[the video turns on as a grey-haired woman trudges slowly upwards. the camera moves with her, like it's being filmed by something walking slightly higher on an incline. her eyepatch is off, showing silverblack where a blue eye should be, and her hair is stained a grimy red. she is singing, smoky and steady and low.]
For a first effort, this feels kinda last ditch. I guess this just got kind of drastic. Trust us, you just fell off the bus, sucker—yeah, well, payback is a motherfucker.
[her tone goes flat, but it is not calm. it is not serene. it is boiling under, and her words are as measured as they can be. her breath is shaking not just from the trudge upward.]
I'm coming for John first and you can't stop me. But don't think that lets you off the hook. If you think that you know how to mourn the First now, you have no idea what it's like for someone who remembers what it used to be. [she is the First. and augustine, john, all of them, they are people who found the ruins and crowned themselves kings.]
I will do to you what you did to the woman I love, and I will show you what it means to grieve.
[she makes a quick gesture to the camera, and the feed cuts.]
[the voice that comes through this time is rueful, which shouldn't be a surprise. she never got a response from augustine the first time, and maybe that's for the best. she breathes deep and sighs before speaking.]
Hey, Augustine.
[good opening.]
It's Anna. I just... wanted to apologize for coming out so goddamn hot against you. I know what happened on the beach there and I know that it wasn't... premeditated or anything. And me and K, we actually sort of made up about it, so I'm just trying to make things a little better. With the people I hurt when I went on my stupid fucking rampage.
So, like, I guess to catch us up? I don't want to kill you, and I didn't kill John, and... that's kind of where I'm at. I'm sorry that I made that threat in the first place.
And if you don't want to get back to me this time either, that's fine, too. Just wanted to let you know. Thanks for listening.
returned voice message; what are these "usernames" you speak of
Sure, technically neither is Augustine, seeing as how he left his Omni on his bed when he went to the bathroom — but the key, here, is that Alfred is keeping John company, and Augustine has been reading some of (the real) Evdokim's diaries — which has, naturally enough, required the use of his Omni to do so.
When he gets back and picks it up again, resettling, he's surprised by the notification that he's missed a message — this thing has a message system? — but it's intuitive enough to find it, to play it back — ]
[ ... Well, then.
Perhaps it's just as well for Alfred that he isn't in the room; that spares him from being the target of Augustine's stare, or from having to explain what other message she's referring to.
It takes him another minute or two, anyway, to figure out how to call back, and what he's going to say — whether or not she answers. (Can she answer? Are these things required to be one-way calls, volleyed back and forth? At least, he supposes, that would cut down on interruptions...)
Then, of course, there's nothing left to do but the actual calling... ]
Ah — hello, Anna, apparently I'm not just 'Gus' to you anymore, am I? Well. Fun while it lasted, I suppose.
I'm not sure if I should be sorry that I missed your first call, but — well, I'm... here, and I listened, and I'll admit to being a touch confused still but you don't actually need to address that, if you don't want to. You can chalk it up to me being old, and then I'll make Alfred clarify a few matters for me.
But I'll confess I'm always pleased to know that people don't want to kill me.
[ He waits, a moment, to see if she's listening actively, to see if she says something in response — and if all else fails, well, he can always go back to his reading. ]
[there is considerable silence before anna says anything, or at least she respectfully allows him to finish without interruptions. depends on how charitably he wants to take it.]
...Could go back to Gus, if you want. "Augustine" is kind of a mouthful.
[yeah, she's here.]
Can't believe I spent this whole time worrying and you didn't even see the first message. What, did Alfred delete it or something? [a quiet laugh. she wishes her omen still had her back like that, but it's her own fault.]
But it's probably better like this. I was really hopped up on the Reckoning's Kool-Aid that first time. Made a pretty sick Marianas Trench reference at you, though. Since I was taking some real desperate measures.
[ The twist of a wry smile on his lips probably comes down the line — ]
I've been told that, a time or two — about the mouthful, that is. I don't actually care which you choose, although I think you're the only one I've actually said to call me Gus, here — for most people, it's Augustine, or Patience, or "that guy with the plague-doctor shrike mask", as the case may be.
[ At least she knows the mask in question — and his face, now, for that matter.
His fingers are tapping restlessly on his knee, at this point, thinking about Alfred deleting his messages — screening his calls? — and then not even telling him that Anna had offered up some sort of threat.
Threatening him with a Reckoning, no less. ]
I'm not entirely certain what he did with it, [ he says smoothly enough. ] I take it that you are, ah, not as infatuated with delivering such a... terminal justice, shall we call it, at this point?
I'd much rather go back to the musical references, even if I am not the singer that you wanted.
[Despite having agreed on a bond with Augustine with the very practical surface reasoning of--literally--not knowing his own dead heart well enough to avoid corruption, Illarion's not yet made much use of that ostensible purpose for letting someone else monitor his buried emotions.
Point of fact, he has done exactly the opposite of using the bond for its intended purpose, despite having been alerted quite early this Blood Moon that something had cracked, shattered, boiled over inside of him:
(He knew. He was corrupt enough to know.)
He pled that he had the situation well-in-hand; he was using his usual methods to manage corruption and he was as fine as he ever was. If it took him much more meditation and incense and tea than usual to manage--well, that was to be expected in this season of the year, wasn't it? He'd muddle through.
Except he had not muddled through, and nothing he did or consumed diminished his corruption for long. It was a true wonder, in fact--or an advantage of Discipleship--that he had not gone full to Beasthood in Riteoir's hellish little pocket world.
And still stubbornly--miserably, mulishly--he had been refusing further help (because it would require talking about the unhealed wound that made every little broken-off pocket of Trench a nightmare revisited; because it would require resources taken from the far-more-vulnerable living) up until today (when? time's become a friable, knotted thing), up until he'd become completely unintelligible on the network from pillar-taint and enough people remarked.
You could go to the Sanctuary, one--more?--had suggested. You could strip your soul naked in front of strangers and wither beneath their abstract compassion, a pitiable object and not a loved flock-member, no, thank you, but no-- But at least if the advice wasn't helpful it was a trigger to get him finally, reluctantly shambling in the right direction.
Along the bond that tugged in his chest, at his heart, with the pulse of another's legible emotions. Back to the one person who both felt like home and like someone with shoulders broad enough to bear the notion Illarion hadn't been rescued quite fast enough from Nephele-that-wasn't; that all the effort expended on him had not completely saved him from that private hell.
He follows the bond, Iskierka flying ahead of him like a--ha!--omen of a storm; he is, by the time he's evaded another godspitting set of Riteoir's black hands and made it to the house, in enough of a state to go directly outward around wall and window and wall and closed door to drop in on Augustine unannounced. Drop, literally, into an uncomfortable huddle before the door--because he is a mess, has been a mess, with out-eyes shot black over the gold with Darkblood and his plumage a sickening unnatural dawn-pink worse than his native fuligin, talons and feathers and worse poking in haphazardly from out in enough profusion to make him look half-Beast.]
Ava, [he says, voice small and warped and uncertain,] Alik?
...Help. [Pathetic. But at least it's going to get him somewhere.
[ The first response to his abrupt intrusion is, of course, a scream.
The surprise is likely that it is a scream of delight, rather than shock or fear or horror; not to mention, perhaps, that the throat from which it issues is not, and never has been, humanoid — no matter how many people may have wandered through Augustine's room, this half-year.
The second surprise may have something to do with how the delighted screamer dive-bombs into the mess of feathery Corruption that used to be a shrike, but then — small children are always delighted by the appearance of their parents, even if the children in question are dragons, are they not? The unbridled, unconcerned affection as the little flier tries to burrow under those straying feathers, chittering and vocalizing and screeching, has to be worth something more than an injured eardrum, surely? ]
"Cas?"
[ To say Augustine is unsurprised by all of this would be a lie; he stands in the doorway, a small dish of raw, cubed (crab)meat balanced in one hand, looking perplexed, and maybe a little concerned — but is it his heart or liver or spleen displaying that, rather than his facial expression? How easy is it to tell which form of vision is involved in this perception? ]
"Petrie, off," [ he commands abruptly, with chirps and clicks of tongue and fingers to reinforce the direction; their reborn dragon-child lets out a sound remarkably similar to a raspberry before, quite begrudgingly, returning to the perch his other parent points at.
Even then, it takes a moment before Augustine says anything else; he's looking, assessing, a calm exterior over palpable concern, because — of course — it's the bond that gives away his emotions, no matter how well he masks them; the same bond that allows him to monitor Illarion's in turn. ]
"Are you comfortable on the floor, like that? Or do you think we can get you up on the bed?"
«Oh, Cas, you're leaking everywhere,» [ interjects Alfred, plainly dismayed, coiling himself around whichever dimensions he can reach — and setting off Petrie's irritable chattering again, in an obvious why does HE get to cuddle?! way. ]
Not because it's unexpected--this is how the screamer always greets him, after all--but because he is, as Alik will observe, leaking. Patterns of eyes wind themselves into the grain of the floorboards; knots flower to uncanny golden insectile stares. Unnatural colors coruscate around the shrike's unstable form as he tries not to move--something he ordinarily need make no effort to do, but becomes so much harder as blood corruption spills to pillar corruption spills to twisted impossible limbs and tumorous overgrowth. He tries so hard not to move, not to touch the dear little dragonling burrowing under his hideous feathers, not to spread what's gone wrong with him-- And it is, thank stars and Saints and Rod in Prav, not necessary for him to hold out long because Ava is there, Ava's called Petrie back before the worst can happen, Ava's a calm anchor through their bond and taking the situation apart in a way Illarion cannot grasp.
(The weather is terrible beneath the shrouding fog of the shrike's dead heart; fury and misery surge and recede in waves, around the fixed and jagged panic of an animal caught in a trap. Leg-gnawing panic, self-mutilating panic. If he could feel it in more than jags and bursts, he'd have run, run anywhere, blind and witless until something ate him.
Instead, he's run here.)]
Will ruin your bed. Nothing to show for it, [he complains, grasping and failing at his usual black humor.
Even as he's pulling himself to shaking talons, trailing corruption behind him for the short distance to the bed, he tries to keep up the line of chatter--to pretend at a normal that's infinitely out of reach.] Surely--could do better. For that--than me.
Sorry, Alik--sorry (sorry, I'm sorry), [he adds, as the Omen festoons him and he collapses again--ungainly as the new-risen--across the bed. His arms, and arms, and clawed vestigial arms come up to cover his head; he gives a noise that's like a sigh formed in the lungs of Hell, the throat of a Resurrection Beast.] Was this, or. Or the sword.
Still an option. Say the word; I'll go-- [He gestures toward the window--it's not a long enough fall to put him out his misery, but the idea's there. (Doesn't feel like the right idea even if it's a "cure" he's availed--will avail--himself of before. He had a half-dozen chances before coming here; didn't take them.)
Iskierka, agitated but entirely herself still, darts to join Petrie on the perch. She bullies herself up against him, feathers on end, and begins preening him with the ruthless zealotry of a mother presenting her offspring to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if he'd just do something about his wretched hair scales--]
Edited 2022-09-29 05:32 (UTC)
cw: mold, desecration of fine silk, hypocrisy, etc
[ Ava doesn’t have time to fuss over Petrie like normal; the change to his parquet’s pattern is sign enough of that — Iskierka gets the quickest of (true, genuine) smiles, as he settles the dish of meat just before the perch, closer to her than to him. ] “Don’t let him eat that too quickly,” [ he murmurs, and turns his attention back once again to the shrike of the hour, or what’s left of him: shadows and feathers and too many angles and dimensions, twisting over and around and through each other as he pours himself into a bed that should have been an onto —
Ah well.
Never mind that even Alik is here-and-there-and-gone-again, so far as Ava’s poor eyes can see.
Never mind that the fine silk-and-linen sheets are withering and staining away, like stop-motion time-lapse photography of a black-mold devastation.
Never mind that this is the month of Never Mind, that knowledge is supposed to be the root of all wisdom, that Ava’s Omni rests cheerful and dark on his desk across the room, next to a pot of cooling tea and a familiar silver dish serving as an ash tray, for that matter. None of it actually matters at the moment, as Alik makes eye contact with his brother, interrupting Ava’s perusal.
He lights something — not a cigarette, for once, for all that it’s the same general size and shape; a stick of incense, this time, one it only takes him a moment to fish out of the familiar-looking bag slung over the back of the desk chair. Ashes to ashes; it can sit in the dish with all the others, just as easily, as the scent of new smoke begins to permeate the air, cutting through the corrosive funk of rotting feathers. ]
“Has it come to this, then, братишка?” [ The question is gentle, as is the brief almost-touch of piezoelectric aura against fourth-dimensional (broken) feathers. He does not ask how have you let yourself come to this point; he knows too well the way the shrike's perception of his own heart is no better or worse than his visual acuity in the absence of Iskierka's assistance. ]
«Don't be stupid.» [ In a surprise turn of events, it's Alik who sounds fierce and furious and impatient, his mind more a snarl than a hiss. Even Ava pauses, the silver-sharp flicker of his surprise cutting through the tangle of Corruption blooming in the dead heart before him. ] «How is wandering off to kill yourself going to help? That's not going to do anything to keep it from happening again!»
[ The hypocrisy, too, is thick enough in the room to cut with a knife, suddenly — prominent enough to be the fifth party present in a room that is not, after everything else, all that big — especially not with the unpleasantness staining the floor and sheets. Ava's expression is so incredulous that, eventually, Alik gives the impression of blushing, even as he remains coiled stubbornly close. ]
"Well. We won't, as it happens, be having that as anything before an actual last resort, I think," [ is all Ava says, once the seconds have stretched on long enough. He claps his hands together once, as if that's actually decided anything, and ... stretches one hand over to the end of the bed, where he catches the edge of a buttery-yellow blanket — tremendously soft, vaguely reminiscent of buckskin, with a pattern of dark brown moths printed along the border — and, giving it a practiced twitch, flips it to cover the confusing mess of once-and-future-person in his bed. ]
"Let's start there, for the moment," [ he says, calm and confident in the face of the pitiable, horrible monster ruining his favorite sheets. ] "Would you like some tea, as well? Or would you rather have me find somewhere to shove one of those frozen popsicles?"
[The viewer will be treated to an image of a disheveled man sitting up in bed, still rubbing at his eyes from sleeping until mid afternoon. There's books and rumpled covers around-- and a black cat walking through and blocking the feed.]
What is it now? Is your food dish empty? Did Shouto send something he thinks is edible again?
[The Man audibly snorted-- and reached over to pick up his cat.]
... Why do you always have to throw something at me to wake me up?
"Don't throw cats, it's not good for them and it's not good for you, whether you're the thrower or the throwee."
It's an astonishingly bored-sounding response, all things considered, given that Augustine is studying the image speculatively enough — but hey, reasonably-attractive man with bedhead, in bed? He's got at least some attention to spare, here.
[The dry responce earned a flat, dissatisfied experience expression on the man's face when he rolled over and finally squinted at the Omni. Green eyes were narrowed as he tried to focus on what he was seeing in the harsh daylight-- and the expression steadily morphed into an unhappy frown. ]
... I've never had the luxury of having a pet in my life, but I would never throw Gray.
[Waver Velvet snorted and rolled himself into a sitting position. ]
She's my Omen, and she makes me think of my Apprentice. Right now, I think she wanted my attention for something.
"For fuck's sake, Alfie, how did you get me on this mailing list?" Augustine asks his brother-Omen, who shrugs in the way only a snake can shrug, having absolutely no idea of the answer. ]
Error: insufficient parameters for request. Needs more punctuation.
[ He still hasn't set a username for himself; on the other hand, at least it isn't coming through as dangernoodle, right? ]
[Illarion had been doing so well at opsec through the Tower's illness--except he'd made the occasional mistake of replying to those who hadn't been so cautious. Like so:
(It opens on him laughing.)]
I am thinking not, princeling. I am long out of that game. [The briefest pause.] The last woman for me had me killed on her orders and left my corpse for necromancers.
And your father, being one such necromancer, seems more interested in me for a project than how pretty I display my feathers.
consensus realities mean that all misfires go where they're supposed to, right...?
He isn't expecting his Omni to choose to alter its display, out of the blue, from the most recent Evdokim journal he's been reading to ... this? A view of Cassowary, laughing, speaking into his own Omni.
The image flickers, and the 'camera' moves, and he realizes this must be what Iskierka is seeing.
The image freezes; he thinks about what he heard, even as he ends up with a stupidly fond smile on his face — not that he notices — but it's nice to be able to just look at his bird-brother, without worrying about any form of corruption resulting.
"To be fair, of course, you display your feathers very prettily," he says, and before he thinks better he adds, "and it seems Eska always thought so, too, so I can't help but think there's more of a story than I've heard, before, about the rest of it."
Then, of course, his mind catches up to his tongue, and he winces.
Time, like space, has been strangely bent in places with the Tower's advancing illness. It's thus that an offhand comment Illarion made, oh, a while ago to Kiriona comes back round to bite him.
The message Iskierka faithfully relays from Ava is an odd one without context, enough to make him believe briefly his sworn-brother's victim of another mis-delivered message. Except--
Eska. And--his feathers. Why would--
He fumbles the stick of incense--unlit, still--he's holding; swears, and retrieves it. (Bitter startlement bleeds into the bond, and a contracting raw-edged sorrow like a salted wound.) He shouldn't have been flip about that; he shouldn't have even answered Kiriona, let alone tried to draw her out with false parallels--
"It's not a story I usually tell," he retorts, to Iskierka. "So just my bad luck you got that piece of it.
"Where are you?" He knows Ava, and knows what Ava's asking, and knows moreover he doesn't want this going anywhere else over the network.
He looks up again, and squints a little as he looks around, and then stands up and approaches the edge of the roof he's been sitting on, until he can spy a familiar-enough landmark.
(His regular route around Trench has been messed up, this month, with all the architectural foibles of the Tower's "little difficulties"; taking to the roofs has at least slightly minimized the likelihood he'll end up where he has no interest in going.)
"About a half-block west of Earworm, looks like," he answers. "Am I interrupting your conversation with our darling Tower Prince, or was that some time ago?"
Midoriya still celebrates Christmas in this new world. He's gifted Augustine a warm knitted sweater, and, though Alfred is an Omen and doesn't need it, a snake cozy.
They are, perhaps, in the middle of a game of song-stones, or resting companionably together on one of Illarion's mismatched low couches to read (or listen) to some bit of research. Whatever it is, it's a comfortable moment of sanctuary together--almost spousal, for all these two iterations of themselves never met, let alone married--that they're enjoying when Restoration says--
Augustin, Lord Deathless, the elf so reserved and retreated into his mysteries that even those who live in the nation that bears his very name think him only myth or cryptid, stirs from his couch enough to look at his —
Well, brother is, perhaps, the least-inaccurate option, for this shrike who knows him without ever having met (or married) him; the subtle changes of a different life lived are fascinating, and give him options enough to rest his gaze on, without meeting eye to eye.
Amusement laces his (tomb-dusted) tone, if not his expression. "How bold a statement you make, O Prince — do share it."
"It is so that the gods who rule this place--whether it is Rod as ruddy-taloned Nature, or the Old Ones, or the Pthumerians--have let their world be a fickle and swift-changing one. From reading what my echt-self has written over his tenure, I think it is likely I will not remain here in his place past spring."
It was much more common for Sleepers to finish the shedding season in much the same shape they started it--plus or minus a few largely cosmetic changes.
"I'd like you, and you, душа моя," here he taps Iskierka on her beak, where she half-dozes on his shoulder, "to see that he doesn't get my memories when he returns."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2022.07.06
For a first effort, this feels kinda last ditch. I guess this just got kind of drastic. Trust us, you just fell off the bus, sucker—yeah, well, payback is a motherfucker.
[her tone goes flat, but it is not calm. it is not serene. it is boiling under, and her words are as measured as they can be. her breath is shaking not just from the trudge upward.]
I'm coming for John first and you can't stop me. But don't think that lets you off the hook. If you think that you know how to mourn the First now, you have no idea what it's like for someone who remembers what it used to be. [she is the First. and augustine, john, all of them, they are people who found the ruins and crowned themselves kings.]
I will do to you what you did to the woman I love, and I will show you what it means to grieve.
[she makes a quick gesture to the camera, and the feed cuts.]
voice; un: reueschwert
Hey, Augustine.
[good opening.]
It's Anna. I just... wanted to apologize for coming out so goddamn hot against you. I know what happened on the beach there and I know that it wasn't... premeditated or anything. And me and K, we actually sort of made up about it, so I'm just trying to make things a little better. With the people I hurt when I went on my stupid fucking rampage.
So, like, I guess to catch us up? I don't want to kill you, and I didn't kill John, and... that's kind of where I'm at. I'm sorry that I made that threat in the first place.
And if you don't want to get back to me this time either, that's fine, too. Just wanted to let you know. Thanks for listening.
returned voice message; what are these "usernames" you speak of
Sure, technically neither is Augustine, seeing as how he left his Omni on his bed when he went to the bathroom — but the key, here, is that Alfred is keeping John company, and Augustine has been reading some of (the real) Evdokim's diaries — which has, naturally enough, required the use of his Omni to do so.
When he gets back and picks it up again, resettling, he's surprised by the notification that he's missed a message — this thing has a message system? — but it's intuitive enough to find it, to play it back — ]
[ ... Well, then.
Perhaps it's just as well for Alfred that he isn't in the room; that spares him from being the target of Augustine's stare, or from having to explain what other message she's referring to.
It takes him another minute or two, anyway, to figure out how to call back, and what he's going to say — whether or not she answers. (Can she answer? Are these things required to be one-way calls, volleyed back and forth? At least, he supposes, that would cut down on interruptions...)
Then, of course, there's nothing left to do but the actual calling... ]
Ah — hello, Anna, apparently I'm not just 'Gus' to you anymore, am I? Well. Fun while it lasted, I suppose.
I'm not sure if I should be sorry that I missed your first call, but — well, I'm... here, and I listened, and I'll admit to being a touch confused still but you don't actually need to address that, if you don't want to. You can chalk it up to me being old, and then I'll make Alfred clarify a few matters for me.
But I'll confess I'm always pleased to know that people don't want to kill me.
[ He waits, a moment, to see if she's listening actively, to see if she says something in response — and if all else fails, well, he can always go back to his reading. ]
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...Could go back to Gus, if you want. "Augustine" is kind of a mouthful.
[yeah, she's here.]
Can't believe I spent this whole time worrying and you didn't even see the first message. What, did Alfred delete it or something? [a quiet laugh. she wishes her omen still had her back like that, but it's her own fault.]
But it's probably better like this. I was really hopped up on the Reckoning's Kool-Aid that first time. Made a pretty sick Marianas Trench reference at you, though. Since I was taking some real desperate measures.
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I've been told that, a time or two — about the mouthful, that is. I don't actually care which you choose, although I think you're the only one I've actually said to call me Gus, here — for most people, it's Augustine, or Patience, or "that guy with the plague-doctor shrike mask", as the case may be.
[ At least she knows the mask in question — and his face, now, for that matter.
His fingers are tapping restlessly on his knee, at this point, thinking about Alfred deleting his messages — screening his calls? — and then not even telling him that Anna had offered up some sort of threat.
Threatening him with a Reckoning, no less. ]
I'm not entirely certain what he did with it, [ he says smoothly enough. ] I take it that you are, ah, not as infatuated with delivering such a... terminal justice, shall we call it, at this point?
I'd much rather go back to the musical references, even if I am not the singer that you wanted.
[ ... as it were. ]
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Shortly after Illarion's PSA goes up -- 17th-ish
Point of fact, he has done exactly the opposite of using the bond for its intended purpose, despite having been alerted quite early this Blood Moon that something had cracked, shattered, boiled over inside of him:
(He knew. He was corrupt enough to know.)
He pled that he had the situation well-in-hand; he was using his usual methods to manage corruption and he was as fine as he ever was. If it took him much more meditation and incense and tea than usual to manage--well, that was to be expected in this season of the year, wasn't it? He'd muddle through.
Except he had not muddled through, and nothing he did or consumed diminished his corruption for long. It was a true wonder, in fact--or an advantage of Discipleship--that he had not gone full to Beasthood in Riteoir's hellish little pocket world.
And still stubbornly--miserably, mulishly--he had been refusing further help (because it would require talking about the unhealed wound that made every little broken-off pocket of Trench a nightmare revisited; because it would require resources taken from the far-more-vulnerable living) up until today (when? time's become a friable, knotted thing), up until he'd become completely unintelligible on the network from pillar-taint and enough people remarked.
You could go to the Sanctuary, one--more?--had suggested. You could strip your soul naked in front of strangers and wither beneath their abstract compassion, a pitiable object and not a loved flock-member, no, thank you, but no-- But at least if the advice wasn't helpful it was a trigger to get him finally, reluctantly shambling in the right direction.
Along the bond that tugged in his chest, at his heart, with the pulse of another's legible emotions. Back to the one person who both felt like home and like someone with shoulders broad enough to bear the notion Illarion hadn't been rescued quite fast enough from Nephele-that-wasn't; that all the effort expended on him had not completely saved him from that private hell.
He follows the bond, Iskierka flying ahead of him like a--ha!--omen of a storm; he is, by the time he's evaded another godspitting set of Riteoir's black hands and made it to the house, in enough of a state to go directly outward around wall and window and wall and closed door to drop in on Augustine unannounced. Drop, literally, into an uncomfortable huddle before the door--because he is a mess, has been a mess, with out-eyes shot black over the gold with Darkblood and his plumage a sickening unnatural dawn-pink worse than his native fuligin, talons and feathers and worse poking in haphazardly from out in enough profusion to make him look half-Beast.]
Ava, [he says, voice small and warped and uncertain,] Alik?
...Help. [Pathetic. But at least it's going to get him somewhere.
He hopes. Argonaut's children are good at that.]
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The surprise is likely that it is a scream of delight, rather than shock or fear or horror; not to mention, perhaps, that the throat from which it issues is not, and never has been, humanoid — no matter how many people may have wandered through Augustine's room, this half-year.
The second surprise may have something to do with how the delighted screamer dive-bombs into the mess of feathery Corruption that used to be a shrike, but then — small children are always delighted by the appearance of their parents, even if the children in question are dragons, are they not? The unbridled, unconcerned affection as the little flier tries to burrow under those straying feathers, chittering and vocalizing and screeching, has to be worth something more than an injured eardrum, surely? ]
"Cas?"
[ To say Augustine is unsurprised by all of this would be a lie; he stands in the doorway, a small dish of raw, cubed (crab)meat balanced in one hand, looking perplexed, and maybe a little concerned — but is it his heart or liver or spleen displaying that, rather than his facial expression? How easy is it to tell which form of vision is involved in this perception? ]
"Petrie, off," [ he commands abruptly, with chirps and clicks of tongue and fingers to reinforce the direction; their reborn dragon-child lets out a sound remarkably similar to a raspberry before, quite begrudgingly, returning to the perch his other parent points at.
Even then, it takes a moment before Augustine says anything else; he's looking, assessing, a calm exterior over palpable concern, because — of course — it's the bond that gives away his emotions, no matter how well he masks them; the same bond that allows him to monitor Illarion's in turn. ]
"Are you comfortable on the floor, like that? Or do you think we can get you up on the bed?"
«Oh, Cas, you're leaking everywhere,» [ interjects Alfred, plainly dismayed, coiling himself around whichever dimensions he can reach — and setting off Petrie's irritable chattering again, in an obvious why does HE get to cuddle?! way. ]
cw: veiled suicidality, reality leak
Not because it's unexpected--this is how the screamer always greets him, after all--but because he is, as Alik will observe, leaking. Patterns of eyes wind themselves into the grain of the floorboards; knots flower to uncanny golden insectile stares. Unnatural colors coruscate around the shrike's unstable form as he tries not to move--something he ordinarily need make no effort to do, but becomes so much harder as blood corruption spills to pillar corruption spills to twisted impossible limbs and tumorous overgrowth. He tries so hard not to move, not to touch the dear little dragonling burrowing under his hideous feathers, not to spread what's gone wrong with him-- And it is, thank stars and Saints and Rod in Prav, not necessary for him to hold out long because Ava is there, Ava's called Petrie back before the worst can happen, Ava's a calm anchor through their bond and taking the situation apart in a way Illarion cannot grasp.
(The weather is terrible beneath the shrouding fog of the shrike's dead heart; fury and misery surge and recede in waves, around the fixed and jagged panic of an animal caught in a trap. Leg-gnawing panic, self-mutilating panic. If he could feel it in more than jags and bursts, he'd have run, run anywhere, blind and witless until something ate him.
Instead, he's run here.)]
Will ruin your bed. Nothing to show for it, [he complains, grasping and failing at his usual black humor.
Even as he's pulling himself to shaking talons, trailing corruption behind him for the short distance to the bed, he tries to keep up the line of chatter--to pretend at a normal that's infinitely out of reach.] Surely--could do better. For that--than me.
Sorry, Alik--sorry (sorry, I'm sorry), [he adds, as the Omen festoons him and he collapses again--ungainly as the new-risen--across the bed. His arms, and arms, and clawed vestigial arms come up to cover his head; he gives a noise that's like a sigh formed in the lungs of Hell, the throat of a Resurrection Beast.] Was this, or. Or the sword.
Still an option. Say the word; I'll go-- [He gestures toward the window--it's not a long enough fall to put him out his misery, but the idea's there. (Doesn't feel like the right idea even if it's a "cure" he's availed--will avail--himself of before. He had a half-dozen chances before coming here; didn't take them.)
Iskierka, agitated but entirely herself still, darts to join Petrie on the perch. She bullies herself up against him, feathers on end, and begins preening him with the ruthless zealotry of a mother presenting her offspring to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if he'd just do something about his wretched
hairscales--]cw: mold, desecration of fine silk, hypocrisy, etc
Ah well.
Never mind that even Alik is here-and-there-and-gone-again, so far as Ava’s poor eyes can see.
Never mind that the fine silk-and-linen sheets are withering and staining away, like stop-motion time-lapse photography of a black-mold devastation.
Never mind that this is the month of Never Mind, that knowledge is supposed to be the root of all wisdom, that Ava’s Omni rests cheerful and dark on his desk across the room, next to a pot of cooling tea and a familiar silver dish serving as an ash tray, for that matter. None of it actually matters at the moment, as Alik makes eye contact with his brother, interrupting Ava’s perusal.
He lights something — not a cigarette, for once, for all that it’s the same general size and shape; a stick of incense, this time, one it only takes him a moment to fish out of the familiar-looking bag slung over the back of the desk chair. Ashes to ashes; it can sit in the dish with all the others, just as easily, as the scent of new smoke begins to permeate the air, cutting through the corrosive funk of rotting feathers. ]
“Has it come to this, then, братишка?” [ The question is gentle, as is the brief almost-touch of piezoelectric aura against fourth-dimensional (broken) feathers. He does not ask how have you let yourself come to this point; he knows too well the way the shrike's perception of his own heart is no better or worse than his visual acuity in the absence of Iskierka's assistance. ]
«Don't be stupid.» [ In a surprise turn of events, it's Alik who sounds fierce and furious and impatient, his mind more a snarl than a hiss. Even Ava pauses, the silver-sharp flicker of his surprise cutting through the tangle of Corruption blooming in the dead heart before him. ] «How is wandering off to kill yourself going to help? That's not going to do anything to keep it from happening again!»
[ The hypocrisy, too, is thick enough in the room to cut with a knife, suddenly — prominent enough to be the fifth party present in a room that is not, after everything else, all that big — especially not with the unpleasantness staining the floor and sheets. Ava's expression is so incredulous that, eventually, Alik gives the impression of blushing, even as he remains coiled stubbornly close. ]
"Well. We won't, as it happens, be having that as anything before an actual last resort, I think," [ is all Ava says, once the seconds have stretched on long enough. He claps his hands together once, as if that's actually decided anything, and ... stretches one hand over to the end of the bed, where he catches the edge of a buttery-yellow blanket — tremendously soft, vaguely reminiscent of buckskin, with a pattern of dark brown moths printed along the border — and, giving it a practiced twitch, flips it to cover the confusing mess of once-and-future-person in his bed. ]
"Let's start there, for the moment," [ he says, calm and confident in the face of the pitiable, horrible monster ruining his favorite sheets. ] "Would you like some tea, as well? Or would you rather have me find somewhere to shove one of those frozen popsicles?"
cw: we're still talkin about that suicide
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11/18 | video | un: Gray | sent via accidental Omni
[The viewer will be treated to an image of a disheveled man sitting up in bed, still rubbing at his eyes from sleeping until mid afternoon. There's books and rumpled covers around-- and a black cat walking through and blocking the feed.]
What is it now? Is your food dish empty? Did Shouto send something he thinks is edible again?
[The Man audibly snorted-- and reached over to pick up his cat.]
... Why do you always have to throw something at me to wake me up?
audio-only response | un: ambiguousquinque
It's an astonishingly bored-sounding response, all things considered, given that Augustine is studying the image speculatively enough — but hey, reasonably-attractive man with bedhead, in bed? He's got at least some attention to spare, here.
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... I've never had the luxury of having a pet in my life, but I would never throw Gray.
[Waver Velvet snorted and rolled himself into a sitting position. ]
She's my Omen, and she makes me think of my Apprentice. Right now, I think she wanted my attention for something.
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1/2
2/2 | voice | LEM2
late november | text | un: Hadron
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"For fuck's sake, Alfie, how did you get me on this mailing list?" Augustine asks his brother-Omen, who shrugs in the way only a snake can shrug, having absolutely no idea of the answer. ]
Error: insufficient parameters for request. Needs more punctuation.
[ He still hasn't set a username for himself; on the other hand, at least it isn't coming through as dangernoodle, right? ]
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Oh pardon. Let me write it in a way you can understand, since you're a machine and all.
01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101110 01101001 01101101 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101001 01110010 01101100 00100000 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110011
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He can, however, recognize it, when he sees it; when he manages to convince his Omni to translate it, he scowls.
Then, of course, he gets an idea — ]
[ He's rather pleased with the effect. ]
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this is a ryslig snake icon but i NEEDED this face
one of these days he'll actually have all his icons available for me gdi
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time is an illusion, have a misfire
(It opens on him laughing.)]
I am thinking not, princeling. I am long out of that game. [The briefest pause.] The last woman for me had me killed on her orders and left my corpse for necromancers.
And your father, being one such necromancer, seems more interested in me for a project than how pretty I display my feathers.
consensus realities mean that all misfires go where they're supposed to, right...?
The image flickers, and the 'camera' moves, and he realizes this must be what Iskierka is seeing.
The image freezes; he thinks about what he heard, even as he ends up with a stupidly fond smile on his face — not that he notices — but it's nice to be able to just look at his bird-brother, without worrying about any form of corruption resulting.
"To be fair, of course, you display your feathers very prettily," he says, and before he thinks better he adds, "and it seems Eska always thought so, too, so I can't help but think there's more of a story than I've heard, before, about the rest of it."
Then, of course, his mind catches up to his tongue, and he winces.
(And bites it.)
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The message Iskierka faithfully relays from Ava is an odd one without context, enough to make him believe briefly his sworn-brother's victim of another mis-delivered message. Except--
Eska. And--his feathers. Why would--
He fumbles the stick of incense--unlit, still--he's holding; swears, and retrieves it. (Bitter startlement bleeds into the bond, and a contracting raw-edged sorrow like a salted wound.) He shouldn't have been flip about that; he shouldn't have even answered Kiriona, let alone tried to draw her out with false parallels--
"It's not a story I usually tell," he retorts, to Iskierka. "So just my bad luck you got that piece of it.
"Where are you?" He knows Ava, and knows what Ava's asking, and knows moreover he doesn't want this going anywhere else over the network.
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(His regular route around Trench has been messed up, this month, with all the architectural foibles of the Tower's "little difficulties"; taking to the roofs has at least slightly minimized the likelihood he'll end up where he has no interest in going.)
"About a half-block west of Earworm, looks like," he answers. "Am I interrupting your conversation with our darling Tower Prince, or was that some time ago?"
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Holiday gift delivery
midmonthish, with the AU boys, cryptid village
"Agushka, brother-mine, I need a favor from you."
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Well, brother is, perhaps, the least-inaccurate option, for this shrike who knows him without ever having met (or married) him; the subtle changes of a different life lived are fascinating, and give him options enough to rest his gaze on, without meeting eye to eye.
Amusement laces his (tomb-dusted) tone, if not his expression. "How bold a statement you make, O Prince — do share it."
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It was much more common for Sleepers to finish the shedding season in much the same shape they started it--plus or minus a few largely cosmetic changes.
"I'd like you, and you, душа моя," here he taps Iskierka on her beak, where she half-dozes on his shoulder, "to see that he doesn't get my memories when he returns."
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