hello (heart)gamers. im here w some special guest stars

[finalbows]

WHO: all who dare enter angie's literal mind palace. it's OPEN HOUSE! no invites needed!
WHERE: in front of miku's salad (and yours)
WHEN: evening 73.

[ in the middle of running a perfectly innocuous miniquest, Angel Devil falls down.
His clothes have twisted away into bone-white rags, leaving a body covered over with only thick swathes of red fur, and downy feathers. His long tail is curled into a tense arc, banded fur standing on end.

The air wavers like he’s a heat mirage, not a man. He’s boiling away with absolutely stupid amounts of arcane power… and, most frighteningly, he does not seem in control of the fact that it is there and being brought to bear. It’s impossible to get any closer to him.


When he speaks, it’s quite timid. ]

Oh.
Oops.
...Thought I had... a little more time.

[ (and in a blinding flash of light, there is the sound of something breaking.) ]

~KRRSHHK~

[any observers will see, strangely see-through and superimposed on the scene, some kind of vast tree, illusionary roots twisting over and around to frame a door.  the door itself is wrought of opaque stained glass in blacks and whites and greys; a stylized rendition of Angie in that strangely ragged, feathered form, curled in on himself, eyes closed.  Angie himself is nowhere to be seen. ]

instead, a shadow . . . steps into view from behind the door.  for a moment it looks like nothing so much as a second genome – then it turns, gaining features and definition with the movement.  The monkey tail separates into three plumes; a ponytail unfurls into wings that lift up from the sides of the head.  

Teleute(?) is here, dressed in her customary black, but there is colour in her skin, and her hair and eyes are blue.  she’s frowning.]

. . . well.  This is the least I can do before I go, in exchange for the safe harbor.

[she lifts her head, nodding to any observers, and gestures at the door.]

You’ll want to head in there now if you don’t wish to lose your flockmate, I think.  Even the false-death of this place won’t be much help to him, if his soul is left to finish pulling itself apart.

My sisters and I can maintain the way into and out of it for you, but we were not made to knit such wounds by ourselves.  Have a care.

Comments

[electricflock]

[lashes his tail

once

twice]

Well, now what?

[finalbows]

[ just sort of

sits
in the lil mask pile. staring at them. leaves muffin on his lap. ]

"....talk, I guess."

[electricflock]

[curls up in his lap and grabs his hand with his paws. headbutts it.]

Can talk.

[finalbows]

[ mortified ] [ mortified ] [ mortified ] [ he is the one that said talking was probably the right thing to do ] [ however ] [ why is this happening midway through a battle to preserve his soul ] [ why is being forthright with his boyfriend a necessity to save his soul from oblivion ] [ he wants a refund ] [ he wants-- ]

".....................being in so many other bodies lately.... I've... really... come to know... mine doesn't respond the same as others. At all. I knew that already. But now I really know it."

[electricflock]

Responds differently to... pain? To gentleness?

[finalbows]

"Both?"

[ ughhhhhhhhh ]

"I like when you dote on me. But it doesn't... compared to even when I was a tiny little bird, it's like only hearing sounds from..."

[ waves of blue water start lapping at his feet, carrying little drifts of seafoam. they're surroundings are still, otherwise, a blank white void. ]

"......underwater."

[electricflock]

If from underwater, I must be fish. Nobody touches me as much as I want. Even you've never preened me.

[not accusatory— muffin's forgotten to be bristly, curled up attentively in Quetzal's lap and flicking his tail only when the waves threaten his feathers. but it's a point of comparison.]

[finalbows]

[ tentatively hover hands at a spot he remembers was nice, as a birdie... ]

"Touching things with them... usually makes me think more about the things I could be doing with my hands."

[ carefully.. he brushes his fingers through some of feathers that got the most maltreatment, during all the excitement leading up to now. starts to gently pinch his fingers together, dragging along feathers like he's hand-combing a lock of hair.

his voice is calmer. mild. his heartbeat's not. but the firestorm is over. he tries to breath in time with waves. ]

"It gets... a little overwhelming, sometimes. What I'll think about. It's like suddenly I can hear-- feel, everything clearly, that others can... but it can also be..."

[ disturbing. ]

[electricflock]

[fluffs up all his neck feathers and tips his head. it’s very sweet-looking, a bird inviting his partner to preen where he can’t reach, but his tone is thoughtful. no purring yet.]

Is… only one-way? Isn’t like that thinking about my claws or what I could do to you?

[finalbows]

"...sort of?

Mmn... when I think about it. Being in pain mostly just makes me want to hurt somebody more. It's satisfying thinking about how much I'm going to tear the one that did it--

...
How much I now want to. Tear them apart. And if someone could do that to me, it makes me want to try even more to ruin them to absolute--"

[ his hands go still, in a clawed pose.

once upon a time, a much younger angel devil had plaintively told him: I don't want to do anything that hurts. ]

"Shreds.
I guess that's... 'it's only fun if I can try to get revenge?'"

[electricflock]

[he also remembers a not-so-much younger angel devil that said he'd kill and kill until he was rid of everyone who'd made him have to act like their little dog

muffin mrrts when the petting stops and twists around to lick quetzal's blackened hand.]

I don't um... want to hurt you like that. Or play like that.

...Revenge on other people is fine though.

1/2

[finalbows]

... ... ...

2/2

[finalbows]

[ the skritches now go right in the middle of the forehead, gently using the point of his sharp nail. compromise, for a moment when his fingers on someone smaller and trusting is too overpowering.

under the mask, he tells his face to do

this,


then realizes it is an act of theatre currently without point. ]

"You don't think it's too sad? You don't want to change it?
...It's not like there's a better opportunity than now.
Right now, I'm pieces. We could just take and save as we like.

...
...but... even as I say that... I know better. You already told me."

[ those three masks are still by their feet, not yet carried home, nor away to nowhere, by the waves.]

"...The one who really wants to get rid of the most loathsome parts of me... is just me."

[electricflock]

[muffin starts purring, tipping his head to steer the claw around. the risk is real, but he still wants quetzal's touch. and also that's a really good spot.]

Is sad. Is going to change. Isn't surprising but... didn't know you felt world like that. I didn't know you wanted— wanted to hurt me like everyone else.

[he can't help tensing there. of course it hurts to imagine his lover attacking him or. when he went for healing and comfort after rituals, did part of quetzal want to leave him injured?

muffin flaps his wings to interrupt both himself and quetzal becoming dour, and turns around in his lap to pick the masks out of the water, tucking them safely away under his wings like colorful eggs]

Will change, but won't be destroying any part of you. Will navigate it together. Having talk now? That's already a change.

[finalbows]

"It is."





[ stress-releasing giggle ]

"Sorry the beautiful man you met in this strange other world is so incurably perverse. I really tried to quiet down the worst of it."

[electricflock]

Beautiful pervert?

[chirps innocently, YOUR words not mine!]

...Will be okay, if you want to be louder about smaller of it. Like when something feels too much for you or if, um. Is something like my tattoo?

Will still let you watch.

[finalbows]

"Mhm. That's me."

[ gentle skritch, skritch ]

"...good. I... would really like to see it. I don't just like it because it hurt you. It's very pretty. And it was very romantic. I like how you show me those feelings... I think about what they mean, and doing that... I understand them... I suppose... more than the, flesh of me, always does.

...I'm... a lot more than just this body, after all."

[ ...there's a shape getting carried to them, by the persistent lapping of the waves.

It's blue, with tired eyes. ]

[electricflock]

You are.

[picks the mask up and clatters it around in his beak, tipping his head to the side to ask "is this the right one?"]

[finalbows]

"Eh...heheh...

That one's name is "Mask of Perseverance.""

[electricflock]

[! nudges it into quetzal's hands]

Sounds like good one! We persevere. Are more than our fears and expectations.

[finalbows]

"...it has done a lot for me. It got me as far as here.."

[ though
even as he picks it up,
the ocean has brought another.
he sees it, and looks a little nervous--

but puts on the mask of Perseverance, anyway. ]

"...will you take care of... those three masks you're holding, on your journey? I fear this piece of me... might be about to leave you, too."

[electricflock]

[not looking at that new mask, we're making ACTIVE CHOICES here!!

hops up to put his paws on Quetzal's shoulders and headbutt his forehead]

Will keep them safe for you. Say hi to the rest of you for me? Tell all of you I love you. Will talk more when you're healed.

[finalbows]

[ wahhhHHHHHHhh
COMPLETELY DISTRACTED FROM THE MASK OF DOOMPILL ]

"He knows.


But I'll tell him."


"See you soon."
[ and he's gone. ]

[electricflock]

[tucks the three masks securely into his light bag]



[hm. still kind of a void here.]

[launches up and flies straight, leaving it to the world to guide him. the Mask of Resignation is left behind.]

"The Tragedy of Garland of Terra" 1/2

[finalbows]

[ left to its own devices, its wiles,
the piano begins to play for him, once more.

the pale void above the ocean begins to be interrupted by bit of musical notation -- not quite a song, not quite measure-- and little strokes of letters, struggling on their way to be words.

a story starts to be written. a tune starts to be played.

There once was a man... who lived for over five thousand years. In all that time, his one and only goal was to save his sleeping princess.

For the sake of his dear princess, he lived all alone in a dreary castle, waiting for the day fate would allow her to awaken.

Stricken with grief for his daughter's fate, one day, the king laments to the heavens, and begs of his most able-bodied servant:
"Please, so that she may yet wake,
Journey to the world beyond,
Cut one hundred throats, and one hundred more,
So that we may yet save her!"

But before he knew it... that treacherous knight he'd ordered to find a cure, had slipped into the castle, and buried a knife in the princess's dear chest.

The knight, journeying to find the cure, came to believe the cost of saving the princess was far too great to pay...

He took her out of the picture. Because he understood the king. He knew he'd never let her memory go, and would replace the knight with another if he merely refused his role...

For his treachery, the king killed the knight. But not, quite, the way one would expect.

This story was a true tragedy for each player involved...
The knight was outplayed before he ever made his first move.
The king had poisoned him, when he first saw a hint of disloyalty in the knight's eyes. When the knight had taken scarcely twelve steps from the princess's deathbed...