Topic: The Path Home [NSFW 18+]

Kaius

Date: 2013-11-14 20:07 EST
The Path Home

~~~

Lay beside me, tell me what they've done Speak the words I want to hear, to make my demons run... Unforgiven II, Metallica

~~~

A hesitant gait, and leaves crunch quietly underfoot. The head beneath the hood rose slowly, taken aback at hearing anything but the unsettling quiet of the Vacuole, and seeing something other than that endless span of nothing. The boy had drank from him, and deeply....he'd been gifted with true darkness"

The lake shimmers.

The lake shines.

The winter nights bring a darker evening, and a lower moon. They shimmer across the lake like broken glass fragments of moondust, and warp. They shimmer, they shine. The sunshine shimmer of darkness - they glint from her crimson eyes, glowing hotter than core of a planet, and far more molten than a eviscerated rock.

Adorned in an elegant red dress, with her ankles submerged in the ethereal liquid, she merely observed. She merely watched the lake shift, and thought of everything.

There is no peace. There is no solitude. There is no thought. There is nothing but the fact, a fact of life: One is alone. A person is born - a pure product of construction between two individuals - the purpose, is what that entity makes it. But what happens when such a basic requirement, is taken from you?

Constantly'

She moved deeper into the lake, until she was waist high in the inky darkness, of shifting diamonds. Then, with a single lift of her hands, she ran damp fingers through her hair, sweeping back the dark locks from her sight and slipping them behind her ears. The icy coldness was her only comfort. Always had been.

A lake"

"was her only shelter.

She bent forward, and dipped her face into the surface, and submerged her features for a second, and then threw back her head, sending a spray of water droplets to hurl behind her, as her hair snapped backwards"

Only to open his eyes" here. Likely, another tormenting nightmare cast on him by Oblivion. Eyes rising from the depths to stare out across the lake from the forests edge, all but confirmed it, and he twitched unconsciously. The remains of one arm rose to his chest, and the his breathing, synthesized as it now sounded, caught momentarily as pain lanced through Pathfinders scar upon his brow.

Staggering against the agony, but proceeding nonetheless, as he felt it every time his thoughts drifted to her since he'd been taken by Azira's forces, and they had removed his Myriad, he waited to awaken to darkness, moving closer all the while....challenging them to torture him further, until his feet touched the icy coldness of the lake, and a rippling reflection was cast out across the waters surface.

Her eyes turned. She stared. The movement was noted. The face was also noted. The way he moved, noted. She barely moved. Then, something happened. She felt herself melt. She felt herself move forward - no, pushed. She pushed forward towards the figure entering the lake's surface. She moved so quick, that the water about her twitched, and become repulsed. She moved across the bed of the shore, while the water parted from her as if a mere servant to her whim.

Wide magma eyes, flecked in azure, remained on her target. "....Identify." It was spoken as an emotionless demand. "Identify." She approached him, hands moving out to grip his shoulders, and to steady him.

"No....More..." his words were halting, he wasn't usually able to speak in the Vacuole dreams, not without being....punished, "....games....stop. I will....sleep."

A fresh lance of pain shot through him, stronger than before, and bringing him to his knees. "Please..."his voice was bereft of emotion, but pleading. As hands touched his shoulders the hood of the cloak fell back, terrible scars around his eyes and on the spot Pathfinder had sat, eyes....dull. "....This is....a ....test?" And he seemed to shirk further, acknowledging he'd dared to ask a question, "....Riven....Riven," eyes lowering, though they'd yet to find hers, "...K-Kaius..." a violent shake of his head, "....we are....Riven."

As he fell to his knees, she remained standing. Coldly, she watched. She heard. "Kaius."

She found a smile curling to her lips.

Then a frown.

Then a scowl.

She lowered her hands to her sides, and merely stood over him. "What is Riven?"

His head raised, something....wasn't right. Eyes slowly following up her body, eyes narrowing on the scowl....which...did seem right....What wasn't he telling them, why were they perpetuating the torment....why hadn't she disappeared, or died while he was bound and unable to stop it, knowing she would just become an ornament for an uncaring, sick, being" Finally, his eyes met hers, and scowl or not, something awoke within him. The pain he was feeling wasn't due to torture....it was blood, calling to its own.

"They..."twitch," They....separated....separated..." his actual voice was a blend that sounded to be coming softly from multiple sets of vocal cords, though it was just a manifestation of the enchantments laid on him to keep him from healing, "R..Ren..." Could one sound emotionless and confused" This one did, the hand that remained sought down into the water, grasping absently at a cord which trailed behind him onto the shore, whatever weighted its end the cause of his semi hitching, stopping, and steps.

Tears fell. She fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. "....Is it you?"

Kaius

Date: 2013-11-14 20:14 EST
~~~

Everything let loose inside him and screamed silently as she put her arms around him, tears rolling down his face though it still didn't betray a hint of emotion over her shoulder, besides confusion and uncertainty at what was happening, an arm raised - the stump of an arm and would have drawn against her back and pulled her close, so dreadfully, needing to feel her close, except....the black metallic stump glittered in the moonlight....was this torture, then"

They'd grown subtle....he couldn't touch her, they'd taken his arm....but the other hesitantly let go of the cord, and sought the same, reluctantly placed upon her back....tears fell and confusion deepened as fingers traveled upwards, curling into her hair, "...we....we are....were....we were....Kai-" pain lanced from the stump of his arm now, forcing his eyes closed. Everything seemed like pain.

"Who did this?" She clutched onto him like her life depended on it. "Kaius. Please....Who did this to you?"

The ferocity of her hold on him made him gasp, and her proximity....he could smell her, he tried to lean away from her, to fix his eyes on hers, as they sought meaning in her face, trying to understand, and he summoned the courage one more time to confront the makers of his torment, "Red....Red....Red Lady....I....I know....who....who you....are....he....he made you....from....from.....me," his eyes rolled for a moment, as if trying to refocus before locking onto hers again, and the voices screaming for him to continue, to make them kill him, to end this farce, he had nothing left they could take but his life.

"a..a..Azir..a.....why....why ....hate me...So...much?" His eyes closed, and he stopped shuddering a moment, breathing in, deeply, "...Ren....Renna..?" One voice, one mans, but quiet as a whisper.

"This One....Accepts the situation." She regarded Kaius. "Insanity. Weakness. No need for a continued connection-ah....Error. No." She shook her head violently from side to side. "Emotional response. Needed. Releasing lock." She closed her eyes. "Released."

She quickly snapped a hand back, and slapped Kaius across the face. Then, she gripped his neck. "Yes. Renna. For you." She pressed her lips to his, and then parted, "KAIUS. Look at This One."

Yes, that was more like it insult him, throw him away, yes, now we were getting somewhere! There was the Red Lady's slow cruelty wending out of - and he was looking. She'd attempted seduction on him before, but always waited for him to crack, to turn to her, even knowing she wasn't the real thing. It would have been better that way; he would have been easier to control.

They wouldn't have had to break him. But she never had kissed him, and that gave him pause, his eyes locked onto hers and he whispered once more, "k..k..kaius....for..."his hand reached up slowly. It had sought out that anchor again, but raised now, slowly towards her face, and then trembling towards her lips, almost....reverently, "....this....this...One.." more confusion, but about the name, not...anything else. One of the voices insisted, in its screaming, that....she even ...tasted...right....they were....devious....weren't they' Screaming became....growls of uncertainty.

"Who did this to you?" She snarled. "Red Lady' Who?" She held him tighter. "Who did this to you?"

"The....Other....and....Azira....he...he....extra...extracted her," his eyes didn't leave hers, but if he'd not taken her demand to look at her as an overriding command....they would have looked to the stump of his arm."....ga-gave....her....new body...to...to..."Another voice spoke in the back of his mind, mechanical, analytical, Massive Cascade Failure Imminent...and his lips began to curve into a slight, hesitant smile, "...you're....not..."another deep breath, "....her..."his voice took on the multi layered tone it had initially held, as emotion threatened to overwhelm him, "You," his voice dropped almost to a hiss, and he closed his eyes, brows furrowing, trying, so hard, "Missed...you..."that one single voice again, unerringly Kaius's, tender, and full of love, the quiet whisper that only she had heard, in the darkness they shared together amongst the masses of that Coven they'd once called home, on those nights unable to fall asleep, and unwilling to leave each other until exhaustion claimed them content in each others arms.

"Missed you," a deep wracking breath, prelude to a shudder he held at bay, or more accurately, she held at bay by holding him so tightly, "So....much...", his eyes large and luminous in the naked moonlight. That one voice that spoke so softly to her, shouting back against those in his mind, that now sought to claim him, to change him - if only for his own protection, to try to shift into Sirrush, though that too had been long denied him; that voice curled in upon itself, refusing to give in to the avalanche falling down on top of him, willing the singular personality back underneath everything"

~~~

The door is locked now, but it's open if you're true If you can understand the me, then I can understand the you. Unforgiven II, Metallica

~~~

Kaius

Date: 2013-11-18 23:18 EST
~~~

Lay beside me, under wicked sky Through black of day, dark of night, we share this pair of lives Metallica, Unforgiven II

~~~



The Docks.

Sordid.

A perfect place, really. The cloaked figure moved amongst the docklands much like a shadow upon the wall. Silent, and always, the least noticed. As she came to a warehouse door just off of the pier, a hand lifted to pull open the left side of the sliding door, and enter. At the center of the room, lay a table.

An operating table.

Beside it; a mere tray upon a trolly-like system, and upon that'

Implements. Many implements. Surgical in nature.

Approaching her station, she regarded her tools, and lifted up a bone-saw. Then, with a smile, she settled down.

A chilling scene made more so by the fact that the man who lay upon the operating table was wide awake, though some observers might notice a distant glaze in his eyes.

Unfeeling on one level, and some form of Bliss on the other.

At least, a part of him thought, I'm -here-.

Pity he had yet to regain full control of his ability to communicate with speech to speak such a phrase without stuttering. The stump of his arm gleamed like blackened chrome in the operating light. A prosthesis had been installed or implanted, in a way.

In the far corner, lay a elongated hexagonal cannister, which appeared to be made of the same material - blackened chrome - which covered the end of his destroyed arm. It's absence from him seemed to cause him distress, but for now he was fine; as long as it was within sight....separation caused....anxiety. And eventually he would be gone, usually only moments, but always reappearing with it in tow. Though that may be the least of things causing him anxiety this night, because the scene had an eerie familiarity to it.

Moving to secure the straps, she fastened Kaius onto the table, and inclined her eyes to several of her Proxies lurking upon the outskirts of the dangling, swaying lampshade high above the place of operation. Her face flashed between darkness and light - an emotional face that was wrought with tears, as with a flash of azure, she linked Isuelt's mind with one of her Proxies. "Hold him down."

That said, she ignored them both, and regarded the table of implements once again, and lifted up the bone-saw. She placed the saw-toothed edge against Kaius's shoulder, while a hand pressed his head against the table, firmly. "Firmly."

His eyes flared as the teeth touched his shoulder and he started to bring his complete arm up to grab hers that held the saw, "LI...AR....!! RED....RED LADY!!" Scars around his eyes lit dim red as he began to....relive his torture.

The Proxy's strength was almost unnatural as the iron-like grip fastened around Kaius' body. There was a flash of crimson in the eyes of the Proxy as it looked down to the man on the table, stuttering against the pain. No other movement was had from the Proxy, save for the god-awful heavy bearing down on Kaius.

A cacophany of crazed voices surged in Kaius' mind, calling down profanity, cheering, crying, as his body slammed back hard onto the table.

His speech was broken, no spells.

His ability to regenerate all but stolen, no healing.

The scars in the center of his forehead where the mark of Pathfinder had been....cut through again and again, as if they thought they could remove it physically from him. They could have at least taken his ability to heal, last....but since that wasn't the nature of torture...

She firmly placed the saw between the joint of shoulder, and arm. And paused. Her eyes stared emotionlessly at the center. She....trembled. Her eyes closed, and she regarded her Proxy, and stared into her eyes. "....Why must, the ones I love, suffer" Why must I be the one, who....Fixes it?" Mercilessly, she pushed the saw down through his flesh. A knife through butter, until it met with bone. The saw paused. And with a jerk of her hand, she grated against the resistance, and then pushed forward.

Then pulled back, then pushed forward.

Her hand upon Kaius's forehead, had traveled to clamp shut over his mouth. "Kaius. Listen to This One. Please."

In the corner, one end of the hexagonal casing began to unscrew itself from the rest of the unit, painstakingly slow.

~~~

Kaius

Date: 2013-11-18 23:25 EST
~~~

Kaius's raw throaty scream tearing from his chest as the saw bit down through flesh and bone and his heels drummed, unable to move under the Proxies force, before her hand found his mouth and terribly hurt, animalistic eyes met hers, soft breath against her palm felt though not heard, "....this....One..."

The Proxy's strength was tested as This One began her "fixing." Kaius' body involuntarily threw itself into self-preserving, but futile fits. Her voice was cool as she obediently answered This One. "You are the cure for what ails much in this imperfect plane."

Her sawing movements were slow. However, they picked up as the saw bit through bone. There was no point to prolong the pain. Nothing at all. She needed to remove the imperfection from him. She needed to....

She ceased her movement halfway through the cartilage of Kaius's shoulder, and regarded her Proxy with tears streaming down her cheeks, "This One is not." She leant over Kaius to regard her Proxy, "This One knows you can hear This One beyond the veil of the Proxy, Isuelt." She smiled sadly, "But This One does this, to save him. I love him. He's broken. This One will fix him." She continued to saw, through the bone. But had no reason to hold up her head no longer, she pressed it against his chest, and she violently sawed through the last fibres of flesh, and sinew.

For a moment, Kaius's eyes turned to the Proxy with a hateful, murderous glare. It sounded too similar to the delusional claims of Dy'Hauc and the Red Lady, whose answer lay ultimately in nihilism and Oblivion. His feet drummed again, the process he'd already undergone enough to barely keep him from slipping into shock, at least further than was his normal mental state.

The end of the hexagonal canister spun fully off, tipping over onto the floor as viscous, black and red liquid poured out, one lone tendril making a faint spattering sound as it headed towards the nearest wall and began to creep upward, undergoing mitosis and spreading as it did. The last admission from This One held Kaius attention for the moment, as all the voices seemed to stop save for one, the quiet one. His eyes closed and his body was wracked by a gasping breath against the growing wound, but trembling lips kissed her palm, just the same.

Silently doing her duty now, the Proxy held fast to the form of Kaius as This One did what she had to do.

~~~

Come lay beside me, this won't hurt I swear ... She loves me not, she loves me still... Metallica, Unforgiven II

~~~

Kaius

Date: 2013-12-09 13:01 EST
~~~

"Our virus is a lot smarter than the ones you see in zombie movies. It doesn't make its victims stagger around slobbering and moaning so anyone in their right minds would run the other way. It gets you cozying up to people so you cough and sneeze it right into their faces. We just need the vaccine. Then we'll be okay." ― Megan Crewe, The Way We Fall

~~~

Red Label/Blue Label

The spill from the canister separated into two distinct liquids in a fraction of a moment; 'Red Label', red shot through with black striations, slid to the closest wall and began edging upwards, growing as it did so and beginning to take on a humanoid form. The secondary, a deep, dark blue, 'Blue Label' shot through with striations of pitch black, began seeping towards the operating table; unlike its differently colored counterpart, this one did not increase in mass, or begin cell division - it simply set out for it's primary host, Kaius.

The organisms subtlety proved it's strength, for both organisms, even. In every way every detail of them - biologic to arcane, to technological, was completely in keeping with any signatures that would have normally been found in the room now occupied by Kaius, the One, and her Proxy. In fact, had Kaius not maintained the canister in his presence, it would have been more off putting the absence of the elements within it, to the perceptions of all three occupants.

Essentially, mixed thaumaturgical substance - in essence magicked, enhanced or augmented blood; liquid titanium poly alloy, also heavily laced with with magick, so much so that the aroma of it would be heady to those sensitive - though would quickly be brushed aside when the three in the room were taken into account.

Coupled inside each of the substances, a certain sentient presence as well. Betrayed by Sound.

As Red coalesced and grew along the wall, it couldn't help but issue sound; wet and suckling, popping, slurping, as it began to take a feminine shape. Crouched with its back to the wall, hands behind it and flat, it's feet taking a similar posture so that it appeared the creature was either adhesive or defying gravity as it continued to pull itself together. Thus far, it was beginning to look like a woman composed entirely of red and black blood, even down to the detail of hairs from it's head, which were now hanging in long, ropy strands.

Blue, in contrast simply pulled itself together as best it could, until it began to resemble a hand, and it rose on five, knife like fingers before those fingers managed to pull together into only three - a Talon, which now raced towards the operating table with an audible...

Click click click, click click click, click click click...

The hand upon which it rode might have been gone, but the enchanted piece of armor, liquid metal and able to take the form of any standard weapon or armor it's wielder could envision, and forged by Lady Branson upon the grounds of the Coven itself, was still intact. Had it eyes, it would have looked on horrified as even more of its former perch was being removed most bloodily from it's host, and perhaps there was a sympathetic bond between it and Kaius that it was responding too...

Maybe the Talon was what opened the canister!

Either that or...

Red had finished pulling itself together, growing, and now rested there, dripping spattering red droplets to the floor below it as its neck craned up to look upon the lurid scene in front of it. The creature was nude, save for a simple necklace that must have accompanied it within the canister, and dripped with excess blood and tissue, grown superfluously like a cancer to ensure the body being produced had everything it needed to survive intact now.

The necklace around it's neck, to the perceptive eye, was simple leather cord, with pewter mock baby blocks adorning the center, a letter carved into each, in the style that people sometimes wore their names.

Charnel.

~~~

"The artificial evolution revolution is already happening in the form of modern technology. It needs us, just like a virus needs us." ― Leslie Dean Brown

~~~

Kaius

Date: 2014-02-25 14:22 EST
~~~

"Falling into ruin was a bit like falling in love: Both descents stripped you bare and left you as you were at your core. And both endings are equally painful."

J.R. Ward

~~~

Epilogue I

Dawns first light pored through the broken window, and it was cold. Kaius awoke alone in an abandoned surgical room on the docks; instinctively he pushed himself upwards off the gurney and looked around, heart pounding, as if waking from a nightmare. He shuddered, slowly taking account of where he was, as the crystalline white finger nails of his left hand closed reflexively on the rails of his bed, scoring the metal there with an audible screech.

He glanced down towards his hands, sitting more fully and bringing them up before his suspicious eyes. Once again he had both arms and hands, though the left was now a rather unnatural pale color and the nails upon that hand were pure white, and crystalline to the touch. He slowly flexed that arm, curling fingers in towards the palm, and back out again. His right hand now bore the blue black bracer that had once adorned the left, its liquid metallic surface glimmering as the light passed in through the windows.

Scrubbing at his face, he attempted to remember the previous night, and couldn't. Not entirely, at any rate. It came back to him, though as a dream. Or a nightmare.

The hexagonal container that had held both his bracer and "

"that creation of Dy'Hauc's"

Lay on the floor, obviously opened with its contents now" well, one on his arm. The other" nowhere to be found, though he seemed to recall something of her the night before as well.

Charnel.

Her mother, as it were, had paid her no mind " and their daughterhadn't sought to interfere with the procedure.

His mind was fragmented even more than it had been before, but in different ways. Previously he'd only had to contend with the voices in his head, struggling for dominance" but at least there was an unbroken line of history that those personas could agree upon to form the basis of his existence. Now" everything was a jumbled mess. He'd tried to return here, to Renna" but' somehow had ended up back on Alluvius.

He'd thought himself free of that place, after having found the Nexus. Dy"Hauc had extracted" something from him there, he couldn't quite remember. Done things to him. Used him. To get to her. Or to get a piece of her, at least.

He could feel her now, at least. Though she was" far away.

So very far away.

He could tell where, though he was barred from that place now.

By Nemesis himself.

Until he had atoned.

Perhaps never.

"Zarcugis?" he whispered softly, the name of the place she had gone, though he knew that was no longer the name used. It was the one he preferred, as it represented what had been, before. It's current title may have been an homage to the woman he loved, but it's first name " the one that he had spoken " was a testament to her life, her history, a time when she had been"

Not yet abused so poorly.

A time before she had been the Betrayer"

His mind thought back to the Halls of the Dead, all those images " idols " of her he had seen, kept preserved forever in that mausoleum in the middle of Nowhere.

?" my turn then, to wait."

But in the meantime, I search for my own answers. I wish I could have seen you, back then, in Zarcugis. It was a thought, not something spoken, and after the thought had flitted into and out of his mind again, he recalled that saying, "be careful what you wish for".

As he opened a gateway back to his old quarters in Bristle Crios, he shivered, and not from the cold.

He knew he should be feeling something, but every emotion was like reaching through fog to get to, he needed to sleep. To heal.

To find out what had happened to her in his absence.

If he didn't know better, he could swear that somewhere out there, in the darkness?

Nemesis was laughing.