SECOND (kindly beckoned)
[She remembers this.
Rooted to the spot, back flush against the wall. There's a chain threading from her chest, stretching into a vast darkness. But the links divide into smaller links, thinner chains, and in the echoes of those loops she can feel other hearts beating.
The hearts of her friends.
Light falls, illuminates the stage. For an instant, she thinks that everything might be all right: they're whole, confused, some even tugging at the slender chains that connect them. (It won't break.)
Then a shadow slides in.
He's not as she saw him last, her brother-gone-Hollow: his scales are rusted and chipped and his ragged claws fumble for purchase on the stage. There's a mad light burning in the sockets of his skull, impossibly steady - alive despite all things. And he's calling to her.
sister sister
how long I've waited
so hungry
His voice grinds in her ears - but it doesn't matter. He's not looking for her attention now; there's not enough left in him to recognize her. The first time this happened, he moved slow enough for her to cry out. This time, before a syllable can tear itself off her tongue, his neck distends. Snaps forward. He unhinges his jaw and swallows someone whole: a neat, jangling crunch of chain and bone. The half-choked scream as the skull crumbles drives her to her hands and knees.
And she understands: her friends are bound by chains so tight that they cannot fight, that what they should run from has become invisible to them. Every chain leads to her, and she cannot leave her brother.
In the distance, the links are snapping underneath his heavy bites. There's a scream caught in her throat like an umbrella spoke, but they're looking at her with eyes full of salt and trust and reflected teeth and she cannot run, cannot flee her brother's reaching claws. The only thing she can do is lie. Pick herself back up, tell them that it'll be all right, that it won't hurt, scrape a little peace out of their last few moments as her chains hold them in place.
Smile.]
(ooc: Blrgh, sorry for the dropped tags this week. Didn't want to bother anyone with late tags since it's been a few days, but if you let me know it's okay, I'll finish the threads. ♥)
Rooted to the spot, back flush against the wall. There's a chain threading from her chest, stretching into a vast darkness. But the links divide into smaller links, thinner chains, and in the echoes of those loops she can feel other hearts beating.
The hearts of her friends.
Light falls, illuminates the stage. For an instant, she thinks that everything might be all right: they're whole, confused, some even tugging at the slender chains that connect them. (It won't break.)
Then a shadow slides in.
He's not as she saw him last, her brother-gone-Hollow: his scales are rusted and chipped and his ragged claws fumble for purchase on the stage. There's a mad light burning in the sockets of his skull, impossibly steady - alive despite all things. And he's calling to her.
sister sister
how long I've waited
so hungry
His voice grinds in her ears - but it doesn't matter. He's not looking for her attention now; there's not enough left in him to recognize her. The first time this happened, he moved slow enough for her to cry out. This time, before a syllable can tear itself off her tongue, his neck distends. Snaps forward. He unhinges his jaw and swallows someone whole: a neat, jangling crunch of chain and bone. The half-choked scream as the skull crumbles drives her to her hands and knees.
And she understands: her friends are bound by chains so tight that they cannot fight, that what they should run from has become invisible to them. Every chain leads to her, and she cannot leave her brother.
In the distance, the links are snapping underneath his heavy bites. There's a scream caught in her throat like an umbrella spoke, but they're looking at her with eyes full of salt and trust and reflected teeth and she cannot run, cannot flee her brother's reaching claws. The only thing she can do is lie. Pick herself back up, tell them that it'll be all right, that it won't hurt, scrape a little peace out of their last few moments as her chains hold them in place.
Smile.]
(ooc: Blrgh, sorry for the dropped tags this week. Didn't want to bother anyone with late tags since it's been a few days, but if you let me know it's okay, I'll finish the threads. ♥)