A Riptide Is Comming... (Open!)

[Anonymous]

((So you may feel like the thing Sekhet reveals is a bit of a let-down... sorry about that in advance!))

Perhaps it was naive of Sekhet to even believe Nexus's story. But... it made sense. To an extent. He had powers that were... strange. He had a strange eye. He certainly didn't seem to fit the mold of every other surface dweller she had met. And there seemed to be truth to his words... a weight that she could detect. She had no reason to believe that it wasn't the truth anyways. And if so, it was a grand lie then. A lie that she would prefer to believe rather than the truth. The truth was painful, and it was ugly.

It was strange to admit her story to a stranger. She felt... exposed. Baring something that she had let fester to her heart. Her weakness. The story of why she was here. It wasn't a good feeling-- it wasn't like she had shrugged off this burden by telling it. It was more like the burden was more pertinent. The exile, more explicit. She was stuck confessing her sins to a stranger. She was truly an outcast, and nothing in this heaven and earth was going to change that. This was only making that fact more prevalent, something that sank below her skin and would tug at her until she tore herself apart.

When he mentioned the voice, Sekhet just peered at him. "Ignore it," was her simple solution. "She can't have that much control over you..." That part still didn't make any sense to her. But there were many parts of this entire situation that made no sense to her. But if he didn't want to be controlled.. wasn't even knowing that there was a voice meant that he was failing at that task? Or fate is simply a cruel bitch that will beat you until you're broken.

The conversation took a downturn. All of the images that haunted her in her sleep.. it was becoming her waking nightmare. She couldn't fight them back now; the lifeless eyes, the curling fumes of blood in the water... it was there. And it was real. She couldn't take it back. And every word he said... it only made her angrier. She struggled with her fate, fought it and let it take her over. Shackles that were tied to her wrists, ones that she couldn't break, letting them sink her. And it was her burden. Every word that Nexus told her was a lie, and her gaze only hardened into ice as he stood.

"I'm not telling you what I think all of it should be!" She snapped, her teeth even clicking. She couldn't fight the vile black thing inside of her. It was rising in her, choking her, making every word that Nexus said to her an attack. "I deserve this. I let them die! They were innocent! They were loved! It didn't matter what I did! They died, because of me!" Her voice was hoarse, as if every word clawed its way out of her throat, and her tongue only ignited them with the anger at herself.

She knew that his words weren't honest, and her eyes narrowed. "It was weak. There was a way to defeat them, had to be a way... and it didn't work! Whatever I should have done, I didn't do it!" But at what he said, the way he said it... he wanted to punish her. A snarl tore from her throat as she backed up a step, holding her trident protectively in front of her.

That thing inside of her was fighting, struggling... she snarled, and shoved her trident in the sand with violence, as if she was stabbing something, her eyes wide.

"You weren't there!" She screamed at him, as if he was the personification of everything that she had lost. "You didn't see the light leave his eyes! You weren't holding the prince's body as he looked up at you, you, as if you were the only god damn thing that he ever wanted! You didn't hold him! You didn't feel his heart beat in your hands!"

She didn't even realize that her cheeks were burning, that her chest was heaving, that she was leaning into her trident until the tines disappeared into the sand, that her voice was choked.

"You didn't hope, pray that his sister would be alive! You didn't find her body, just as broken, just as battered and torn! You didn't feel like you failed him, the man you watched from afar, the man that only looked at you in death!"

She shuddered, and glared at him.

"He's the only one who should punish me. Not you. Never you."

[Anonymous]

((Damn, I thought it was going to be that she was totally into him Dx))

He would probably never completely figure this girl out. She had a lot of baggage and a lot of problems. Normally he liked that, people like her were always very fun to harass and torture. He just...didn't have that in him right now. He could count on one hand the amount of...creatures he had felt some form of connection to, and he supposed she might have been added to the list. Now she was his thumb. That made him chuckle inwardly, amused by that thought.

She made it sound so simple. Just ignore it. Granted they seemed to be really trying to simplify their problems. Just ignore the voice you listened to for more than a thousand years. Just accept that you couldn't have saved the prince and princess. All of it was so simple, and yet both of them were a little bit too complex for that sort of thing.

There was that fire again. He knew that fire well, it kept him alive for most of his life. That hatred and anger that would burn away all who got in his way. Ah yes, the fire was a good fire, and he was glad to see it burning so strong in her. She kept saying how she could have fought them, how she could have prevented all of it. She was foolish and naive, and he was enjoying that fact actually. Maybe not as much as he might have, but he still was enjoying it a little bit.

Then came some pretty heavy truth. The prince had wanted her, and she obviously had wanted him. How very interesting indeed. "No. Never me." Nexus said finally as he slowly lowered himself down. "Because you're torturing yourself far more than I or your prince could ever do it seems." She was haunted by him, she was tortured by him, and there was nothing that Nexus could possibly do to her that would ever match it. It was disappointing, and slightly relieving for some odd reason.

"I wasn't always Nexus." He started, his eye looking up to her. "I used to be Sayarus. I used to have a mother and a father, and I even had a little house in a forest. The forest was bright that day. Very bright. I could see everything within it as I hunted. The bowstring was loose at first, the quiver on my back heavy. There, through the streams of light was a boy. A noble. I thought at first that he didn't understand our lives, how we had to hunt and survive by the skin of our teeth. I was sweating as I raised the arrow. I was so angry. Here he was just dancing and singing as he walked, not a care in the world, while I had to hunt for anything so that my family could eat. The arrow was the fast, the boy didn't even see it, he went down quickly. I left for my village...but I had no regret. No shame. No guilt. I had killed, and I didn't care." Nexus' eye had casually moved away from, her looking to the nearby forest as he talked.

"The boy wasn't a noble. He was a pawn, an undead creature that kept resurrecting himself so that I could murder him over and over again. When he finally spoke to me, after....it must have been the four hundredth time I killed him, he spoke of how he had seen my darkness and evil that first day, and how he wanted to help me unleash it." His eye slowly rotated back toward her. "I remember every kill I've made in detail. Innocent and sinful, I remember each kill. Every life I took, I remember it perfectly."

[Anonymous]

((xD Pfft, c'mon! They've only known each-other for a day! And between Nexus still threatening rape and torture... Well, that's not exactly the way to a girl's heart.))

Her problems weren't ones that could be solved. It was another paradox that she had locked herself into-- she could be released from her exile... but she couldn't accept that she couldn't save the prince and princess. She was innocent and guilty, all wrapped up in this packed, tied neatly with a curse. She waged war with herself, and lost, every day.

She kept the hatred as a way to survive, but there were days where she didn't know what she was supposed to be hating. The surface dwellers, that was always there... But who deserved the hate in her kingdom? And how much? Herself, for being so weak? Her parents, for watching her be exiled and saying not a word in her defense? The king, who's grief and rage hurt her in more ways than he could have predicted? The prince, for tearing the last of her heart to shreds?

That simmering hatred was still in her eyes as Nexus sat, and she said nothing, digging the tines of her trident further and further into the sand until they disappeared. His words struck a nerve in her, but she still remained silent, chewing on her lip. She punished herself, more than anyone else could... "No one can," she repeated.

Nexus started speaking, and for a while Sekhet didn't want to listen. She didn't want Nexus near her. He knew too much about her, and that was dangerous. She wanted him gone, away, to pretend that the evening hadn't happened. But hr was talking about death. About the anger and evil in his own heart. So she looked up, and while she was disturbed at what he said, she knew that running was the worst idea.

"You killed him," she spoke slowly, "because you were jealous. And now.. you remember each one." She paused. "Is that your curse then? You see them, every day, you see all the ones whose lives you've ended?"

Sekhet shifted, and glared at the sea. "How can that be anything like me, Nexus? I didn't let them die because I wanted it! I...," She snarled something, and yanked her trident out of the sand.

"I'm tired. And that's it. I'm tired of discussing this. I'm tired of this night, this curse. And I know none of it is going to go away."