sheep_game | btwn us and the weeds we make one entire incineroar

[Azdaja and Angie walk into a barn. Or, rather, around the back of the barn to Rose's private hot spring. They're linked together with fuzzy handcuffs and are on a mission to remove them.]

[Azdaja also has a dead flower on her head. who knows why. Probably nothing, don't worry about it.]

Every time it falls away, it's born again to die...
I really must say, I'm wondering why.

[ nudges a bit of withered azdaja flower that's fallen on the ground with his shoe. ]

...Curiosity regardless, let's make haste,
Rather than let our evening turn a waste,

As I recall, how the saying goes...
"Ladies first," won't you, my Wild Rose?

Edited 2024-04-27 19:33 (UTC)

[Now that they've made it some distance from the ritual, the feelings from the emotionshare bracelet start to filter through. Now that she's standing at the edge of the water, uncertain what she's about to see, she is starting to feel some small amount of trepidation and low-key regret about suggesting this. But why? The worst thing she could possibly see is something embarrassing, but it's not like she has any dignity to lose anyway, right?]

Are you sure? I'm so much more interested in seeing one of yours...

_{[ crosses his legs. he's got her bracelet on his ankle, the same way she wore it, because ofc he does, and the opening trickle of info immediately brightens his mood. formless anxiety, anticipation... her outer facade is always so unflappable, feeling the shape of what's beneath is so...

fun.

the water ripples from an unseen force. ]}

If you insist, I can blaze the way.
I never say no, to attention paid.
Though it only does borrow a delay...
To your part, of our bargain, made.

[ does a little sleight of hand trick with his coin before tossing it in. ]

[ what plays is a memory of angie on an airship, plotting mutiny.

she can feel him realize what memory this is as soon as the word "easy" comes out of his own mouth. a brief sinking sensation, then resignation, and a rueful wistfulness. a little bit of bitter humor, that swells as soon as he sees--

His past self, descending to the same platform Azdaja had experienced herself-behind-his-eyes getting her limbs broken and broken on. And rhe man who'd done it direly injured, already forced to a kneel. ]

Edited 2024-04-27 20:17 (UTC)

[ he lures his brother and his friends into a pitched battle, that he throws himself into with an unusual gusto-- that he stays and stays and stands his ground through, to the point of being severely bloodied. and then, at the point there's a real flash of fear in his eyes, a split second acknowledgement that he might not get out of this, that he's at last bitten off more than he can chew--

they see him Trance, for the first time in his life. And Angel Devil in that moment closes his eyes, and lets himself feel it all again. The body rush. The exhilaration, the vindication, the manic joy and relief that this last plan, this final plot after which he had absolutely nothing left, had worked.

And in the moment of his ultimate triumph, the scene dissolves, and they are both left with the knowledge that it didn't last much more than that.

Angie gives a soft, wordless huff in the silence right after. He's. Glad they decided somewhere private. ]

Edited 2024-04-27 20:30 (UTC)

[Curiosity overtakes her anxiety (JUST AS PLANNED).]

I've seen you do that before. Why does that happen? What am I looking at?

[ opens his closed eyes, with a sort of dreamy daze to his everything. _{sorry God and everyone but angie absolutely has mentally eroticized the super attack mode game mechanic of final fantasy ix} ]

That wondrous power is what we call "Trance."
A light only called by fate's choice to defend...
Or so it is said, in the common parlance.
The truth? Pure desire, in the face of one's end.

The weak of soul can never know the dance,
Percieved, that lack, I sought to mend.
My conclusion, thus: take the fighter's stance,
At a proxy's hand, lest my master forfend.

I sought aid of the dead... those Gaians, trapped,
Left to rot in the brig of the dread ghost ship.
I appealed to their rage, with a target most apt,
And together made Garland take a little... trip.

Edited 2024-04-27 20:55 (UTC)

Ah.

...But you can still do it? Does that mean you still have ghosts in you? Or did you figure out how to do it on your own?

The latter, as Chaos woke me, among his conscripted dead,
Those souls I once harbored,
Had long since fled.
You could say I... matured?
Through the experience had;
Vessel's purpose, perverted,
Felt new flavors... so bitter, sweet, and sad.

Edited 2024-04-27 21:20 (UTC)

[how do you feel about that, angie?]

[ longing: a large part of him misses the wicked innocence of life before his short-lived triumph and swift ensuing fall. it was a beautiful dream, and then, it all burned away.

regret: though the red mask has been tempered, it remains within him still. it's heady, but not overpowering. just one flavor among the others.

disgust: when he says that line -- "vessel's purpose, perverted" -- it's clear there's a part of him that feels dirtied, having done it. Making his very last, successful bid be to welcome the roiling dead into his own body. How many times has it been, that he's traded shreds of his dignity or self-sovereignty, for the ultimate prize of continued habitation of his own body?

vicious pride: look at me, after all. I did it, damn it all. I became more than what I was with the very parts of me that were meant to make me nothing.

loneliness:

after that, he felt the hollow he was designed with like he never before had. ]

Edited 2024-04-27 21:41 (UTC)

[seems about right, tbh.]

Is there anything else you'd like to say about that, or shall we move on?

[despite the brusqueness, he might be able to feel that she means this kindly, as an opportunity to remove the fingers from this tender bruise, and to not linger on this so much that it becomes an unpleasantly Big Deal.]

"Better to have loved, and lost,
Than never to have loved, at all?"

Ah, sweet sorrow! In my own words, I would always choose to have felt true power's thrall.

Ere a demon is ever a core piece to take,
To reduce me to a past, most wicked state...

That's the one, I think, an equal found never,
Drunk of that wine, I was changed, forever.

_{[ the coin rises up from the water on its own, and he plucks it back up.

mimes like he'd toasting her with it, before making it dance over the backs of his fingers to vanish, again. tonhe added to his carefully marked collection. ]}

Edited 2024-04-27 21:59 (UTC)

But even if the feelings stay the same, the situations change, don't they. Then, before you know it, all the joy is lost from global annihilation and you have to find something else to match that high.

True ecstasy... truly is fleeting...

[ rattles chain experimentally. Yyyyup. they're still cuffed. ]

At least you're around to work my frustrations out upon, miss dragonling~.

Mmhmmhmm...

Am I trapped here with you, or are you trapped here with me?

Edited 2024-04-27 22:25 (UTC)

_{[ carefully wrangles his flutter of _"danger!!!" like he's putting out the lit corner of a newspaper. leaves the flicker of "danger~" untouched.

shifts the way his legs are crossed as pretty, slightly eerie will-o-wisps appear around the hot spring. ]}

It appears to me, THAT is a matter of opinion...
In which we both take interest, engaging its ebb and churn.

Yet, if you do want to escape the demon's dominion,
Grant to the depths, your memory, your turn~.
Unless, of course, you have a different suggestion...?
What suits, you find? Whither, you yearn?

Edited 2024-04-27 22:51 (UTC)

[It's hard to tell if she's feeling his "danger~!" or her own tbh. Sometimes two people handcuffed together can be nigh-lethal dangers to each other and be cognizant of it while still being outwardly calm and put together even if they're both vibrating internally. That's just life!]

Nah, this is fine. Might as well see what this is all about.

[She tosses it into the water. Plunk!]

cw: violence, sexual assault

The specimen room looks a lot like a library, except instead of books, the racks are floor-to-ceiling cabinets filled with drawers, where bits of natural history of all kinds are filed away for research purposes. There are clusters of tables here and there where people can work, and it’s here where Azdaja sits with books, tools, and a pile of bones spread out in front of her.

As an apprentice, most of her duties are important but thoroughly tedious jobs. Lately she has been processing a whole lot of skeletons. These specimens here are fresh from the dermestid tank, and she just finished arranging them into the shape of the creature it came from -- which appears to be some kind of four-winged bird with a long, bony tail. Now she will label each and every tiny bone, take their measurements, record everything on a tablet, and then put the bones away in the appropriate cabinet. It’s slow, meticulous work.

An Azdaja lookalike peeks into the room. She doesn’t have a name (neither of them do, at this point in their lives) but our Azdaja thinks of her as Wasp Lips, because of that one time she got stung on the face and her lips were swollen like sausages for days.

“Yo. I need the calipers,” she says.

“I’m using them,” says Azdaja, barely looking up.

“I don’t care. These ones are rusty and I can’t deal with it any more. Give me yours.”

“Fuck off.”

Wasp strides confidently into the room and reaches for the calipers, then abruptly yanks her hand back again as Azdaja slaps at the table, claws already out, guarding her calipers like a food-aggressive dog. Azdaja’s staring directly into Wasp’s eyes. Slender horns peek through her hair, and a thin black tail is now trailing out the back of her chair.

“I said, fuck off. I have a lot of work to do and I’m not getting behind because of you.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure something out, because I’m taking these,” says Wasp, starting to walk around to Azdaja’s side of the table. “And you can either give them to me nicely, or I’m going to ruin your day.”

Azdaja rises from her chair as Wasp approaches, bristling, still maintaining eye contact. “Big words as always, you cun—”

Wasp snags Azdaja by the horn and slams her face-first into the table with astonishing speed and force, sending bones clattering across the floor. Azdaja twists herself sideways to wrench her horn free of Wasp’s grip, blood from her nose splattering across the table, and slashes at Wasp’s face with her claws, aiming for her eyes. Wasp catches her by the wrist, bangs it down to the table hard enough to yank Azdaja off balance, grabs a knife from the tray of implements, and stabs it down straight through her palm and into the wood behind it.

She screams, trying to jerk her hand back, but the knife’s lodged in the table, and all she gets for her effort is the feeling of the blade rubbing against her bones and tendons. Her scream is cut short by hands tight against her throat as Wasp throws her whole body weight onto her windpipe, cracking her head back against the table hard enough to make her teeth rattle.

She thrashes, trying to push Wasp off with her one free hand. Laying back over the table like this, with Wasp’s entire weight holding her down, Azdaja’s feet can’t get purchase on the linoleum floor. She swipes her claws at Wasp’s face but she dodges it neatly, then chomps hard on Azdaja’s forearm.

Azdaja’s eyes go wide, pupils dilating like saucers as she struggles. Her sleeve has protected her from the worst of the venom, but she has no defense against the hands around her throat. She jerks and writhes, unable to free either of her hands, unable to kick Wasp off with her in between her legs like this.

Seconds tick by like hours as she succumbs to the lack of air and blood flow. Her eyes unfocus. Her limbs grow heavy. Her vision starts going dark, and all sounds fade to a distant, steady hiss.

Wasp spits her arm out and it thuds onto the table. She seems satisfied with this, gives Azdaja one final, punishing squeeze, then lets go. Azdaja doesn’t react, even to draw breath. Her consciousness is already teetering on the edge of the void and her body is flirting with the idea of following when Wasp slaps her so hard her head snaps to the side, blood spattering across the table.

It’s enough. Azdaja coughs, sucking down deep, rasping breaths. She tries to roll over, but her limbs won’t work properly. She squirms on the table, feeble and helpless, as Wasp starts undoing her pants, and then roughly tears down Azdaja’s.

“Stop... Stop it...”

Azdaja’s voice is soft and hoarse, and her one free arm is weak as she tries to push Wasp back by her face, even as Wasp mounts her. Wasp is staring, rapt and hungry, into her eyes as she does it, reveling in her struggles as Azdaja’s claws slide harmlessly off her cheek, lacking the strength to even break skin. The squirming and gasping as it happens just seems to encourage Wasp, who takes her pleasure viciously at Azdaja's expense, until she eventually leans forward and sinks her teeth into her neck as deep as they’ll go.

This time the venom takes hold completely, and Azdaja’s body goes slack even as Wasp’s efforts get rougher. Eventually she finishes with great, shivering satisfaction. She surveys her work, licks the blood from her fingers, helps herself to the calipers, and casually leaves the room. Azdaja, meanwhile, is still on the table, half undressed, cheeks painted red from her own bloody nose, and a knife through her upturned palm.

It’s hard to tell how much time passes. She’s vaguely aware of other people passing through the room, hears the occasional giggle or tch of disgust. All she knows is that by the time she can move her body again, she hurts absolutely everywhere. Her head is spinning. Bones and tools are strewn all over the floor.

She groggily unpins her hand from the table, to tired to muster more than a hiss of pain..She stumbles to the nearest sink, over in the nearby maceration room, to to wash her face and gingerly check her nose for breaks. She blots the blood from both sides of her hand.

That’ll have to do for now. She has so much work to do, and now she’s running behind. So she goes back to her work table, gathers up the scattered bones, and starts again.

Edited 2024-04-27 23:15 (UTC)

...Heh. Oh yeah. I forgot about that.

[the bracelet reveals that, throughout this memory, Azdaja felt... nothing much at all.]

[ > azdaja feels nothing much about it

great news for her relative mental peace and quiet! somebody else feels a rich and vivid tapestry of different emotions about it ]

[ at first he's just quietly interested in getting to see more of her life and history. curbing himself from getting too invested or enthusiastic, because right now, in close proximity and alone woth her, it's more important to ration his slim remaining slivers of mana more than ever.

all his imaginings of "what does a desk-job dragon do in her regular work day?" gives way to banal reality. tedium, meticulous focus, a quiet absorption in task over environment that isn't terribly dissimilar to many scenes out of his own life, combing the world for hints of Alexander's long shadow. a deeply rose resistance to having her flow interrupted for some other schmuck's ease of convenience. ]

[ the scene turns for the outright violent, as a simmering anticipation in his gut had expected from one of her memories of home. his regard of it is studious; a third party point of view on what she looks, sounds, acts like when this, this, or that happens is a rare treat, and they don't even have to think about cleanup after. the perfect, no strings attached theatre of her misery. ]

Edited 2024-04-27 23:55 (UTC)

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