A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information kiosk. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.
The main feature of the tourist center is the interactive kiosk installed dead in the center, right in the middle of a few rows of uncomfortable chairs that fill the small room. It's noticeably in the way of any would-be foot traffic through the tourist center, and something about the technology seems a little more modern than the computer behind the desk or the landline phone on the wall. The kiosk is a tall silver rectangle, about average adult height, and the upper half is a screen welcoming visitors to touch it to activate the kiosk. If you were to touch it, the screen would come to life with simple dialogue inviting visitors to ask it their questions.
However, residents should note that the kiosk is only programmed to assist with exploration within the available areas of the city. It may not be able to answer every question, and tampering with the kiosk may result in unreliable or inaccurate answers!
TO THE SOUTHWEST
The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.
As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.
Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.
TO THE EAST
The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.
A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.
You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.
The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.
As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.
Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.
JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS
SO A TURKEY WALKS INTO A BOWLING ALLEY...
There's a bowling alley open in the newly-accessible district, and you're invited to come test your mettle!
Walking into the lobby, you're struck by a peculiar combination of scents—shoe polish, floor wax, pretzels and nachos, and something pungent and a little oily. On the wall behind the desk is a shelf full of pair after pair of shoes, in every size you could possibly imagine, and there's a low rack filled with brightly-colored, heavy bowling balls that are ready for the taking. You can also hear the low hum of machinery and the rattle of pins being reset every time someone knocks them down, the bowling alley a well-oiled machine despite the fact that no one seems to be manning it.
You can bowl alone, start a match play (1-v-1), or bowl as a team, but you'll quickly find that bowling is much more fun (and somehow easier) when you're playing with others. Maybe it's because being around other people raises your spirits, but you feel more confident when you step up to bowl, and you find that when you're playing as part of a team, the bowling ball travels faster and in a straighter line, and you seem to be making strikes and spares with much greater frequency. Teamwork really does make the dream work!
If you occasionally see what you think might be the shadow of someone passing behind the machinery at the far end of the lane, don't worry about it—that's probably just your imagination.
If you stop by the bowling alley at night, you will find the place totally transformed. There's a disco ball hanging from the ceiling and brightly-colored lights flashing and dancing around the floor and walls. Any white parts of your clothing glow a delightful blueish color, and you find that you're illuminated in all kinds of interesting shades by the blacklight bulbs glowing in the ceiling. This is cosmic bowling, truly not for the faint of heart!
When you've finished bowling, you may want to stop by the snack area for a pretzel or hot dog, a soda, or—if you're there for cosmic bowling—maybe even a more adult beverage from the food counter on the far end of the building.
There isn't anything especially spooky about the bowling alley—except, of course, being forced to wear shoes that have been worn by a hundred strangers before. Characters are welcome to find their shoe size, grab a bowling ball, and go to town! Characters who come during the day will encounter a normal bowling alley, but they can always come back at night to get the full cosmic bowling experience. There will always be shoes in their sizes, the pins will reset themselves, and the balls will always be returned. Just be careful, those ball chutes can crush your fingers if you're not careful!
JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS
WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.
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citylogs2023-07-01 11:00 am
no subject
For his part, Vanessa is impressed that he doesn't immediately dismiss her suggestion or her ability for it. A rarity among most people she has met. ]
You must open your mind and permit me entry.
[ In fairness, permission is not required. It helps, and Vanessa does not consider her curse a fun romp to try and abuse. ]
It would require you to relive something painful so that I might experience it with you.
no subject
not only for his own sake, either. ]
Just the one? [ it's fucking insane that he's considering this seriously just in the name of finding his guns, but maybe that just goes to show how off-kilter this entire situation has him.
he still doesn't completely know if he believes that vanessa can do what she says she can, but still. ] Because let's say you do go into my mind? I can show you a memory, but if you leave it you're not going to like what you find.
[ in the "very real possibility of death and dismemberment" way, assuming it's possible for her to be dismembered. heine can't imagine that kerberos would love someone poking around his playground. ]
no subject
With a mild shake of her head, Vanessa absently shifts her small bag and coat to drape over her other arm. ]
I should never wish to intrude where I am not invited, and I have no desire to experience more than necessary.
[ It can occasionally leave her so...raw. Now, there are plenty of cases where she could not control this curse to such a specific degree, and more often it has tormented her against her will, but mentioning that will serve no good. She is more confident in her control than she was even some months ago. ]
It would be best to find somewhere isolated.
[ It wouldn't be very fit if they were to get caught unawares while trapped reliving some family trauma, would it? ]
no subject
he looks around the park, where they are, indeed, rather alone. then again, they are standing on a path, and much closer to the park's entrance than they had been when they met in the graveyard, so heine understands the caution. ]
We can find an apartment. [ there are tons of them, after all, far more apartments than there are people in the city right now as best heine can tell. low chances that somebody is going to pick the same apartment they post up in. ]
no subject
Lucky enough that there are so few people around in this case, then. Much easier to root out spies. She hasn't even visited any apartments, but she can hope there are locks of some sort. ]
no subject
it's not locked, so heine pushes the door open and immediately checks for exits (doors, one, in the living room; windows, several, all of the sashes locked), leaving vanessa to be the one to lock the door if that's how she preferss it. once he's satisfied with his understanding of their modes of egress, heine comes back to the living room and throws himself back into one of the chairs. ]
Isolated enough? [ even to heine's enhanced hearing, there's barely the faintest trace of human activity in this building. unlikely that anyone will walk in on them. ]
1/2 i hate myself
Vanessa does explore the living room while leaving him to check the other rooms, running a fingertip over a side-table and noting the lack of dust. The emptiness is unnerving, but what catches her the most is one of the photographs. Imperceptible like the gravestones, but a familiar heartsickness takes over yet again. Family. The picture frame is quickly returned when he re-enters the room, left face-down. ]
It will do. [ Barely a glance over her shoulder. ] ...Will you please allow me a moment to ready myself?
[ The inquiry is an illusion. His answer doesn't matter; she is already slipping into a bedroom and gently shutting the door. The bag and coat are thrown onto a dresser, and Vanessa glares when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Never has she seen her own reflection with such clarity. With a shudder of disgust and fear, her coat is tossed overtop the mirror to hide the unwelcome sight.
One family is already gone because of her. Another cannot follow. The only way forward is always the most dangerous, and so she knows she must better understand the manner of danger she is about to tread toward. It is the most caution she may permit herself, so Vanessa retrieves her tarot cards. Her Hell, she knows. What of Heine's?
There's no time to do a full spread, so she leaves it to three cards. How much has he suffered? How is it wielded? How will it affect their quest?
Despite feeling clear-headed when pulling her cards, each time she flips one, it’s as if cobwebs are drawn across her vision. She can blink through, but barely. As frustrating as that is, she doesn’t need to rely purely on the card’s energies or her clairvoyance to use her tools. Her perception and knowledge is still her own. She has been following everything about Heine since meeting him and she knows these cards intimately. ]
no subject
First, the Three of Swords in reverse. An old pain that has become so elevated it has nowhere left to reach. Misfortune is expected. Violence is natural. Change turned an open wound into a scar. It is never forgotten, and so further growth seems to have been halted. He cannot move forward. He cannot escape. He cannot allow himself to become close to others.
I don't know that gods and devils are all that different at the end of the day.
The tip of a nail traces across the image of the two wolves howling at The Moon that menaces them from above. A card close to Vanessa’s heart, or the ashes that remain. To join the other card in this context suggests only more pain. Heine carries terror and destruction hand-in-hand. The terror controls him and the destruction is inevitable. He torments himself— No, another he. A devil of his own. This other, this darker sense of self is always there. It empowers him; it traps him. He is two selves.
Her jaw is tight and her small shoulders are hunched as her hand hovers over the third card. Vanessa can only wonder if she is reading them incorrectly. Did she accidentally lay out a spread for her own reading? …Of course not. That was not her intent, but it feels too personal, and her confusion causes her to hesitate before turning the third card.
I'm not promising I won't shoot.
Something crucial will occur. While the Knight of Wands is to be a harbinger here, it need not be of disaster. Their meeting is fated, bound to be devoted to conquering a critical task. It could also indicate upheaval and disastrous failure. He is one prone to action, stopping at nothing when pressed. Both a blessing and a curse. She must use a take caution in handling him in order to find success.
But I'll let you finish it.
It’s enough. It’s plenty. No doubt she has been gone for several minutes by now and he has grown impatient. He may have even called out and she wouldn’t have heard, as lost as she was in the reading. When she steps back out, her eyes are dry though her expression is still somber. ]
My apologies. I haven’t eaten recently and felt a sudden need to rest; be it the frailty of woman. Shall we begin?
breathes heavily i love it here
she'd asked after the personal significance of heine's guns, for a memory strongly associated with them. it makes sense, then, that heine's thoughts stray to giovanni—loyal dog sent after heine, the prodigal son, to deliver him back into the maw of hell he'd clawed his way out of all those years ago.
though he hates (resents, loves, regrets) giovanni with every fiber of his being, heine can't deny that the memory of their recent meeting is personally significant indeed.
he hears the knob turn and tilts his head a little toward the hallway, listening as vanessa comes down the hallway. no need for apologies, really, not when heine barely noticed how long she was gone. he shifts to the side a little, enough that he can regard her from the corner of his eye. ]
Why not. [ shall we? the way she talks is so interesting. ] What do you need from me?
60% chance of miss ives getting punched in the snoot by the end
Or so she hopes.
While she has acquiesced to his wariness up until now, it cannot continue forever. She has never entered someone's mind this way without being directly in front of them. Contact is even best. It is an intimate undertaking both in body and mind, and she isn't certain that Heine still understands the gravity of what he agreed to.
The cards suggested his trauma has led to a severe terror and avoidance of something beyond a simple enemy. They also suggested that he may do anything to accomplish his goal. Will this trouble their cause? Already she knows he has inner conflict, but so does she. Vanessa is incapable of casting judgment over him. ]
Your faith.
[ Settling on the couch at an angle with a graceful poise, Vanessa motions with a slender hand for him to sit next to her. His wariness of her could surely not be connected to whatever phobia the card may have implied, could it? He had a way about him when he first saw her approach, and she does not forget it. Now, she watches him carefully, hoping her concern is misplaced. ]
i apologize in advance just in case
heine braces both feet against the floor. he puts his chin in his hand, covering his mouth as he chews the inside of his cheek. thinking, weighing his options. he tastes blood in his mouth but the wound is already closing, flesh knitting together under his tongue.
on the one hand, his guns back. on the other hand— ]
I'll sit. [ the words come out like broken glass, all sharp edges. ] Do not touch me.
[ if her powers are what she says they are, heine can understand why contact would be preferable, but this is the only concession he can make. she's just going to have to work with him as he fights against both his fight and his flight instincts. ]
she can take it
That will make it considerably more difficult.
[ Which it already was going to be. She doesn't know how this will work, or if it will work. Are her abilities truly weaker, or simply more unpredictable to summon? It doesn't mean she won't still try. What other option is there? ]
But if you wish, we will attempt without touch. Please, sit.
no subject
it clearly takes effort for him to push himself out of the chair he's occupying and join her on the couch instead. every nerve of him is on edge, tension radiating from him so clearly she won't need any special sensitivity to read it. his hands, fingers curled into something not unlike claws, rest awkwardly on his knees, because the other option is to hold onto the couch and heine feels there's a real chance he'll tear through it. ]
Now what? [ heine asks, speaking through gritted teeth. ]
the psychic part won't work but the gentle compulsion can for a short time (only if you want it to)
Asking him to relax is not going to help anything, to be sure. Nobody can relax once the matter is addressed. It must be forgotten entirely.
Everything else must fall away, as things tend to when Vanessa captures someone's gaze well enough. Her pale eyes do not flinch, with an endless blue for drowning in. Here, the rasp of her voice falls low, husky and soft at such a level; like burnt velvet. ]
Look into my eyes.
[ The urge to reach out and take his hands is powerful, as doing this can be just as mesmerizing to her as it can be to others. The difference is, she remains the one in control. ]
Listen to my voice.
[ There are no other sounds. There are no sounds of birdsong, after all. No bustling crowds rushing the sidewalks. No neighbors shouting through the walls. There is nothing else except for her voice, and the flutter of their breathing. She keeps her breaths slow, guiding his along should he begin to settle.
The suggestions are repeated in a hypnotizing rhythm once again; twice. Look into my eyes. Listen to my voice. Her voice nears a whisper while she stares into eyes so beautifully red, and Vanessa wonders if any other color exists in the memories behind them. ]
Let me in. Show me.
heine will enjoy his brief moment of not being a micron away from a nervous breakdown
the sound of her voice, though—so entirely unlike einstürzen's. deeper somehow. or not deeper, but richer, crushed velvet, woodsmoke. despite himself heine feels himself caught by it, and by the depths of her eyes, as blue as the terrifying sky.
little by little, some of the panic melts away. heine doesn't question it. it's a moment of reprieve from the tension he's carried in his shoulders all day, and he finds that he isn't able to worry too much about it the longer he looks at vanessa.
the memory rises to the surface of his mind, a bubble to the surface of the water:
giovanni, counting the bullets he put in heine's chest. getting to nine before he was satisfied.
heine, floating in the darkness of something so close to death that he could taste it, sweet, only to be dragged back to waking by the dog inside him.
the gunfight that ensured, he and his brother with their teeth and guns at each other's necks, shooting to kill.
the bullet heine put in giovanni in return, only to watch the wound close before his eyes, proof that giovanni had finally mastered the beast in his spine.
whether or not vanessa can see any of it, though—heine doesn't know. ]
the spa package includes a mellow joint and a boobhug as amenities for less resistant clients. alas~
However, it doesn't take her long to realize that something isn't working. Is he resisting still? ]
You need to let me in.
[ Whatever it is, and she can tell that something is happening, she isn't able to see it. She might normally be able to experience it so intimately that it would be as her own memory, and yet now there is...scarcely even a sense beyond something occurring behind his eyes.
She knows he can hear her. He must be able to feel her somehow, because he is not in the same state he was before, so then what is it? She refuses to believe this place took this from her. ]
You can trust me. Show me.
no subject
[ because as best he can tell, he's trying. the memories are so clear for him, all but playing like a movie on the inside of his skull. vivid to the point of being difficult, his chest aching with the phantom pain of skin knitting over where bullet holes used to be. if vanessa can't see it then the problem isn't with heine's imagination, but rather with her powers.
if she has powers at all. now that he thinks about it, heine can tell that the calm he feels is preternatural, knows that under normal circumstances heine could never be so calm sitting this close to a woman.
in the back of his mind: "pathetic," kerberos taunts. heine can almost feel the hot breath on his ear. "when are you going to stop letting yourself be a plaything?"
the memory shifts, morphs. giovanni's face as he spits blood, layered over giovanni's face from six years before, his mouth a gash of raw terror as he watches heine—
watches heine—
heine's hands ripping flesh tearing through bodies punching their way straight through li— ]
Enough. [ heine rips his gaze away from vanessa's. all the tension floods back into him at once and he flings himself up from the couch to put some distance between them, ends up standing at the window just to remind himself that he's not trapped. his hands aren't sticky with blood, and although his breath is coming fast and panicky, he's still in control. ] That's enough.
no subject
By one consuming flame: it doth immerse, and suffocate true blessings in a curse.
[ A memory whispered under her breath. She would understand, could understand, but is there any time for it? Already he is disrupting their work, which she could have predicted from the cards, but there is no time for these sorts of half-measures. Sir Malcolm needs her, if he is not dead already. Her own fears, the throbbing in her foot, and lack of sustenance makes it so much more difficult to focus, to be patient (she has never been patient), to remain gentle. But should she let that weakness control her, Vanessa may scream and never stop until all around has shattered.
His silhouette and the buildings outside obscure some of the sight from her position, but she can witness just enough blue beyond them to let herself get lost in the sky if she so wishes. ...She does not, for the Heavens are not where she is to tread, but she had noticed him constantly gazing at. As if mystified. Do I seem like an old hand at it?
Never could she share this before, not even with Ethan, but never before has she been in a situation as bizarre and dire as this. Sacrifices must be made on both their parts. This is not the time for her to be coy. ]
I once existed in a place outside of time where it was never day nor night. There was no sky, no grass. [ She looks away. ] ...No. I ceased to exist. I was no one.
[ Her rasp is rougher; deeper now with a strain while she looks at the overturned picture frame. Even so, Vanessa speaks as if she could be telling someone else's story; a desolate chapter in another life. ]
There was no such thing as warmth or color. No sound, no taste, no touch. There was no one else alive in the world, save for the one who kept me there so that I may perform until he was satisfied. To do anything less put me to a torment where I could only pray to drown for an escape.
[ Pity is not what she requests—would be disgusted by it. It is no competition, but an attempt to reach out, even as her hands clench in her lap until knuckles are white. If he is ever to trust her, then he must understand he need not be alone in this journey. ]
This city is no less of a prison. I promised myself I would never be caged again. What of you? Would you not give anything to be free?
no subject
he breathes slowly, gripping the windowframe so hard the wood creaks under the force of his fingers. cold sweat prickles the back of his neck, and heine's other hand comes up to curl against the unforgiving metal of his collar, like that physical gesture will somehow help keep the beast contained.
when vanessa speaks, he turns his head, but doesn't turn back to face her. not immediately. despite their brief acquaintance, heine can tell that in many ways he and vanessa are similar. damaged, uncertain if beyond repair; driven beyond the point of sympathy or pity. to be coddled for his past would disgust heine too, and so he recognizes that the reason vanessa tells him this is not because she seeks his pity, but rather so he will understand that this is another point of resonance. "a torment where i could only pray to drown for an escape."
heine exhales a humorless laugh and turns to lean against the window instead. he's only recently started to come to terms with the reality of who he is—of what he is—and so the words stick some in his throat as he forces them out. ]
My mother made us underground. [ how else to tell her but to just... say it, as cold as the truth may sound? heine's voice is flat and affectless. ] Me and my brother, and the other kids she'd kidnapped for her tests. We were supposed to be weapons.
[ something about the way he says mother perhaps suggests that he doesn't mean it the way most people do. most people say mother and mean comfort; heine says mother and means the reason a woman's touch makes him feel like he's asphyxiating. ]
She made us perfect, then she made us fight. By the time we could walk they had us in death matches. Against each other. Against the poor fucks they'd turned into dumb beasts for our slaughter. [ heine looks at his hands like he can still see the blood on them. then, slowly, he reaches up to loosen the bandages wrapped tightly around the column of his throat. when they fall, they reveal the metal that climbs up his spine and wraps partway around his neck. ] We can't die, after all. Not easily. And we were strong. Fast. Scared all the fucking time.
[ red eyes slide upward to look directly at vanessa for the first time since he started speaking. ] You know how feral animals fight when they're caged?
[ rhetorical question. his fingertip traces the familiar scar tissue around the collar where it digs into his throat. it aches, but not with any new hurt. ]
I killed them all before I ran. My brother. My mother. ...Or I thought I did. I ripped Lily in half with my bare hands. [ his breath shudders once, involuntary. ] I wish I could say she died screaming, but she didn't. She died telling me it was okay.
[ he looks back down at his hands, fingers curling loosely into fists. ]
I'm getting out of here. And when I do, I'm going to rip my cunt of a mother's throat out with my teeth if it kills me. [ teeth bared, more of a grimace than a smile. there they are: his cards out on the table. ] I hope it does.
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Once she had thought to be forgiven for her sins, but it was deception. Mina died hating her. Had Vanessa not been what she was, then her beloved Mina would still be alive. Her mother could still be alive. Some part of Vanessa did love her mother, though the resentment had always clouded it, and that didn't improve when her mother was the one to abandon her to her prison. The woman didn't lay eyes on her daughter again until Vanessa was returned with her hair and movement stolen and replaced with a hole in both skull and heart. ...It did not mean she had wanted her mother dead; she knew that her mother had been tormented by Vanessa's curse. It hadn't been her mother's fault.
She cannot feel the small scar underneath her tousled hair, but she feels more aware of it than ever when Heine pulls aside the bandages to reveal his own horrendous scarring. There is no disgust when she views it, nor pity. The flicker in her eyes is as if she has experienced a pain renewed when tracing what's shown of the scar and metal collar with her gaze. He tells his story and she digs her claws in to embrace it as her own, just as she does the pain that he tries not to show. How she would take his hand and kiss it to remind him again of softness if she could.
The cobra circles. The beautiful boy calls for Mother's kiss. The scorpion digs. The beautiful beast demands to be unleashed.
A hand presses to her stomach while her eyes dart to the side as if to silence someone near, then back to find Heine's again. The destruction behind that blood-red gaze is a dangerous beauty to behold. He ought not need to suffer or kill anymore, but for creatures like them, perhaps there is nothing else permitted. The vulgar threat he makes captures her more than anything that came before it. I hope it does. The malice has a target; so does hers. He is ready to sacrifice; so is she. Vanessa may not want to die, but she is prepared to.
But forcing a session again so soon will not serve her, she can already tell. It had been an uncertain suggestion in the first place, and one must take caution when handling him, after all. ]
If vengeance is what you seek, then you must be willing to commit yourself beyond your prior limits. [ But he won't let her touch him. ] So what do you then propose we do?
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heine shakes out his hand, then reaches up to retie the bandages around his throat. he feels off-kilter in the wake of the telling. six years he's known badou and only told him this story recently, and then only due to necessity, imminent threat from the underground. to have told it again, so soon after... it hollows him out, in a way. ]
I think if you touch me I might kill you. [ this isn't a threat, just a frank statement of facts. bandages back in place, heine drops his hands and regards vanessa, the frenetic, half-panicked energy slowly draining out of his shoulders and back. ] I can't be near women. A parting gift from my mother.
[ a humorless quirk of his lips. ]
We called it the Dog. It's a... [ how does he explain the voice in his head without sounding insane? or maybe he is insane, and this is just an accurate telling. ] They cut our backs open and fused it to us, the Kerberos spine. It's what makes me stronger and faster and unkillable. It also made me a berserker, and when I snap I don't stop until there's nothing left to destroy.
[ and she just heard about what happened the last time he let the dog take control. ]
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What he describes sounds rather impossible, but so would her life's telling to any passerby. How lucky she was to have had some kind memories of her childhood before she fell for Lucifer's seduction. The cruelty of Heine's mother would make her for a better unholy bride. To use and name her children as weapons is something Vanessa cannot fathom. ...The Dog. Something in the name twists her gut though she cannot remember why, and she glances down to her lap, though not from fear. Two wolves howl at the menacing moon. Mother is cruel. Mother is evil? No, not so. Something else. Calling. Crying. Mother can free me. Mother can love me. Yes, dear, yes.
Kerberos, the great three-headed hound of the Underworld. Mine. A pathetic mortal had masqueraded as queen of the underworld and then left it in shambles. What a wicked woman to be righteously punished, for she had tarnished the name of the mother of monsters. Mine. The scorpion burrows while the cobra's coils tighten. Don't stop. Until there is nothing left. Like the dogs.
Vanessa's chest constricts with her shallow breathing, not conscious of the exact turmoil within and yet utterly humming with it. Blood is on her tongue again, but it isn't her own. As Sir Geoffrey Hawkes was torn to shreds by his own pack of hounds with Vanessa miles away in her cottage, his blood trickled down her throat while his muscle caught in her teeth; his screams were a lullaby.
Like the dogs. For Mother. Don't stop.
No. Vanessa can't be certain such magic would work on Heine, even without the city's limitations. Even if they did...it would make her no different than the Nightcomers. He would never give permission, and if he did it would still be too deep of a sin. To be as like the Nightcomers, to be like Satan, would be worse than death. And yet, had she not already given her soul to the night? Even Ethan had finally condemned her as such. Perhaps there was no one left to love her, if ever there had been, but somehow that couldn't keep Vanessa from loving in turn, and her love is so fierce that even now she considers the most vile options for the sake of returning home and saving her family. Dare she suggest it? Had she not been condemned as a witch before, then she would afterward.
Vanessa doesn't realize that she has been lost in a trance, staring unblinking at the folds of her dirtied blue skirt without seeing it, silent for perhaps too long to be considered polite. ]
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heine straightens up from where he's been leaning heavily against the window and instead unlocks the sash, which he pushes up enough to make space to sit in. half-in and half-out, one long leg dangling into nothingness while the other boot braces on the floor inside. he leans back against the frame and looks up, between the buildings at the slice of blue he can see from here. ]
Sky's not so bad once you get used to it. [ an idle observation, not entirely conscious of having even spoken aloud. heine said underground and meant underground—he's only ever seen the sky once before. the blue had been harsher then, somehow.
after a long minute he turns back to regard vanessa, wondering if she's figured out whatever cat's got her tongue. or dog, as it were. ]
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Heine's remark on the sky cuts through the shadows of her personal torment, and she blinks back towards him and the corner of blue she can spot beyond his draping figure. ]
I—
[ What was it? Something— She can't recall.
Better to focus again on what he had shared. She remembers that. An intimate tale, no matter his casual posturing. ]
I cannot believe such a woman should be allowed to live and further torment other children. [ Were the woman here, Vanessa would have little qualms over hexing her into the grave. ] And if you survive your vengeance? What then?
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for a moment, heine just blinks at the question. it occurs to him slowly that all the times he's imagined killing her, all the various and sundry ways he's envisioned ripping her limb from limb, he has never imagined a version in which he survives it. ]
...Haven't thought about it. [ he forces himself to, now. a world where einstürzen is dead, truly dead—not just her unholy avatars but the woman herself—and heine is alive. ] Free the others, I guess. Maybe... find a way to destroy what's left of the spine.
[ removing the spine from his own neck would kill him, so heine doesn't go down that path in this particular imagining. ]
I don't think much would be left for me after that. Maybe work.
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