(Untitled)

[rayney_day]

WHO: Rayne/Callisto.
WHERE: Level 0.
WHEN: A day or so after she sent her there.
WHAT: Time to get philosphical.

There was not much one could do, down there, unless blessed with marathon-levels of hyperactivity. Rayne knew that from personal experience. Leaving Callisto to stew until calming down from the inevitable bouts of cursing to the high

Comments

[chaotic_villian]

Callisto was mad. No... mad wasn't even half of it. She was pissed, flipping mad. Fuming with anger. Pacing the cell, back and forth the predator felt like she was completely caged. She was, wasn't she? Continuously growling under her breath, the woman was muttering something.

"This is getting me nowhere. They will pay. This is my fault." A few of the guards stayed a bit wary from her cell. Most of the time she was just ignored, and considering she was refusing food, they had no real reason to interact with her. That just left Callisto alone with her own thoughts.

The moment she heard Rayne's whistling, head jerked up to look out the cell door. Piercing hazel eyes flickered greatly, as the woman paced back and forth in the room faster. Callisto was bored, idle hands are the Devil's Workshop. Isn't that right?

As Rayne took a seat, Callisto stopped her pacing. Moving to the far end of the cell, she fell into the shadows. Gaze narrowed into slits to watch the woman on the other side. A low growl came from her, that vibrated through the cell like a lion giving a warning to intruders.

"How many stars do I get for ripping your lungs, and ceasing your breathing?" Her voice was ice cold, hearltess, and sounding a lot like nails on a chalkboard. It was a voice that could send chills down someone's back.

[rayney_day]

"Once upon a time, there was a girl named Callisto. She lived in Cirra with her folks and life was good. Then Xena turns up and life turns... Not so good. She treads down the road of revenge, generally makes everyone else's existence a living hell and refuses to accept responsibility for it. Then she turns up here and starts doing more or less the same thing, except to me."

Rayne might not be chewing gum, but looked as if she should be. Arms stretched out in front of her and joints cracked pleasantly in shoulders and hands, before coming to rest in her lap.

"Believe it or not, Cally, some of us had it worse off than you... Exactly how does it feel to know you went and left dozens, if not hundreds of other little girls, in exactly the same situation as you?"

Head tilted and the redhead paused for effect.

"How's it feel to be Xena, hmm?"

[chaotic_villian]

Rayne would barely be able to get out Once upon a time before Callisto caught on to what the red head was doing. The rest of Rayne's little story was drowned out from Callisto's ears as a scream much like a banshee came from her. Launching herself at the cell's bars, her entire weight was pushed onto the metal as her hands crawled and grabbed at the air, attempting to get at Rayne from being the door.

"You cannot make me feel guilt... I have NO guilt. All those who suffer from ME suffer because of Xena! Xena made me this way, it's Xena who killed my soul." Callisto was mad, and screaming at the top of her lungs. This was the blind fury that took over her when memories were stirred in her mind that didn't want to be stirred.

Feral noises were coming from the blonde as she resorted to clawing at the bars to try and get out. She wanted to silence Rayne with all her might, stop the noise, and stop the pandemonium that was running through her mind at the moment.

...and for once, it did. The moment Rayne said that Callisto was Xena, all her screaming, and clawing against the bars stopped. No longer did she have a look of utter rage and hatred, instead a deceptive smile curled on her lips. Such a sweet and innocent look, which was quickly drowned out with her laughter. That maniacal, maddening laughter that could only come from a raving lunatic at this point.

"Oh Rayne... Rayne, Rayne, Rayne. Don't you get it? Xena made me this way, I am the perfect mirror image to that raven-haired Warrior. Xena made me in the image of her... I am Xena, and Xena is me." Tilted her head back that shrill laughter came once more, before diminishing into a sing-song voice.

"Ohhhhh... Rayne, Rayne, go away... come again another day." Yup, shoving Callisto into Level 0 was quickly breaking her sanity.

[rayney_day]

The animalistic ranting and raving was expected. Once Callisto began to get more directly confrontational, however, Rayne deliberately mirrored the blonde's earlier gesture, launching to her feet in a quick-snap movement, then practically lunging at the bars, in turn.

Both the women seemed oddly feral, at that precise moment. Admiration might not be reflected in the dhampir's eyes, nnor sympathy, but there was an understanding, on some level. A healthy form of respect.

A beholding of some part of her younger self, maybe.

"She made you her bitch, Callisto... Didn't even have to try." Quite whether Rayne was trying to get a rise out of the corrupted warrior or if it was a genuine sentiment, was unknown. Either way, the phrase was spoken slowly enough to be goading. "You wanted to kill in her name? You wanted to sully her reputation? Sounds like you were doing her a favour, to me... Making her feared. Making her a force to be reckoned with. Damn, Callisto, in dog terms, you were all but humping her leg."

[chaotic_villian]

Dropping from the bars as Rayne's manipulative words hit her ears, Callisto took a step back from the door. "Shut up." Of course her request went unnoticed as Rayne continued on, saying that everything she did was Xena's will.

Falling back into the shadows, those hazel eyes flickered in the darkness as they narrowed on to Rayne once more. "I did what I had to, and if that meant making Xena feared, while gaining my vengeance, so be it." Pausing Callisto turned to look at the wall, before her cheshire cat grin returned once more.

"Nooooooo..." Voice trailed off rather thoughtfully, "all those towns that I laid waste to in the name of Xena... they knew it was me. They knew me. They knew what Xena made me to be." Finger lifted to sway from side to side, as she began to truly unravel her own doing. "And as Xena attempted to clean up her image, try to right all the wrongs she had done... there was still me. The biggest mistake, and biggest regret in her life. They didn't fear Xena, they feared me. The loathed Xena for making me the way I was."

Callisto was pacing back and forth at this time, was she talking more to reassure herself, or to actually prove a point to Rayne? It was hard to say. "And when Xena had we at blade point so many times, her new found Good-Two-Shoes side prevented her from killing me. Stopped her from playing judge, jury, and execution, and completing what she gave up so many years ago." Stopping her tracks, Callisto tilted her head back to allow another menacing chuckle to escape.

[rayney_day]

"Yeah - and you could've stopped yourself from taking it out on all those innocents... Face it, you did exactly what Xena did to you, to countless others. Maybe we should take a trip and let some of those grown up survivors lash out at you, too. In the end, you're just a pale imitation, Callisto... Someone who gets off on slaughter and blames somebody else, like it changes anything."

Perhaps Rayne really was trying to goad her, but the more she considered it, the more unsettling similarities she saw to her own father's crusade of terror. The one which had resulted in her own creation. There were obvious differences in motivation, but it made her no less uncomfortable.

"I understand revenge, Callisto... My entire life was devoted to it. For you, it was some outsider. For me, it was my father. But I never did what you have. Xena won't get the guilt, because she knows damned well she never did the deed. You can blame her, all you want, but it's you who kept swinging that blade, not her."

[chaotic_villian]

"No, no, no." Callisto went right back to pacing against the far end of the cell. "You don't understand." Glancing at the red headed for a moment, there was a certain venomous flicker in that piercing hazel gaze. Callisto didn't kill for the sake of raping and pillaging a village, that was what Xena does... did? Did. Considering she "reformed". Regardless of reformation from Xena, it that was "warrior woman" who made Callisto the way she is today. It was that woman who created this monster, this... soulless killing machine.

Fists tightened, as her jaw clenched. The more Rayne spoke the more Callisto became agitated, and annoyed. Physically shaking trying to keep herself from launching at the bars again. "You don't know Xena like I do. The guilt from her past actions is enough to fill river Styx." Gaze shifted to look down at the ground. "I kill to give her that constant reminder that when she dies not only will she have her guilt, but she'll have mine as well.

[rayney_day]

"I don't fucking care!" Rayne snapped, practically leaping to feet. she had no idea if Callisto regarded the expression of copulation as a curse or not. she was never really one for paying attention to much in the way of history. Her tone, though, conveyed the meaning. "And I doubt she did, either! What...? You gonna' let her dictate your life?!"

Rayne might have started out by appearing to be calm, but the replies she was getting had reached some sort of breaking point of infuriation and now it was Rayne's turn to start pacing like some bipedal shark.

"Xena ain't here! You got that?! Nothing you do, form this point on, is going to register on her mental landscape... Nothing! You're insignificant, Callie - a big ole' squidge of impotent nothing. I got sent here to try and deal with you and all you care about is trying to do things in her name, when she's long dead. It's time to turn your ship around... Time to face facts, for once."

[chaotic_villian]

Gaze flickered once more to look up at Rayne. Callisto wouldn't tolerate this not at all. One of her more notorious examples of her insanity began to show. A pleasant smile curled on her lips, as her head tilted to the side. "Oh Rayne, I completely understand now." Understand what? Callisto didn't quite know. Exhibiting her own insanity, the woman was obviously using a unique mental defense mechanism known as escapism with a mixture of depersonalization. In this case, Callisto would completely submit to Rayne's suggestions, just to get the woman to shut up and leave her alone.

Moving a bit more into the shadows, Callisto turned her back to Rayne, and slowly ran her finger over the wall. Callisto was done talking, her warden obviously had NO idea what she meant, and wouldn't even listen to Callisto's reasons. So, the blonde did what she knew best, she tore her mind away from the situation, and went back to wallowing in her own insanity.

Humming softly to herself, Callisto was gone. Not physically, perhaps, but mentally, she was retreated back into her mind.

[rayney_day]

Rayne was listening. She just could not care less.

"Fine," she responded, narrownig eyes. "You wanna' play that game? Until you start to accept responsibility for what you've done, regardless of why you did it, at the time, I get to decide how to make you pay attention. Want me to turn this place into what I threatened I would? 'Cause I can do it."

This was Rayne's less than psychoanalytical side. She had little care for human beings, but she did care about being in control. Callisto ignoring her as being taken as a personal affront.

But reaching back into her own vengeance-filled childhood gave her a better idea. Moving up to the bars, close and personal, fingers wrapped slowly around them. The dhampir's nocturnal vision staring right through the gloom.

"If you won't listen to punishment, what about reward? What if I gave you a way to feel what it's like to kill Xena... To eat her alive, if you want to, stripped fresh from the bone. As many times as you'd like...?"

[chaotic_villian]

Everything Rayne said before she mentioned actually killing Xena was lost. Callisto had no desire in taking responsibility for what she has done, and she doesn't plan on it any time soon. Lifting her hand up a bit more, nails began to score into the wall. The idea of killing Xena sounded lovely, but, she didn't like the idea that it wouldn't Xena herself.

"You don't understand." Voice was a low hiss, as her nails began to drag along the wall. "Killing her isn't the point, Rayne. It's torturing her, killing her soul the way that she killed mine. Making her life a living Hell the way she made my life a living nightmare. Making her suffer for what she has done to me. I don't want to just kill her, I want her to pay for what she has done." Callisto remained with her back to Rayne, facing the wall and not even bothering to turn her head to look over at her warden.

[rayney_day]

"That ship's sailed," Rayne spoke, bluntly. Arms folding. "You need to think of how you'll change your life, now she's no longer in it. And you don't achieve that by doing what you did."

Callisto might not be looking at her, but the dhampir was staring right on back. Rayne was not used to negotiating her way through problems without violence. Her stay here was one big trial and she would just as soon kill the blonde and get it over with. That was her way.

Without that option, she left with trying to reason her way out of this. Making Callisto divorce Xena from the equation, as much as possible.

"Say you could fix it with a magic wand... Make it so that Xena never came into your life: What would you've done, instead? Humour me."