Topic: No Place Like Home (Probably NSFW)

Artsblood

Date: 2015-01-27 00:39 EST
(Most of this from play with Destiny-mun, whose return is an occasion for joy!)



The great eyes pin a departing patron in a mirror, spare her a tremblechin nod. It has all the earmarks of another night in the Inn, another evening of regret, another chance to stew in the juices of loss.

Then the front door opens, and shuts, and the wind blows in a figure bundled against the cold, wrapped in dark grey wool, grey and white striped mittens and scarf (which was wrapped three times round her neck), and a fuzzy fluffy hat that concealed everything, except for a pair of dusty blue eyes.

Oh, the pale woman doesn't need to see the eyes that were caught in the mirror, or the strip of skin surrounding them. The cold brings a scent she knows, and her head pivots, mechanically graceful, to pin the bundled figure in a square of mirror once hidden by a bottle of Beam. She stiffens from head to toe, as if reacting to a sudden, sharp pain.

Destiny heads slowly in the general direction of the bar, unwinding the length of grey and white knit - until she meets those mirrored eyes, and the girl stops dead in her tracks, frozen to the spot right at the corner of the bar. Hope flares in her eyes, a plea echoing in the space of heartbeats.

For her part Arts doesn't turn, trusting still to the prophylactic of the mirror, and speaks precisely and without emotion, each syllable carried on a little puff of breath. "You'll be wanting your things, I suppose. They are all where you left them."

Destiny responds with a terrible little shake of her head, even as she sways in place - not wanting to leave, but afraid to approach further, Mittened hands gently pull the scarf free of her mouth, the better to be understood. "No...that's - I don't even know where to start, except not there. Never there."

Artsblood turns then, a quick mechanical pivot, and faces the still bundled figure. Her thin face is drawn tight with fury, great eyes wide and hard. "You left me. Without a word. Do you think I am such a poor thing that you can simply return and pick up the pieces of the broken doll!" Her little voice is almost a hiss at the end of the outburst, shoulders rising to her ears. Destiny takes the anger with a flinch, mittens tugged off and stuffed into her coat so her hands can be joined and twisted together, all nerves and discomfort - though she does chance a step forward. "I know. If I could have - but that doesn't do anything to make it all right." A shaky breath is taken. "I know nothing will make the past months better. But I want to make the new ones better." Instead of answering, the taller woman is suddenly on her feet, moving at a speed that hurts the eye. She grabs two hands-full of overcoat. Even if Destiny were more than human she could not resists that rush; she is lifted until her heels drag on the floor, carried across the commons and slammed, pinned against the wall there. The pale face so close to hers that she can feel the chill of each burst of breath. "How. Can. I. Trust. You?"

The girl's shoulders tremble under the iron grip, as tears fall from lashes to cheeks, sprayed by the furious blinking of her eyes.

The face in front of Destiny's is a drawn-tight catsnarl of horror. Arts will not show teeth in public, no she is too well raised for that, but for a moment the threat to the girl is immediate and dire.

Destiny choses that moment to force open her eyes, blue touched with more than a hint of pain and horror - but the regret shines bright beneath the terror and the hurt.

And there is a familiar warmth to the skin beneath Artsblood's clawed fingers, distant as it might be made by layers of clothing, and a scent to the tears that she has only savored before in passion. She locks eyes with the woman, a dare there, a challenge, and suddenly kisses her with a ferocity that could well burst a lip. Relief floods Destiny's entire being, even as her mouth is bruised and split and bloodied under Arts' assault. She raises her hands to grip bare cool arms as that kiss is returned and grows wilder still, fanned by the flames of longing finally rewarded at last. When the embrace is finally broken the frail looking woman is almost prissy. She uses her thumb to gently clean the blood from Destiny's mouth, her quick tongue taking care of her own, and steps back, her voice still dark but now tethered, if precariously, by reason. "You have much to explain, Destiny. I will make you tell me all. I will listen to every word of it."

Destiny looks positively gobstruck, weak with emotion, and pain, and uncertainty, and she isn't sure her legs will function properly, so she leans a bit into the taller woman, breathless still. "Here..?" She looks furtively around the lightly-populated Inn, then back up at Arts. "There's - a lot'some of it shouldn't be overheard..." A shiver courses through her, her eyes closing briefly, before she comes back to herself, eyes locked on her terrible lover's. Artsblood's little ruin of a voice is softer, but a spine of severity runs through it still. "Shall we to home, then" I have tea still. And wine. And...all the rest."

Destiny nods, now leaning heavily on Arts, clinging to her like she was the last piece of land in a flood. "Wine. Tonight...tonight I need wine.."

"Wine, and attention. And I will have demands to make of you, missy dear." She actually rewraps the scarf, if awkwardly, as she maneuvers Destiny to the door and into the night, her own tattered Lolita dress incongruent beisde the other's huddled bundle.

Such is the pace of their journey that it is a much a prisoner's march as a lovers' ramble. And when the doors of the motel are secured, it is the reassuring conversation of joined bodies that Artsblood demands even before the words of explanation.

Their lovemaking is fierce, and there is already blood upon the unwashed sheets before the pale woman lifts her face to the girl below her, lets the little jewels of her feeding teeth slip free, and locks the girls eyes with hers, no coercion in them but an unflinching question.

"And now, will we do this?" she asks, words slurred by the teeth that push against her lips.

There is no hesitation in Destiny's nod; it is as if she needs this final communion as much as her lover does, and almost coyly she turns her head, offers the virgin skin of her throat.

Arts is not gentle, the penetration is hard and tearing, and for a moment Destiny struggles, caught up in the primal fear of this unnatural invasion. But then her heart feels the pull and cry of the heart atop her, and as her blood is drawn, irresistible, it is as if every vein and artery, every capillary, is suddenly, intensely erogenous.

By the time Arts falls from her, they are both weak with pleasure, stunned with sensation, lost in the aftershocks of an earthquake of eroticism. It is some time before Destiny can speak, some time, too, before her lover is capable of understanding.

And only when that time has passed does the moment for words get its day upon the stage.

Destiny Youngblood

Date: 2015-01-30 20:36 EST
Destiny spent nearly the whole of that first night and day back in the motel asleep, exhaustion from both the utterly fierce lovemaking and the as-yet unnamed trials she'd undergone finally getting their due. At first, her sleep was the blackness that comes when one doesn't dream.'

But, after awakening just long enough for a quick cup of tea, a little sandwich, and a round of still-intense tenderness, the dreamy afterglow gradually gave way to sheer terror, as fragments of faces lashed Destiny's mind, half-forgotten but completely remembered here, hints of excruciating pain, wisps of terror, and underneath it all, a harsh whisper with only one word, one command which echoed as she sat up with a barely-stifled shriek.

"SING!"

Sweat poured off her, her hands shaking wildly as she pawed the bed next to her to try and rouse Arts, but the bed was empty. Panic rising with the bile in her throat, Destiny flung herself from the sheets, racing about the small room, only to realize she was by herself for the moment - a relatively common occurrence in the months before, but the first time since she'd returned.

Destiny finally remembered the new toy she'd been given - a way to keep in the close contact both she and Arts needed now. Frantically pushing buttons, pacing in a tight circle as the phone went into voice mail. And when the phone went beep, all Destiny could manage to say was a hoarse whisper of Arts' name, before her thumb jostled the hang-up button, clattering to the counter as Destiny slumped onto the floor, a shaking mass of of wretched singer.

Artsblood

Date: 2015-01-31 18:48 EST
It would not be correct to say that Arts was confused by technology (she seen the birth of so much of it in her time), and she clearly was not afraid of it. Perhaps a more accurate would be that she was simply careless of it.

So, when it became apparent, as it soon had once she'd explored the capabilities of their new toys, that the phones had limited battery life, she'd simply powered hers down, intent on reversing that action when she needed the device and quite ignorant of the fact that her actions would make it impossible for Destiny to reach her if needed.

So when, during her ramblings, she had switched the device on to call home, she was surprised to see that she had a voice mail message, she was momentarily puzzled. A few clicks caused the thing to play back, however, and at the sound of her name, and the clear distress in the speaker's voice, she tucked the device away without further exploration and sprinted for home.

Anyone who might have encountered her during that rush can be regarded as unlucky. If they were mortal, they might have been aware of nothing more than the rush of her passing, perhaps a few shallow wounds inflicted by her fingernails as they were brushed aside. The more aware would have had time to avoid her hurry, perhaps even blurt out some sort of challenge, but if the latter it was not answered, and (fortunately for them) none took further steps toward confrontation.

When she burst through the motel door, Destiny was still on the floor, drenched in perspiration and beset by horrors. The pale woman dropped beside her, wrapping the girl in skinny arms even as her senses told her that no one else had dared enter their sanctum.

Stroking Destiny's hair, savoring (truth be told) the fear-scent that was yet another intimacy shared, she whispered in her little voice, soft as a kitten's snores.

"I'm here darling. You're safe. But perhaps it is time that you tell me all, so we can begin to take steps to revenge ourselves upon whomever or whatever brought you to this state."

Destiny Youngblood

Date: 2015-02-04 01:48 EST
At first, Destiny stiffened in Arts' embrace, her body preparing to flee - but then the whisper penetrated her terror, cool fingers chased away her fear, and Destiny finally reached to cling to Arts' shoulders, burying her head as she cried until there were no tears left within her.

Once she calmed and could speak without sobbing, Destiny spilled forth her story, half-muffled against her lover's chest and shoulder.

"I was working....like I always did - the crowd was alive, and they loved my songs. After...the owner came to my dressing room - Mr. DiMichele, you met him once" The short, fat man with the dark pinstriped suit and the slicked hair...She took a breath, cuddling in closer to Arts as she continued. "He said there was someone who wanted to meet me - he knew I didn't like to meet people right after a set, but he insisted - so I said I'd meet the person if Gerard went with us. You met Gerard too - the big bouncer, tossed out a stalker so he landed on a bus across the street?"

Her voice grew shaky, as she took a couple breaths to steady it. "He took me to his office, where a man was waiting - this guy, he creeped me out, Arts - just by looking at him I knew he was bad...Mr. DiMichele introduced him as Sir Nightshade, and he said Mr. Nightshade had made him an offer he just couldn't refuse.." Again, Destiny had to stop to catch her breath, her body shaking as she kept telling her tale.

"Mr. DiMichele said - he said Sir Nightshade was so impressed with my voice, he wanted to - to buy me. And apparently the money was right, because he...he said yes. And when Gerard objected - he went to punch Mr. DiMichele - Sir Nightshade...he waved his hand, and Gerard.."

Destiny paused, the memory of the brutal, senseless death of her guardian too much for her to speak, so her tears did it for her. Her breathing was ragged as she struggled to continue.

"After....Mr. DiMichele grabbed me by the wrist and flung me at Sir Nightshade, who caught me - I tried, Arts - I tried so hard, but he held me so I could barely move - and he waved his had again, and the office vanished..."

Destiny again buried her head into Arts' chest, her sobs echoing in the little room, the emotions overwhelming her to where all she could do was cry, clinging to Arts like she was the only real thing in her world.

Artsblood

Date: 2015-02-04 17:23 EST
The thin woman held her lover in a wrap of unlikely arms, and slowly let her lids sink over her great eyes, the better to concentrate upon the wealth of scents that surrounded her.

There was the lingering aroma of blood, of course, as clear and clean as the taste of a penny placed upon the tongue, and other fragrances reminiscent of their recent lovemaking as well. There was the salt-scent of tears, like a hint of a distant ocean carried on a contrary wind. And surrounding it all the sweat-reek of fear, to be tasted carefully, her mouth parted to concentrate the stink of it, to burn it into her memory, to be sure it left a scar there, raised hard and persistent.

As she completed this catalog she grew still, locked in that holding, each limb in turn surrendering to a willed paralysis. The girl's words, her trembling, her bouquet of scents, all seemed to feed into the thin muscles of the woman who held her, drawing them like bowstrings, stretching them so they rose, whip-corded, beneath her pale skin. When Destiny had finished her choked narrative Arts spoke, mouth muffled by the girl's hair, her little voice precise, almost distant, as it retrieving something from memory, a verse learned long ago by rote.

"I will visit the fat one first, and he will pay with a scream for every silver he earned. And he will talk, oh my he will beg to be allowed to talk.

"And when he has, I will ride the zipline of those words, his last words I assure you, to the creature whom has so frightened you, and I will instruct him in the error of his ways. Oh darling mine, I shall teach him sternly, until he has soiled himself with the depth of his learning. He will sing for me, missy dear, he will sing until he tears his throat with his music.

"But that will be later. For now you sleep, without dream, a sleep of mending..."

And she placed a single finger beneath her lover's chin, and raised her face to confront the naked power of those terrible eyes.

Destiny Youngblood

Date: 2015-02-07 19:43 EST
As Arts spoke, promising a wealth of pain and vengeance, Destiny relaxed into her lover's arms. Bit by bit her muscles unclenched, so that when Arts lifted her chin in order for their eyes to meet - dusty blue locked to drowning brown, all Destiny could manage was a little gasp before her eyes fluttered closed, unwilling to fight the overwhelming compulsion to sleep.

Just as the heavy veil of dreamless slumber wrapped around her, as her body sagged against the thin frame of Arts, she breathed a single word.

"Good....good..."

She repeated the word like a mantra, until her voice trailed off into an exhale, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest telling Arts she was well and truly asleep, the easing of the lines on her brow revealing this was a peaceful sleep, one in which she could start the healing process.

Artsblood

Date: 2015-02-08 17:42 EST
When she was certain that Destiny would sleep for some time, Arts gently unwrapped herself from the girl and arranged her on her side, knees drawn slightly up in a position the thin woman presumed would be comfortable. She covered her lover with a sheet and then, because she had allowed the room to grow cold, fished out an old thermal blanket. Though off-white with use and washings, and thread-sprung where sleeping toes and fingers had caught upon its weave, it was clean and warm. This she placed over the girl as well, tucking it in around her.

Clothing was the first puzzle. Clearly her ruined Lolita dress was not appropriate attire for a would-be chanteuse. She flipped through Destiny's costumes, racked in hangers in the otherwise empty closet. None of these would fit, of course, but they provided needed insight and inspiration. Thus informed, she slipped out of the motel, fastening the Christmas tree of locks on the door and checking each before she left. There were clothing outlets enough in Rhy"Din, and she selected the most salacious of these for her shopping.

This took some time, as Arts was unused to dressing for the male eye (or any eye, for that matter, the practice being an indulgence she had abandoned some time ago). In the end she settled for a pair of black tights that cupped her skinny legs and bottom like a second skin, a pair of stack-heeled ankle boots bedecked with silver chains, and a tiny tube top that did not overly restrict her already small breasts and left her shoulders and midriff bare. The outfit left little to the imagination and served to exaggerate what scant physical charms she possessed.

She had visited Destiny's place of employment before, and found it easily. It's star attraction gone, there was little business in the establishment when she entered, though not a few eyes followed her. Making her way to the bar, she asked the 'tendress there, a blonde clinging to fading youth in the hopes of enhancing her tips, if she could speak to Mr. DiMichele, as she was interested in auditioning to perform.

The woman eyed her with suspicion and no little skepticism, but after a call on an internal phone she led Arts to a room behind the bar and knocked until a voice, high-pitched and not a little nervous, bade her enter. The owner was clearly still suffering from nerves as a result of the deal he had made. His pinstriped suit bore the wrinkles of repeated wearings and he had the sour smell of a man who had enjoyed too little, or perhaps no, sleep the prior evening.

"I'm here to audition, for a singing job," she whispered, her little voice as soft as a first kiss.

There was enough of the businessman still lingering among his fears to cause him to shake his head and laugh.

"I'm sorry, doll," he said, "but I don't think you have the voice for it. And your figure" Hey, no offense but my customers like a girl with a little meat on her bones."

She stepped closer, her eyes all over him like greedy hands. "They say the devil likes skinny girls "cause he can get closer to them," she whispered. "And I promise you I'm real good at using what I've got."

He had never touched Destiny, she had been too valuable for that, but Arts had watched him watch her and knew him for what he was. She smiled as he took a step closer, and raised her eyes to meet his.

DiMichele's mind bucked and struggled like a fox in a trap, but however frantically it kicked and twisted his limbs were somehow motionless. Paralyzed, immobile, he watched her approach, and she savored the quick blush of fear stink rising from him.

"Ah, you cannot move" You are quite overcome with my beauty' But you will find that you can talk, if you try ever so hard. Tell me, dear, where I can find the man you sold Destiny Youngblood to."

He tried to shake his head, stuttered denials, and she pouted, directly in front of him now.

"No, no," she whispered. "Your mouth seems to be not working correctly. Perhaps I can help?"

She slipped her forefingers between his lips. It might have been an erotic gesture, save for the chill of those digits, the slowly increasing pressure as she stretched his mouth wide.

The pain grew incrementally, until his lips split at the corners, pouring a goatee of blood onto his double chin and dripping in Pollock pattern upon his suit. He wished he could black out, but even that release was somehow forbidden as his cheeks tore and the pain screamed in his mind. All the while the great eyes studied him with little more than an idle curiosity.

When she finally slipped her fingers from the ruin of his face, he was ready to confess to anything, and did, as she fastidiously wiped her fingers on his shirt. When he had told all, name and address and even the amount paid, she patted him on the cheek.

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" She whispered, slipping the iron corkscrew from its twist into the fabric at the back of her tube top. He was still blubbering his agreement when she drove the thing into the front of his skull, twisted in once hard, and pulled it free, leaving a little grey slug of brain matter in the middle of his forehead.

She checked her watch, pinning it with a finger as it tried to slip around her skinny wrist. Destiny would sleep for some hours yet. There was still time to finish her chores.

Artsblood

Date: 2015-02-26 19:50 EST
The curiously named Sir Nightshade tracked Destiny, Arts tracked him. Thus their progress continued in ever-tightening circles. It was only a matter of time before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

The creature was waiting outside of the Inn when in happened. He was clearly hoping to surprise the chanteuse on her arrival or departure, when he felt a chill in the air quite unconnected to the bitter cold of the evening.

"And so we meet," she said, her little voice like the sighing settle of an empty house on a dark night.

Nightshade was not to be trifled with. A wave of his hand and a spoken word would send his enemies away, to a dimension where things other than he would complete his work. His eyes blazing, arrogant, he did so, with an almost effete flip of the wrist.

He had not counted on her will, however, which clung to place as if her black hi-tops had taken root. The little black Lolita dress whipped against her skinny legs, stray bits of lace from it swirling off into elsewhere, but when the force of the spell had dissipated she was still there.

As he stared at her in surprise, she took her turn, flung every trick and trap in her strange eyes at him, willing Nightshade to obedience, to slavery, to slavering servitude. His eyes burned red as he resisted; he was not a creature so easily ensnared.

But the attempted capture was a ruse, and while he battled her eyes Arts employed a more pedestrian attack, driving her cupped hand beneath his ribs and, grasping one, with a cruel twist and jerk pulling the white bone, streaked with gore, free.

Damaged, as angry as fearful, he turned to another spell, one that would have burned her where she stood. He was in the midst of a complicated manipulation of fingers, far enough into it to send a bolt of yellow fire that quite denuded the right side of her head of hair, when she brought his own bone down upon his hand, breaking fingers and knuckles.

Nightshade raised his other hand, but his mouth was spread in a little "o" of pain and surprise. She licked the rib once, a cruel emphasis, and rammed it down his throat to the broken hilt.

The man fell to the ground, good hand scrabbling for purchase on the sharp shards of rib, but it was in too deep, too little of it remaining free to grasp.

She pinned that hand with her foot then, preventing any further nonsense, and the look in his eyes spoke clearly of his recognition of the impossibility of breath, of the end that it implied.

She kept him there, as he choked and gagged around his own bone, as his body bucked and beat itself upon the ground in search of air. Until it had finally gone quite still.

Leaning over the corpse, she carefully loosened his silk tie, slipped it over her head and snugged it, a trophy incongruous against the cotton of her little dress.

"You sing rather poorly," she whispered, giving the corpse a lazy kick for good measure, "but it was your swan song, so it will have to do."

Artsblood

Date: 2015-03-12 19:13 EST
When she returned to the motel following Nightshade's demise, however, she found it empty, most of Destiny's clothing gone. She sat on the unmade bed, letting the hollowness of the space fill her.

They had not uttered the "l" word, but it hurt still. What could it be other than that the horror of what she had set out to do in revenge had revealed the horror within, and been too much to bear.

She sat unmoving there for some hours, letting the thin cup of herself fill with loss. It's a hard life being a monster.