August 17, 2002dancers in the dark [kaj'sha-runs-with-spirits][northwest national labs, atlantic city, nj | wyrmpit]
Hours have passed. She's lost track. In the total darkness, there is nothing to measure time by but the beat of her heart, the slow cold trickle of sweat and blood, the mindcrushing memories of violation and terror.Ticktock.
Ticktock.Door opens. Light slants across her face for the first time in hours(? days?), blinding. Backlit and silhouetted, his features quite invisible, one she has not seen before. Slim and tall, with what might be golden curls - though they are silvered by the bright light - he moves with an assurance, a grace, that she recognizes without even needing to see his face.
Silver Fang...
Behind him, a nameless and unmemorable man shuffles in with a folding chair, which he sets up across from Runs. Perhaps she still has the presence of mind to be humiliated: naked, bound, gagged, staked out for display. Or perhaps there is only the brief, painful flash of hope. Silver Fang? Saviors...?
A blade flickers: seashells, the scent of the ocean. Her bindings come loose one by one, all but the garotte about her throat. With that accomplished, the golden youth sits, ankle crossed over knee, sliding his knife away and pulling his dapper off-white coat straight.
Softly, he questions, "Why haven't your friends come for you?"
there's a dancer in the darkness.....silent.
malicious.
cast a deadly spell.taller, darker (imperfect) he moves to lean against the wall, arms folding to cross bare (scarred) chest, jeans clinging low on lean hips, those eyes (unnatural...... roving) covering nude form as a diseased ("He's one of the ones I told you about..... a little cracked by the spiral") blanket
She has cried so long there are no tears left. When she woke to feel the stingking ooze of slithering wetness (....was it all a dream....?) between her thighs, the remembered buried violation deep within virgin heat brought hours upon hours of screaming cries, struggles against bonds that hold tight, the wish for unconsciousness once more.
But wishes do not come true.
This is no fairy tale.
Tears dried, and terrorized fear twisted deep within uncoils to spread the warmth of (defeat) content. She no longer struggled. She no longer cried - if Gaia were merciful, she would have no longer breathed.Gaia has forgotten her.
The blinding flash from doorway brings a wince, the brief (very. brief.) flair of hope fading with the entrance of (thedemon) Asher behind him, and she closes her eyes. She does not flinch from the blade (she has lost flesh already), the scents of the sea not enough to erase the (remembered?) stench of the thing that abused her (mind) again and again. Dignity remains, however - at least a tiny bit as when her legs are freed, aching thighs slide closed, pressing together. Other then that. Nothing.
"I can tell you why..."
His voice is not the angel's as Asher's is, but it is one that fits the face now half-revealed by the light reflecting dully off the floor. A smooth, young, lovely voice, much as he is smooth, young, lovely - unambiguously so, beauty that transcended gender, (almost) perfect.
But his eyes are black as coal.
"They have forgotten you. They have lied to you all your life. They do not care about you, and you are only a tool for their nefarious ends.
"Cannon fodder.
"Trash."A pause. He slides out of his coat, holds it out to the other. "Asher, cover the poor girl." And when the Galliard had, "Tell me, Runs-with-Spirits, what did they teach you of the Wyrm?"
the coat spreads (black.magick) with the flair of a magician's cape, falling as a bedsheet across her (safety from the creature beneath the bed) and the man (monster) drops to fluid crouch beside them, strange (the loving maniac) smile curving his lips to hear all of Kaj'sha's words
[how fanatically he believes them all, knowing the truth behind the Mother's Legions]
though he is still. so. frighteningly. quiet.
Even his voice, his (almost) perfect visage, does not get her eyes to open. The (demon)angelic tones of Asher used to taunt (torture) still twisted in her mind. The mock sympathy when coat is offered, however. That gets a response. redgold lashes part, slowly, slightly, and she watches the beast come near, not a flag of truce, but a coat to cover that which disgusts the Fang. She is unclean, soiled both within and without, blood, human waste, writhing sicknesses from the thing left with her in the night. but the Fianna still has just that much fire left within. She waits until the (loathesome) beast crouchs by his (demon) god, before hands move, coat is lifted and dropped to the floor - hopefully in some pile of waste to soil the offwhite perfection. They will look upon their (damnation) creation. Though she closed her thighs (...forever...) she refuses to be covered in some show of (mock) concern.
They made (destroyed perfection, shattered innocence) her. Let them look.
And still. Silence.Watching her, at ease in his chair, undefended but for his Beta and a knife made of seashells, he laughs.
"Would you like to sit up? Eat something? Drink...?"
(Silence.)
"...all right then." Dusting his knees off (though they were not sullied), he rises, bending to lift his coat, shake it out, and rip it into strips after cutting nicks into the fabric with the knife. With these strips he approaches her and - impossibly - begins to bind her wounds.
"Let us pretend, just for a moment, that you wanted some idealistic youngsters to do your dirty work, further your own dark ends, defeat those who opposed you. Would you tell them the others were the 'good guys', the ones who were right? Or would you tell them the others were enemy, the evil ones, the ones who were mistaken?
"I ask you, further: how much did your Elders tell you about us? Anything, other than that we are evil, that we oppose all that is good? Anything other than the lies anyone would tell you to make you kneel to their sacrilege?"
a sound starts in the galliard's throat (hackles raised) and lightning crackles in his eyes (........how dare you refuse his gift) feathertrigger temper (when did the mellow become so volatile) rippling beneath smooth skin though somehow...... it's held in checkperhaps only by the (golden) laughter
perhaps only by the knowledge of what is to come (no one had to explain it to him, she's already proven how stupid she is thrice over) that excites a low hunger deep in (cracked) mind
The promise of food, of drink gets a flicker of a glance - but she doesn't say anything - she will only be refused. though confusion filters through her gaze as wounds are bound by the fangs coat, torn to shreds and wrapped... finally gaze opens fully, and she looks up at (perfection) Kaj'sha.... shaking her head, slightly... denial? but of what.....
Asher's hackles rising are ignored.... maybe, just maybe, the fang will save her.... (..pleasedon'thurtmeanymore..)
"I know you can hear me," he murmurs, so low now that even his Beta would have to strain to hear, "and I know what your answers are. I know what is in your heart, your doubts, your fears...I know this, because I was one of you."Look at me. Look. Silver Fang, no? That is what I was...before I was unblinded, shown the truth. And I am here to show you the truth."
He bends, nicks a bandage with his (dull, human) teeth, rips it, binds it, and begins anew on another. "So you see," he continues, evenly, soothingly, "you need not speak. You need only listen.
"What my pack has done to you was painful, but necessary. It was your Rite of Passage, you see. Do you remember your first? They sent you to kill, to destroy, did they not? And they told you those that you destroyed - they were evil, they deserved to die - even as you killed. Even as you destroyed.
"We are different. We suffer, first, so that we are brave. So that we can face whatever they throw at us. So that we can serve the Mother in the one way we can, and must: by destroying all that threatens her."
She winces as the Fang bends over her, teeth bared, trembling as it is only the bandage that feels the tear... this, oddly, causes her to only fear him more.. she trembles, but yes, listens, eyes (painfilled) of crystal (shimmering) blue locked on the demon (angel) that tends her... a slow blink.. before voice - horse with the force of so many hours of screams, barely audible whispers - is found
"he.... raped.... me...."
the ultimate humiliation, and tears form again, and spill, lips pressed tightly together while control is found again..
"...such violation is no 'rite of passage. beastial. evil. WRONG."
the last is spit at him with all the rage horror pain humiliation that twists within heranother sound (its sick caress) purrs (invades) within her ears (you let it happen)
[satisfaction]
talons plucking harp(heart)strings strung across the floor, though within the strange silence, he waits
"He," calmly, oh so calmly, "was not real."A beat, in which the only sound is the tearing of fabric, the neat bandaging of her wound.
"Oh, Gur'thek is real. But the one who raped you was not Gur'thek. Just a shadow, no more. Like this."
Spirit-energy ripples and gathers around the fallen Fang, whose eyes are shut now in concentration, who golden curls stir in a wind that does not once touch her.
Air into form.
(Dust into man.)SickBoy stand there, chittering to himself, hands wringing together, eyes beady. And, slowly, slowly, his posture changes and straightens; the giggling stops; he looks almost ...sane.
The reproduction is perfect. Kaj'sha has, after all, seen him thus once.
Confusion flickers, a glance toward Asher, then back to the (angel) demon before her - a wounded cry (animal in pain) as sickboy appears, the eater of flesh the slathering twisting disgusting thing that violated her near, so calmly... so.. (in)sane... eyes close, thighs press tightly together, and she longs to curl up (protect) but doesn't - knowing she would simply be pulled back into 'place'... reality is slipping.... she doesn't know what or who to believe anymore...*
a sneer curls poet's lips (did you like my parlor trick?) the only expression granted the Gaian
He allows her her silence, her fragile shell of sanity. He allows her thus, for saying too much can sometimes mean as little as saying nothing. In silence he tends her, the last of her wounds carefully cleaned and covered, and in silence he leaves her, takes one step back, exhales.But eventually, he does speak again.
"Let me show you the truth." So soft, so soft. A nod to Asher, wordless: draw the Spiral. "Step off that table and take my hand. Let me dispel the shadows and show you the truth."
...endlessness...
"Or," even softer, "if you do not believe me, strike me down now, here and now, unarmed - as your Elders would have you do."
Silence. All but the quickened breathing, the hitching cries that fight past the wall of tightly pressed lips, the agony of (...suspicion...) the situation the fear (hope?) that what he says might be true...
..she seems to know, that should she strike at the demon(angle) that the other would strike her as quickly. (...i'm not ready to die...) just as she knows that if she expects to survive, this demon(angel) is her only hope. a glance toward Asher(blooddancer), before she slowly sits up, groaning with residual pain that quakes through her... she almost collapses as she slides from the table, but somehow maintains her balance, knuckletight grip on the edge of the table (prison). A heartbeat(eternity) and slowly, she slides her hand (broken, yet bound) into Kaj'shas...the nod is bare, liquid feline the turn away (the beast set free) as black fur oozes tar from his skin, bones moaning to twist and reshape into the metis dancer (the icon of coil) that stalks to a part of the room still cloaked in darkness (do you dare strike him even with my back turned)
there are no words
(only Kaj'sha can hear his ritual chant)
there is something that thickens in the silence
(deep sea pressure rising)the floor electrifies, shadows rippling (do not forsake me your welcoming arms) as they begin to waltz (the spiral's heart...... the lifeblood's forbidden beat) pinching in the center as a spiral begins to form (the totem's hole plummeting abyssmal depths), rivers of darkness wind astray from the pivot point as they swirl, lightning flashing bale-fire currents along their length (can you feel its power calling) to cast eerie glow on the ceiling
the spiral pulses and writhes (eager welcome) as it waits
underhinged skull turns, back to his Alpha
it is ready
When her hand slips into his, there is no cry of victory, no scream of exultation; not even a sigh. He merely smiles, half-tiredly, as though his quest to bring his brand of truth upon the world (...still a Philodox...) had drained him somehow.But when he turns with her to the writhing pattern on the floor, a breath escapes his lips unbidden, much as a breath might escape a man in a moment of passion.
Father...
"Come, Runs-with-Spirits," he stops at the edge, brings his hand up, leads her to the entrance to the pattern of their hellbound stars, "and let the Father open your eyes."
Attention drawn to the dancer that turns his back, a moments consideration that it is her chance to strike and run (..how far could you get, little girl..) the oppressive thickening, the electric shadows rippling she trembles, and edges closer to Kaj'sha (..protect me..) even through he pulls her to the edge of the (..dance..) spiral, her whimper muted, swallowed, as she stares (panic) into the abyss... lead to the entrance.. dare she step foward?
...the father calls. the truth calls... is there any other way? Panic brings eyes to Kaj'sha (fatherforgiveme) to Asher (deamonseed) to the spiral (Gaia protect me, gaia forgive me, gaia save me) and the step is taken, the entrance breached...The pattern is alive.
It moves, it spins, it strips her of her senses and her orientation (...useless...), strips her of her human form, throws her into her warform (...as you should be...), and as the ground tilts and the center of the spiral yawns open, she can hear it - the voice of the Wyrm, a trillion voices, a million, a hundred, three speaking in discordant unity.
Hissing, screaming, shrieking, laughing......whispering...
welcome home, Runs-with-Spirits.
the Banes gather (legion waiting command) their howls only memory's faint echo (your nightmares are real) until the moment she passes
and that is when they scream
heaven and hell collide
Malfeas yawns to swallow her
the Father boils thundrous belowand it is then...... the terror finally begins
And then she is gone. The fires of the Spiral die, and spent, the pattern sprawls black and oily across the floor.
Left behind, the Philodox exhales shortly. There is color and reflection in his void-black eyes for once: the balefire of Malfeas, green leaping in the black.
"I envy her, Asher," murmurs he. "It is the greatest day of her life, and she doesn't even know it yet."
Turning then, he claps his Beta on the shoulder, and then moves past him, out the door to cleanse himself. "When she returns, bring her to me. And, Gr'aak: I would speak with you privately, and soon."
The room moves, swirls twists and shift is forced upon one so recently controlled, the noose gone it flings her into instant (pained) shift, warform gained as she screams with the terror the voices twist within, eyes snapping (..insanity..) as syllables voiced scream from shredded throat
"ayy-dis"
drawn out in lipcurlingsnarl as heavenandhell (motherfather) twists about her and collide within frantically pounding heard, spinning out of control the (littlegirl)screams echoing*
a sound rumbles (kitten's purr) at the soft words, strange light within contradicting the mismatched blue that watches balefire reflection in the Father's gifts of his Alpha's eyes........... I remember......
whispered softly through Kaj'sha's mind, never will the Galliard forget his willing leap into the dark arms of their Father....... the touch returned by cat's tail that whips (to strike) through the air, curving as if it would embrace the man that stands beside him..... though carefully (respectfully) it forms spiral mere inches away from fabric, and lashes away again
....... yes, Kaj'sha........
jaw that could never form words aids curve of acquiescent smile, turning back to wait her return
Posted by asher at August 17, 2002 12:00 AM
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