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measured_wordsCuriousity doesn't kill the cat, necessarily. Sometimes it just drives the cat bat-shit crazy for an indefinite period of time. Maybe the moral here is not to randomly awaken thousand year old evil constructs, even if it isn't strictly on purpose. Or maybe the moral is that when they demand you feed them your peer as a sacrifice, you should indulge them. Time will tell which of these, if either, our hero protagonist has taken to heart. If he ever recovers...
R for some fairly hard-core self-destructive crazies.
In Mad Truth Anger Lies
The lucid moments are the worst, his brain desperately trying to parse the others, where everything is anger, or sometimes fear, or something that can’t be so easily labeled. He knows it’s not a spell, not a simple spell, not spilling simple stars – can’t see the stars, the terrible light – hard, judging, lies everywhere, lie, lie, always, lie down, down like a dog, down down in the dark down STOP STOP STOP-
He’s not sure how he made it home, and now he’s afraid, afraid to leave or stay. He stares at his hands, covered in the same black ichor that’s drying slowly on his clothes. There’s nothing left to do. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs until he wakes up from a fugue crying, holding a book in his hands. It had cost over a hundred imperials, but now the pages are torn and shredded, strewn across the room. There are others, and pieces of a mirror shaped like a star he’d stolen before he left. He starts to wonder how long it’s been, but this time it’s the fear that comes, in great shaking waves – the urge to flee, and then the rage, against the construct, and then against himself. The words pour like rivers from the dark corners of his mind: bad useless crawl crawl in the dark so tired dark see glittering light breath breath can’t breathe can’t can’t see glitter glitter pretty things for a pretty lady glitter like a promise Tristan Tristan eyes so see so far eyes lies eyes lies….
Fugue is the wrong word – he can remember his actions, though the words run together like the time. He knows he’d stripped his clothes, but couldn’t get the fire to light. They lie in a loose pile with the remains of too many books, and two feet of bound braid hacked away. It’s streaked black and red, like his hands, throbbing in time with the echoes of his mad screams. The remnants scratch at his neck, cascade into his field of vision. He let the glass shard fall, and it lands mirror-side up. “Like the sea,” he whispers, mind wandering now, remembering something Rashena said once about his eyes, eyes that can’t understand that this is him, his doing, his fault. He repeats the words, unmoving, staring, his voice already raspy. Minutes pass, or maybe hours.
His mouth tastes like copper from trying to drink blood from the deep cut on his left palm. It stings where he bit the flesh and where the black ichor mixes with the red. The wall where the mirror hung is disfigured with their mingled smears, and he feels bile rise in his throat as he realizes what he’s done – what he’s written. His name stares at him, a hundred variant scripts. Tristan. Lost one. Sanadhìl. He never could be Amortio, never would be Vanwahu, and they’re there, but less frequent. Tristan writ large, his new name overwriting it all. It’s a madman’s metaphor: simple, revealing, naked, confused. Some weak barrier in his mind erodes finally, and all the languages come pouring out – Cozovodë, Shadar Kai, all the variants of Aveyronnaîs. Gravonian. Infernal. The first word of that poison tongue jolts his mind to even darker places. Touch the dark, it said, you touch it the dark in you, in me, my dark, my demon power, demon, pieces stolen Earric stealing tasting like blood, like now, blood, touching, eaten, dead eaten crows feast rot sun the morning time for truth time to run so much death, master master cold alone dead dead no not me, not dead dead kiss death again again kiss it kiss it him kiss kiss sleep please sleep stop sleep like death so cold all lost sleep sleep sleep....
Sleep doesn’t come: for all that he’s exhausted, his mind can’t rest. His lips move, spitting out words faster than his brain can understand them. He’s in the kitchen – the destructive madness contained to the first floor for now – trying to understand why he’d bitten his arm again, or what made him tip the tall water jar over, spilling precious liquid across the floor. Odours from the other room remind him, and he might cry again if his eyes weren’t so dry, if everything weren’t so dry…
When they come, winding their way through a very personal hell, they find him on the stairs, scratching at the door to the roof with bruised and bloody fingers, bloody feet, bloody black, all shedding slivers of glass. He cowers for a moment before his mind switches gears, always so suddenly, and grasps – doesn’t quite grasp – a spell. Vianca shakes her head as the words start spilling out. It’s nonsense, ramblings on escape and running, though she can’t tell if he means them and now, or someone else, some other time.
It isn’t until after he’s restrained that any moment of clarity comes. He stops struggling, stops mumbling in a ceaseless rasp that days ago may have been a scream. Just stops and sags, but its defeat, not relief that has robbed him of the fight. It’s robbed in turn by the persistent curse laid on him by the construct, but he’s already read judgment in so many pairs of eyes: disappointment, betrayal, disgust, shock, fear. “No,” he mutters, tensing, head tossed weirdly from side to side. No man no touch not true not right not me not no no please nothing nothing touch it just nothing vrag no not mine no no no…
Healed, his raw voice regains its screams, words in half a dozen tongues bombarding the room and echoing through the building. Now he fights the restraints as they fight against whatever magic is affecting him. They can give him water, but they can’t keep him asleep for long. He rambles, curses and croons. Once he manages a real spell, a simple charm, and after that they watch in pairs. He begs sometimes: for help, for mercy, for sleep or silence. He begs for them to leave, to stop listening. They can’t always tell whether it is the madness or a deeper, more sincere, desperation, but the lucid moments are the worst.
R for some fairly hard-core self-destructive crazies.
In Mad Truth Anger Lies
The lucid moments are the worst, his brain desperately trying to parse the others, where everything is anger, or sometimes fear, or something that can’t be so easily labeled. He knows it’s not a spell, not a simple spell, not spilling simple stars – can’t see the stars, the terrible light – hard, judging, lies everywhere, lie, lie, always, lie down, down like a dog, down down in the dark down STOP STOP STOP-
He’s not sure how he made it home, and now he’s afraid, afraid to leave or stay. He stares at his hands, covered in the same black ichor that’s drying slowly on his clothes. There’s nothing left to do. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs until he wakes up from a fugue crying, holding a book in his hands. It had cost over a hundred imperials, but now the pages are torn and shredded, strewn across the room. There are others, and pieces of a mirror shaped like a star he’d stolen before he left. He starts to wonder how long it’s been, but this time it’s the fear that comes, in great shaking waves – the urge to flee, and then the rage, against the construct, and then against himself. The words pour like rivers from the dark corners of his mind: bad useless crawl crawl in the dark so tired dark see glittering light breath breath can’t breathe can’t can’t see glitter glitter pretty things for a pretty lady glitter like a promise Tristan Tristan eyes so see so far eyes lies eyes lies….
Fugue is the wrong word – he can remember his actions, though the words run together like the time. He knows he’d stripped his clothes, but couldn’t get the fire to light. They lie in a loose pile with the remains of too many books, and two feet of bound braid hacked away. It’s streaked black and red, like his hands, throbbing in time with the echoes of his mad screams. The remnants scratch at his neck, cascade into his field of vision. He let the glass shard fall, and it lands mirror-side up. “Like the sea,” he whispers, mind wandering now, remembering something Rashena said once about his eyes, eyes that can’t understand that this is him, his doing, his fault. He repeats the words, unmoving, staring, his voice already raspy. Minutes pass, or maybe hours.
His mouth tastes like copper from trying to drink blood from the deep cut on his left palm. It stings where he bit the flesh and where the black ichor mixes with the red. The wall where the mirror hung is disfigured with their mingled smears, and he feels bile rise in his throat as he realizes what he’s done – what he’s written. His name stares at him, a hundred variant scripts. Tristan. Lost one. Sanadhìl. He never could be Amortio, never would be Vanwahu, and they’re there, but less frequent. Tristan writ large, his new name overwriting it all. It’s a madman’s metaphor: simple, revealing, naked, confused. Some weak barrier in his mind erodes finally, and all the languages come pouring out – Cozovodë, Shadar Kai, all the variants of Aveyronnaîs. Gravonian. Infernal. The first word of that poison tongue jolts his mind to even darker places. Touch the dark, it said, you touch it the dark in you, in me, my dark, my demon power, demon, pieces stolen Earric stealing tasting like blood, like now, blood, touching, eaten, dead eaten crows feast rot sun the morning time for truth time to run so much death, master master cold alone dead dead no not me, not dead dead kiss death again again kiss it kiss it him kiss kiss sleep please sleep stop sleep like death so cold all lost sleep sleep sleep....
Sleep doesn’t come: for all that he’s exhausted, his mind can’t rest. His lips move, spitting out words faster than his brain can understand them. He’s in the kitchen – the destructive madness contained to the first floor for now – trying to understand why he’d bitten his arm again, or what made him tip the tall water jar over, spilling precious liquid across the floor. Odours from the other room remind him, and he might cry again if his eyes weren’t so dry, if everything weren’t so dry…
When they come, winding their way through a very personal hell, they find him on the stairs, scratching at the door to the roof with bruised and bloody fingers, bloody feet, bloody black, all shedding slivers of glass. He cowers for a moment before his mind switches gears, always so suddenly, and grasps – doesn’t quite grasp – a spell. Vianca shakes her head as the words start spilling out. It’s nonsense, ramblings on escape and running, though she can’t tell if he means them and now, or someone else, some other time.
It isn’t until after he’s restrained that any moment of clarity comes. He stops struggling, stops mumbling in a ceaseless rasp that days ago may have been a scream. Just stops and sags, but its defeat, not relief that has robbed him of the fight. It’s robbed in turn by the persistent curse laid on him by the construct, but he’s already read judgment in so many pairs of eyes: disappointment, betrayal, disgust, shock, fear. “No,” he mutters, tensing, head tossed weirdly from side to side. No man no touch not true not right not me not no no please nothing nothing touch it just nothing vrag no not mine no no no…
Healed, his raw voice regains its screams, words in half a dozen tongues bombarding the room and echoing through the building. Now he fights the restraints as they fight against whatever magic is affecting him. They can give him water, but they can’t keep him asleep for long. He rambles, curses and croons. Once he manages a real spell, a simple charm, and after that they watch in pairs. He begs sometimes: for help, for mercy, for sleep or silence. He begs for them to leave, to stop listening. They can’t always tell whether it is the madness or a deeper, more sincere, desperation, but the lucid moments are the worst.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 03:31 pm (UTC)Okay wait, this may be harder than it sounds ¬_¬