+- Court of the Fallen (https://cotf-rpg.com)
+-- Forum: Out of Character (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=26)
+--- Forum: Important (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=27)
+---- Forum: Archives (https://cotf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=38)
+---- Thread: dance and drown (/showthread.php?tid=4938)
Pages:
1
2
dance and drown - Mabel - 01-26-2021
Mabel didn’t have an explanation for why she was there, settled in amidst and amongst the snowy doldrums of the Bone Bridge. It wasn’t to lean over the edge, pretend she was further into the fog or abyss. There was no need for pretenses when she’d drifted in and out of it for a number of days, contemplating poisonous, venomous vectors and how to best avenge, and honor, a sister felled.
Their fledgling days had been orchestrated here, and by rote, by memory, she meandered across its steps, completely unbothered by the words of tales, of legends into the fathoms below. Maybe she thought she’d catch a glimpse of Evelyn’s ghost within the ethers – or at least the pretense of some billowing mist, conforming to her vision, to her sights, to her tangibility, and give her some proper ending. Neither of them had ever been able to say goodbye to one another.
One to the sea, one to the knife, and the rest buried down into the earth. What a family, the Occidendums; luck and fortune never truly on their side. But one day, one day the resurrected girl would show the world exactly what they’d been meant to do – not too little, not too late. So with her grating heart and the moon barely scraping into the sky, she mustered her way through the curling, coiling plumes and fumes, no breath to intermingle in puffs of air.
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 01-27-2021
If Nate knew exactly what drove his feet out to the rickety bridge of what he hoped was merely strangely coloured stone, then he more than likely wouldn’t be out at all. He certainly didn’t want to be, didn’t want to leave his husband alone, but something in him needed to move, to pace along paths while he could.
Just in case he never got the chance to again.
Its a melancholy mood that grips him, that keeps him distracted until it is very nearly too late. The ascended has been busy watching his feet, but something, some errant step or barely there sound, has his head snapping up, catching sight of the girl. And stopping.
At first, he thinks perhaps he’s been touched by some madness, ghosts of Leafchange still haunting him, but he knows better. It’s only wishful thinking. He stands still for a long moment, working his jaw, before finally gathering the courage to speak, a rough, apologetic [say]”Hey.”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 01-27-2021
She expected no one; taking in the expanse, the stark, abandoned sanction as another piece of backdrop and scenery to slip into her emotions, her munitions, her pride. But the sounds of someone else stretched across the bleached bridge, the makeshift bones, and she shifted, turned, quickly, swiftly, beneath the decadence of their witching hours. For a moment her eyes narrowed, and she could’ve been one more predator – had she been stronger, had she been faster, had she not been something recently resurrected and struggling to understand just what she was doing. Instead, she was a tense, feral, little demon, thinking to slide and slice from the ramparts of fog –
Except she recognized this man, and she paused. Stilled. Fragments of eldritch, willowy armaments; a lift of her chin, a tilt of her head. Nate. She’d seen him back and forth and in between after her renewal, her resurgence, but not enough to stop and discuss. What was she to say? Apologize for her death? For ruining things because she was too weak? She’d had a multitude of hours and days to contemplate the notion while fumbling beneath the waves, but now it was strangely absent. Unknown. Foreign.
Maybe he felt the same, considering the rueful tone. The way it took so long to muster anything at all. Her eyes fell, and she shrugged. [say]“Hey,”[/say] a reflection in vocals. Her hands went to one another, clasped, fingers beginning to fumble, telling her secrets and misgivings.
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 01-28-2021
Perhaps it would be better if Mable didn’t speak. If she seemed more like a ghost, instead of a wild, frightened thing. As it is, Nate approches her with all the wariness of a fox trapped in a snare, well aware that the wrong move could set her off
[say]”What are you doing out here?”[/say] He asks, instead of any of the other questions that spring to mind. Instead of did you drown or starve? Instead of do you think we could have found you? Theres no need to entertain that strange hollow pit of guilt, not when it already yawns and looms over him so much.
No, instead he forces a measure of warmth into his tone, as hollow as anything else an ascended can naturally conjure. [say]”Are you alright?”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 01-28-2021
Naught yet – no herald of the past save for the space in between, the ghosts and ridges of the world before them, and her voice was muted, quiet, a shrug to her shoulders to loosen up the stark space in between her bones and ichor. [say]“Remembering,”[/say] she offered at first – that was why she was out here, amidst the wraiths, phantoms, and fog. Recalling her sister. Recalling her twin. Recalling one of her many siblings, before they all succumbed in one way or another. [say]“What are you doing out here?”[/say] An insight for an insight, an inquiry for an inquiry. Just not the ones either of them had settled in their minds.
Her eyes narrowed again at the other question. Was she all right? Transitioning from dead to alive, from eldritch abomination to something less feral, more human again, learning Evelyn had been murdered, and that they were gearing up for warfare against beings that could’ve been like themselves. So she shook her head. [say]“No.”[/say] The slate of her glance focused on the bridge enamel and outlines thereafter, a solemn promise and conviction marbled through her throat. [say]“But I will be.”[/say] Sooner or later, she’d get what she craved and wanted.
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 02-01-2021
[say]”Oh.”[/say] Nate nods his understanding, lips curled in a grimace of understanding, his eyes carefully sliding away from Mabel and towards the hazy air around them. The mismatched stare levels back on the girl at the question, his answer considered carefully, rolled back and forth in his mouth before he lets it fall. [say]”Forgetting, I suppose.”[/say]. This is the game they’re playing then, an answer for an answer,
Leaning a half step closer, Nate nods again, understanding again, and laughs. [say]”That’s the spirit.”[/say] Can’t let them keep you down, no matter what them was. It’s a shame that he doesn’t know more of the details surrounding Mabel’s state, for the amount he’d been able to truly sympathize. Or maybe it’s a mercy. Nate knows better than to ask if she wants to talk about it, though it crosses his mind, so he shifts the conversation in a different direction. [say]”Must be nice to be back, huh?”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 02-01-2021
Forgetting; maybe sometimes she wished she could do that. But the tides would always be over her head in some ways, the feeling of vast emptiness calling to her throughout the days and nights, until she found a way to fill it. Mabel just didn’t know with what. Rage? Revenge? Or when to go about it, how to procure everything she needed, required, to brim over the sides of her brewing maelstroms. Maybe time would ensure. Maybe after LongNight would grant and give them more opportunities. Maybe they’d survive the upcoming, ominous storms and terrors. [say]“What do you want to forget?”[/say] A mercurial mood, another eerie hum beginning under her breath, wandering further into the fog, into its breadth and infinite poise, as if she could disappear into its murk and come out the other side.
But she could still hear him over the bleached adornments and ridges, the backbones of a bridge with too many stories and too much history. And she nearly froze in the patches of mist, eyes angling downward, over edges and fringes, over boundaries and wiles. [say]“Yes,”[/say] she offered in return, streamlined over the bout of warren haze. [say]“I wish more could’ve come back though.”[/say] She didn’t say who. [say]“But I will be forever grateful to the Voice for giving me a second chance.”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 02-02-2021
[say]”Honestly?”[/say] It’s a question he only asks before lying, a brow lifted as he frowns in her general direction, eyes still distant. [say]”A lot. I can’t decide if it’s worth it though.”[/say] It would be, for some things, but a deal to secure exactly what he wants to lose and nothing else would require an ironclad negotiation, something he hasn’t been capable of for longer than he’s willing to admit. He’s coming apart at the edges, slowly but surely. So surely in fact, that the only uncertainty is when exactly he’s going to be unwound completely.
Nate nods to her answer, still matching the distance in Mabel’s gaze, the corners of his mouth weighed down. He shouldn’t have asked this question, shouldn’t have started down this path, but it was too late to crash the car now. [say]”I know what you mean.”[/say] A humourless huff of laughter leaves Nate, another bright, fanged face swimming in his vision before he blinks it away, and drops to sit on the bridge. [say]”The Voice really is the best of them, isn’t she?”[/say] Who else would raise the very dead, after all?
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 02-02-2021
Mabel was no expert on when to forget or when to recall; a soul too young and already quite tarnished. In the midst of the fog, she leaned against the bridge, standing tall and stark in the visions of haze as he sat along its spectacles – as if she could safeguard. She couldn’t. Not yet anyway. But her head tilted and her ears listened and the intangible threads still stung somewhere, even over those who could no longer feel pain. [say]“Don’t we remember the most harmful so we don’t repeat it?”[/say] Did that make sense? She shrugged, the movement lost in the mist. The sagacity gone from her immediately too – as if vengeance had no place in those seconds.
Uncertain what to make of his laughter, she turned back into the abyss, face pressed into its wake, jaw lifted to the lack of moonlight, to the cover of darkness as clouds rolled in – murky, distorted. [say]“She is.”[/say] And something she’d said to his counterpart conjured in her chest, a half smirk sculpted on the sides of her mouth. [say]“What else has she done for you?”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 02-03-2021
A frown twists Nate’s face, a single shoulder lifting in an unenthused shrug. [say]”Some things don’t leave you even if you don’t remember why. And some thing are better not to go through at all.”[/say] Bleak advice, but hey, no one had ever called him a role model. Though, if he we’re going to try for anyone, it should be Mabel. Guilt rises like bile in his throat, Nate’s weight shifting back and forth before he glanced over at her. He wants to take some measure of his words back, wants to feign optimism, but every attempt dies on his tongue.
Legs dangle in the abyss as he ponders Mabels question, something rapturous in his voice. [say]”She repaired my eye when I lost it.”[/say] His head tips to the side, and he turns his gaze up the merciful blankness of a cloud covered night. [say]”And she gave me Pemota.”[/say] Who was keeping dutiful watch over Sunjata, back in the VlamVloed. [say]”It... took me a while to warm up to her, if I’m being honest.”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 02-03-2021
Her jaw clenched, and her teeth fit tightly together in the midst of her mouth, something stinging in his words. Eyes glanced downwards then, pulsing and reaching and uncertain, a gasp yearning, threatening, to tear down from her lungs. [say]“I’m terrified of water now.”[/say] A whisper, a drone, a buzz over the fog. What needed to be said, what they tiptoed around, what measured and weighed in different levels. Her hands came together as she leaned upon the boney edges, the bleached, white fringes, wondering when she’d become so lost and so uncertain and so bleak.
But there were other things to focus on, and she tucked her head against her chest, the Voice’s powers rippling through an injured eye, a starwhale, a companion. But the other comment, the insinuation, gave her pause, and her attention, her stare, moved towards him finally, as if breaking apart figments and fractions. [say]“What do you mean?”[/say]
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 02-04-2021
Even though he doesn’t breathe, Nate still feels something catch in his throat at the confession, at the shakiness of the voice that delivers it. [say]”Thats... understandable.”[/say] He doesn’t know why else to say, how to comfort her, how to quiet the guilt in him. Doesn’t know how to help her forget that experience, that fear.
He does know how to respond to her question though, and he’s glad for the change of subject. [say]”Where I came from, there weren’t really gods like here. I mean, there’s one, but I never really, yknow... saw Him.”[/say] A proper shrug rolls over his shoulders, some part of him almost bashful now that there are eyes on him. [say]”And then when I came here, I met Frey first, and he knocked me on my ass and told me not to come back.”[/say] None of it really built up to the best impression overall.
[say]”And... when I first ascended, I never saw her. She didn’t answer me, didn’t come to shrines, nothing.”[/say] So it was back to square one, except this time he knew it was only him being ignored.
RE: dance and drown - Mabel - 02-04-2021
Understandable, stupid, and irritating; when one couldn’t stare at a tub full of bathwater without curling into a ball, and remembering every detailed nuance. Every passing bout of seaweed. Every screeching gull. Every twist and turn of the current, while she didn’t sleep and she didn’t dream and she didn’t eat and she didn’t scream.
But she didn’t blame anyone. There’d been no faults in the lines; just bewildering foolishness, when they thought they were brighter, bigger, than a storm.
When nothing else came except understanding, she placed her hands together, fingers rubbing against one another. She couldn’t feel it, it didn’t matter, but save for some old manner of comfort, back when she had her sister’s hand to hold. As they braved death. As they sought to live.
The other factors and inquiries rushing along gave her some manner of pause, and her eyes went down to the bones, to the enamel, to the spine and ridges that made up the structure. Gods of Outlander parameters had little to do with her; though the notion of Frey was bizarre. [say]“You met them before you Ascended?”[/say] Perhaps it depended on which one he’d sought out, or if it had all been a confusing bungle.
But never seeing the Voice, their patron goddess, seemed strange and bewildering too. [say]“Did you slight her in some way?”[/say] Though she couldn’t quite fathom, imagine, the deity turning him away, giving him the cold shoulder, it was an aspect of her character that she’d hadn’t known about.
RE: dance and drown - Nate - 02-04-2021
They’re not close, emotionally, and Nate has never been good at handling this kind of loss, this kind of trauma, even for himself, but he can’t simply sit idly by while Mabel holds her own hand. He reaches out, puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. It’s not help, but it is a tether, a connection to life that must feel impossible to navigate.
As long as they’ve moved away from death, from remembering and forgetting and everything envelopes by those umbrellas, Nate is happy to yammer on, answering her question with a fervour that’s been absent from him thus far. [say]”Yea, I went and prayed in the temple, and he showed up, stole my clothes, and froze the room.”[/say] It had been a wholly humiliating experience, and even now, years down the line, Nate is still bitter, still has a sharpness in his tongue when he talks about it.
[say]”I don’t know if I actually did anything.”[/say] It was a strange kind of situation, one he hadn’t known exactly how to handle, except to simmer and act out in fits of childish impetus, snubbing and turning his nose up when he heard of others meetings, when he saw her at the Family gatherings. [say]”When I did see her, she told me she thought I was independent enough to not need her, which...”[/say] He shrugs. It’s a compliment, but it still reaches back to hold the hand of being ignored.