ever know each other [ooc]
Ooooh. Sibling lurves? Or haetz0rz? -Gigglesnort- Dramaaa<3
Oh, and a slight allusion to Ahren's presence. Spoke to Mel; it's for a plot.
ETA: Anya's a nutcase, so... the italics are her going crazy, and the normal speaking font is her talking. I had to make her hallucinate her way through this scene, or she would have broken down, and Jasper might have had a problem comforting the older sister he didn't know he had. xD
ETAsquared: Sorry this is so fucking long, btw.
[bic] such a softer sin
Now that the words were out of her system, a calm settled over her. A release. Her eyes, hardened and hating, flames of pain glowing and raging within them, behind the cold facade, settled down into a calmer state, just for a moment. The flame seemed to flicker, then with a last, final glimmer, extinguish itself. Warmth and contentment filled her. Peace. He mentioned his relation to her, but it was not concerning. If he was not mad already, living here, then Ahren surely must be gone, because the presence of her father, she was sure, would send someone mad, just as it had her mother, just as the unknowing and the gap had consumed her. Now, she was home. Her mother's old homelands, her father's former place of terror. The twinge at the back of her neck, that surely must be residual energy from him, but it would fade with time. All pain, all hate, all terror faded with time.
'He lives here.'
Her stomach leaped, hitting her square in the lungs, a gasp filling the vast emptiness and silence that had encircled her since she'd let out her secret. Now the silence seemed suffocating, and the words that began to fill it were binding her body and soul. Ahren was there. Her eyes, hardening to protect the rekindled flame, darted around wildly. Just a bit away, she swore for a moment that she saw a flicker of blonde and red, but it was gone before it was real, and she convinced herself that this was madness, overtaking her, and it was a figment. A hallucination, a nightmare. Like a mirage without the normally positive connotation of the fantasy. It was an illusion, a trick of the eye.
'Don't let him get to you,' she tried to tell herself.
'Don't trust your eyes, don't let him play with your mind.' Was it truth? Or was she lying to herself to make it easier. She took a breath, and blinked. Breathing was key. If she stopped that, it was over, and he'd won. For now, best to play it off as what it wasn't: perfectly okay.
A split second had passed since he'd spoken, and her eyes had clouded, her defenses keeping her safe, locking away the emotions and thoughts and pain. The amusing part was, the defense was such a good trick, even she believed it. It was such a good ploy to keep others out, to keep them from knowing and understanding her, that after a while, if she could keep the facade going, she could believe that she was okay. And she was. She was okay right now. The world was at peace. Her eyes shone with a slight of insanity, and a vague, fleeting pleasure crossed her face. Onyx femme locked the windows of the crazed onto Jasper, and tilted her head slightly.
"Is he? I see." This addressed both statements made by the male, and as the calm wore off, as it did quickly now, with her weakened state, she resorted to the next defense on the list: short sentences with minimal words and less emotion. She pictured her father. The image hurt her, but she needed it. She pictured him as he had been last they had met, the cold and the dark and the anger. She slipped inside him, inside his head and his heart and his eyes. She became like him. It would keep her alive, to be cold and cruel and oddly humourous.
Hell, it had before.
She paused a moment, sinking into her new mindset, forcing her true thoughts, her true desires, to accomodate the new, the false, the sinful.
"Good to know." The sound of her own voice startled her, made her stomach twitch, like it might shrivel up and stretch out and force itself up her throat, out of her mouth, around her neck. But it didn't. The face stayed. The thoughts mixed, changed, rearranged, and she got lost in it... but her voice, Ahren's voice, was doing for her, what she could not do for herself: turning a scared, lost, wounded little girl into a brave, fearless, sickeningly corrupted soldier.
In her mind, reality blended with survival tactics, which blended with hallucination and false perception, which then in turn became utter delusion. In her mind, it wasn't her. It was that easy. Her father, the male who brought her into this world, so cruel, so cold... was now saving her.
'Just for now,' said a voice in her head, a voice that was not her own in Ahren's tone, but a voice that was truly his. A voice that sounded just like her father.
'Take my hand, don't be afraid. I'll take you away. Just for now. Until it's over.' A mirage within her mind created an image of her, and another of him, and he reached out for her. With her mind's eye, she saw herself take his hand. And then she went numb.
Her voice was steady, reacting purely to stimulation, using words learnt through a lifetime of memory and experience.
"I might like to stay here." She didn't recognise the sound of her own voice, and it shocked her... but there was no pain.
'Just for now,' the voice reminded her.
'You'll have to go back. You need to find me. This is only for the moment.' Again, a flash of blonde and red in the distance, and now it was clear, in her mind at least, that while most everything else was an illusion, that was not. Without the burden of actions and impressions, she was free to observe. And she could swear that, while her mind's eye was mistaken, her body's was not. Or was she just losing it? Didn't matter. Whatever was or wasn't, she just had to make sure she survived this. Then she could find Ahren.
Two voices overlapped in her mind.
"I was wondering, then," her body began, while her mind continued.
'You'll have to return.' Those words were bothersome to her. Return to this? Why?
'You're brave, Anya. You're not like your mother. You and I, we are one. This is why you must return. I believe in you. I wait for you.' It was all false, but all at once, she was back, and the ground was beneath her, and she could feel the air. And, steady and calm, she spoke, her voice once again her own.
"Is the invitation still open?"
