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+---- Thread: a heart that isn't here (/showthread.php?tid=11334)
a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
The shade in the grove is thin and dappled; enough to take the edge off the LongHeat sun but not enough to make it pleasant. Vesper doesn’t seem to mind. He’s dressed for it, anyway: loose cream-coloured linen rolled at the sleeves, half-unbuttoned down his chest, the edge of a tank top barely visible beneath. His trousers are lightweight and cuffed at the ankle, and he’s barefoot, the rainbow cobblestones cool under his feet. A silver ring glints on one toe, casual and deliberate.
He stands near the lip of the well, one hand braced on the warm limestone, the other lazily outstretched. His shadows slither ahead of him like curious snakes, extending across the interior walls of the shaft, flickering with the shimmer of heat. There’s no wind down there, no echo—nothing but the crystalline glint of old water far below and the unsettling absence of any sound when something falls.
Or rather, when something should fall.
A smooth pebble, shiny and black as oil, slides into Vesper’s palm. He flicks it lightly toward the centre of the well—and watches as it vanishes mid-air. No splash. No sound. Just...gone.
He squints, then straightens. Another pebble slips into his hand from the shadows, then another, then another—little offerings pilfered from the grove, polished by time or mischief or both. He tosses them in one by one, each disappearing into silence like swallowed secrets.
Nothing.
[say]"Alright,"[/say] he drawls, tone suspiciously thoughtful. His shadows gather at the edge of the well, pooling like ink, then stretch downward in a curious spiral—as if they could feel their way into the shaft and find out where the hell all those pebbles were going.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
Unlike the telepaths of Caido, Thal can't tell who might be lingering around every corner. If she could, she never would have found herself suddenly staring down a despicably handsome familiar face.
She freezes in her tracks, her defenses clicking into place like battle armor, steel and shadows that glint in the blue of her eyes. It hides the festering pain deep down, the wounds she's chosen to ignore rather than treat. It's easier to slip back into the familiar halls of her fort, reinforced with miles of thick metal walls, fire pits that rage, and thorny vines made of daggers; a gauntlet for only the bravest of idiots.
Pride is the only thing that keeps her from turning on her heels, refusing to let Vesper be the reason she ends her hunt early.
Hidden partially in the shadows, Thal leans against a tree, although her stance is anything but casual, dark clothes looking eerily similar to the scales of her lyvern form and just as threatening. A viciously sharp grin twists her features, cruel and wicked as the purple waves that crash against her thoughts. [Say]"Maybe you should try climbing in. Save us all the trouble of pushing you."[/say]
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
He senses her before she speaks, but not with his eyes or ears, but with pressure; a telepathic bruising that spreads through the grove like violet ink in water, staining the edges of his mind with something feral, something wrong. Even without his gift, he might have felt it. But with it? It’s like someone screaming through a radio that won’t turn off.
Her thoughts are fractured light behind cracked glass, tinted in hues he doesn’t want to name. Pride lashes at pain like a whip over old wounds. Rage curls like smoke from a fire she’s refusing to put out. Vesper doesn’t flinch, but his pupils narrow just slightly. His shadows still along the rim of the well, tension sliding into their shape like pulled string.
He doesn’t turn. Just tosses the pebble lazily up and down in one hand, the small clack of stone on skin the only sound for a moment.
[say] "Us?"[/say] he drawls at last, finally glancing over his shoulder toward the tree. His voice is easy. His grin, when it comes, is slow and knife-edged. [say]"Looks like it’s just you, darlin’. Unless you got a plus-one you're hidin' somewhere."[/say] His eyes flick down, casual but sharp, tracing the threat she wears like it’s fashionable.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
His drawling voice is like a claw scraping against the walls of her mind, a chalkboard cringe reverberating deep in her chest. She doesn't outwardly flinch, but her thoughts recoil as they attempt to remember what Vesper had sounded like before everything had changed. Thal shuts down the line of thinking faster than it takes her to shrug.
[Say]"I get the sense you piss a lot of people off, darlin'."[/say] The word is sickly sweet, honey that's meant to clog and choke, a threat that dares him to use the term again. Perhaps she'd grown too soft after befriending Asta, too used to hearing him call her 'dear' and 'darling' for it to bother her like it used to, but when Vesper says it, she's reminded of all the times she'd lashed out at those who dared to call her such delicate terms.
Her tail flicks sharp behind her, a hand hovering over a dagger as she imagines the many places she'd like to sink it. Maybe it'll hurt him as much as the realization that she'd been played a fool. Maybe it'd make her feel better.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
He doesn’t rise from the well’s edge. Doesn’t flinch. Just lifts a brow, slow and unimpressed, shadows curling around his ankles like something bored but attentive. [say]"Tell me,"[/say] he drawls, voice dry as salt and twice as cutting, [say]"fuckin’ a member of the Family make you psychic...or’s that just one of the perks that comes with the purple STD you’re drippin’ in?"[/say]
He flicks his gaze toward her—blue and blazing, a lightning flash behind clouded glass.
Whatever sort of morally gray bastard Vesper might be, there were certain lines that were never blurry, one of which just happened to be fucking the enemy.
And Thalassa—gods, once her mind had been all danger and fire, a place to get lost in with teeth and heat and something sharp enough to draw blood just by thinking too close. Now? Now it was wind-swept and hollow in all the worst ways. Choked with violet haze, brittle and dry like something burned too long and left to rot. A wasteland where there used to be wilderness.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
Thal bristles at the insult, at the implication he still throws around like fact. While her fun with Pierce might not have been 'subtle' in the middle of an occupied bar, she had apparently underestimated how far word would spread; and as for her 'purple STD', she still doesn't quite believe that one. Much like how she wouldn't admit to anyone - especially herself - why she'd actually sought the man out, Thal lives in stubborn denial of the truth. The violet voice in her head seems to say it doesn't matter anyways, so why should she care?
Her lips pull back in a sneer, hand moving down to clutch the hilt of her blade, as if it might keep her from throwing it. [Say]"I don't know what you think you know, but it's pretty pathetic that you have to resort to slut shaming to justify not liking me anymore."[/say] Would telling her straight out have been better? Maybe not, but she doesn't like this angle, and something in her knows that only Pierce will truly understand her.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
Vesper shakes his head slowly, like the whole thing’s just..pointless. He leans back against the stone well, one boot nudging a pebble near the edge while his fingers fish a sprig of peppermint bark from his pocket. He slips it between his teeth like a toothpick, chewing on it with lazy indifference. [say]"Ain’t slut shamin’ anyone,"[/say] he drawls around the peppermint, voice calm as still water. [say]"You think I care how much you fuck around when it ain't me between your legs?"[/say] His gaze flicks toward her—sharp, pale, steady—before he rolls his eyes.
[say]"But I’m a demigod, remember?"[/say] He taps two fingers lightly against his temple, the gesture subtle but unmistakable. [say]"So just maybe I know a fuckin' bit more about it than you think I do."[/say] The implication hangs between them like smoke: that what he knew wasn't just based on a hunch or a rumour. That whatever web she’s been caught in, whatever shadows cling to her now, he’s seen it for himself, and not just with his eyes. Better she think it's some demigod mumbo-jumbo at his disposal rather than mere telepathy, but it all amounts to the same big old violet exclamation mark over her head.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
The quiet apathy is worse than any disgust or hatred, making her feel very much like a child that's not worth his time. It shreds at her control a little at a time, the edges fraying in the growing maelstrom of insecurities and lingering inadequacies that Vesper has a knack for snagging despite her ironclad defenses.
Pushing off from the tree, she stands ready to fight, even as she refuses to step closer. [Say]"My apologies, your demigodness, but maybe everything you think you know is wrong."[/say] It's sharp and mocking, because she won't allow him to convince her otherwise - can't. So she does what she always does best, and bites back where she knows it'll hurt. [Say]"Safrin may be too weak to acknowledge what's going on, but Dygra sure as hell doesn't care about it, so neither do I."[/say] If her own goddess had looked on her favorably after everything that had transpired, then there's no way what he says is true, or that it matters.
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
His shadows slip like ink to his fingertips, coiling and twitching as if they’ve heard what she said and are waiting for his permission to act. Vesper doesn’t move—doesn’t need to. The way his fingers curl, slow and deliberate, is enough.
The peppermint bark cracks faintly between his teeth.
She’s trying to bait him and he fucking knows it. But weak hits different when it’s levelled at his mother, and though his face remains carefully blank, his shadows betray him—writhing in quiet, seething lines along the cobblestones.
He lifts his chin slightly, glancing toward the sky like he’s weighing a prayer he has no intention of sending. Then his eyes drop, pale and unblinking, back to her. [say]"Maybe you’re right,"[/say] he murmurs. [say]"Maybe it’s Safrin who’s got it all wrong."[/say] The words are slow, measured, meant to lull. But his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
[say]"Or maybe—just maybe—since she didn’t turn tail and fuck off to become stone the second the world got hard to handle, maybe Dygra just doesn’t give a fuck about you anymore."[/say] His tone is soft now. Cruel in how gentle it is. [say]"Maybe she saw what you’ve turned into, and figured it was just less energy to pat you on your head and send you along."[/say]
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
Despite their claims of not knowing each other, Thal can tell her words land exactly where she wants them to. A bitter satisfaction fills her as his restless shadows move around him, the unconscious feathering of his jaw enough to guess at his anger. However, his control is stronger than hers, and she watches as he hones it into a deceptively soft smile and placating tone that only further patronize her.
The blade of his speculations draw a line across her heart, deep and welling with shortcomings - with the prolonged silence to her prayers, and the exodus of people from her life, and the gaping hole of her memories. Thal feels herself begin to tremble, setting fire to every cell in her body like a flood that she braces for. It swells in her chest, all heat and smoke and suffocating anger against the pain of his words. Her voice barely escapes above a whisper, ash on her tongue that begs to devour. [Say]"You know nothing about me."[/say]
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
The whisper scrapes out of her like something broken, and for a moment, Vesper does nothing at all; just watches her. The trembling. The grief she’s trying to call rage. The way her words crawl like ash through her teeth—too soft to threaten, too late to defend. And gods, if he were anyone else—if he were even who he’d been weeks ago—he might’ve flinched. But this woman isn’t the one who’d bitten him beneath starlight and dared him to fight her for more.
[say]"Yeah well, I've seen enough,[/say] he says quietly, the shadows curling again around his wrists. They don’t lash out—don’t need to—instead stretching like hunger, like warning, like restraint dressed in black. His voice, when it comes, is dry and flat. [say]"Enough to see the difference between who you used to be and the fucking violet haze you're hobbled by these days."[/say]
He shifts his weight slightly, not toward her—never toward her—but enough to break the moment’s stillness. [say]"Whatever’s whisperin’ in your skull, Thal? It ain’t leavin’ you much room for the parts that mattered."[/say]
And then, finally, a quiet shrug. [say]"That’s what I know."[/say]
RE: a heart that isn't here - Thalassa - 05-15-2025
The heat simmering through her body doesn't cool, even as it tilts towards embarrassment at the repeat of his casual dismissal - the coldness that feels like she wouldn't even be worth redemption if all it took was a kind word. Between the hurt and anger, she lets one small truth take root, one that the lavender seeds in her mind don't wilt at: She's different. Dygra herself had said as much, but -
[Say]"You're wrong."[/say] Thal tightens her hold on her daggers, her head shaking to clear the suspicions that try to take hold, teeth clenched against the truth as her voice seeths. [Say]"Nothing important has changed."[/say] She's still captain of The Marauder. She still has Asta. She's still in control. She's still Thalassa.
It's hard to tell whether she's trying to convince him or herself.
The heat finally boils to the surface, the tips of her tail and horns flaring with tendrils of fire that flicker and snap in furious efforts to conceal her doubts, the flames almost purple in the low lighting. She crosses her arms, sealing everything inside as she hisses out the weakness that threatens to take hold. [Say]"One day, when you realize your mistake, don't come crawling to me."[/say]
RE: a heart that isn't here - Vesper - 05-15-2025
Vesper doesn’t react at the fire curling toward him—horns, tail, the kind of heat that once would’ve drawn him in like gravity, like sin with a sharp smile—but his shadows remain still. Not cowed. Just unmoved. His expression doesn’t shift either. No sneer, no scoff, not even the twitch of a brow at her final hiss. It’s the silence of someone who already made his decision.
Only after her words hang there—threat, promise, self-preservation laced in denial—does he finally tilt his head. [say]"Wasn’t plannin’ to,"[/say] he says softly, and it’s the worst kind of soft. Not cruel, not mocking. Just...done. The kind of softness that falls after a door’s closed and locked, and the only thing left to do is keep walking.
He turns away, slow and deliberate. Not in retreat, not in fear—but with a kind of certainty. Because he’s seen what infection looks like. And whatever pieces of her remain beneath the haze, they don’t belong to him anymore; not that they ever did.
His shadows slide after him, silent and patient, leaving only the echo of his voice behind. [say]"Take care, Thalassa."[/say]
~FIN