dubious fragmentations
I think I'm getting really jaded. I did a bloodplay scene that's as removed from most bloodplay scenes as my typical "sex" scene on Puzzlebox is as removed from most sex scenes.
Shen Mi
Did you ever have an officious schoolteacher? Who had infinite patience for questions but zero tolerance for trouble? Who refused to use any kind of grading curve and had students constantly failing or just scraping by in her class? Do you remember the look she had on her face, the twinkle in the eye and a smile that wouldn't make sense to you until years later, when you already knew better? That look is on Shen Mi's face, right now.
Defiantly existing, Shen Mi is a qiling, with a blue hide of glittering catfish scales. Her head is more like a pony's than a dragon's; the advance of age has put crow's feet at her eyes and character lines in her face. Her feet are thick flat ox's hooves that somehow fall without a sound; around her left ankle is a bracelet of glittering brown alexandrite. Her lion's tail is weighed down with a brass ring faceted with nephrite, and it does not swish behind her matronly rump. With her shoulders back, she just barely clears five chi (166 cm), although the jade horn centered on her pate rises a few hands higher.
As a corset, she wears a chahar-ai-ne (hinged breastplate), whose color runs from dark green to glittering emerald, veined with the black and green of jadeite. Underneath that is a silk robe in the li-shu style, black with a pattern of stars and pheasants on her arms, of waves and dragons on her thighs. Wrapped around her right wrist is a string of Buddhist prayer beads of what appears to be pure jade.ShenMi says, "I have yet to make your acquaintance. I am Shen Mi."
Ibael laughs like bells and marimbas "Ibael, ibael, little lost ibael playing in nowhere with her little big sister."
ShenMi says, "Sister? Would you by chance be related to Atazael?"
Ibael says, "is am was are Atazael Sosael Myela Inhatti Olisolif Penhiya... O masks o names. Virus we."
Ibael giggles.
ShenMi says, "Yes, virus. You seem rather cheerful."
Ibael twists round skitters looks back "We often are Why not?'
"I cannot think of a reason." ShenMi fingers her prayer beads. "What entertains you?"
Ibael steps close smiling lifting severed-on-tiny-knife beads in her hand clicking fondling (praying) "Pain fear Suffering. And pretty."
ShenMi hmms, barbels twitching.
Ibael giggles. "Pretty beads."
ShenMi says, "Very much so. I have prettier things, too."
Ibael flicks her abdomen side to side. "is are it they sharp or soft?"
ShenMi takes the needle from behind her ear. "Exquisitely sharp."
Lunaria has arrived.
Lunaria comes through the portal from up and pauses in her transit. "Greetings."
Ibael shifts on here legs. "Moongirl!" A kiss a grab a tickle a laugh.
Lunaria tries to take a step back as she gets grabbed...and kissed too. "Hello, Ibael."
"Greetings, Lunaria," ShenMi twirls her needle in her fingers. "You may not wish to see this."
Ibael innocence aborning.
Lunaria raises an eyebrow slightly, "I have seen needles before."
ShenMi holds out her arm, and with a signal from her horn, the needle insustainiates into a long staff with metal prongs - the goul lung cha, "nine dragon trident", "king of all weapons".
Ibael so precisely so helpfully In the Way. Pierced. Pinned. She laughs.
Lunaria starts at the impact of the triden, "Ibael?" she asks with concern.
"Exactly," ShenMi twists the long staff, the blades biting into Ibael's flesh. It's like a bladed coat rack, really.
Lunaria turns her head away quickly.
Ibael looks down blinks No blood no blood just gleaming green goo slipping out slickening shaft "Sosael would delight."
ShenMi barks a yell as she thrusts out, up, then down, attempting to pin Ibael to the ground under the blades.
Lunaria takes a few steps back from the scene of gore.
Ibael squirms and an arm flicks free Chitin shattered pale pierced flesh beneath. "I taste... blue." Prayer beads in one hand, black glistening blade in another. "Kiss kiss?"
spiderhand flick black whoosh: blade clangs fluttering sharp in qi-ling corset.
"No thank you. If you would be so kind as to tell me where your cortex is." ShenMi leans a bit harder, twisting the knives around in gore.
Ibael laughs. "Strangewarp sound." Ibael pushes herself up bloodless plastic shell shattering glittering multicolored shining-all-white body accepting blades Unconcern "Wouldst thou kill us so soon?"
ShenMi nods resignedly, and twists the blades the other way. "Quite the contrary..." With a grunt, she leans back, drawing a blade through your midsection, through much of what passes for your guts. "I need you alive. I can promise you very unique sensorium."
Ibael giggles. Bright primary plastic tubes spill from the strangecharm princess' belly. "Follow little lovely spider, then." One arm lifts off another, extending an open hand.
Ibael giggles and begins to walk stumbles on a dangling loop of spider-innards Plucks it free with a laugh ripping from within and abandoning Slick greenishclear ooze a puddle about.
StrangeWarp
Ibael hums a sliding slippery tune carelessly splattering silvergoo puddles with her stride towards...
ShenMi looks around bemusedly.
In front of Strangewarp Library
Ibael glimmers dark fire as she passes beneath the twisted iron lamps.
Strangewarp Library - Foyer
Strangewarp Library - Collection Room
Strangewarp Library: Collection Room
This is a huge, spacious hallway, at least twelve meters high and seemingly a hundred deep. There's no internal illumination, but the hall is doped with watery starlight through filth-encrusted skylights far overhead, just enough to discern details up close. Like the Foyer, all the room's features are set cunningly askew, creating a stomach-churning illusion of motion. Busy, eye-tricking patterns are carved into the wood inlaid walls and parquet flooring, making it look like things are lurching and twitching at the edge of view. A few of those things are not illusions.
There are gouges, furrows, and bite marks in every surface, even the metal ones. Most of the tables are overturned, and the chairs have been arranged in fort-like defensive structures or broken into pieces. The shelves, however, are utterly undisturbed and seem neatly tended. Upon closer examination, one can see them crawling with tiny, glistening silverfish with grotesque, convoluted growths on their cephali. They skitter protectively from volume to volume.
ShenMi frowns. Her expression betrays that she needs a spider-saddle.
inhatti white latex smirking salamander somehow where the spider was leading. Just as gutslashed as the other girl was. "Thou desired-"
ShenMi's hooves do not clatter on the floor; she lands noiselessly. "I have come here seeking knowledge."
inhatti grins and/With an expansive gesture, Inhatti/sweeps her hands around, coat flaring behind her. "Welcome/smiles. "Behold my memory,/to my forgetting,/lostling."/toy." Her teeth are
sharp.
ShenMi holds her head high, her professionalism concealing her disgust. "I require elucidation. Is this an extension of you?"
"We are/inhatti giggles. "yes."/multitudes. We are Strange."
ShenMi's barbels twitch. "Just so. So you have no centralized nervous system?"
inhatti plucks a/A book falls from a high shelf, direct/dusty tome from the shelves and/ly into Inhatti's waiting/opens it. Mad swirling diagrams of a/hand. She opens it. There are clusters of verse spotted/fantastic possibly-anatomical/across the pages like/nature. A latex finger points./stars. "When we desire one."/"No," inhatti laughs. "This mask is a/Inhatti grins. "The spider is a toy. Toys only feel pleasure."/puppet."
"You are more than I had considered." ShenMi frowns, more confused than distressed. "I have questions and I seek answers. I am here to ask you about Camilla."
inhatti closes her book with a/Inhatti drops the book with a/ [thud. Silverfish swirl around it, escorting it back to its place in slow decay. ] inhatti smiles. "a pretty player, a sad/Inhatti frowns. "She fights her own desires. She loves chaos loves to kill fears to kill."/weapon. Hast thou lost her?"
"I never had her," ShenMi spins the trident, then reduces it back to a needle. Placing it behind her ear, she asks, "So she has had relations with you?"
Atazael smiles. "Sie fucked me and fucked me and broke me and fucked me and Blood ran everywhere and I died Hot around hir cock Screaming slashing and then sie came to dinner and we cuddled and sie was cute." Long slitherslipper tongue licks a knife.
Inhatti looks into a distant shelf with one book alone on a shelf. "We have/inhatti giggles. "shi cut us so fine."/played, yes."
ShenMi nods sagely. "You have certain charms. May I ask how often?"
Ullolael lifts her dark-wedge head. White-slit eyes open onto fires. "w * d o n o t c a r * t o r e m * m b * r." Her wings cloak her in darkness. "w * w * r * p r o m i s * d s * n s a t i o n."
inhatti slips behind you little soft hands caressing your sides. "Sensation. We lost track. We forgot. Why dost thou count?"
Inhatti tosses her head and folds her arms across her chest. "We can't be bothered to remember. We could check the radiation damage of Our body, we suppose, if we had not died so many times."
"Camilla is my responsibility. I fear for her." ShenMi watches your hands with clinical disinterest, tail tucked between her legs.
inhatti slips her hands down and giggles. "no good toy fears anything."
Atazael kicks a foot-stool and sits her ancient bones upon Wings flutterbright behind antennae twitch. "This is a good place to fear A place to forget Who were you? Who who?"
ShenMi says, "Yes, I"m somewhat aware of that. You Strangers are fascinating."
Ullolael opens a dark hand into sharp claws and a toothed palm that caresses (nibbles) your cheek. "w * a r *, i n d * * d. h i d i n g f r o m o u r s * l v * s a n d s t * a l i n g t o - H u r t m *."
Ullolael tilts her head. Black beast, black wings. Slim lithe serpentine. A shallow bosom unmarred. Her free hand (black on black barest dim highlights to see) traces a swirl on her belly. "h u r t m*."
silverfish swirl on the books in a rune you can't remember.
ShenMi removes the needle from behind her ear. "The pain I offer is not that savage." She leans back against you.
Inhatti smiles. "Delicate and precise, o milady? Scalpel-precise?" Such an instrument is in her hand, plucked from her pocket.
Atazael whimpers soft as Inhatti runs her scalpel over her own scales. It pierces the salamander's breast. Atazael whimpers. A trail of blood (hot fresh cut) opens on her chest.
"Electrical and psycho-somatic signals down neural pathways," ShenMi turns the needle in her fingers.
inhatti says, "La pain virtu'."
"Yes, sometihng like that." ShenMi says, "It's rather ... clean and clinical."
ShenMi smiles diffidently.
Ullolael laughs (stuttercut slashed-time staccatto purrs). Her hand-maw nips at your fingertips (delicate, inviting, a tease. A flitter of tongue.) "s o l o n g a g o, s o l o n g. w * p l a y * d t h a t s a f * g a m *, o n c * u p o n a n * v * r. w * n * * d * d m o r *..."
Black birds fall from the ceiling with ungainly thuds. Seven. One cocks an eye. Its caw is knowing.
ShenMi looks around at all the instantiations. "I ... " She frowns. "Just what are you?!"
Inhatti giggles. "We are a show-off, today." The crow with the poison eyes sniggers at her. "We are," it agrees in a rusty voice. Blood runs down Atazael's body as Inhatti continues her scalpel-play, almost a dance now. No markings on her dark scales. But bloodrunes on the laughing butterfly.
ShenMi gropes around to pull her hand to her own chest. "Just so. May the Buddha protect me." She pierces her own fingertip with the needle, face a mask as she pushes it in several cm.
Mad eyes watch curiously and silently. Even the perpetual rustle of paper being devoured stops.
ShenMi clenches a handful of ... something, of you, and then quickly drives her fingertip, needle first, between Atazael's eyes.
Ullolael gasps.
inhatti squeezes against you, coy and aroused.
Ullolael says, "y * s, y * s, t h * & & &"
Atazael opens arms blood down body a howl of a scream of Pain pain Fire pain down her throat Down her spine Phantom limbs screaming hot
Inhatti hisses, eyes closing, thighs squeezing together.
Silverfish rain from the shelves.
The crow with the poison eyes turns to the one with a snake for its tailfeathers. "Tasty," it purrs. "Very," the other agrees.
"a i* * * * * *"
ShenMi snorts, and straightens her back, tail thrashing. Her horn glows, and she pushes a signal of fat-pain impulses into Atazael's brain, desigend to clear out the nerves.
Camaetoli's back arches and her howl resonates through the chambers of the library.
"This ..." ShenMi flicks her tail. "Now, the numbness."
Ullolael gnaws at inhatti with a caress. "t, t, t, t * r r i b l *," she moans. "d * l i g h t f u l ..."
ShenMi twists her fingertip, and pushes a bit deeper, twiddling her fingers. Throwing caution to the wind, she increases the voltage, past safe levels.
Atazael giggles in time with inhatti. "such" "a " "pretty" "little" "tool," they say, words alternating with casual ease. The crows take flight. "Silver sparkles and glitterflies," they caw.
Inhatti smiles. She leans back against the books, watching as Atazael twitches, as so many other aspects twitch in black ecstacy. It touches this one not. It consumes her from within.
ShenMi snorts again, and strokes along her hip. Her jade horn glows brighter, and she couples electricity with heat.
Atazael's bloodred lips peel back from tiny fangs in a nameless howl Pleasure pain crosswired bent broken Broken weak legs going (helpful inhatti lifting her, she'd fall over if not for inhatti) fingers twitching spastically (knives summoned and dropping like steel rain) and
Atazael closes perfumed eyes.
Ullolael twists around herself Pained and awkward Black on black on black on black and Fir* bursts from h*r op*n*d jaws. Books catch light.
ShenMi pushes harder, into the skull, and grinds her teeth. The needle heats up to blister, then burn flesh.
Butterfly : pain :: moth : flame.
Atazael is a candle and the light pours from her skull Flickerdance highlight-shine over everyone.
Inhatti curls her hands into fists and whimpers ecstatically.
ShenMi removes her hand, and shakes charred flesh from it. Her own scales are hot and singed, but her face is resolute.
The crows pick in the ashes. One finds a nugget of brainmeat. There is a squabble in hushed tones.
Ullolael giggles, a black shape in the fire. "M * m o r y b u r n s," she coos. "I s n ' t i t p r * t t y ?"
"I suppose some might find that charming." ShenMi sniffs, winces at the odor of perfume and burning hair.
Inhatti runs a hand down her/inhatti giggles and falls to her/body./knees./She licks an eyeball and rubs her fingers across her/The salamander-toy bows her/loins. "That was delightful,"/head. "Thank you,"/ [ she coos. "How may We repay thou for that pain, that pyre?" ]
ShenMi says, "You already have."
Reality intervened. The scene ended here.
The Strangelibrary burnt down, but, of course, it can never forget itself. It grew back later that night, under a black-blood dream of a moon. If [Sosael] is lucky, perhaps a few of its books remained ashes, instead of Memory.
I really don't advise trying to play five or more aspects of one character (Atazael, Inhatti, inhatti, Ullolael, the seven crows, the silverfish that infest-or-guard the stacks, Camaetoli...) at once. Especially when each one has a different, eccentric prose style. The delivery suffered, though all of them have the same attitude beneath. I lost track of the fact that Ullolael doesn't use capitals a few times, and nearly let an "e" or two go through. (I have no idea who Ullolael is, besides "another aspect of Sosael". She's a dark black silhouette with membrane wings who breathes fire, and the dangerous reference to past masks of mine is pretty clear. I spoofed her for the first time in this scene.)
Shen Mi
Did you ever have an officious schoolteacher? Who had infinite patience for questions but zero tolerance for trouble? Who refused to use any kind of grading curve and had students constantly failing or just scraping by in her class? Do you remember the look she had on her face, the twinkle in the eye and a smile that wouldn't make sense to you until years later, when you already knew better? That look is on Shen Mi's face, right now.
Defiantly existing, Shen Mi is a qiling, with a blue hide of glittering catfish scales. Her head is more like a pony's than a dragon's; the advance of age has put crow's feet at her eyes and character lines in her face. Her feet are thick flat ox's hooves that somehow fall without a sound; around her left ankle is a bracelet of glittering brown alexandrite. Her lion's tail is weighed down with a brass ring faceted with nephrite, and it does not swish behind her matronly rump. With her shoulders back, she just barely clears five chi (166 cm), although the jade horn centered on her pate rises a few hands higher.
As a corset, she wears a chahar-ai-ne (hinged breastplate), whose color runs from dark green to glittering emerald, veined with the black and green of jadeite. Underneath that is a silk robe in the li-shu style, black with a pattern of stars and pheasants on her arms, of waves and dragons on her thighs. Wrapped around her right wrist is a string of Buddhist prayer beads of what appears to be pure jade.ShenMi says, "I have yet to make your acquaintance. I am Shen Mi."
Ibael laughs like bells and marimbas "Ibael, ibael, little lost ibael playing in nowhere with her little big sister."
ShenMi says, "Sister? Would you by chance be related to Atazael?"
Ibael says, "is am was are Atazael Sosael Myela Inhatti Olisolif Penhiya... O masks o names. Virus we."
Ibael giggles.
ShenMi says, "Yes, virus. You seem rather cheerful."
Ibael twists round skitters looks back "We often are Why not?'
"I cannot think of a reason." ShenMi fingers her prayer beads. "What entertains you?"
Ibael steps close smiling lifting severed-on-tiny-knife beads in her hand clicking fondling (praying) "Pain fear Suffering. And pretty."
ShenMi hmms, barbels twitching.
Ibael giggles. "Pretty beads."
ShenMi says, "Very much so. I have prettier things, too."
Ibael flicks her abdomen side to side. "is are it they sharp or soft?"
ShenMi takes the needle from behind her ear. "Exquisitely sharp."
Lunaria has arrived.
Lunaria comes through the portal from up and pauses in her transit. "Greetings."
Ibael shifts on here legs. "Moongirl!" A kiss a grab a tickle a laugh.
Lunaria tries to take a step back as she gets grabbed...and kissed too. "Hello, Ibael."
"Greetings, Lunaria," ShenMi twirls her needle in her fingers. "You may not wish to see this."
Ibael innocence aborning.
Lunaria raises an eyebrow slightly, "I have seen needles before."
ShenMi holds out her arm, and with a signal from her horn, the needle insustainiates into a long staff with metal prongs - the goul lung cha, "nine dragon trident", "king of all weapons".
Ibael so precisely so helpfully In the Way. Pierced. Pinned. She laughs.
Lunaria starts at the impact of the triden, "Ibael?" she asks with concern.
"Exactly," ShenMi twists the long staff, the blades biting into Ibael's flesh. It's like a bladed coat rack, really.
Lunaria turns her head away quickly.
Ibael looks down blinks No blood no blood just gleaming green goo slipping out slickening shaft "Sosael would delight."
ShenMi barks a yell as she thrusts out, up, then down, attempting to pin Ibael to the ground under the blades.
Lunaria takes a few steps back from the scene of gore.
Ibael squirms and an arm flicks free Chitin shattered pale pierced flesh beneath. "I taste... blue." Prayer beads in one hand, black glistening blade in another. "Kiss kiss?"
spiderhand flick black whoosh: blade clangs fluttering sharp in qi-ling corset.
"No thank you. If you would be so kind as to tell me where your cortex is." ShenMi leans a bit harder, twisting the knives around in gore.
Ibael laughs. "Strangewarp sound." Ibael pushes herself up bloodless plastic shell shattering glittering multicolored shining-all-white body accepting blades Unconcern "Wouldst thou kill us so soon?"
ShenMi nods resignedly, and twists the blades the other way. "Quite the contrary..." With a grunt, she leans back, drawing a blade through your midsection, through much of what passes for your guts. "I need you alive. I can promise you very unique sensorium."
Ibael giggles. Bright primary plastic tubes spill from the strangecharm princess' belly. "Follow little lovely spider, then." One arm lifts off another, extending an open hand.
Ibael giggles and begins to walk stumbles on a dangling loop of spider-innards Plucks it free with a laugh ripping from within and abandoning Slick greenishclear ooze a puddle about.
StrangeWarp
Ibael hums a sliding slippery tune carelessly splattering silvergoo puddles with her stride towards...
ShenMi looks around bemusedly.
In front of Strangewarp Library
Ibael glimmers dark fire as she passes beneath the twisted iron lamps.
Strangewarp Library - Foyer
Strangewarp Library - Collection Room
Strangewarp Library: Collection Room
This is a huge, spacious hallway, at least twelve meters high and seemingly a hundred deep. There's no internal illumination, but the hall is doped with watery starlight through filth-encrusted skylights far overhead, just enough to discern details up close. Like the Foyer, all the room's features are set cunningly askew, creating a stomach-churning illusion of motion. Busy, eye-tricking patterns are carved into the wood inlaid walls and parquet flooring, making it look like things are lurching and twitching at the edge of view. A few of those things are not illusions.
There are gouges, furrows, and bite marks in every surface, even the metal ones. Most of the tables are overturned, and the chairs have been arranged in fort-like defensive structures or broken into pieces. The shelves, however, are utterly undisturbed and seem neatly tended. Upon closer examination, one can see them crawling with tiny, glistening silverfish with grotesque, convoluted growths on their cephali. They skitter protectively from volume to volume.
ShenMi frowns. Her expression betrays that she needs a spider-saddle.
inhatti white latex smirking salamander somehow where the spider was leading. Just as gutslashed as the other girl was. "Thou desired-"
ShenMi's hooves do not clatter on the floor; she lands noiselessly. "I have come here seeking knowledge."
inhatti grins and/With an expansive gesture, Inhatti/sweeps her hands around, coat flaring behind her. "Welcome/smiles. "Behold my memory,/to my forgetting,/lostling."/toy." Her teeth are
sharp.
ShenMi holds her head high, her professionalism concealing her disgust. "I require elucidation. Is this an extension of you?"
"We are/inhatti giggles. "yes."/multitudes. We are Strange."
ShenMi's barbels twitch. "Just so. So you have no centralized nervous system?"
inhatti plucks a/A book falls from a high shelf, direct/dusty tome from the shelves and/ly into Inhatti's waiting/opens it. Mad swirling diagrams of a/hand. She opens it. There are clusters of verse spotted/fantastic possibly-anatomical/across the pages like/nature. A latex finger points./stars. "When we desire one."/"No," inhatti laughs. "This mask is a/Inhatti grins. "The spider is a toy. Toys only feel pleasure."/puppet."
"You are more than I had considered." ShenMi frowns, more confused than distressed. "I have questions and I seek answers. I am here to ask you about Camilla."
inhatti closes her book with a/Inhatti drops the book with a/ [thud. Silverfish swirl around it, escorting it back to its place in slow decay. ] inhatti smiles. "a pretty player, a sad/Inhatti frowns. "She fights her own desires. She loves chaos loves to kill fears to kill."/weapon. Hast thou lost her?"
"I never had her," ShenMi spins the trident, then reduces it back to a needle. Placing it behind her ear, she asks, "So she has had relations with you?"
Atazael smiles. "Sie fucked me and fucked me and broke me and fucked me and Blood ran everywhere and I died Hot around hir cock Screaming slashing and then sie came to dinner and we cuddled and sie was cute." Long slitherslipper tongue licks a knife.
Inhatti looks into a distant shelf with one book alone on a shelf. "We have/inhatti giggles. "shi cut us so fine."/played, yes."
ShenMi nods sagely. "You have certain charms. May I ask how often?"
Ullolael lifts her dark-wedge head. White-slit eyes open onto fires. "w * d o n o t c a r * t o r e m * m b * r." Her wings cloak her in darkness. "w * w * r * p r o m i s * d s * n s a t i o n."
inhatti slips behind you little soft hands caressing your sides. "Sensation. We lost track. We forgot. Why dost thou count?"
Inhatti tosses her head and folds her arms across her chest. "We can't be bothered to remember. We could check the radiation damage of Our body, we suppose, if we had not died so many times."
"Camilla is my responsibility. I fear for her." ShenMi watches your hands with clinical disinterest, tail tucked between her legs.
inhatti slips her hands down and giggles. "no good toy fears anything."
Atazael kicks a foot-stool and sits her ancient bones upon Wings flutterbright behind antennae twitch. "This is a good place to fear A place to forget Who were you? Who who?"
ShenMi says, "Yes, I"m somewhat aware of that. You Strangers are fascinating."
Ullolael opens a dark hand into sharp claws and a toothed palm that caresses (nibbles) your cheek. "w * a r *, i n d * * d. h i d i n g f r o m o u r s * l v * s a n d s t * a l i n g t o - H u r t m *."
Ullolael tilts her head. Black beast, black wings. Slim lithe serpentine. A shallow bosom unmarred. Her free hand (black on black barest dim highlights to see) traces a swirl on her belly. "h u r t m*."
silverfish swirl on the books in a rune you can't remember.
ShenMi removes the needle from behind her ear. "The pain I offer is not that savage." She leans back against you.
Inhatti smiles. "Delicate and precise, o milady? Scalpel-precise?" Such an instrument is in her hand, plucked from her pocket.
Atazael whimpers soft as Inhatti runs her scalpel over her own scales. It pierces the salamander's breast. Atazael whimpers. A trail of blood (hot fresh cut) opens on her chest.
"Electrical and psycho-somatic signals down neural pathways," ShenMi turns the needle in her fingers.
inhatti says, "La pain virtu'."
"Yes, sometihng like that." ShenMi says, "It's rather ... clean and clinical."
ShenMi smiles diffidently.
Ullolael laughs (stuttercut slashed-time staccatto purrs). Her hand-maw nips at your fingertips (delicate, inviting, a tease. A flitter of tongue.) "s o l o n g a g o, s o l o n g. w * p l a y * d t h a t s a f * g a m *, o n c * u p o n a n * v * r. w * n * * d * d m o r *..."
Black birds fall from the ceiling with ungainly thuds. Seven. One cocks an eye. Its caw is knowing.
ShenMi looks around at all the instantiations. "I ... " She frowns. "Just what are you?!"
Inhatti giggles. "We are a show-off, today." The crow with the poison eyes sniggers at her. "We are," it agrees in a rusty voice. Blood runs down Atazael's body as Inhatti continues her scalpel-play, almost a dance now. No markings on her dark scales. But bloodrunes on the laughing butterfly.
ShenMi gropes around to pull her hand to her own chest. "Just so. May the Buddha protect me." She pierces her own fingertip with the needle, face a mask as she pushes it in several cm.
Mad eyes watch curiously and silently. Even the perpetual rustle of paper being devoured stops.
ShenMi clenches a handful of ... something, of you, and then quickly drives her fingertip, needle first, between Atazael's eyes.
Ullolael gasps.
inhatti squeezes against you, coy and aroused.
Ullolael says, "y * s, y * s, t h * & & &"
Atazael opens arms blood down body a howl of a scream of Pain pain Fire pain down her throat Down her spine Phantom limbs screaming hot
Inhatti hisses, eyes closing, thighs squeezing together.
Silverfish rain from the shelves.
The crow with the poison eyes turns to the one with a snake for its tailfeathers. "Tasty," it purrs. "Very," the other agrees.
"a i* * * * * *"
ShenMi snorts, and straightens her back, tail thrashing. Her horn glows, and she pushes a signal of fat-pain impulses into Atazael's brain, desigend to clear out the nerves.
Camaetoli's back arches and her howl resonates through the chambers of the library.
"This ..." ShenMi flicks her tail. "Now, the numbness."
Ullolael gnaws at inhatti with a caress. "t, t, t, t * r r i b l *," she moans. "d * l i g h t f u l ..."
ShenMi twists her fingertip, and pushes a bit deeper, twiddling her fingers. Throwing caution to the wind, she increases the voltage, past safe levels.
Atazael giggles in time with inhatti. "such" "a " "pretty" "little" "tool," they say, words alternating with casual ease. The crows take flight. "Silver sparkles and glitterflies," they caw.
Inhatti smiles. She leans back against the books, watching as Atazael twitches, as so many other aspects twitch in black ecstacy. It touches this one not. It consumes her from within.
ShenMi snorts again, and strokes along her hip. Her jade horn glows brighter, and she couples electricity with heat.
Atazael's bloodred lips peel back from tiny fangs in a nameless howl Pleasure pain crosswired bent broken Broken weak legs going (helpful inhatti lifting her, she'd fall over if not for inhatti) fingers twitching spastically (knives summoned and dropping like steel rain) and
Atazael closes perfumed eyes.
Ullolael twists around herself Pained and awkward Black on black on black on black and Fir* bursts from h*r op*n*d jaws. Books catch light.
ShenMi pushes harder, into the skull, and grinds her teeth. The needle heats up to blister, then burn flesh.
Butterfly : pain :: moth : flame.
Atazael is a candle and the light pours from her skull Flickerdance highlight-shine over everyone.
Inhatti curls her hands into fists and whimpers ecstatically.
ShenMi removes her hand, and shakes charred flesh from it. Her own scales are hot and singed, but her face is resolute.
The crows pick in the ashes. One finds a nugget of brainmeat. There is a squabble in hushed tones.
Ullolael giggles, a black shape in the fire. "M * m o r y b u r n s," she coos. "I s n ' t i t p r * t t y ?"
"I suppose some might find that charming." ShenMi sniffs, winces at the odor of perfume and burning hair.
Inhatti runs a hand down her/inhatti giggles and falls to her/body./knees./She licks an eyeball and rubs her fingers across her/The salamander-toy bows her/loins. "That was delightful,"/head. "Thank you,"/ [ she coos. "How may We repay thou for that pain, that pyre?" ]
ShenMi says, "You already have."
Reality intervened. The scene ended here.
The Strangelibrary burnt down, but, of course, it can never forget itself. It grew back later that night, under a black-blood dream of a moon. If [Sosael] is lucky, perhaps a few of its books remained ashes, instead of Memory.
I really don't advise trying to play five or more aspects of one character (Atazael, Inhatti, inhatti, Ullolael, the seven crows, the silverfish that infest-or-guard the stacks, Camaetoli...) at once. Especially when each one has a different, eccentric prose style. The delivery suffered, though all of them have the same attitude beneath. I lost track of the fact that Ullolael doesn't use capitals a few times, and nearly let an "e" or two go through. (I have no idea who Ullolael is, besides "another aspect of Sosael". She's a dark black silhouette with membrane wings who breathes fire, and the dangerous reference to past masks of mine is pretty clear. I spoofed her for the first time in this scene.)