eleventh.
[private]
[ Saya's dreams are often set to music, integral as the sound has always been to her life. This one is no different, though it begins in silence, in a cold, dark corridor. The stones beneath her feet are cold; she shivers. The darkness presses in around her, binding, suffocating. She needs to move or it will swallow her whole. And now, faintly, she can hear a song calling her.
As it happens in dreams, she begins to run forward without realizing the transition from stillness to movement: one moment she is standing stationary, and the next she is hurtling through the stone passageway. The ground becomes slick and wet, warmer now. Her feet are still bare, but the sound of clacking heels echoes all around her. In her hand is not a key but a sword, naked and gleaming as she bursts through the end of the passage and comes out onto a street littered with bodies. The smell of burning flesh and wreckage hangs in the air even though there is no fire. The song has grown louder now, a melancholic, heart-rendingly beautiful sound. Its source stands tall amidst the bodies, blood splattered down her front, her hair blowing free, her eyes glowing a bright, unsettling blue.
Too familiar. This is all too familiar. This scene, this same scene, the one she has relived, once, twice, countless times: she lives it afresh each cycle as the memories return and during many nights in her waking and sleeping dreams. Now it is repeating itself all over again.
Diva drops a body from her arms, and it tumbles across the ground to rest at Saya's feet. Porcelain skin, fine hair, wide brown eyes that stare up at her lifelessly-- Riku. Riku. Once more, Saya has failed him. ]
"Riku..."
[ Her heart pounds frantically in her chest, sending pulsing through her veins the monster's blood that sets Saya apart from those she loves. She gazes down at Riku's face in anguish, then looks up and takes in the other bodies. When she finds Kai's and Hagi's bodies, the scream begins deep in her belly and works its way up through her throat only to come out as an desolate wail. And then into a scream of rage as she squeezes the sword with both hands, lifts it above her head, and charges at Diva. Diva merely laughs. ]
"Are you going to kill me, dearest sister?"
[ It is Saya's rage that undoes her. Blinded by it, she is too slow in noticing the knife Diva raises, already coated in her blood. Diva grabs Saya by the throat, squeezing, and the sword drops from Saya's weakened fingers just as Diva's knife reaches the apex of its lift and she thrusts it into Saya's heart. ]
"But just as my dear sister's blood is poison to me..."
[ Agony unlike any Saya has ever felt swells at that one point and moves out through her body at the speed the blood travels through her veins. Nothing can possibly be worse than this: she is on fire, inside and out, her entire body consumed by a phantom inferno. ]
"...mine is poison to her. Isn't that right?"
[ First Saya's toes and fingertips begin to fracture; cracks spread up through her limbs to her torso, then climb slowly on up her chest to her neck. Death comes far slower than it should, and Diva sets by her the entire time, running her fingers through Saya's hair and humming softly, until Saya's hair too is crystalline and her body crumbles to pieces and scatters down to dust.]
[action]
1. [1766 Beaver Street: On her way out, Saya sees a long, thin package propped against the mailbox and stops to examine it. For some reason her heart begins pounding when her fingers touch the paper wrapping, and she sees that it's addressed to her. But there's no unsteadiness in her as she unwraps it and pulls out her own sword. It's her second one, the one Red Shield crafted for her after Amshel broke her first in Siberia. This is the sword she killed her own flesh and blood twin sister with. For over a year, it was the only certain, real thing in her world.
She unsheathes the first few inches of the sword. The polished red stone set just below the handguard catches the sun and glows, refracting the light against Saya's face. She touches the crystal, and for a moment her face softens, betraying how frail and broken she feels right now. Then she slides the sword back into the scabbard and clutches it to her chest like a lifeline. Dad]
2. [The Record Store: Saya is in the record store, browsing the classical section. In lieu of how she's been sleeping lately, Saya is missing her lullaby. But Hagi is human now: he needs to sleep as well, and he doesn't even have his cello. She can't ask him to play for her. She needs to learn to deal with it herself.]
[phone | filtered from Diva and Charles]
There's someone I'm trying to find.
[ Saya's dreams are often set to music, integral as the sound has always been to her life. This one is no different, though it begins in silence, in a cold, dark corridor. The stones beneath her feet are cold; she shivers. The darkness presses in around her, binding, suffocating. She needs to move or it will swallow her whole. And now, faintly, she can hear a song calling her.
As it happens in dreams, she begins to run forward without realizing the transition from stillness to movement: one moment she is standing stationary, and the next she is hurtling through the stone passageway. The ground becomes slick and wet, warmer now. Her feet are still bare, but the sound of clacking heels echoes all around her. In her hand is not a key but a sword, naked and gleaming as she bursts through the end of the passage and comes out onto a street littered with bodies. The smell of burning flesh and wreckage hangs in the air even though there is no fire. The song has grown louder now, a melancholic, heart-rendingly beautiful sound. Its source stands tall amidst the bodies, blood splattered down her front, her hair blowing free, her eyes glowing a bright, unsettling blue.
Too familiar. This is all too familiar. This scene, this same scene, the one she has relived, once, twice, countless times: she lives it afresh each cycle as the memories return and during many nights in her waking and sleeping dreams. Now it is repeating itself all over again.
Diva drops a body from her arms, and it tumbles across the ground to rest at Saya's feet. Porcelain skin, fine hair, wide brown eyes that stare up at her lifelessly-- Riku. Riku. Once more, Saya has failed him. ]
"Riku..."
[ Her heart pounds frantically in her chest, sending pulsing through her veins the monster's blood that sets Saya apart from those she loves. She gazes down at Riku's face in anguish, then looks up and takes in the other bodies. When she finds Kai's and Hagi's bodies, the scream begins deep in her belly and works its way up through her throat only to come out as an desolate wail. And then into a scream of rage as she squeezes the sword with both hands, lifts it above her head, and charges at Diva. Diva merely laughs. ]
"Are you going to kill me, dearest sister?"
[ It is Saya's rage that undoes her. Blinded by it, she is too slow in noticing the knife Diva raises, already coated in her blood. Diva grabs Saya by the throat, squeezing, and the sword drops from Saya's weakened fingers just as Diva's knife reaches the apex of its lift and she thrusts it into Saya's heart. ]
"But just as my dear sister's blood is poison to me..."
[ Agony unlike any Saya has ever felt swells at that one point and moves out through her body at the speed the blood travels through her veins. Nothing can possibly be worse than this: she is on fire, inside and out, her entire body consumed by a phantom inferno. ]
"...mine is poison to her. Isn't that right?"
[ First Saya's toes and fingertips begin to fracture; cracks spread up through her limbs to her torso, then climb slowly on up her chest to her neck. Death comes far slower than it should, and Diva sets by her the entire time, running her fingers through Saya's hair and humming softly, until Saya's hair too is crystalline and her body crumbles to pieces and scatters down to dust.]
[action]
1. [1766 Beaver Street: On her way out, Saya sees a long, thin package propped against the mailbox and stops to examine it. For some reason her heart begins pounding when her fingers touch the paper wrapping, and she sees that it's addressed to her. But there's no unsteadiness in her as she unwraps it and pulls out her own sword. It's her second one, the one Red Shield crafted for her after Amshel broke her first in Siberia. This is the sword she killed her own flesh and blood twin sister with. For over a year, it was the only certain, real thing in her world.
She unsheathes the first few inches of the sword. The polished red stone set just below the handguard catches the sun and glows, refracting the light against Saya's face. She touches the crystal, and for a moment her face softens, betraying how frail and broken she feels right now. Then she slides the sword back into the scabbard and clutches it to her chest like a lifeline. Dad]
2. [The Record Store: Saya is in the record store, browsing the classical section. In lieu of how she's been sleeping lately, Saya is missing her lullaby. But Hagi is human now: he needs to sleep as well, and he doesn't even have his cello. She can't ask him to play for her. She needs to learn to deal with it herself.]
[phone | filtered from Diva and Charles]
There's someone I'm trying to find.