[html]
This is backdate to December 1st. Which is really sad. I suck.
I saw you start that fire.
His walk was slow, steady. Hopefully Arkham would take his advice, and he and Rachias would be long gone. In some way, Gabriel doubted this. This land had a way of dragging ghosts back; he had returned, his father had returned. Except now his father was dead. It sounded so certain, so remarkable in his head. Ahren had seemed immortal in life. Mad, but immortal.
I did what I had to do
The strange symbol was now part of his own collection, hanging at odds with the cross and the saint. Gabriel had not touched it since putting it on. Even now it was cold, unreal. He shook the snow from his coat and coughed heavily. The border was not all that far ahead. A grinning, hollow skull greeted him as he passed, and continued to stand guard as he made his way to the mansion.
He wound up in an empty room, with one of the few cigarettes he had stashed away now burning in his hand. Blonde-red-black hair fell in his face as he stared ahead blankly, unable to focus on anything, unable to feel.
[/html]
I like your avatar!
[html] Corona had gotten to the point where she knew most who entered the mansion by their footsteps. Some were light, others heavy, and there were on occasion one or two that stomped in. But this was only usually when she decided to pay attention to them. So it wasn't necessarily his gait across the old floors that had gotten her attention, but rather the smell of cigarette smoke. She had hesitated for a few moments, mulling over what she had to tell him and just how to do it. If Jasper was going to stay there, then he would have to know. There was simply no getting around that. But how would he react? Such things ricocheted back and forth in through her thoughts as she narrowed down the room that he was in. Corona couldn't totally read just what was going on from his backside, though it was apparent he was either lost in some sort of thought or spacing out. “Hey,” she called from the doorway lightly, waiting for him to react before wandering in further. Better than wandering in at a bad time, right? [/html]
[html]
Thanks! :]
However lost he was Gabriel was aware. It was a perception caused by deep ridden paranoia. That was why he did not jerk at her voice, did not react harshly. Her footsteps had given her away, as the smoke had done to him. Still, he did not turn. His hands hung limply, one rising to his mouth. The tobacco filled his lungs, expanded them, and he exhaled in a breath of gray-white smoke. “Dad’s dead,” he announced flatly, finding it peculiar he felt so numb about the matter.
[/html]
[html] Perhaps with all that had gone on, she should have known. It was just one of those things. Perhaps she had known it all along, but only refused to acknowledge it. There were a lot of things that Corona didn't want to take at face value, but her parents were always one of those things. She had always insisted that her mother and father weren't crazy, that they weren't what everyone else made them out to be. But at the end of the day, it seemed that maybe all of that held a little truth all along. “What?” It didn't sink in immediately. This had to be a dream.
Corona cut down the distance between them in a flurry of steps, her blue eyes hardening with some sort of resolve that could have said she thought it a joke. It had to be a joke, if not a dream. There were things she knew he could have done to make them all wish he were dead. There were probably things he had done to earn that, for all they knew. But at his side, she couldn't pick out anything that said it was a joke or a dream otherwise. Everything was far too real for it to be the former, anyway. “What do you mean, he's dead? I just saw him a few days ago.” [/html]
[html]
They were all in denial—in denial about their family, about the disease that would surely take them in time. Perhaps it had all ready begun. Gabriel had, after all, destroyed two worlds by fire. He heard the Voice of God. He had been chosen for this task alone. They would never understand. They would never know what he knew.
His right hand moved, and grasped the charms around his neck. Even though the cigarette was still burning in his fingers, the now tarnished sigil Ahren had never been seen without stood out against the scar on his hand. “I found this and his knife by the place he was staying. The building was burnt down. I think…,” he hesitated. The metal in his fingers suddenly felt very cold.
[/html]
[html] And that was when she saw it, just before his hand covered it in a clench. That little sigil, that little piece of him that was always so visible like the rest of his scars and the fire in his eyes. She felt the tension in her chest coil tightly, felt the pressure edging in on her windpipe daring to steal the breath right from her lungs before it even had the chance to settle there. Diverting her eyes away from him, Corona swayed back the way she came for a moment with a shake of her head. Out of all of the things she had dealt with, the things that came with apathy, this was a battle.
“And you saw his body?” she asked lowly, drawing a hand up to her head to brush away the hair that obscured her view so often to look at him again; to gain composure and perhaps half a will not to fly to pieces. There was that misplaced prickle of panic mingling in with the chill she thought she felt in the room, all too aware of just how real it all was. It wasn't about seeing a body or hearing the last words pour out like a death rattle, but something more tangitible. Something of sentimental or emotional value. But something else clicked away feverishly in her mind, and it found its way from her lips before she even though about it.
“Were there any others there?” [/html]
[html]
The metal charm, nameless, though undoubtedly belonging to some long-sleeping ancient god, fell back among the others as he released it. Gabriel’s hand brought the cigarette to his mouth and he swallowed fire, watching his sister silently. She faltered. She was a paper dragon ready to crumble. He exhaled smoke and for one brief moment considered telling her everything; considered coming clean about what Ahren had said, what horrible things he had done.
Cold reason held him like a vice. “Two bodies. I think he and Laruku are both dead.” A pause. A breath of smoke. “Arkham was there. He’s staying with Rachias. I told them to leave before they end up like Andre.” That much he could tell her. That much she deserved to know. She had, after all, been there that day. She had struck the blade and held fast while Gabriel ripped the life from the abomination that did not deserve the name Lykoi.
[/html]
[html] “Oh God,” seemed like a fitting thing to say. She wasn't so sure of who she said it for, though. For them, for Rachias, for Arkham—who she didn't even take time to realise was alive—for Jasper, for whoever really cared; did it really matter? Her shoulders slumped then, the breath leaving her in such a shaky way that for a moment Corona wasn't so sure that it had come from her or not. Despite her wavering gaze, she managed to study the sigil for an absent moment, finding it to be the only thing that held a little bit of gravity in a room that was quickly losing any description it should have had.
“I should have known,” she breathed, “I should have known he'd do this.” It struck her funny then, almost funny enough to laugh at the whole matter. And she thought that maybe she would before it was all over with because all of it was humorous. A firestarter gone out with the fire. A nilhist that had finally found his own end when he had never supplied his own. She shook her head again and this time with a huff, let her gaze drop towards the floor. But if there was one thing right about that, it was probably better than Arkham and Rachias went away. Maybe if they went away, things would turn out different for them in light of all that had already gone wrong.
“What now?” [/html]
[html]
At her words he looked up and furrowed his brow. She must have seen him. It didn’t seem peculiar; she had been the one that had found him in Esper Hollow. She had been the one he had always favored. She was her father’s daughter, just as Molochai had been his mother’s son. Gabriel had wound up in some peculiar middle faction, loyal to both and neither at the same time. They had abandoned him. They had left him to die in the wilderness. Fate had saved him.
He owed his loyalty to God, and God alone.
“There’s nothing for us to do,” he breathed, looking to the floor. A pain shot through the right side of his head; sharp, heavy. The cigarette was finished in one last movement and crushed onto the floor.
“We’re the only ones left, aren’t we? There isn’t anyone else who needs to know.”
[/html]
[html] “Jasper,” she said absently, “he probably doesn't know.” Of course he wouldn't, she decided, because he was there. Like a little mouse beneath the floorboards and the walls. “He's… here, by the way. He came to me a few days ago looking for some where to go.” She evaded meeting his eyes partially because she didn't know how well that would go over and partially because she was trying to think of how to tell him. “He said that Dad set fire to the cabin in Esper Hollow, that he wasn't acting right.”
But other than that, she supposed that they really were the last ones left. She had no way of contacting the siblings that had gone astray, so they would either find out if they came around or they would never find out. Maybe it was better that way because maybe they would avoid the things that would eventually drag those who stayed down. “I don't know how to tell him about this.” She knew he would be upset either way and no matter which way she went about it, but it still didn't stop her from wanting to try and minimalise the hurt. [/html]
[html]
The name triggered a distant and nearly forgotten memory of a different beach, and of a boy with bi-colored eyes and dark hair. Gabriel could not pinpoint when the blackouts began or when they stopped, but knew they were relevant to something. Twin eyes tailed his sister, reminded feverishly of just how fucking similar she looked to their now dead father. Their now dead father who had, even in the twilight of his life, preached the Buddha and known the world was destined to be on fire.
“There isn’t any easy way,” he said, aware of how distant his voice sounded. “Just…fuck, just tell him.” The anger came again, as it always did. Gabriel did not doubt that this was his crutch, as it had always been. “I don’t care if he stays here. Keep him out of sight.” A part of him knew that Jasper would always be in danger here. Another part knew exactly who would go after him. The hybrid took a deep breath, held it, and then sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he finally offered.“You two were closest. You were his favorite.” There was no jealousy, only the burden of a wayward son.
[/html]
[html] She had expected his anger, knowing that if the roles were reversed she more than likely would have acted the same. Some time ago, she would have never let Jasper anywhere near Inferni. She would have lashed out at him and drive him away; this fact alone hovered through her thoughts momentarily and she wondered what had changed. What had broken to make her right what was “wrong” in the first place, if it had ever been wrong to begin with. “I will,” she assured, blue meeting gold, “I know he's my responsibility.”
It was a moment like that which caught her off-guard for what he said next and the resolve in her eyes melted away immediately. Again she lost the ability to keep her line of sight even with his, and it sank for somewhere else. Anything else. “Yeah…” she breathed out, for once not feeling the faint tickle of pride, but rather the unfamiliar pinpricks of grief creeping up. “I'm sorry too.” Maybe the wrong she had wanted to right was with him more than it had ever been with any of the siblings trailing along in his wake, but none of it mattered now. She blinked absently and quickly for a moment and let her head hang.
“Did you bury them?” Wasn't that was they did for the dead? [/html]
[html]
Something had changed, between the then and the now. Gabriel couldn’t pinpoint a time, but he was aware that it had happened. He pushed his hair out of his face and looked down at his feet again. There was a momentary response to her apology; a physical stiffening, unwilling to accept such a thing. No one owed Gabriel an apology (at least, none he was wiling to accept). That was something he had been carrying since he was a boy.
“No,” he said flatly. In his world, the burial signified that the dead would be resurrected. That right did not belong to those self-murderers, those madmen of the world who took an easy route out. He believed in this as surely as he did the voice in his head that had told him to set the world to burn.
[/html]
[html] “We should burn them,” she decided matter-of-factly. Her thoughts were scattered enough, but that had come readily with his answer. Burying them just made them accessible to someone who would want to desecrate a grave. Burning them left no trace behind, turned them into ash and left them to blow to whatever corner of the earth they felt they needed to be taken to. There was more to that though, if only because she thought maybe she would get a little closure out of it; a little something to blanket the turmoil that had started to rise within. They had taken the easy way out, they had left many in their wake and in more than one way. She thought maybe she felt anger rising up, but she bottled it and pushed it down. How textbook of things to be. Expression and body language unchanging, Corona balled and unballed her fists for a moment. [/html]
[html]
“He did that himself,” Gabriel nearly spat. The rage was all consuming, and the need to strike something, someone, anything, anyone, was overwhelming. He did not trust his hands and he did not trust his body. Twin orbs remained pointed ahead, hazy and unfocused on any one thing. It was a peculiar sensation of both fury and absence, and he could not reason why he felt this way.
That was perhaps because he knew only to negate any and all emotions, as was the soldier’s route. “Do whatever you want,” he added, voice turning nearly miserable for a moment. “I don’t owe him anything else.” He felt as if she did not leave now he would turn on her.
 [/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... rp/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____His heated reaction wasn't exactly what she had expected and just for a moment, Corona felt disoriented with the world. She felt wrong to try and indirectly reach for an unseen plateau of comfort, but his answer was also the very thing that rebooted her ability to find solid ground. She got the hint and understood the interstice between them at that point; Gabriel had only come to apprise. “All right,” she breathed out, standing there long enough to regain her composure with the world before she passed him by to leave. If there was nothing she could do to solemnise things, then she would talk to Jasper.
[/html]
|
