, or recalls everything immediately at the same time, simply in the moment now centered in odd senses. If Ataxia ever asked her, she would offer up a bizarre view of time. She does nose onward, though.
Onya sniffs. "I've heard a few of the last ones, before. Of course, most were along the lines of 'what? No!'...ah well." She slinks off of the bench, and makes her way to the door. "It's been...something."
You say, "Philosophy. Better than opium."
Roque shifts in her chair, smoothing out her robes beneath her. "Each of us can say, Besax. It is up to each of us to determine. You may consider yourself a rose or a harp or many other things, but you are none of them in my mind. If reality is as malleable as you would claim, then it is up to each of us to decide what the world is and is not, and in my mind you are a dangerous sociopath not to be trusted with more than a wooden spoon." She grins as she says this last.
Diafeara's eyes follow Onya's exit, and her smirk widens. The smoke in the room grows thicker still, creeping and insidious and sweet and not stifling at it. It's soothing. Easy to breathe in, and it doesn't come back out.
Droplets of thick, oily wine fall on Roque's ears as Dia continues to drink, standing behind her.
Besax slides a long, glistening, terrible knife from his coat. It seems, somehow, as though it has been lovingly crafted for the explicit purpose of killing Roque, and no one else, were that ever necessary. "You must be very uncomfortable around me, then. Though I don't know why - after all, if you die, the backup system will bring you back to life, assembling your shattered essence quanta by quanta. Isn't that how it works?"
You say, "Funny, how no matter how much death is conquered, the fear of it never dies completely."
Ataxia's tongue curls down to Beta, offered to her nibbling teeth, washing against and through, touching past regardless of where she nibbles and touches. Her tongue is huge, even when held by the confines of her shape, mostly in length.. its all offered, though, the potential, just washing at her lips. Her eyes close - young jackal finds time a hard topic so far.. She's been without it at times, she's only lived a short while, months.. Her development though has been weird, steps above a child, steps behind, sudden flurries of emotion and change. Perhaps some time time will come up in more detail.. As for now, she spends it lulling claws all the way down to Beta's thighs, curling in, then dragging up along the strands of fabric, parting or ripping a number of them even further.
Diafeara sighs, a sucker at heart for the romance of a blade.
Hydra/Beta quietly remarks, "Besax, you may as well say that Roque's eyes are a collabrative work of everyone who could potentially alter her eye color, if you are going to argue that she is responsible for her eyes because of simply not feeling strongly enough to change them."
Besax turns to Beta. "And I am interested indeed in your proposition, Beta. It is certainly more coherent than the first one you had for me."
Roque earflicks, then turns her head back towards Diafeara, trying to catch the cat's expression with her eyes. The only visible change in her appearance besides is a tensing of her paws against the arms of her chair. When she speaks, it's towards Besax, though she's looking at Diafeara. "There is something... ineffable... in the nature of death, Besax. Darkon has returned from the grave, but is she really the same as she was before?"
You say, "That would, indeed, by the ultimate answer, Hydra, but she holds enough power over them compared to others that I can round the others off."
You say, "Was Darkon ever more than a flight of fancy?"
Roque keeps her eyes fixed on Diafeara. "Is any of us? At what point does the semblance of reality become reality itself?"
You say, "When it starts to fear death, I would imagine."
You say, "Or perhaps I'm just being pretentious."
Diafeara's expression is careless, her lips twisted in a smirk and smeared with wine. Is that wine? The starfields of her eyes are glittering, the reds and oranges of her brighter colors swirling and throbbing. With a snort, she takes a deliberately clumsy drink, staining the rabbit's fur without ever looking at her.
You say, "No, Darkon is a concept, a fetish made flesh, no more real, ultimately, than pi, or the number seven, and certainly no more easy to destroy."
Roque frowns slightly at Dia's lack of caution and wheels herself forward, out from under the spilled wine... if that is what it is. "And you, Besax? Are you more real than pi?"
Hydra/Beta fills with hunger, reaching up to engulf Ataxia's tongue within her teeth, her hands sweeping rapidly, with quickly flickering timings, her own possibilities made more stasis, mroe neat, her body motions curiously showing it. Her weight sinking and pressing inward toward lifting claws. And, apart and almost distant from all this, her voice, "One can talk about the nature of reality, or one can act upon the nature of reality."
Diafeara murmurs, "He's certainly more fun to fuck." She steps forward, grinning darkly, keeping herself close to the rabbit.
You say, "I can _die_."
Hydra/Beta stands up, a second one of herself, perched on top of a table, having spoken this. "Besax, you like talking, dear ferret."
You say, "Of course I am real."
You say, "And you are astute as ever, Hydra."
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "What are your ambitions?"
Diafeara laughs, a ripple of unkindness.
You say, "To live."
You say, "To suffer, to triumph, to fail, to glory, to squalor..."
Somewhere on the muck, Pringle disconnected.
You say, "To live."
Roque glances back at Diafeara, watching her approach with an expression somewhere between a frown and a scowl. "Can you, Besax? Or will you, like Darkon, escape that final termination? Her death was forever, because she chose to die, and then suddenly it was all a temporary thing, because she chose to return. Is death truly a limit for you, Besax, or is that your last and final excuse to justify any behavior you see fit to perpetrate against others? The fear and avoidance of that final end?"
Diafeara leans casually on Roque's chair. "A noble ambition, my lord." She toasts him carelessly with a slosh of the bottle.
Roque shifts, ears flicking as dark liquid stains her fur. "Do watch yourself, Diafeara," she says perhaps more harshly than she intends. "I would never ask you to respect others, but you might at least respect your drink."
You say, "Death will limit me only if it dares catch me."
Hydra/Gamma giggles, now, her face blurring from a doe's into nonface, while the other Beta continues in Ataxia's embrace. And, Gamma speaks, in a quite distinctly bratty voice, "No wonder you got so boring so quickly, Besax. Simple ambitions, mere squabblings at grasping the threads of life."
You say, "I am millenia old. I can't be riotously entertaining every minute."
Ataxia's tongue pours down when taken, almost a flood from the semi-fluid feeling nature of her present form, even if it stays within its horizon. It pours through teeth, though, down into tracts somewhat familiar, but still alien all in all, still lacking true detailed exploration by her, assuming its even the same from Beta to Beta. Her hands push down and in as she shadow jackal angles and leans on the wall.. then all rise at once again, claws through fabric, or at least pushing it right between the doe's legs deeply.. She pushes her claws through, around to the other side, and begins to lift her, ultimately, drawing her up to meet her muzzle, her maw opening wider, thick teeth sliding down all the way to Beta's cheeks as her eyes close, and she draws in against and around her, another almost pointless breath.. it gives her scent, at the least, a familiar honey, ordered to perfection.
Diafeara snickers softly.
Brimstone meows faintly to herself, and hops onto Roque's lap, kneading experimentally. "Prrp?"
Hydra/Gamma's teeth gape wide, her lack of a face opening up and up. "Nevertheless, you can afford to have greater ambitions. But, as you say, squalor."
Besax has long since put away the knife, by the way.
Roque focuses on the flamecat, but still addresses Besax when she speaks. "Surely in this malleable universe of yours, Besax, you could be anythi--ee!--ing you wish, including humorous at any moment." Her voice jumps when Brimstone lands, so focused on flamecat and ferret that the cat's approach escapes her attention. When Brimstone lands, though, she begins petting her, fingers lightly stroking over her back.
System steps inside, bringing a momentary burst of sound with them.
Brimstone purrs instantly, arching into the petting.
System bows as (he) enters. "Greetings, love, Beta and Gamma of Hydra, Diafeara, Besax, Roque." (He) pauses for a moment. "And Brimstone."
System smiles slightly.
Hydra/Beta wiggles in the complete and utter peneration, within Ataxia's grasp and clutching to her, the shadowjackal's hand between her thighs and tongue down the doe's throat, deeply. She is lost in simple reactions, curling against Ataxia into new and more relaxed positions, echoing the past with every rearranged particle of her body.
You say, "System, it is good to see you. And I was being sarcastic for the most part, Roque."
Brimstone is in Roque's lap, purring and being petted. Her life is as it should be.
System arches (his) eyebrows. "I was not aware that you would ever consider it good to see me, Besax."
Diafeara sniffs. "Roque has no talent for the subtle, dear Master." She licks her lips, and leans further down, so that she's nearly breathing on Roque's ear.
You say, "When I'm discussing philosophy, your presence is always entertaining."
Ataxia's lips part post kiss, her hot, but mixed with lines of cool from her teeth, interestingly enough. Its not that she needs to breath, but the action itself still occurs.. "Breaking my event horizon could lead to a release of 663 billion tons TNT in potential energy, it would seem. (At least, I think that was the correct measurement - 1g - 80KT, convert one jackal to energy..) Puzzlebox would likely terminate me in such an event, though I think I would be restored.. but, exploration might be risky in that manner, Beta, so you know.." she continues. Thick claws slowly slide up and down the doe's back, palms pressing all the while, keeping her almost pinned to her front as she smiles, or grins down to her.. "But next time, we will explore."
You say, "Imagine how delighted _I_ would be if that happened."
Diafeara goes silent and still in the terrible embrace of her lover's tentacles, pinned to the ceiling, buried upside down like some lovely corpse. The expression she wears, on what can be seen of her face, is estacy of the sort rarely seen, even in this place.
Besax's tendrils slowly lower his lover to the ground, leaving her splayed and denuded on the floor, soaked in fluids hers and his.
Diafeara remains limp and still, wearing a grimace of joy and greed and lust. After long moments, her chest heaves, and she begins breathing again, calling attention to the fact that she was not, previously. "Oh.." She raises herself up slowly, achingly, on her arms. ".. oooh.." She hisses faintly, teeth glimmering in a wicked smile at Besax. "My god."
Hydra/Beta murrs warmly, "Yes, we will explore. Risks are acceptable even as they are known." Her teeth flutter down toward Ataxia's neck. A quiet quiver of her ear toward Besax. "I can tell you a story about the very Puzzlebox itself, for the very cheap price of a similiar story from you."
You say, "Make your price and wares more concrete, Hydra, and we will trade secrets."
Roque does her best to protect the 'privacy' of the moment, such as it is, eyeing the steps with some distaste. This was not the place or the time in which she wanted to practice, but since she's here, it would be rude to simply turn around and depart. She turns in place, then wheels herself to the more gradual descent, and pushes herself forward. The first step she manages easily enough, but once started it's difficult to stop, and the chair clatters down the steps harshly, making the rabbit grimace as she hits bottom.
You say, "Ah, Roque. How adorable, your legs are broken."
Diafeara laughs, nastily, and gets to her feet.
Brimstone prrps softly, and trots over to Dia, sniffing her feet. She's nudged away for her trouble.
Ataxia's head falls back to the wall, her throat offered, though its all so much darkness as she is. Her voice is loud in the air, but the vibrations even pass through her event horizon, lulling through to Beta's teeth.. "We may both find out new things. Its exciting.. I intend to grow. I was static for some time, and I guess time doesn't matter so much here.. but trying to move forward will help answer those guesses as well.."
Roque glances up at Besax's comment, her ears flattening. "Not broken, merely disabled. Phoenix did some rather ingenious nerve-disabling."
You say, "I will resist the temptation to throw peanuts at them. Congratulations, by the way, Roque, for your eyes. They are a lovely shade of violet."
Onya uncoils her tail from where she's been sitting, waving it in the air behind her lazily, still watching the scene. She smiles, politely, though.
Diafeara laughs again, a snide rude sound, and makes her way to the shelves where the liquor is housed. She helps herself to a bottle, and swirls a hand idly in the air until it thickens, darkens and grows slightly sweeter. It tastes of erotic nightmares.
Brimstone sighs as she's nudged, and moves to sniff at the wheelchair instead. That's new.
Roque tilts her head to the side at Besax's comment about peanuts, but then blushes at the compliment. "Thank you," she says softly. "I didn't pick them, but I am pleased with them."
You say, "In this place, Roque, you pick all of yourself, as much as you pick your crippling. When you could change the color of your eyes on a whim, you cannot escape responsibility for their hue."
Roque considers those words, then shrugs. "I meant only that my eyes are the ones with which I was decanted. I have not made any artistic changes to them, except for their closing, which has run its course."
You say, "But consider the implications of your words. If you did not pick them, then who did? Who now is responsible for the color of your eyes?"
Hydra/Beta sings out, a quiet offer streamed perfectly through nibbling event horizons, "I will tell a secret about how Puzzlebox found itself, which might offer insight on the matter of madmen." Then, she simply purrs with a quiet mumble reaching down Ataxia's front, raising back up toward her neck again. "And, dear Ataxia, we have learned great things from each other." She tingles delightfully with rechanging, reordering of her body merely from the shadowjackal's closeness.
Roque smiles slightly. "This pair? The engineers at the enclave. If I upgrade them, they will of course be my decision."
You say, "Oh, no, Roque. They are your decision right now."
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "You and your false dilemmas, Besax. Always probing, always looking for leverages to push people off edge with."
You say, "Nonsense, this is mere armchair philosophy."
You say, "Though I suppose I could build a foundation of mind shaking epiphanies upon it."
Onya offers, "With a decided lack of armchairs."
You say, "Who now holds power over the color of Roque's eyes?"
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "I hold power over the color of Roque's eyes."
Roque sits back in her chair, wheeling herself closer to the assembled. "Perhaps they are," she murmurs quietly, a slight smile on her muzzle. "Ultimately, I have control over them, Besax. They are, after all, my eyes, and I have no desire to yield it to anyone else."
You say, "And could you not, if you so chose, easily transform them to any color you chose, such as black, or brown, or gold, or even that pithy spiral that Darkon seems so fond of?"
Diafeara sips thick, blood-colored wine from the bottle, and slinks over to drape herself lewdly across Besax's lap, purring. She looks at Roque, her own eyes glittering and dark.
Roque smiles. "Perhaps I could indeed. The question then becomes why I don't, and what stops anyone else from doing the same. Perhaps we hold to these forms for a reason, eyes and ears and tails and all, because something in our psyches is comforted by them."
Ataxia's head falls over Beta's, draping far behind, her chin rubbing on her neck as her neck remains offered above. Such closeness.. She remembers meeting Beta - touches of the thoughts lulling through her event horizon. The exploration that everyone else looked away from, while she and the strange doe threw themselves into it, and discovered each other. She remembers the touch of feeling and emotion which bled through even to her mind by the end.. Audibly, she sighs, happily so.. "Yes." she responds, with finality to it. There is absolute agreement. Her claws trail down, over Beta's back, past her waist, over her bottom, holding her low and to her, ordering everything inside of her, from the biological to the normally less efficient nano-virus, the jackal seemingly soothed in the process of stealing all the disorder she can from the being before her.. "And we'll learn more. That's the true progression of time, perhaps.. not actual time, that might not matter, but the changes and the learning.."
Roque says, "You could, perhaps, by that logic, become a perfectly ordinary ferret, or any other species. Perhaps you might even be able to escape the cycle of feeding and desire, simply by wishing it so. Thus I must ask, why you perpetuate your own circles of violence. Is it because you truly are so motivated, or is reality not quite as malleable as you would have me believe?""
You say, "You could, but you _choose_ not too. Ergo, you have chosen to have purple eyes, and thus you DID pick them."
Roque laughs softly. "I don't recall having chosen. Perhaps it was an unconscious desire? Why purple, then?"
You say, "There is quite a bit of difference, Roque, even in Puzzlebox, between changing the color of one's eyes and the essence of one's personality. Both are possible, and both, ultimately, are personal choices."
You say, "Which, of course, surely says something about the inherent nature of both of us."
Diafeara takes a long pull from her wine bottle and eases to her feet again, prowling restlessly until she is standing behind Roque, purring loudly, swaying to some music only she can hear. The bottle sloshes as she moves, keeping it held lightly in her hand, sipping now and then.
Besax's tendrils slowly coil around Diafeara's supple body. "Reality is endlessly malleable, here, Roque. I am a rose glistening with dew on a fine spring morning. I am a harp of gold with silver strings. I am the dying scream of the murderer. Who can say?
Hydra/Beta points up toward her own eyes, whispering into all ears present, "I can determine the color of Roque's eyes even now." Then, she seems to forget her own statement in a frenzy of nibblings, herself trailed over with warm clingings of chaos to Ataxia's claws. She does not recall, or recalls everything immediately at the same time, simply in the moment now centered in odd senses. If Ataxia ever asked her, she would offer up a bizarre view of time. She does nose onward, though.
Onya sniffs. "I've heard a few of the last ones, before. Of course, most were along the lines of 'what? No!'...ah well." She slinks off of the bench, and makes her way to the door. "It's been...something."
You say, "Philosophy. Better than opium."
Roque shifts in her chair, smoothing out her robes beneath her. "Each of us can say, Besax. It is up to each of us to determine. You may consider yourself a rose or a harp or many other things, but you are none of them in my mind. If reality is as malleable as you would claim, then it is up to each of us to decide what the world is and is not, and in my mind you are a dangerous sociopath not to be trusted with more than a wooden spoon." She grins as she says this last.
Diafeara's eyes follow Onya's exit, and her smirk widens. The smoke in the room grows thicker still, creeping and insidious and sweet and not stifling at it. It's soothing. Easy to breathe in, and it doesn't come back out.
Droplets of thick, oily wine fall on Roque's ears as Dia continues to drink, standing behind her.
Besax slides a long, glistening, terrible knife from his coat. It seems, somehow, as though it has been lovingly crafted for the explicit purpose of killing Roque, and no one else, were that ever necessary. "You must be very uncomfortable around me, then. Though I don't know why - after all, if you die, the backup system will bring you back to life, assembling your shattered essence quanta by quanta. Isn't that how it works?"
You say, "Funny, how no matter how much death is conquered, the fear of it never dies completely."
Ataxia's tongue curls down to Beta, offered to her nibbling teeth, washing against and through, touching past regardless of where she nibbles and touches. Her tongue is huge, even when held by the confines of her shape, mostly in length.. its all offered, though, the potential, just washing at her lips. Her eyes close - young jackal finds time a hard topic so far.. She's been without it at times, she's only lived a short while, months.. Her development though has been weird, steps above a child, steps behind, sudden flurries of emotion and change. Perhaps some time time will come up in more detail.. As for now, she spends it lulling claws all the way down to Beta's thighs, curling in, then dragging up along the strands of fabric, parting or ripping a number of them even further.
Diafeara sighs, a sucker at heart for the romance of a blade.
Hydra/Beta quietly remarks, "Besax, you may as well say that Roque's eyes are a collabrative work of everyone who could potentially alter her eye color, if you are going to argue that she is responsible for her eyes because of simply not feeling strongly enough to change them."
Besax turns to Beta. "And I am interested indeed in your proposition, Beta. It is certainly more coherent than the first one you had for me."
Roque earflicks, then turns her head back towards Diafeara, trying to catch the cat's expression with her eyes. The only visible change in her appearance besides is a tensing of her paws against the arms of her chair. When she speaks, it's towards Besax, though she's looking at Diafeara. "There is something... ineffable... in the nature of death, Besax. Darkon has returned from the grave, but is she really the same as she was before?"
You say, "That would, indeed, by the ultimate answer, Hydra, but she holds enough power over them compared to others that I can round the others off."
You say, "Was Darkon ever more than a flight of fancy?"
Roque keeps her eyes fixed on Diafeara. "Is any of us? At what point does the semblance of reality become reality itself?"
You say, "When it starts to fear death, I would imagine."
You say, "Or perhaps I'm just being pretentious."
Diafeara's expression is careless, her lips twisted in a smirk and smeared with wine. Is that wine? The starfields of her eyes are glittering, the reds and oranges of her brighter colors swirling and throbbing. With a snort, she takes a deliberately clumsy drink, staining the rabbit's fur without ever looking at her.
You say, "No, Darkon is a concept, a fetish made flesh, no more real, ultimately, than pi, or the number seven, and certainly no more easy to destroy."
Roque frowns slightly at Dia's lack of caution and wheels herself forward, out from under the spilled wine... if that is what it is. "And you, Besax? Are you more real than pi?"
Hydra/Beta fills with hunger, reaching up to engulf Ataxia's tongue within her teeth, her hands sweeping rapidly, with quickly flickering timings, her own possibilities made more stasis, mroe neat, her body motions curiously showing it. Her weight sinking and pressing inward toward lifting claws. And, apart and almost distant from all this, her voice, "One can talk about the nature of reality, or one can act upon the nature of reality."
Diafeara murmurs, "He's certainly more fun to fuck." She steps forward, grinning darkly, keeping herself close to the rabbit.
You say, "I can _die_."
Hydra/Beta stands up, a second one of herself, perched on top of a table, having spoken this. "Besax, you like talking, dear ferret."
You say, "Of course I am real."
You say, "And you are astute as ever, Hydra."
Hydra/Beta murrs wonderfully, "What are your ambitions?"
Diafeara laughs, a ripple of unkindness.
You say, "To live."
You say, "To suffer, to triumph, to fail, to glory, to squalor..."
Somewhere on the muck, Pringle disconnected.
You say, "To live."
Roque glances back at Diafeara, watching her approach with an expression somewhere between a frown and a scowl. "Can you, Besax? Or will you, like Darkon, escape that final termination? Her death was forever, because she chose to die, and then suddenly it was all a temporary thing, because she chose to return. Is death truly a limit for you, Besax, or is that your last and final excuse to justify any behavior you see fit to perpetrate against others? The fear and avoidance of that final end?"
Diafeara leans casually on Roque's chair. "A noble ambition, my lord." She toasts him carelessly with a slosh of the bottle.
Roque shifts, ears flicking as dark liquid stains her fur. "Do watch yourself, Diafeara," she says perhaps more harshly than she intends. "I would never ask you to respect others, but you might at least respect your drink."
You say, "Death will limit me only if it dares catch me."
Hydra/Gamma giggles, now, her face blurring from a doe's into nonface, while the other Beta continues in Ataxia's embrace. And, Gamma speaks, in a quite distinctly bratty voice, "No wonder you got so boring so quickly, Besax. Simple ambitions, mere squabblings at grasping the threads of life."
You say, "I am millenia old. I can't be riotously entertaining every minute."
Ataxia's tongue pours down when taken, almost a flood from the semi-fluid feeling nature of her present form, even if it stays within its horizon. It pours through teeth, though, down into tracts somewhat familiar, but still alien all in all, still lacking true detailed exploration by her, assuming its even the same from Beta to Beta. Her hands push down and in as she shadow jackal angles and leans on the wall.. then all rise at once again, claws through fabric, or at least pushing it right between the doe's legs deeply.. She pushes her claws through, around to the other side, and begins to lift her, ultimately, drawing her up to meet her muzzle, her maw opening wider, thick teeth sliding down all the way to Beta's cheeks as her eyes close, and she draws in against and around her, another almost pointless breath.. it gives her scent, at the least, a familiar honey, ordered to perfection.
Diafeara snickers softly.
Brimstone meows faintly to herself, and hops onto Roque's lap, kneading experimentally. "Prrp?"
Hydra/Gamma's teeth gape wide, her lack of a face opening up and up. "Nevertheless, you can afford to have greater ambitions. But, as you say, squalor."
Besax has long since put away the knife, by the way.
Roque focuses on the flamecat, but still addresses Besax when she speaks. "Surely in this malleable universe of yours, Besax, you could be anythi--ee!--ing you wish, including humorous at any moment." Her voice jumps when Brimstone lands, so focused on flamecat and ferret that the cat's approach escapes her attention. When Brimstone lands, though, she begins petting her, fingers lightly stroking over her back.
System steps inside, bringing a momentary burst of sound with them.
Brimstone purrs instantly, arching into the petting.
System bows as (he) enters. "Greetings, love, Beta and Gamma of Hydra, Diafeara, Besax, Roque." (He) pauses for a moment. "And Brimstone."
System smiles slightly.
Hydra/Beta wiggles in the complete and utter peneration, within Ataxia's grasp and clutching to her, the shadowjackal's hand between her thighs and tongue down the doe's throat, deeply. She is lost in simple reactions, curling against Ataxia into new and more relaxed positions, echoing the past with every rearranged particle of her body.
You say, "System, it is good to see you. And I was being sarcastic for the most part, Roque."
Brimstone is in Roque's lap, purring and being petted. Her life is as it should be.
System arches (his) eyebrows. "I was not aware that you would ever consider it good to see me, Besax."
Diafeara sniffs. "Roque has no talent for the subtle, dear Master." She licks her lips, and leans further down, so that she's nearly breathing on Roque's ear.
You say, "When I'm discussing philosophy, your presence is always entertaining."