Topic: give up the ghost

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-08-22 01:12 EST

Breaking into the house had been easy enough. He could have avoided the doors entirely, but there was something satisfying about cracking through the glass window of his own home that he found almost charming. Glass scattered everywhere and was crushed beneath his heels. A fine patina of dust lifted from the floor in his wake as he trailed through each room like a ghost, observing the living headstone the boy had left for him. He touched nothing.

Leaving the house was more difficult. He stood in the doorway that overlooked the sea, though he could see little more than the moon's reflection crawling across the water. His expression was passive; he lit a cigarette and placed it between his teeth, letting the scent of clove and smoke smother out the smells of his old life. Minutes waned, or longer. He could see the edges of the dawn and the cold smell of a fall morning. The cigarette died out between his fingers. When he heaved a sigh, fog began to gather at his heels.

The beach house burned long into the night, leaving scorch marks in the sand and a black skeleton that reached up into the sky. It was cruel, but Sinjin knew no other way.

--

don't hurt me, don't haunt me
in your arms, in your arms

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-08-22 14:25 EST

There was only one beacon in Keythe?s life before, but this one shined brighter ? his Serena. When she sang, the world fell silent for her and every molecule of the galaxy turned toward her. He was transfixed. There was nothing better, nothing worse, nothing else. Tohias was his shadow, his wife was his harmony, and their daughter was the terror of a dying star. He loved her.

He sat in his chambers, his long legs stretched out before him with his fingers steepled beneath his chin. Beside him stood Starla (nervous, flitting, proud and yet bird-like in her anxieties) who watched with the wide-eyed care of a mother while the daughter held her first training blade. Tohias?s shadow loomed over her. Keythe would have no other begin his daughter?s training.

Her pale eyes stood out from her dark-skinned face, solemn, attentively watching Tohias. She was six. Older than Keythe when he began, but ah, she was different, and they all Knew. The Spaniard tipped her blade up to the proper position with the edge of his own. He lifted his gaze once to his lord?s (do you know why I teach her? do you understand what she will do? your-end-my-end, singing, singing) before he took a heavy step back. ?Again.?

She swept through the motions. The false blade trailed through the air. Beside Keythe, Starla hummed and touched his shoulder while the world went still. She will kill you, someday. She will kill us. She will be everything we could not, and more, and the galaxy will bare itself to her will. The Scion of House Misra. The Dying Star. Keythe?s eyes went distant and half-lidded as his long fingers curled at Starla?s wrist.

Serena finished, her stance spread wide, her training saber held aloft, defensive. Tohias watched her (did not watch her; watched the way his lord?s eyes focused past her, felt the way the world seemed to hang on a hinge around her) in silence. Something heavy weighed in his gaze.

He corrected her stance. ?Again,? he said, and the spirits sang around her. Tohias could not escape them any less than he could escape his lord's.

--

i used to think
there is no future left at all
i used to think

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-08 16:53 EST

He was too out of touch to get the clever ones. Cats and dogs, even ravens. He sat on the edge of a dumpster lid and pondered over the pigeon that was walking the same circular path since the Spaniard had plucked its brain with a will of force that the bird could not resist. Its vapid expression infuriated him. This had never been one of his specialties, but the weight of Tizona slung across his shoulder was a burden that Sinjin was not meant to bear. It, like most other things, was too good for him and too good to belong in the ash with the rest of the grave.

That was when he spied the jackdaw.

The bird was malnourished and riddled with disease. One of its clawed feet had been rendered to little more than an ashen stump and it hobbled as it flew, screeching at the pigeon who dared to circle too close. It was dying and furious and hateful. Sinjin loved it.

"Shh," the sinner crooned, gentle as a lover. "Shh."

Riding its mind was like sliding onto the back of an unbroken horse, but it came with gifts that even a clever bird could not refuse: wings that flew, a clawed foot that grasped, and the promise of life. Like all things the Spaniard offered, they were not real, but it was often enough.

The jackdaw soared high into the heavens and crowed victory while Sinjin Fai slipped out of the alleyway and left Tizona behind.

--
there's an empty space inside my heart
where the weeds take root

tonight i'll set you free
i'll set you free

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-09 16:32 EST

I spent years being your armor, your shelter. When others pierced what mortal flesh you let remain, I soothed the wounds and let you learn. I never leashed you, but I watched you as a shadow does, just a step behind in case you might fall. I watched you grow like a thorn bush with bright red blossoms on its crown. Even in what you felt were your darkest moments, you were beautiful to me. You were my son, my lover, my hunt-brother. You were all these things. You left and wandered, and I tarried at my tasks but it never changed. I loved you. All of you. You thought yourself a monster, and sometimes let yourself become one because the people around you needed a monster too. But you were never my monster; it was simply a part of you, like all the rest.

But now I will be yours.

It will be easier this way. For them, and for you. It will be easier for them to hate me. It will be easier for them to align the name of Sinjin Fai with venomous anger and want for revenge. It will be easier to let them pull you far away from me until you burn with their hatred and forget kissing in the moonlight with your tears on my shoulder. They are more than your armor. You have made them your collar and lead. You have made them the nail that drives you into the ground, and they love you for it, and you love them. A feral bird in a rusted cage that they made to protect you. I will make myself all the things they think I am. I will be all that I was not able to be while I was your shadow.

You did not do this to me, my love. Never forget that.

They did. All of them.

I have no heart left in me. My soul has long not been my own. Whatever was left of Tohias belongs to you and belongs to my Lord ? and at some point the liar must become his lies.

All I have left for them is Sinjin Fai.

--

so lock the kids up safe tonight
and shut the eyes in the cupboard --
i've got the smell of a local man
who's got the loneliest feeling.

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-11 16:58 EST

I lived my life as an exceptional liar even before I was dead. But in the dead-life, the afterwards, it controlled me. I don't know if you ever understood this. I doubt it matters any more. You and I, we spent so much time developing all the mysteries of your life that mine seemed like child's play in comparison. It began slowly. I always liked risks. I always like chance and the promise of the larger, more dangerous catch. But after my blood went cold, I could no longer resist it. It's part of me now. It is me.

With Bastian, it was knowledge. He needed it, all of it. If it was on paper, he would read it. If it was hidden in song, he would find it. If it was only in the mouth's of men, he would torture them until they revealed his secrets to him. I don't know where he is now, but I imagine it's driven him mad. He craved the eternal and spent all of himself trying to find it.

Ambrose needed power and control. I imagine he spent so much of his existence underneath the heel of men that he vowed to never be so again. Anything he could do to control the lives of those around him -- anything -- he would do it. He gave up his loves. Sacrificed friendships and created genocides. None of it mattered. He needed to be the one who turned the screws.

I don't think I was ever so bad as him, but I know my own vices well after all these years.

I need the risks. I need the danger, no matter how poorly calculated the outcomes may be. I need to be the chance and wheedle the deal that could make or break me. Every time the opportunity presents itself, to not take it -- I couldn't. No. That's why I found you. That's why I love you. You are my greatest risk.

For the most part, I would say my transactions favored positively. Royal flush, black jack, seven-seven-seven flashing in white lights and dancing coins. I went from a whore on the streets to a multi-world business owner. I had a home, a place -- friends, lovers. You.

It all came with bigger risks and bigger opportunities. The cycle doesn't end. I am Ravnos, and I am ill with my own design. But it's all over now. I have nothing left. Peccavi, Ambrosio. Rekah, Mesteno, Ali, Fio. Home, and you. You. You you you you. The cards have been swept away.

I wonder if I rebuild my castles -- what will turn them all to ruined sand this time?

Place your bets. The odds are never in my favor, but I am still the exceptional liar.

---

i'm a moth
Who just wants to share your light

i'm just an insect
Trying to get out of the night

i only stick with you
because there are no others

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-12 10:57 EST

He had nothing. The empire he built under Ambrosio had fallen apart. Bastian had disappeared, trapped in his hunger for knowledge; he had tracked down Sabine on the streets and saw the young daughter that she and Marcus shared, but he dared not interrupt the life they so desperately scraped together. Evan Peccavi itself, a spoiled gem of his own design in the dark heart of the city, had descended into ruin after he left.

For the first time in years, he was penniless and now homeless. He had no choice but to accept Skid?s charity.

The Spaniard was tired. He had dropped his glamour, reduced to a grey-eyed withering thing that was more monster than man, hanging in the edges of the Nightmare?s shadow. "What is this?" He asked suddenly, and looked at Skid with greying eyes. He said nothing on his own beauty, or lack there of.

Skid brought his arms up, and put the building on display. "This, Sinjin, is where the Dead go when they've no one else that will take them in.
"When that happens, I do."

After Skid had left him, the sinner ambled through the apartment building with the aimless dedication of a man who had no idea what he was doing with his life. Each room had a piece of a life that he did not understand: a beauro with one drawer open, a collection of standing (but not working) lamps, four chairs standing apart with a table against a wall. It so happened that the one room with a bed was occupied.

He could only see the Shade when the Christmas lights flickered just so. It hovered off center of the room, still and silent until it saw Sinjin standing in the frame of the door. Too tired to be hesitant, the Spaniard began to move into the room, circling the Shade until he arrived at the bed. ?We are going to be room mates,? he told it as he threw himself on the cold mattress, mashing his face into the top of it. He was alone and hated every second of it. ?Until I throw myself off of this building.?

"I want you to have one of these apartments, Sinjin. For as long or as short a time as you need it, or want it. Three of them have strong shutters, and you can lock them." He looked at the sinner, and leaned back against the wall. "Will you accept my gift, and my apology?

?I'd like it if you would."

He wasn't sure why the Nightmare's charity made him ache. He paused in the hall and looked at Skid with an expression too raw to be hidden, riddled with confusion and pain and who knew what else at this point.

"You have nothing to apologize for, hermoso," he eventually said, though his voice was quiet.

Did Skid understand? Maybe. And maybe that was why it hurt more, too -- that he could understand, a creature who was a kindred spirit and a friend, but never more -- and Salvador could not. The Spaniard looked at Skid for another moment that seemed to linger too long before he slipped close again, bumping his forehead against the mask that covered his face. He didn't care. He breathed against it, or breathed him in -- all of it, all of it painful and real. It was all he had left.

Sinjin only remembered to open his eyes again several hours later. It was still dark out ? perhaps he had slept through the day ? but he was painfully aware that he was not alone. There was the Shade whose room he had stolen, its jack-o-lantern smile shivering in the dull glow of the Christmas lights ? and there was another one, little more than a wisp of barely visible air in the doorway. Another near the corner as if it did not wish to be seen, but it stared at Sinjin.

All of them did.

At some point the Spaniard slowly began to sit up, resting his elbows against his thighs as the first Shade drifted close enough to touch. All the lost things, dead things, broken and forgotten in Skid?s darkened menagerie. ?You understand,? Sin spoke to it, his voice little more than a rasp. ?Don?t you??

Sinjin crushed his face into his palms and finally allowed himself to mourn.

--

why so green and lonely
heaven sent you to me

(Written in part with the awesome Necromesh.)

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-15 10:16 EST

The two of them sat on the porch of the inn and exchanged smoke: the Crow in all his colored ribbons and the sinner in faded black.

"Tell me a story, Sinjin." The smoke rings continued.

The words were old and felt like scripture on his tongue; Sin smiled. "Does it have to have a happy ending?"

He watched the man through pretty rings. "So very few have them."

"I wonder why that is," Sin pondered aloud, and plucked the cigarette from between his lips. He opened his eyes and looked at the empty street before he spoke again. "Once upon a time there was a dog. The kind that was all legs and gangly, but with a reasonable disposition. A hunting dog. A creature with purpose.

"But still a creature of the world, and a dog no less, it found itself attached to its master's boy. When it was with the boy, its purpose was different. It was not a hunting dog. It was other things to the boy -- a friend or a pillow or a million imaginary things. But when the dog was old enough, it fell to heel at its master's call."

He paused to pull another drag from his cigarette, gesturing loosely with one hand. "It was a fairly decent hunting dog, but -- having spent the majority of its life with the boy and not the master -- it did not quite live up to the whole of its intent."

It lacked drive. It did not want to hunt, though it would. It wanted to please its master, but only enough to go home to the boy." Sinjin closed his eyes again. "So the master, at wits end with his imperfect weapon, but not cruel enough to kill it, left the dog at home. And for awhile, the dog was pleased."

"But the master got another dog and the boy forgot about the first. He was no longer the best friend, the pillow, the imaginary steed. He was no longer wanted. The boy shut his door to him and left him in the yard, in the bitter cold rains and the deep snows."

"And that," he said, opening his eyes again, "is how the dog learned to hunt for his master. Because when there was nothing left, it had purpose."

"The purpose in life is not to be happy. It is to be useful...," the Crow rumbled Emerson to no one.

The two of them say in silence as Sinjin observed the comings and goings of the inn. ?Is it a happy ending, do you think??

?It is an ending,? spoke the Crow, and that was all.

"It is an ending," Sinjin agreed and stabbed out his cigarette against the woodgrain. What he wondered is if there was a room for another beginning.

--

mother mary come to me
for I am a wicked child
I have sinned and I am so confused and
I am a wicked child

(Taken from live play with Jack Scot.)

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-09-24 11:08 EST

"No one can take me from you, Sin. Anyone who tried...?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't be with anyone who wanted that."

Sinjin lay across the stolen bed at Shady Lanes, staring up at the ceiling. Everything still tasted and smelled like blood ? first from Salvador and again from the Nightmare ? and left him with a content feeling that only went skin deep as the shades drifted in and out of focus through the room and out again, as they had since Sin arrived. On most days he would pay them mind and coax them to realness again, but today was different. He stung from Thorn?s vitriol, both deserved and misplaced, and he burned with guilt from what the younger Spaniard had told them all: he and Rei were over.

His feelings on the half-fae and the mongrel had devolved from anger to bitterness to an honest apathy; Rei was important to Salvador. He and Sin often had important people in their lives that the other did not share, that drifted in and out of their lives or stayed forever. Either Rei did not understand or jealousy made him not want to and Salvador ? foolish boy ? would pay little mind to what he felt was weakness in the reaping days. The Spaniard scrubbed his face with both hands, itching his palms against the rough stubble of his jaw. His meager attempts to communicate with Thorn went about as well as could be expected; he had a feeling that a chat over tea with the mongrel would be just as bad, if not worse.

He exhaled uselessly with a childish groan that hung in the air. ?Okay,? he told no one but the shades. ?Fine. Fine.?

Sinjin rolled onto his feet and went to find Gemethyst; the jackdaw crowed and followed him into the evening.

--

A tiny flame inside my hand
A compromise I never planned
Unravel out the finer strands

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-11-05 17:14 EST

This is what he means when he tells me I don't let him help me.

He's right. I don't.

How much calm and detachment can you allow yourself, Tohias? How much can you separate yourself from your failures so you can be the rock that he needs? This is why he made his pack. You left, and his hands were forced. You have interrupted it. Despite your best intentions, you have broken it.

And you have broken yourself.

There was a time where I wore my miseries on my skin for all to see and now I cannot bear to -- not even to him. And so this overwhelming sense of failure and burden and together-but-apart feeling has grown like a tidal wave in the weeks that I have returned to Rhy'din. Part of it is a masquerade. I am unsure if this place can ever be home like it once was. There was a time when I owned these streets and I was a part of them -- and it's gone now, all gone. Sand through my fingers.

Who am I? What's left of me to give? Is it enough for him? Is it enough for me?

I told him in the Book of the Dead: I have no pack any longer. I would not be able to give anything to them, but the double-edged knife is that I gain nothing in return. I am the solitary monster. I am the ghost. Your hand is forced, Tohias. I must build.

Father, help me. Please. Just once more. I need to understand how to begin again. I need to find the marionette strings. Something, anything --

Someone. Help me. Help.

--

you could never live out in the open
regretting every word you've spoken
when you break it's too late for you to fall apart
and the blame that you claim is all your own fault

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2014-12-24 10:22 EST

He did not leave it beneath the tree, but resting on one of the branches among the many adornments Sabine and Salvador had placed there. He did not doubt the boy would find it; the scent of dogwoods was a strange siren call to them both, and curiosity would doubtlessly lead him to the plain little black box that Sinjin abandoned there.

Salvador's name was scrawled on a folded note that hung from its edge in a handwriting that was unmistakably Sinjin's, and inside was more of the same.

My love,

We covet each other like secrets; we share scars in the dark. Maybe we think it is to protect the love we have, for fear of what may happen when we expose it to the harsh light of the world. There is a piece of you that I have that I wish to share with no other, the same as you hold a piece of mine close to you, hidden away from prying eyes. My soul. My karma made flesh. My beautiful monster.

We covet each other like secrets not to remind us of each other, but of the important pieces that we have chosen to share, of the things tangled so deeply together that there is no prying them apart ? nor would we pry them apart, even in death. It is finding what you love and letting it kill you.

You are still, and always will be, my greatest risk and perfect accident.

Yours, always,
Tohias

Inside the box is what appears to be a plain ring, and a separate chain, should Salvador wish to wear it or the ring itself. On the outside it looked to be nothing more than titanium, but the inner band is made from a piece of the dogwood tree that Salvador gifted to him years past:

http://i.imgur.com/021kG6K.jpg

--

he won't see the sun again for years to come
he's broken out in love

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2015-01-04 17:45 EST

I have not seen the boy this lovesick in years.

I would be a fool if I said it didn't bother some part of me to see him like this -- to see his priorities shift, however temporary -- although at this point it is a feeling that is inconsequential and easily ignored. On the other hand, he will not be alone when I leave again. And what are we, if not constantly searching for the same drugged high that we find when we are first in love?

We are alone.

Someday he will have a partner who doesn't treat my presence like a cloud in an otherwise sunny sky.

The jackdaw will leave me soon. The songbird shall have her secret.

I think I shall cut my hair.

---

i've seen it all, i've seen the dark
i've seen the brightness in one little spark.

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2015-01-05 09:32 EST

Perhaps it?s the timing of it and that I don?t have very much left to give. I did not come back for them. I didn?t even come back for Ali or Skid. I came back for him. What time left I have to give is his and he has chosen to dedicate it to another ? and even before this, before any of my leavings and comings, I have never been placed so completely in a different lover?s shadow. Even if it?s for fear of my departure that he turns wholly to him, it has an edge of cruelty to it. I came back for an anchor and have been cast out to sea, but for Skid ? and that is a different sort of anchor, though I still love him dearly for it.

On the other hand, his happiness is paramount. And he is happy again. It is better that he is happy when I leave again. My departure taught him his independence. Is it time now to learn my own?

In my anger I thought to be his monster; instead I have become his ghost. The irony doesn?t escape me.

Tomorrow I shall speak to Faye. I am running out of time to avoid it.

--

i need you and i want you 'cause i know you from before
i hate you and i fear you but i hold open the door

Sinjin Fai · Date: 2015-01-08 17:12 EST

I have two weeks to figure out what the fuck happens when I break my Word of Blood and two weeks to find a way to avoid it. I have presumably two weeks and maybe a day before Keythe and Starla notice and set about whatever retribution they feel like delivering for five years of failure. This could be terrible.

I might die. I might live forever. I might release this pack of dogs in the governor's office after training them all to start barking at the same time. I might convince Rekah to build a pillow fort with me and then claim it as a foreign nation.

I haven't been this excited in an awfully long time.

I've forgotten, haven't I?

I am Chaos. I am Choice.

I am Sinjin Mother****ing Fai and I turn the screws.