Topic: "Exceptions are deadly."

Michiko

Date: 2008-09-01 18:23 EST
"Exceptions are deadly."

The phrase was running through her mind, as she moved through the streets to her little hide-away. It was tiny and sparsely decorated. A little hole in the wall to throw everyone off her true trail.

"Exceptions are deadly."

Her whole existence was the exception to the rule. The little rich girl had everything but her parent's love. She was always left in the care of nannies or by herself as she grew older. It was as if she only existed to show the world they were a happy family. It was a sham.

"Exceptions are deadly.

It was always one activity or another. Acrobatics, martial arts, etiquette, decorum. Everything was a contradiction. She never had friends beyond those that knew she had money. She knew it too...

The money gave her in roads into the party scenes. It allowed her to get her hands on drugs, alcohol... The thrill was there, but she was left feeling empty.

"Exceptions are deadly."

Then came the accident. They never caught the one that supplied the alcohol. The driver of the car was killed on impact. He cripple a 12 year old girl that had been playing nearby. It rattled her to no end. She still had a conscience. She would never forgive herself. The parents would never know that the mysterious donor that paid for the medical bills and set up a scholarship for their daughter was the person that was ultimately responsible for her injuries.

Only one person would ever know and she was not telling. It felt good to atone in her own way. Her conscience would never by clear, but she could live with herself now and atone.

"Exceptions are deadly."

There came a time when she needed another thrill. It was in her blood. But this time the thrill was in taking from those that had gained through the suffering of others. It was never money, but always something of value. It was always something that her victims could not afford to go to the police about.

If she knew who the piece truly belonged too, they would find it returned to them. If not, she knew a few fences that could turn it into easy cash. 1/2 that cash would go into some sort of charity, the rest would fund her activities. Weapons, tools, different hiding places.

Her family funded the other part of her lifestyle. She stopped living for the party, instead public ally taking up just causes. Opening a shelter, Giving to an orphanage... Her father turned his back on her works, just as he turned his back on her.

"Exceptions are deadly."

"(vq) You don't know the half of it..."

Michiko

Date: 2008-09-06 14:17 EST
Thrills can't erase certain things. Like being in a new place and knowing no one. She couldn't hide from that press of loneliness.

She tossed the small pouch onto the table. A few gems spilled out and she looked on in disgust. People had died because of these stones. They were not the most valuable in the world, but it didn't matter to the man she had liberated them from. He had killed the man that had found these so he could steal his claim.

That greed had left a young mother on the streets... The money from the sale of these gems would see her through the hard times. She was young enough to be able to find someone to help her with the baby. Still, she would be watching.

She always watched. Always on the outside. Never letting anyone close. She never had a boyfriend. Never been kissed...

She shed the bodysuit she had been wearing. She took a fall tonight and had bruises along her right side. She just wanted a bath and bed at this point. As she soaked her weary frame in the hot water, she wondered once again if she was on the right path.

It was long and lonely.

Michiko

Date: 2009-02-28 11:39 EST
Talk about taking a fall. She smirked as she read Marco's blog again. 'Pretty, naive Michiko.'

She frowned as she took a drink of the Glenlivet she had at hand. No, she didn't have a scary looking brother to 'guard her virtue' or a father that gave a flip about her. She had herself and pretty only got you so far in this town.

If you weren't sex on heels, off the wall bonkers, or extremely popular, you got no where. At least Mish'cael saw her. Was it the real her or just the desire not to feel alone in this hellhole? She downed the glass of scotch as she reclined on the couch in her apartment.

Who the frack cared? She was certainly tired of caring about what others thought.

She set the glass down and went to work on disassembling the weapons before her. She didn't even look at the guns as she took them down to their bare parts. She then went through each part, cleaning and reassembling the gun. She examined each firearm critically and returned them to holsters.

She's never had to honestly kill a person before. She knew how to use them and has used them in self-defense or against something not entirely human.

Such foreboding thought warranted another glass of scotch. She poured the amber liquor and looked out the window. There was a standing invite, up to him if he wanted to take her up on it.

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-01 10:02 EST
She's never been out in the open, in your face, about the abilities she has. Sure, she push herself with the gymnastics. She has always been Olympics level even if she never bothered to compete.

Why not bother? Because it was something that her father pushed her into. She loves the exercise and the rush from being on the mat or the bars, but not the competition or the glory hounds. The competition and the endorsements is what father wanted, not her.

They've always been at odds. She has always been rebellious, wanted to find her own path. He's always wanted a good little girl that obeys without question.

She couldn't tell you how many times she skipped school just to hide the bruises.

Then there's this little bit she inherited from her mother, The Fae magics. It has always been joked that someone on her mother's side slept with a Fae. That is true if you don't go digging deep enough. The truth is her mother is that fae. Her real mother that is, not the woman her father is married to. It is just another lie that her life is based on.

She is the one that is 1/2 fae and hiding as a human. She knew that she had access to the glamour. She tries to down play her looks to blend in. Other magics seem cut off to her, yet her skin sometimes feels like it is tingling, crawling. She is afraid to call it though. Afraid of being the freak that her father always claimed she was.

Even now, she does not tell her lover. He is not normal by any stretch of the imagination. Blue-gray skin, the ruined remains of wings on his back... She still wonders and has not gotten up the nerve to pry.

In many ways, She feels very much the coward.

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-01 18:21 EST
"47... 48... 49... 50." She counted off the curls as she hung from the make shift gym in the apartment. She had is installed after Veilos had broken things off. She let herself get complacent and the expedition with Alain had shown her another thrill.

Alain DeMeur... He started off as judging her a spoiled rich girl. Always looking for a party, a guy to latch on... He had thought her shallow and seemed determined to knock her off her pedestal.

Then he caught her on one of her runs. The job was to gather information on one of the crime bosses in the city. The guy was bad news and even Alain was looking for a way to take him down. She managed to get the papers that would be needed, but blew her cover with the one person that had been determined to make her life miserable. Talk about a blessing in disguise.

She was not the swallow rich girl he thought. There was a depth to her that only one truly knew about. The one was the man to found her after the accident. An old warrior that knew of her mother. He picked her up, shook her out of her self-loathing and then trained her. She never guessed he was high court Fae. She didn't realize it until the end. Another job gone bad and he paid with his life.

That night she had found and lost her uncle...

"71... 72... 73... 74... 75." The exercise did nothing to prevent a tear from slipping down her cheek. In the background, the music of Queensryche's 'Operation: Mindcrime' gave her the motivation to continue.

I awoke on impact
Under surveillance of the camera eye
Searching high and low
The criminal mind found at
the scene of the crime
Handcuffed and blind, I didn't do it
she said she loved me
I guess I never knew
But do we ever, ever really know?
She said she'd meet me on the other side
But I knew right then, I'd never find her

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-01 19:00 EST
The music in the player slipped over to Operation: Mindcrime II as she slipped from the bar and over to the punching bag.

She has always been a little stronger, a little faster, a little different. She moved through her workout into punching the bag. She needed to release the anger and frustration that flowed through her.

Veilos dumping her so he could go play hero. He told her it was to save people from a tyrant and that he might not survive. She let him go. What else could she do?

Then there was the auction. It killed something inside of her to have been bought for 500 gold after all the outrageous bids by someone that only felt sorry for her. It was a fantastic date. It would have been a girl's dream, were it not prefaced with the "I bought you because I felt sorry you looked so sad up there."

Yet, the night after the date, she found herself in the arms and bed of Mish'Cael. Anti-climatic that her first time was with someone that had the rep of being a womanizer. Even more so that she was back in his bed. It was on 'One Day at a Time."' Didn't stop her from feeling cheapened somehow.

There was no white knight in her future. No one that could make her feel better about herself. It wasn't even about what others felt. It was about what she knew and felt.

Cheap and invisible... Unloved and unwanted by even her blood family.

With a snarl, she put her hand through the leather of the bag. It didn't even hurt or phase her. She was the freak.

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-04 19:10 EST
She moved through the slow meditative motions as the CD player run through a selection of meditative music. The selection was original work by a group call Kokin Gumi. The traditional sounds mixing with the contemporary adied her in reaching that state of mind where her body flowed through the relaxation techniques of her Tai Chi Routine.

She kept moving as one song ended and the selection changed to a more fast beat piece.

I don't believe in the existence of mercy's guiding hand...
Not with all that I have witnessed, I cannot understand.
Forever burdened with the knowledge that I could have been so much more
When the truth is hard to suffer, I knew this all before.

The opening rifts of the song set the pace of her workout. Her body flowed through the katas and the fighting moves. Her citrine eye took on a colder light, almost becoming as hard as the gemstone they resembled.

There is no comfort in faith, the heavens still will fall.
A thousand towers rise before me and I cannot climb them all.
There is no kind of joy in this, there is no time that it can heal,
When emptiness and shadows bliss, there is nothing left to feel.

There was no comfort in her faith. So many things in this realm were at odds with the beliefs that had been drilled into her since her earliest memories. The comfort came in the tangibles, things she could verify.

I have not abandoned hope, though I know there's nothing more.
Tired and alone, you forget what you hoped for.

I will walk this ground forever
And stand guard against your name.
I will give all I can offer,
I will shoulder all the blame.
I am sentry to you now,
All your hopes and all your dreams.
I will hold you to the light,
That's what forever means.


Hope.. She should abandon it. Her body flowed as if fighting against a ghost. There has been nothing to give her hope.

No that was not right. Serena and some of her other friends did.

I was never what you wanted, I could never never please.
I swallowed all our sorrow in the midst of my disease.
All my fortunes, all my gains, all the battles I have won...
Now collapsing like the rain, I stand alone, your only son...

Take some solace in these words, take notice of this place.
Hollow whispers that they are, like the wind upon my face.
Sing softly in my ear and look at me with wonder.
I will try to ease your fear as the darkness pulls you under.

There were ghost she still fought. She could never please her father. There was always a longing in her heart to know even a little love. She felt so starved and yet kept it all inside. She was bleeding on the inside and could do nothing about it. It was killing her spirit by inches.

I will walk this ground forever
And stand guard against your name.
I will give all I can offer,
I will shoulder all the blame.
I am sentry to you now,
All your hopes and all your dreams.
I will hold you to the light,
That's what forever means.

She continued to move as if she was truly fighting. Her moves were controlled, flowing and powerful. She had it all timed to finish with the end of the song. She came back to the final stance as the last note rang out.

The workout was good. She had not found all of her answers, but she was satisfied with the ones she did have.

It would have to do... For now.

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-22 21:19 EST
She woke with a start and a harsh intake of breath. Even now the memories of the first kill called to something within her soul. The sight of the kill, the moment of death caused that tingling in her left hand to grow and almost burn. She was in the clothing she had worn the night prior having collapsed into the bed after Caine had delivered to her place.

Caine...

Her heart tightened in her chest at the thought of him. She smiled at the thought. He appeared normal. Appearances though, could be very deceiving. She knew there was a lot he wasn't telling her, but she was alright with that.

She stood and walked to the window facing the street. The APV was parked outside her door. She smiled softly at that. He was being that protective of her. She was confused though. He was keeping her at arms length.

She went through the motions of packing her stuff up. She didn't know why she agreed to this, to stay at his place in Sabbatt. She was still trying to establish if there was more than just passing interest on his side. She was falling hard.

Michiko

Date: 2009-03-26 07:21 EST
Somehow they never made it to his place in Sabbatt. Instead she found herself whisked away first to the marketplace to find swimwear and summery pieces of clothing. Then she found herself on his private yacht. It felt so good to have someone that actually wanted to be with her.

And yet, true to form, she couldn't do idle for too long. So here she was, in on of the cabins of the yacht, meditating and preparing for her morning routine. The soft sounds of her meditation selection drifted through the air. She knew he could hear the music and smiled. She never let anyone close enough to see the private side of herself.

Until now...

Her movements once again increased as the tempo of the music changed from meditative to techno. The driving beats and sounds drove her through the katas and forms of the martial arts she had trained in. As much as she cared about him and how he made her feel, she was determined this time to not grow complacent.

To not lose her edge...

She had done so with Veilos. She had allowed herself to become weak, blinded with the idea of being with someone. With Caine, he encouraged that edge. He liked to give her gifts, like her new sidearm. The sidearm in her hand when she made her first kill.

That still troubled her though the feelings had lessened significantly. Everyone tried to reassure her about it, even Mish'Cael. But nothing resonated until Caine spoke with her about it.

"I was shallow, thoughtless and my actions resulted in a child being injured."

"Seems to me you balanced those scales yesterday."

Karma has a way of biting you in the ass... or lifting a weight from your heart.