(Untitled)

[godslaying]

Who: yetsleeping and godslaying
When: Now!
Where: The misty ruins.
Format: Paragraph.
What: Priscilla has returned to her blonde self. Gin hasn't changed in the least.
Warnings: None come to mind. Will change if necessary.

Comments

[yetsleeping]

She wants to be alone. This is the first thing to note. This, and that in all of Anatole, there are only two places that can make this truly possible.

First: Dismas. That black hole that eats her power and makes her human. There, she could hide, mingle with the crowd, and keep her silver eyes down.

Second: The ruins. A place so choked with energy that it might eat even hers. Hers. The other her. Because that is the key, really - how to disappear without people immediately knowing she had changed. That she was... this.

This hollow, weak little thing with pale hands and pale hair and eyes colored with the wrong metal.

She wants to be alone. That's why she's in the ruins, unarmed, without her warrior's garb (where is it, even? Didn't she destroy it when she--). Without anything but her hands. Not that she's ever needed more than that, to kill.

That much is evident by the head of the strange, lizardlike beast she tosses from the side of the ruined roadways, onto the ground just at Gin's feet. A moment later, she follows it, her hands covered in blood, and blood splashed across her face, and her ruined, white dress, her tattered cloak.

There is no light in her eyes, now, as there had been before her awakening. Nor is there even a shadow of the hollowed out ecstasy she had displayed in her awakened form. Instead, there is only hard metal, and nothing.

Still, she does remember him. She lifts her head, just a little. "Gin."

[godslaying]

He halts at the monster's head falls at his feet, spattering the bottom of his robe with blood. His head turns in her direction. Even Gin wasn't sure what to expect.

"Why, if it ain't Miss Prissy." His voice is a murmur, lacking some of its usual venom. Now that he sees her, sees her like this, he's still not sure what to expect. "You scared me, sneakin' up like that." Perhaps it's impossible for him to be truly afraid. He's chosen a path and is determined to see it through, leaving no room for things like hesitation or fear. But he also has to survive to see it through, and that makes him a little more cautious. He did openly fight for Luciela after all, and clashed with Rigaldo. But in his defense...it is Rigaldo.

"Ya seem different." A hint of his grin returns. "Do something with your hair?"

[yetsleeping]

"I wasn't exactly sneaking." Priscilla wipes her hand on a nearby outcropping of rock, leaving a blloody handprint to mark her passage. For now. In less than an hour, it would disappear, lost to the mist. Inside a few hours, the corpse itself, that head, all gone. Maybe if she stays here long enough, the blood on her face, on her hands, on her clothes, will all go away, too.

Her energy has gone dead. Not gone, not in truth, but pulled back inside her and locked up like some great beast. It feels strange, and sad, being so pulled back. Another thing she doesn't want to admit. But that, in fact, is how she knows he hasn't come looking for her. Just a coincidence, then. An encounter in the ruins.

She looks away. "My hair... it's blond again, that's all." But that isn't all.

She knows shinigami, after all. She knows their abilities at least enough to know that she's lost most of herself. (Her power. Only her power. It isn't the same thing, is it?)

Another subject, then. Something less harrowing. "What are you doing out here? Looking to trade blows with Rigaldo again? I'm sure he'd welcome it. He's odd that way."

[godslaying]

"What else could you be doin', if you ain't sneaking." Because Gin knows the energy of her kind as well, not like reiatsu but not unlike it either. He sensed nothing. Priscilla merely appeared so suddenly that he couldn't even shunpo away if he'd needed to.

"Is it?" He presses is back to a rock wall, grin still not stretching. "You sound a little different too." That hadn't spoken, hadn't really needed to. But Gin had been watching, if only because it was something Aizen would've been interested in.

The actual mention of Rigaldo makes his smile falter a little. "War's over. Got no reason to anymore." Which isn't to say he wasn't, wouldn't. "I just wanted to see if things were still interestin' here." A smile. "Turns out, it is."

[yetsleeping]

"Things never stop being interesting, I guess. In good ways, and bad ones." She wipes her other hand on her cloak. It's already ruined, so why not? "...anyway. I wasn't sneaking, I just..."

Hiding doesn't sound any better. So she shrugs, and lets her gaze wander from his face, toward the road, and the mist on it. The grass peaking from between broken stones, and the trees heavy with leaves, stirring in the breeze. The city would be beyond that, cloaked in the mist - not so far away, especially for one of her speed.

And yet, somehow still leagues away.

She shakes her head, and her blond hair rustles around her pale, pale face. "I don't think he'd need a reason to fight with you." And then, because she did notice that falter in his grin... "It doesn't matter to me, you know. Whose side you took." She pauses, then glances at him again. "As long as it wasn't Riful's."

[godslaying]

"He reminds me a little of someone I know that way." Though maybe it's just the whole cat thing that brings Grimmjow to mind. "A shame that he ain't here. Think they'd get along just fine."

There's a hint of teeth when she tells him that it didn't matter whose side he'd fought on. It suits Gin just fine. He hadn't really cared either. "I was wonderin' about that. Guess you noticed." He crosses his arms over his chest, a touch more casual now. "Glad to hear it. Ahh, but things did seem a mite personal between you and her."

Gin tilts his head, perpetually studying her even though his eyes don't appear to be the least bit open.

"Is this something ya chose, Miss Prissy. Or was it one of those bad ways that things can be interesting?"

[yetsleeping]

"He reminds me of someone I know, too." Not that she doesn't know Rigaldo, of course. But it isn't the same. Priscilla sheds her cloak, draping it over one arm, keeping her eye on Gin as well. He's a strange one, she knows - difficult to predict, and difficult to read. She remembers this, from... long ago. When he first arrived, and everyone had warned her against him.

She shouldn't linger around him long. She shouldn't really talk to him, much. And she does want to be alone, really. But...

But it's been silent for so long.

"Riful and I... we had a history." Until she put that bitch in the ground. Again. "She murdered my love." One of two, anyway. But that's probably more detail than Gin needs, or wants, so she goes quiet instead of continuing. Instead of dodging his next question, even if she wants to.

"...it's funny. You would think people would respect you more, when you're strong. That they'd be good to you, if only because you're frightening. But everyone has always loved to take things out of my hands."

In other words, no. No, she didn't choose it. Not even a little.

[godslaying]

"Love makes folks do all sorts of things. Glad I don't have to worry about it." There isn't the slightest hint in his voice, not a single change in his expression that would suggest that Gin knows the first thing about love. For all intents and purposes, he doesn't.

What she says next though, does. Gin's smile falters a second time. It hits unexpectedly close to home, the taking of something from that someone that he doesn't love.

"Now that just ain't right." There's a rare touch of something genuine in his words. "I think folks resent strength. The strong get to shape the future, but I don't think most people wanna go there. Not really."

[yetsleeping]

Priscilla glances at him again, examining the strange mask that is his face. Always smiling. Eyes eternally closed. And she wonders whether that's true - whether he really doesn't know anything about love. ...and also, whether she should stop envying that, a little.

"Love is kind of difficult," she says, quietly, kicking at the ground... her gaze distant. "And it does seem like people resent... that sort of thing. They try to control it. To lock it up." Or turn it back. Weaken it.

Make the lion become a mouse.

...it's strange, though. She never would have named herself a mouse until now.

"...I used to think I was strong. But these things depend on where you stand. Now, I--" There are no words. She presses her lips together. "I feel fragile."

[godslaying]

"The clock didn't go back that far, did it?" Gin's lips stretch. She seems a little broken, but he wonders how much of that is just in her head. "Can't think of many who can wonder around this deep in the Mist, killing monsters with their bare hands."

He sighs, a bit dramatically, and looks up at the sky.

"Guess I can see where you're comin' from though. You sure were something." Something good or bad, it's impossible to tell from his tone. "But if you bide your time, I bet you'll get strong again. Evolve. Then you'll know exactly where you stand, and so will all those others."

Gin thinks idly that he probably shouldn't encourage her. Oh well.

[yetsleeping]

She glances away, keeping her eyes on the broken rocks, the leaves, the dew... the mist, cool and thick and all around her, covering the world up like a shroud. And for a moment, she isn't sure what to say, because it's true - she knows it's true. She isn't weak, not by any objective standards. She hadn't been before, and she most certainly isn't now - now, when her yoki is so much easier to handle, and so--

--but it's still not the same.

"Killing monsters with one's hands isn't really all that difficult." She holds her hand out. "You just grab part of them and pull till it comes loose." There are other ways, too. But that one happens to be her favorite, for the moment.

"...in any case. I don't think time can bring that back."

[godslaying]

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds downright easy." Gin laughs a bit, a touch of irony in his voice. Despite how simple she makes it sound, it's not simple, not for most. He wonders if she even realizes that. Maybe her strength puts her a bit out of touch. "You just can't let 'em start pulling back."

His smile fades at her last words though, replaced by genuine curiosity.

"Oh? Ain't it still in there?"

[yetsleeping]

Priscilla laughs too, softly. And only a little. "If they pull back, that just makes it more interesting." Well, maybe that was a little grim. But even so... "Fighting helpless things seems needlessly cruel, especially this deep into the ruins, where so few people are even here to be hurt. But in any case, if they pull something off of me, I can always put it back.

"Or grow it back."

As long as it isn't her head, anyway. Priscilla lifts her hand as if to rub her face... but instead stares at her palm, all bloody and red streaked.

"...it's still in me. But I can't let it out again."

Even if part of her wants to.