Forums

[ after dinner, in the music room ]   It’s after an hour or so of leisurely picking at her food and burying her anxiety in a few cups of wine, and the company disperses to various places within the manor. Lady Dali beckons the Hildebrand sisters to speak with her in the music room, and of course, Lady Hildebrand is willing to obey. Varda takes a seat in one of the chairs near the glistening instrument in the middle of the room, small and wary as her gaze passes over the room’s ornamental furnishings. It reminds her of their own small music room at Ravenel Manor, now neglected in favor of other more pressing pursuits, in Nai’s case. She gives her sister a glance, watches as she sits by the piano, her hands shifting through the sheet music laid before her. It only occurs to Varda, then, that she has never seen Merel play the piano ever since their father died, not once. Quietly pushing down the heartache and that acute sense of loss splintering through her chest, Varda turns to Lady Dali with a curious gaze. “Is there anything you wish to discuss, my lady?” Off the top of her head, she cannot think of anything the matriarch would possibly want to converse with them about, especially away from the ears of the other individuals invited to the dinner.   @supernal @ethela penna

"You're no fun Atlas. You've been locked away so long in the organization that you've forgotten--forgotten how to be proper. I blame Garnet and that beautiful Vanilla." Xavier replied as he eyed the seed. Yes, he looked annoyed that he would speak his real name. Platinum still didn't know how he knew about that. The elder circled around the fifth seed. "I do hope Madagascar can survive those torturous experiments upon her. I want to see the light sucked from her soul, a hollowed obedient girl. Pity, she'll know you couldn't save her." "You wouldn't dare!" Platinum snarled running at Xavier before a guard grabbed the seed. "Leave her out of this, she doesn't need to suffer. You coward." "Garnet did say you were a stubborn one. But I intend to make her suffer. You won't give me what I want. Lock him in the dungeon." With that, the guard dragged Platinum towards the dungeons. Xavier giggled to himself as he made his way down the hallway towards a room. Oh, how he would get the information he wanted one way or another.  Madagascar sat in the chair tied against it. She wondered if Platinum was okay. If he was able to escape. She continued to think about what Xavier said. Could she not be real? Her memories, feelings, thoughts felt real.  Xavier entered the room. His glare upon the girl. Closing the door behind him, he approached Madagascar. No, she was not ready for what he was about to do. He had learned much from the slaver.  Placing the bucket of red ore in front of her, in her arms reach, he smirked. Without a word, Xavier turned and walked out. He told the guard to release her once she became more complient.  Madgascar's eyes looked down at the ore. She had heard stories about it. How it corrupted and corroded the mind. Yet, her eyes couldn't take themselves off the ore. Was it whispering? She thought she heard words for a moment. No, that was silly. Ore couldn't speak, could it? Her hands grasped a piece to lift and inspect it. Somehow, she didn't know how, she began to eat it.  Piece by piece left the basket and into her mouth. Her hands stained red, as she ate. Her eyes only upon the ore, her one goal just to eat.  The guard untied her then so that she could reach more of the buckets of ore before exiting the room. Madagascar didn't even care as she continued to eat the ore.

“I offer thou no guarantee of a promise, Daughter of Man. Her time is obscured from me. Come unto thee so that I may use thee to pinpoint her in the ripples of time.” Alexander spoke to Rae. A humming that only she could hear. It reverberated in her chest and mind. The metallic sound of the God mixed oddly with the voice of two females. One of them bearing similar to Marishi’s. Francmage saw Rae enter into the hatch and followed behind her. He didn’t want to reveal himself. Not yet. Though he was powerless to control his obsession, he wasn’t fool enough to walk into an ambush. She did try to kill him on more than one occasion. He watched as she stopped and spoke to no one. Talk of resurrection. No, he could not permit that. He had just gotten rid of her, he was not keen on her coming back at all. Rae was commanded to press forward to the heart of the machine. The central core. Pulsing with energy and moving forever around the sphere that was the essence of Alexander, small bands uncountable in number spun an intricate dance, never touching, but always moving. As she arrived, Francmage crouched in the shadows. He did not understand what was happening and he did not understand the power of this land or the god that treated with his to be. He could feel the humming and the buzz in his chest. His arms hairs raised high at the static electricity. Though he could not see him, he felt the Primal, he could even hear it as discussions were made. The words were difficult to understand, the common tongue in Eorzea not being his native dialect. His translation pearl seemed to half work in the Colossus. “Thou bring the offering of her ruined body. Take thy ashes and spread them.” Alexander commanded. As Rae reluctantly poured the jar of the remains of her wife onto the floor, the ashes moved upon their own, forming sigils on the ground much akin to gears. “Thy offering is not enough. I cannot see her moments. Draw thy Gordian Blade, lift the blade high.” Alexander once again commanded. Rae did as instructed. She drew the Katana from the sheath and pointed the blade toward the heavens. The weapon burst to life with the white glow overtaking it. The humming grew louder. It could be felt vibrating the entire body. The sigils caught the light of blinding gold where they began to turn slowly. “I have found thy mate, Daughter of Man. Mine Harbinger. Mine no longer.” Alexander said slowly, the faint sound of sadness tinged his metallic disembodied voice. “Never hath there been traded something for nothing. Thy Harbinger knew this price all too well. If thou choose to travel back along the currents of time, it is possible to send thou. But thou will not be able to return to thy land called her own. Thou will be locked to the distant star, unable to tread upon this star again.” Francmage was trying his best to follow the conversation. The god had found her dead wife and was offering to send Rae back to her at the moments before her death. Francmage tried to recall where she fell. On the snow-covered plains of La Thine. On Vana’Diel. His home. Once the traversal was complete, she would not be able to return to her world but would be locked onto his own. Yes. This was perfect. The plan forming in his mind. “Prepare thyself. I send all present to thy moments. Save mine Harbinger, Rae Ten. Care for her and love her. Her heart and mind are wounded. Protect her as I have. Thou have but one chance to right the wrongs befalling. We shalt not meet again. Godspeed, Daughter of Man.” The humming became painful and reached its peak. The loud hollow sound of steel breaking apart was deafening. The Gordian Katana, the weapon that was unfailing to its owner, the sword that was said to only break if its master broke shattered above the hilt as Rae held it high, the length of the blade falling. Before it clattered to the ground it stopped, point down facing the floor. Everything had stopped. The noise, the humming, the vibration. The loud sound of voices and screams, wails and steel, magic and blades could be heard rushing past her at intense speeds. The sigils on the ground working back faster and faster. The world took on a reddish-brown hue. She was on Vana’Diel, time still reversing, but slowing. She was brought to the snowfields of La Thine, time reversing. Rae was forced to relive the sharply pointed sword shoving its way out of Marishi’s chest. Her eyes destroyed and screaming in agony. Rae watched as the reversal of the blade came from her chest. She watched the Knight clad in white as he ruined Marishi’s face in reverse, time creeping itself to a halt to moments just before she was overtaken by her foe and her arm broken. Everything was still. Frozen upon wings of time. The only chance she had to save Marishi in front of her. That’s when Rae knew she wasn’t alone. She looked to see Francmage of her time, the man that should be dead staring at her with that hideous and sickening look. How he had gotten there, only he knew. He began to move to intercept Rae from pulling the frozen body of Marishi away from the Knight. He dashed to crush her attempt at saving her Samurai from destruction. “My Rae …” he breathed as he moved towards her. Everything a sepia color, moving in slow motion to reach the same point, one to save, one to slaughter. There would be nothing after this. There would be everything. Rae’s two desires within her grasp. Her desire to make the alien world her new home. Her need to save the one she loved.

There were few things in all the world that threatened to shake the Outsider’s resolve, and the weeping of his chosen was one of them. He did not like to upset her, this bleak and sinister creature. He did not derive satisfaction from her suffering. When she wept, he felt sorrow, and when she threatened to break, so, too, did he. There was a struggle in him to keep from supplicating before her, from relenting and giving in. She was beloved, after all. His was an ardor that was undeniable, as sincere as it was volatile, and there was near nothing in all of creation that he’d deny her, nothing save this. More than the sum of his worldly ambitions, he could not, would not yield to her the sanctuary she so desperately needed. He would not permit her to leave.  He wanted this refusal to be gentle, to continuing plying her with newfound empathy for her plights and sufferings, but the more she spoke the more incensed he grew, and he found little and less cause to be kind, to be nurturing. He did not want to hear of her cousin Raphael, his part in this over. He did not want to hear of his avarice for power, his untoward machinations, his need for control and a hunger for more. He had heard these arguments before, these tepid insinuations, and not all of them came from her lush and freshly kissed lips. She was not the first to understand yet fail to grasp the scope of his desires. Piqued, the Outsider’s brows furrowed and he pressed his lips firmly together, locking a heated exchange behind the prison of gritted teeth. Be kind, he told himself, slaving roused passion to the slave of will, she is afraid.  But she was afraid of the wrong things, Irene. Their son would live and the world would kneel; it was he she was ever meant to fear, he she was ever meant to supplicate herself to. She said he could not ask her to risk their son’s life, that he could not expect her to remain, and he had to strangle within the urge to correct her, to say that he would risk Philippe because he had to, and that he not only expected her to remain by his side, but that he demanded it. Irene lifted her eyes from her pale, blood-smeared palms and found him as she expected, hard and resolute, and far, far from the soft, forgiving gaze of a familiar lover. Through expression and gaze alone, he conveyed all, and knew that she, as familiar with his bleak and bitter disposition, understood well. She understood and she reacted, and he watched unmoved and unmovable while she reached out to touch his cheek and coax all that was good and noble from him.  There was precious little, as there ever was when her cousin’s name was in the air and she ran counter to his will.  Still, she knew what he liked. She could not help but know. Under his guidance, she had been forced to learn his desires, his wishes, his needs and caprices. It did not matter that she was a hesitant and unwilling student, not when those lessons were repeated and savage. Roen turned his head a fraction of an inch, just enough to feel the coolness of her palm and fingers against his cheek, and for the moment, just a moment, indulged in how well he taught his beloved. Oh, but she knew how he loved her touch, her wicked tormentor. She knew how to soothe the flush of him, the smolder of his ire. And when he thought she couldn’t be any sweeter to achieve her odds and ends, he found her tilting, yielding towards him with unparalleled sweetness to steal a kiss from his mouth, as if gifting him with affection as a promise of more should he be her malleable champion.  He almost said yes to her, and that thought frightened him. Almost giving in, almost giving up, he wanted to, in that moment, to love her simply and love her strongly, to take them all back home to Orisia and leave the world to its own devices. He could see it clearly, he could see that future that closely resembled happiness, and knew it only hinged on him thinking beyond himself. He need only think of her, of them, and they would be together and happy and -- and she spoke against his lips, and he was no longer afraid. She spoke, and the moment of weakness fled as quickly as it came. Instead he closed his eyes to her pleas and tensed beneath her, thinking only of the last time she had asked him to let her go and take their son. Love turned to hate, like the ouroboros devouring its tail, and he remembered the birth of their son, the circumstances surrounding it, how she left him, and he knew then as he always should have, and whispered it against her lips, his stark refusal.  “Never again,” he said. Never again would he let her go, never again would he let her take the child away. How cruel was she to suggest it, how cruel was she to think it! He drew back just enough to look at her and see the uncertainty, the confusion, and he knew she didn’t understand him or her place. He glanced at her mouth, red and swollen before ever he had chance to make it so, and he frowned dangerously, renewed ire writ clear on his face while his mind turned. Yes, the self-styled God was here, yes, and of course he would torment Irene, of course he would kiss and taste at fruits now forbidden to him. How petty with the little prince just off the cusp of death. They were right to be afraid of my reaction, Roen thought, angered. Too worried about Philippe, he hadn’t considered what else might have transpired, what else might have been spoken. Reaching up to catch Irene’s cheek, Roen drew her near, and what she started as chaste, he pushed into the realms of impassioned. He kissed her, but it wasn’t a gentle thing or a considerate one. When he wanted her mouth, he took it with the greed she bemoaned, the desire for control and the need to possess. That she might struggle and resist or even dare to pull away was irrelevant. He caught her, he subdued her, he took her lips and had her tongue and he kissed her with the need she ever suspected but was never truly prepared for. He wanted her lungs full of him, her mouth tasting of him, her cheeks flushed with his heat, his warmth. Were it only possible to burn every chase of the other from her. “You’re mine,” he said, as he ever did when it needed being said outloud. Against her lips, at the edges of her mouth and across the line of her jaw, he told her the truth of things.  That she was his to love, his to touch, and his to rule, but the promise of servitude she might have expected was not there, no. She had lost that. With her negligence and her disobedience, he denied her his supplication and in its stead was placed her own. She was made to serve, to submit, to yield to him. And it wasn’t enough to do this with kissing, with squeezing at her till she stirred, with clutching at her with desperation. There was time yet between them to show the young queen of Orisia what it meant to be his, and it was only done behind closed doors, in places where they could not be observed or disturbed. A quick lesson, he decided when he made his demands of her, when he scolded her for her objections and pleas while his hands wandered and tugged at her clothes, pulling and tugging. A quick lesson to show her her place. The door locked.  [Exit Roen & Gabriela] 
 

"That looks amazing!" Luis said excitedly, sitting next to her before taking the sandwich and taking a bite of his own. It tasted delicious, and he was glad to be having this experience with her at the same time. "Tastes amazing too." When he was with Priscilla, he knew that life was good, and wanted to make the world stop, just so they could have this moment forever. "I hope my dad doesn't try to...ya know, do that thing he does when he looks at people." Luis sometimes wondered if his father liked being so angry, or if he felt like he needed to be so angry. Could he really be so angry all the time, he wondered, or did he actually smile sometimes?