Don't remember...
She doesn't remember how she got here, crouched in the dark in the far back of the closet. Hunched over white, unbroken skin. A quick image of red, thick dark burgundy, running weeping trails down the path of her arm. Then back again, smooth and pale and untouched.
She can see it as clearly as if the action has already been taken. Can almost feel the trickle of warm wetness running over and off her elbow, dripping heavily onto the carpeted floor. Blood running faster depending on how she tips her arm, holding a hand up to the sky to watch it leave her. She twists her wrist this way and that, seeing it in her mind. This, at least, will follow the natural laws. This, at least, will behave the way it's supposed to. And she watches, fascinated, as the night closes in around her.
She had looked at Starfall; telling him that she wanted to go... she had to go back... to the place everything started. She didn't know why; but something tugged her there like an invisible leash had suddenly been clamped into her mind. She was so compelled that Starfall had even stoped trying to argue, perhaps he had never started. They were back at the church moments later... and she moved in a daze through the first room. She saw the baptismal pool; something sparkled. She had found a pin from one of her handmaidens' pants. It was lost there to be found, carefully and without telling Starfall she slipped it into her dress.
She doesn't remember how she got here. She can't recall the conscious decisions made to reach this point, the steps from A to B to C that led her to be hiding in the dark, razor-sharp glass biting into sensitive flesh. But that's the way these days, fragments of time and space without any linear distinctions. Open your eyes in a place, only to blink and find yourself somewhere else entirely. No safety, no guarantees. No assurances that the things you know will remain as you know them.
And the sadness. The aching sadness and suspicion and fear. They all have it, all hide from it in one way or another. But there's no place for her to hide. She can't keep them out.
They think they kept their secrets. Lock them up and melt the key, iron bars strong enough to hold anything. But there are spaces in the bars, and she slides through the gaps like a thing without substance. Walk by the cage and the creatures inside reach out to grab you. There's no way to get far enough away because the cages are too close together. Even in the night she can sometimes hear them rattling their bars, trying to get at her.
Starfall followed her in to the darkened sub basement. One wall was charred. There were still some traces of blood stains upon the floor. Here and there were shards of a shiny metal as though something large and metallic was deeply disrupted. She cocked her head curiously and pointed her arm reaching out lazily as if it were on strings being pulled by a mysterious puppet master. Star answered the unspoken question quietly, "It looks to be brass." She wanted more information, "Is?" He watched her cautiously, knowing that all sorts of memories were awash in her mind. Even then, that room seemed to absorb some of the light from the flash light. He looked at the shard of metal "Brass....from the bits of the thaumium cage I cut."
She didn't remember how she go there, she was still looking and rolling the sparkling shard in her fingers. It was a mirror. She rememebred being at Seven's apartment once, watching her ready for work. She was playing with the puppy and everything was better. There had been a mirror, a beautiful ornate thing gilded like a treasure. She liked making the light glint off of the surface, effortlessly calculating the angle necessary to bend and focus the beam onto a point on the nearby wall. It was easy to picture Seven's studying her reflection in that mirror, primping and practicing and wishing that things could be different. That instead of the people she was about to see, a different man would walk through her door. That he would take her in his arms, pulling her close. That their lips would meet...
She'd caught a glimpse of herself then, the pressure on her lips resolving itself into her own fingers. The sounds of glass breaking, the tinkling melody like rain splashing against the wall...
She had moved to touch her hand to the wall where the portal that tainted her was, the stone was like ice, still tained there she could almost feel a throbing like a heartbeat emminating from the very wall itself. She breathed deeply, and she startled herself again by speaking, "I.. killed the two girls because I wouldn't do what they said... they put me in the cage for rem...edial education... and killed my servants...". Star reassured her that it was not her fault that the two girls died, just like Ruby, everything human that she touched died. Everything asleep around her died.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Like coming to in a padded box, naked and surrounded by strangers, covered by warm red dirt. She only remembers *that* in bits and pieces, flashes of confusion and terror. Slivers of animal panic that make her want to scramble into the darkest, tiniest space available. She's good at seeking out hiding places. But never good enough - Inevitably one of them will walk by her temporary haven, invading her thoughts with their whispers and wants. So she lies awake in her narrow bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, listening.
His words jolted her back to the now, or was it the then, "What are you looking for Indigo?" She didn't know her mind was racing, everything was confused and melding into one space and no time. She responded, "What am I looking for, an answer, for them to take me back, to find something I lost.... I don't know and I feel like I am slipping away trying to remember more..." He started to chant and move his hands saying only one word she could make out, "Purpose." She watched him curiously as he spoke. "You are to reclaim something lost to the Abyss." Star's voice and words echoed and resonated with the sjein of fate itself, and then his shoulders slumped slightly as the light around him faded.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Her hand twitches, the piece of glass scratching the first thin layer of skin. No blood yet. But it seems to have already penetrated her, its point disappeared into the indentation from its pressure. She stares, fascinated at the illusion, imagining the invisible tip extending deeper and deeper, a thin glass spike through skin and muscle. For a moment she can feel it running through her, part of her.
Things are not what they seem.
Earlier (vastly preferred to the more troublesome 'later,' as that temporal confusion tended to bring more problems than its vague predecessor) she'd been in the room with Star when the portal opened. A lumbering beast slinked out of the portal, a fetal dog almost as large as she was maggots pourning from what was once an eye socket lept upon Starfall, ripping into him leaving him wounded. She watched in horror trying to steel herself against it. She growled fiercly at it ready to charge headlong to save him; that is when it spoke, "You would stand against me, little girl. Let us bargain instead....let me make you all the stronger through my blessings, child of darkness. I can hear the shadows inside you singing to me." It spoke... they weren't supposed to speak. They were supposed to hate and kill, but not reason and speak.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Her hand is beginning to cramp in its tight grip. She can hear them even now, wisps of needs and regrets coming in and out of focus. An interminable tuner searching for a wave frequency. Never silence, because between every clear channel, there's always static. She's becoming very tired of all the noise.
Still, this wasn't a choice. There was no rational thought process to get here. Exhausted as she might be, she continues to be dragged along by the tide, simply trying to keep her head above water long enough to get some air before being pulled under again and again. Their emotions churn around her until there's nothing left of her own. Even the breaths she manages to get are recycled from their lungs. She's teased by an unfocused yearning to find something she can lay claim to.
If the skin is broken, maybe some of this noise will flow out of her with the blood. If she gives it an avenue to escape, maybe she'll be free of it. All of the roaring and hissing will find its way down and through and out, and there will be silence. Cool smooth silence like the feeling of the scourging obiliation. Nothing but the soothing rythmic caddence of the whip like a beating heart purring through the skin between her and the vast calm of space.
The beast and her spoke; she didn't want to duel it, part of ehr wanted it to stay. Her mentor, her teacher, he who first showed her into the dark, but she knew it was not to be, and after he was gone and she had taken care of Starfall she wept. She felt the hot tears pouring from her eyes as she remembered his parting words to her, "You fought well....just as I taught you. You still hold back too much, perhaps you are still too human. We will meet again, child of shadow. And next time I will kill you if you are weak in front of me again."
Quick and clean. Quick and clean.
The sharp point bit through another layer of tender skin, and a single drop of blood welled.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Like picking up a gleaming steel blade and slicing through cloth and skin. She believes that glimpse of light on silver is a true memory, made more solid by the recollection of the dull thud of a big hand against her jaw. Dorian striking out instinctively, a reaction ingrained in him by the institute. Years of harsh punishments teaching him to hide his fear through violence. The knee-jerk response to hurt being to hurt right back. She doesn't recall now why he'd been cut; only flashes of his noise getting louder and louder until all she could hear was his ringing din. That and the bruised ache of half her face when she tried to chew.
Her skin itches, begging to be separated. Promising relief if she only presses a little harder. She doesn't want to hear them anymore.
So much loneliness. So many secrets.
It's almost a surprise to her when her forehead connects again with the wall. Almost. Not resting this time, but a serious, concrete connection that sends a ripple through her entire body. Again, and her upper teeth jar against lower. Again, and she sees stars sure as if the closet wall was a window. The rhythmic hurt has its own comforts, a steady focus of pain to block out all the other sounds. Both her palms rest flat against the wall now, a distant, secondary pain in her knee under which the shard of glass has fallen.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
And now there are pale fingers circling her wrists, strong arms pulling her away from the unyielding wall and into a soft embrace of warmth. From the flavor of the sadness and anger and worry, from the smell of the shoulder where she's buried her face, she knows that Starfall has come for her again. She remembered his face, whenever she was in trouble, she knew she just had to make it untill he found her. His hands were always there to guide her even when she was as far down as this. Even when her mind played tricks on her and she was deep deep down, he always knew where to find her. Her mind flashed back over the many years of mental excercizes, and minute details he had emplyed over the years to help bring her mind from the brink; from the darkness that even shadows fear. When he was closer she could focus, the voices weren't so bad, he comforted her and she nuzzled into his chest.
His keen eyes have found the sliver of the mirror; she can tell this from his shocked intake of breath followed by a frantic reaching for her arms. She keeps her eyes tightly closed against his shirt, but lets him pull her limbs away from her chest for examination. He sighs, chest deflating against her when he sees that no real damage has been done. 'Oh, *Karasuko*...' he murmurs, his lips in her hair.
She's hurt him again, given him something else to fear. He thinks she wanted to end her life; she must make him see that no choice was ever made. She must explain, apologize, reassure. She doesn't remember how she got here.
'Too much noise.' Her words are faint and muffled further by his clothing. She can barely hear herself. 'Trying to let it out.'
He rocks her gently, wrapping his arms tightly around her. He'd thought the mental contacts and excercises he was trying were working, that the shadow touched was responding to trials. Now he feels like a failure, like none of his efforts were making a bit of difference. She is tired, drained, but she searches for the words to make him see that this isn't true.
'Not you. Too many secrets. Too much hurt. But not you...'
He continues to rock them, saying nothing. She hasn't gotten through to him. She's infinitely weary of this long moment, wants to sleep before the next one comes. But he's still here, She has no choice but to try again.
'Their masks only hide sadness. Porcelain masquerade faces. There's no joy...'
His breathing had become ragged, as if he were fighting tears. But now it catches and holds. 'Is that why?' He releases the breath in a slow stream of air. He bends awkwardly to put a little space between them, to look at her. Starfall takes her face in his hands, waiting until her eyes meet his. Their faces are only inches apart, and she finds she can look nowhere else.
'Admittedly, this might not be the most fun we've ever had.' A smile quirks the corners of his mouth. She feels her own lips respond in a faint echo. He continues. 'But there is a kind of joy here, Indigo. This place, these people have their happinesses. Just like us.'
He pulls her back into the hug. A silent moment passes, and then another, and for right now everything is calm. Starfall has rescued her again.
'Starfall?' Her mouth brushes a button with its question.
'Yes Karasuko?'
'Tell me about the good things.'
So he talks. About little moments observed- and she listens to the stories about the time they had spent together and the nice things they had done; and sometimes it still hurts; but the pictures he's painting dance prettily across the inside of her eyelids, and she smiles as she watches. She doesn't remember how she got here- But at this moment, here is the only place to be.
She can see it as clearly as if the action has already been taken. Can almost feel the trickle of warm wetness running over and off her elbow, dripping heavily onto the carpeted floor. Blood running faster depending on how she tips her arm, holding a hand up to the sky to watch it leave her. She twists her wrist this way and that, seeing it in her mind. This, at least, will follow the natural laws. This, at least, will behave the way it's supposed to. And she watches, fascinated, as the night closes in around her.
She had looked at Starfall; telling him that she wanted to go... she had to go back... to the place everything started. She didn't know why; but something tugged her there like an invisible leash had suddenly been clamped into her mind. She was so compelled that Starfall had even stoped trying to argue, perhaps he had never started. They were back at the church moments later... and she moved in a daze through the first room. She saw the baptismal pool; something sparkled. She had found a pin from one of her handmaidens' pants. It was lost there to be found, carefully and without telling Starfall she slipped it into her dress.
She doesn't remember how she got here. She can't recall the conscious decisions made to reach this point, the steps from A to B to C that led her to be hiding in the dark, razor-sharp glass biting into sensitive flesh. But that's the way these days, fragments of time and space without any linear distinctions. Open your eyes in a place, only to blink and find yourself somewhere else entirely. No safety, no guarantees. No assurances that the things you know will remain as you know them.
And the sadness. The aching sadness and suspicion and fear. They all have it, all hide from it in one way or another. But there's no place for her to hide. She can't keep them out.
They think they kept their secrets. Lock them up and melt the key, iron bars strong enough to hold anything. But there are spaces in the bars, and she slides through the gaps like a thing without substance. Walk by the cage and the creatures inside reach out to grab you. There's no way to get far enough away because the cages are too close together. Even in the night she can sometimes hear them rattling their bars, trying to get at her.
Starfall followed her in to the darkened sub basement. One wall was charred. There were still some traces of blood stains upon the floor. Here and there were shards of a shiny metal as though something large and metallic was deeply disrupted. She cocked her head curiously and pointed her arm reaching out lazily as if it were on strings being pulled by a mysterious puppet master. Star answered the unspoken question quietly, "It looks to be brass." She wanted more information, "Is?" He watched her cautiously, knowing that all sorts of memories were awash in her mind. Even then, that room seemed to absorb some of the light from the flash light. He looked at the shard of metal "Brass....from the bits of the thaumium cage I cut."
She didn't remember how she go there, she was still looking and rolling the sparkling shard in her fingers. It was a mirror. She rememebred being at Seven's apartment once, watching her ready for work. She was playing with the puppy and everything was better. There had been a mirror, a beautiful ornate thing gilded like a treasure. She liked making the light glint off of the surface, effortlessly calculating the angle necessary to bend and focus the beam onto a point on the nearby wall. It was easy to picture Seven's studying her reflection in that mirror, primping and practicing and wishing that things could be different. That instead of the people she was about to see, a different man would walk through her door. That he would take her in his arms, pulling her close. That their lips would meet...
She'd caught a glimpse of herself then, the pressure on her lips resolving itself into her own fingers. The sounds of glass breaking, the tinkling melody like rain splashing against the wall...
She had moved to touch her hand to the wall where the portal that tainted her was, the stone was like ice, still tained there she could almost feel a throbing like a heartbeat emminating from the very wall itself. She breathed deeply, and she startled herself again by speaking, "I.. killed the two girls because I wouldn't do what they said... they put me in the cage for rem...edial education... and killed my servants...". Star reassured her that it was not her fault that the two girls died, just like Ruby, everything human that she touched died. Everything asleep around her died.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Like coming to in a padded box, naked and surrounded by strangers, covered by warm red dirt. She only remembers *that* in bits and pieces, flashes of confusion and terror. Slivers of animal panic that make her want to scramble into the darkest, tiniest space available. She's good at seeking out hiding places. But never good enough - Inevitably one of them will walk by her temporary haven, invading her thoughts with their whispers and wants. So she lies awake in her narrow bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, listening.
His words jolted her back to the now, or was it the then, "What are you looking for Indigo?" She didn't know her mind was racing, everything was confused and melding into one space and no time. She responded, "What am I looking for, an answer, for them to take me back, to find something I lost.... I don't know and I feel like I am slipping away trying to remember more..." He started to chant and move his hands saying only one word she could make out, "Purpose." She watched him curiously as he spoke. "You are to reclaim something lost to the Abyss." Star's voice and words echoed and resonated with the sjein of fate itself, and then his shoulders slumped slightly as the light around him faded.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Her hand twitches, the piece of glass scratching the first thin layer of skin. No blood yet. But it seems to have already penetrated her, its point disappeared into the indentation from its pressure. She stares, fascinated at the illusion, imagining the invisible tip extending deeper and deeper, a thin glass spike through skin and muscle. For a moment she can feel it running through her, part of her.
Things are not what they seem.
Earlier (vastly preferred to the more troublesome 'later,' as that temporal confusion tended to bring more problems than its vague predecessor) she'd been in the room with Star when the portal opened. A lumbering beast slinked out of the portal, a fetal dog almost as large as she was maggots pourning from what was once an eye socket lept upon Starfall, ripping into him leaving him wounded. She watched in horror trying to steel herself against it. She growled fiercly at it ready to charge headlong to save him; that is when it spoke, "You would stand against me, little girl. Let us bargain instead....let me make you all the stronger through my blessings, child of darkness. I can hear the shadows inside you singing to me." It spoke... they weren't supposed to speak. They were supposed to hate and kill, but not reason and speak.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Her hand is beginning to cramp in its tight grip. She can hear them even now, wisps of needs and regrets coming in and out of focus. An interminable tuner searching for a wave frequency. Never silence, because between every clear channel, there's always static. She's becoming very tired of all the noise.
Still, this wasn't a choice. There was no rational thought process to get here. Exhausted as she might be, she continues to be dragged along by the tide, simply trying to keep her head above water long enough to get some air before being pulled under again and again. Their emotions churn around her until there's nothing left of her own. Even the breaths she manages to get are recycled from their lungs. She's teased by an unfocused yearning to find something she can lay claim to.
If the skin is broken, maybe some of this noise will flow out of her with the blood. If she gives it an avenue to escape, maybe she'll be free of it. All of the roaring and hissing will find its way down and through and out, and there will be silence. Cool smooth silence like the feeling of the scourging obiliation. Nothing but the soothing rythmic caddence of the whip like a beating heart purring through the skin between her and the vast calm of space.
The beast and her spoke; she didn't want to duel it, part of ehr wanted it to stay. Her mentor, her teacher, he who first showed her into the dark, but she knew it was not to be, and after he was gone and she had taken care of Starfall she wept. She felt the hot tears pouring from her eyes as she remembered his parting words to her, "You fought well....just as I taught you. You still hold back too much, perhaps you are still too human. We will meet again, child of shadow. And next time I will kill you if you are weak in front of me again."
Quick and clean. Quick and clean.
The sharp point bit through another layer of tender skin, and a single drop of blood welled.
She doesn't remember how she got here. Like picking up a gleaming steel blade and slicing through cloth and skin. She believes that glimpse of light on silver is a true memory, made more solid by the recollection of the dull thud of a big hand against her jaw. Dorian striking out instinctively, a reaction ingrained in him by the institute. Years of harsh punishments teaching him to hide his fear through violence. The knee-jerk response to hurt being to hurt right back. She doesn't recall now why he'd been cut; only flashes of his noise getting louder and louder until all she could hear was his ringing din. That and the bruised ache of half her face when she tried to chew.
Her skin itches, begging to be separated. Promising relief if she only presses a little harder. She doesn't want to hear them anymore.
So much loneliness. So many secrets.
It's almost a surprise to her when her forehead connects again with the wall. Almost. Not resting this time, but a serious, concrete connection that sends a ripple through her entire body. Again, and her upper teeth jar against lower. Again, and she sees stars sure as if the closet wall was a window. The rhythmic hurt has its own comforts, a steady focus of pain to block out all the other sounds. Both her palms rest flat against the wall now, a distant, secondary pain in her knee under which the shard of glass has fallen.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
And now there are pale fingers circling her wrists, strong arms pulling her away from the unyielding wall and into a soft embrace of warmth. From the flavor of the sadness and anger and worry, from the smell of the shoulder where she's buried her face, she knows that Starfall has come for her again. She remembered his face, whenever she was in trouble, she knew she just had to make it untill he found her. His hands were always there to guide her even when she was as far down as this. Even when her mind played tricks on her and she was deep deep down, he always knew where to find her. Her mind flashed back over the many years of mental excercizes, and minute details he had emplyed over the years to help bring her mind from the brink; from the darkness that even shadows fear. When he was closer she could focus, the voices weren't so bad, he comforted her and she nuzzled into his chest.
His keen eyes have found the sliver of the mirror; she can tell this from his shocked intake of breath followed by a frantic reaching for her arms. She keeps her eyes tightly closed against his shirt, but lets him pull her limbs away from her chest for examination. He sighs, chest deflating against her when he sees that no real damage has been done. 'Oh, *Karasuko*...' he murmurs, his lips in her hair.
She's hurt him again, given him something else to fear. He thinks she wanted to end her life; she must make him see that no choice was ever made. She must explain, apologize, reassure. She doesn't remember how she got here.
'Too much noise.' Her words are faint and muffled further by his clothing. She can barely hear herself. 'Trying to let it out.'
He rocks her gently, wrapping his arms tightly around her. He'd thought the mental contacts and excercises he was trying were working, that the shadow touched was responding to trials. Now he feels like a failure, like none of his efforts were making a bit of difference. She is tired, drained, but she searches for the words to make him see that this isn't true.
'Not you. Too many secrets. Too much hurt. But not you...'
He continues to rock them, saying nothing. She hasn't gotten through to him. She's infinitely weary of this long moment, wants to sleep before the next one comes. But he's still here, She has no choice but to try again.
'Their masks only hide sadness. Porcelain masquerade faces. There's no joy...'
His breathing had become ragged, as if he were fighting tears. But now it catches and holds. 'Is that why?' He releases the breath in a slow stream of air. He bends awkwardly to put a little space between them, to look at her. Starfall takes her face in his hands, waiting until her eyes meet his. Their faces are only inches apart, and she finds she can look nowhere else.
'Admittedly, this might not be the most fun we've ever had.' A smile quirks the corners of his mouth. She feels her own lips respond in a faint echo. He continues. 'But there is a kind of joy here, Indigo. This place, these people have their happinesses. Just like us.'
He pulls her back into the hug. A silent moment passes, and then another, and for right now everything is calm. Starfall has rescued her again.
'Starfall?' Her mouth brushes a button with its question.
'Yes Karasuko?'
'Tell me about the good things.'
So he talks. About little moments observed- and she listens to the stories about the time they had spent together and the nice things they had done; and sometimes it still hurts; but the pictures he's painting dance prettily across the inside of her eyelids, and she smiles as she watches. She doesn't remember how she got here- But at this moment, here is the only place to be.