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With Malice Toward None

Started by Magyar, March 20, 2017, 01:35:51 PM

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Magyar

"I don't... work well, with emotional connection Zira. You know this."

He struggled to find words to put his thoughts to, but he tried anyway, saying "As a consequence, or perhaps for entirely different reasons... I don't see people like that." He turned his head to look at her, a worried - almost afraid - look on his face. Normally the most animation he got was a grim smile or a scowl. "Is that normal? Even with my sisters, and my brother, I find it hard to tell them that I love them. I'd do anything for them, but I can't fucking tell them that!"

He ran his hands through his hair, letting the words roll out. He kept his problems pent up and only now were some of the pressing ones coming out. "Everyone I meet, they've at least looked at someone and felt something that I've never felt, and I've never understood. I don't know what that's like, and I don't know why... it drives me insane!"

DragonSong

Her eyes widened slightly and she sat up on one arm, shocked more that he was revealing so much than at what he was saying.

"Lucy..." Gods she wanted to touch him, but she was afraid that might make it worse. She fisted her hands in the sheets. "I- I don't really know if I can tell you what's normal," she answered honestly. "But...of what you showed me earlier is what it's like for you all the time...gods, Lucian, it's a miracle you can force yourself to talk to people at all, let alone try to convey that kind of emotion."

She looked down at her hands. "You're family knows you love them. You don't- telling someone that doesn't have to be in words, you know? You can see it in the way the act, in what they do fonyou, and what you do for them."

Another pause, then she hedged, "Or did you mean...romantically? Like- like me with T'klah?" Gods she didn't want to dredge up those memories, but if that was what he needed to talk about then damnit that's what she'd do.

Magyar

"I'm aware of my family's knowledge," he said, "I don't worry about them because I know they understand me in ways I sometimes don't understand myself."

He looked back towards the ceiling, and said, "Yes, I'm saying romantically. I don't look at people, and feel attraction. And I mean any person, male, female, humanoid or otherwise. Everyone is the same, they're all just... tools. Machines I can tinker with, not people I can grow to understand..."

DragonSong

Oh gods she was so uncomfortable talking about this. But he wouldn't have asked for her if he didn't need it.

"Lucy." She couldn't stop herself from reaching out to him, though she drew up short from actually touching him. "How long have we known each other now? Am I still just a tool to you?"

She honestly wasn't sure what to expect for an answer.

Magyar

"Fifteen years, almost..." Lucian gave her a hurt look, "No. Gods no. If I viewed you like... one of them-" he gestured to the door, and behind it, his guards, "I wouldn't have said any of this to you. I trust you..."

He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees and running him his hands through his hair. This was stressing him out, and he didn't know how to unwind. The last five hours hadn't done it, and neither had the nap.

DragonSong

"Exactly." Zira sat up beside him. "So that means it's not that you can't see people any other way, it just...takes you a while." Which was understandable, all things considered.

She smiled softly and leaned forward, tilting her head to look at his face. "Lucian, what can I do right now? In this moment, forgetting everything else, what can I do for you?" Gods she just wanted to help him. She hated seeing him so obviously distressed, not least because it happened so rarely.

Magyar

Lucian spared a distressed glance Zira's way, opening and closing his mouth around words he didn't know he wanted to say. After turning back to his sheets, searching for an answer he couldn't find and a minute of him running his hands through his hair like a nervous wreck, he turned again to her.

"Just..." he looked almost like the words pained him, but in reality there was nothing he wanted more, "Just be here please." He extended his hand and kept his gaze on her, hoping against anxiety ridden hope that she wouldn't walk out in his time of need. It didn't make sense, but that was the thing he was most afraid of right now and he didn't know how to deal with that.

DragonSong

Zira's heart broke a little bit for him in that moment. Carefully, she took his outstretched hand, letting her fingers slide against his to interlock.

"Okay," she murmured, offering a small smile. "It's okay, Lucy. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

Very, very carefully, ready to pull back at the first sign of his discomfort, she shifted closer to let her shoulder rest against his, still holding his hand gently as she twisted slightly to make the offer of more contact clear, if he wanted to take it.

Magyar

"Thank you," Lucian said in a whisper, staring at the sheets between his legs. He turned to look up at Zira, words ready on his tongue, but what he saw silenced him.

Behind Zira two giant, floating, luminescent eyes stared at him. They were fiery and lidless, their slit pupils trained at Lucian. Their flames licked at the cloth hanging from his banisters, setting them aflame. Underneath them a monstrous mouth, wide enough to swallow Zira whole split into a dripping grin, black oil spilling from in between its jagged teeth. Lucian could do nothing but stare past Zira, eyes wide and heart beating like a drum against his ribcage. A terrified snarl worked its way onto face, even while his grip on Zira's hand tightened.

He was about to say something, anything, but a whisper in his ear caught the words in his throat. Gurgling, wet laughter from behind him, close enough to feel the breath on his ear. His breathing hitched and panic shot through him like lightning. Around him, his world burned and he couldn't move to stop it. And those eyes, those wretched eyes. They stared, and stared, their monstrous mouth widening with each beat of his staccato heart. The oil dripping onto the floor caught alight. He could feel the pain, the heat of burning. All he could hear were the whispers and the crackle of flame. He took a fistful of the sheets with his other hand and tried to crawl away from the endless fiery stare, the inferno. Unwittingly he started to take Zira with him but he ran into the source of the wet, whispering voice. Jerking back from what is was he'd touched, he looked behind him only to see a towering gray figure, skin both wrinkled and taut, bloated like a corpse. The face of a long-dead mummified woman watched him unblinkingly, empty sockets where the eyes should have been. It extended a skeletal hand to him, crooning in the voice of his eldest sister. "Why are you afraid?"

Lucian still couldn't speak, but he managed a strangled whimper, before running back into Zira. He spun back on her, glancing frantically between the towering freak behind him and the friend in front of him. Behind her the eyes and their gigantic mouth drew closer, dripping oil onto his sheets and setting them aflame instantly. Zira began to burn before him, apparently perfectly content with the flesh bubbling off of her arms. The oil crawled up her arms to her face scarring her spotted skin every inch of the way. Lucian's breath caught in his throat, stuck with whatever screams he couldn't let out, and he scrambled back for the foot of his bed, kicking frantically at his sheets, trying to escape the burning oil and the eyes and the freak. And Zira, whose face had been half burnt off, yet still she didn't seem to notice. Lucian was beyond panic. He was terrified, petrified, and hyperventilating, choking on his own fear.


DragonSong

She smiled. "Of course. What are friends for?"

He looked like he might have been about to say something else, but suddenly he stopped, and she saw his eyes focus on something behind her as they widened, obviously panicked. Instinctively she turned, ready to defend against an attacker- though how one would have gotten past the guards she had no idea- but there was nothing there.

"Lucian?" She looked back to him, brow furrowed quizzically. Then he was suddenly scrambling back, jerking her hand with him and she gasped, caught off guard. "Hey, what- Lucian!"

Either he didn't hear her or he was ignoring her. He seemed to be having some kind of fit, and she started to panic. She'd seen that expression before, wide eyed and focused on something that no one else could see, but she'd never seen him react so explosively to...whatever it was.

"Lucy? Lucy!" As he scrambled for the foot of the bed she followed, eyes wide as she tried to meet his gaze. "What's wrong, what's happening? Lucy, whatever you're seeing it's not real. Can you hear me?" There was an edge of desperate panic to her voice as she reached out for him and took his hands in hers, squeezing tightly. Could he even see her anymore? "I'm right here, okay? Listen to me, Luce, it's okay, I'm here. I've got you, just come back to me, please."

She tried to keep her voice as even as she could, but her hands were shaking slightly, knuckles white as she clutched his fingers with her own.

Magyar

She was saying something, touching him, but he couldn't hear her. Only, he could see her. He could see she wanted to say something, and she was grasping his hands. Lucian tried to say something, but the freak leaned tall over the both of them, her rictus grin and dead sockets grabbing Lucian's attention. Her voice, unlike Zira's, was clear and strong.

"Little Brother," it asked him in the voice of his sister, "Why do you run from me?" It reached out for him, making to caress his cheek. He cried out against it, trying to push further against the bedposts without much result.

His guardsmen, however, heard him. They came barreling through the doors, curved knives at the ready and panicked expressions on their faces. If someone had gotten to the boss, they were sure going to pay for their mistake. What they saw confused them, the cat-girl clutching at a terrified Blassköhl. They moved toward the bed, intent on separating the two.

DragonSong

Zira flinched when he cried out, wanting so desperately to help him but unable to actually do anything  that she could see.

"Lucian, please, it's just me, I promise you're safe-" She kept up her constant stream of soothing babble, stroking her thumbs in little circles over the backs of his hands.

But then the guards were in the room and her head flew up, eyes wide as in a matter of seconds she realized how this must look. "Wait- no, wait, it's not what it looks like, he needs help, please-"

The guard who reached the bed first grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her back, throwing her to the floor. She yowled, kicking and clawing at him. "Get off me! I have to help him, get off!"

Magyar

Lucian's one comfort, his one link to reality was Zira. Even when she was burning alive in front of his eyes, the fact that she was there kept him from going over the edge and lashing out against his visions. She secured him in his terror, but now she was gone. Torn away by burly beasts, tall and thick like tree trunks. They spoke in a garbled tongue, and he saw them rip his Anchor away. He saw her fight them, to no avail, and his fear turned to anger. Make no mistake, he was still afraid; Now he was no longer the cowering dog, but the cornered wolf. His yelps turned to snarls and his barks into bites.

Lucian lashed out, sending waves of sensory overload - deafening noise, blinding light, choking scents - towards his own men. He threw his mental bulk at them again and again, each time providing a fractional window into his reality. Zira, unprotected, would see his terror in strobe, the fiery monsters flashing in and out of view every few seconds. His guardsmen, however were experiencing much worse. Unlike his careful and intricate execution of Brys' nightmare, Lucian's defense was a heavy, clumsy, but dangerously effective weapon. A proper analogy would be a scalpel and a mace. Both could kill, if wielded correctly, but the manners in which they did so were very different. In perhaps ten seconds or more of this mental bombardment, his guardsmen would be nothing more than vegetablized husks of the men they once were.

DragonSong

Zira gasped, a scream caught in her throat as visions of- of something that seemed an awful lot what she imagined the northerners would call "hell" flashed before her eyes, faded, then flashed again. For a moment she was stunned, frozen. Then she began to realize what was happening- or rather took a guess- and her stomach lurched.

The guards had dropped her, clutching their heads, mouths slack and eyes starting to go glassy.

She had to stop Lucian. She had no idea if she would be in time, but she had to try. "Lucian!" Flinching when fire flashed in the corner of her eye, she forced herself to ignore it and launched herself at him, tackling him back onto the bed and wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders- simultaneously an effort to soothe and restrain, though she knew physically holding him wouldn't do much to stop his attack.

"Lucy, look at me!" she begged. "I'm right here, you're okay, you're safe, I'm not going to let anything happen, just please please please wake up!"

Magyar

His Anchor came rocketing back, free of her restraints. Between his mental backlash and her physical distraction, his hallucination began to crumble. The fire he saw enveloping room began to flicker in and out of view, but the burning sensation persisted. And he couldn't turn away from the flames, pinned as he was by Zira, so he clenched his jaw and bit through the pain.

His pain override his will to fight and he succumbed to it, releasing his hold on the guardsmen. He screwed his eyes shut and growled through the agony, straining against Zira. His nickname, Glassjaw, was no misnomer; he wasn't a strong man, and Zira was athletic and well toned. She could keep him there, albeit with effort, if she could withstand his hallucination until it fell apart.

Lucian could only sit, eyes closed for fear of what he thought he saw, and burn. At least, he felt as if he were burning. Every time his terror-world came into view, both he and Zira were already horribly burnt, blackened and bubbling, but they would then be whole again, and then again aflame. So he decided not to look.

"Zira..." Lucian managed one word, amidst the deafening roar of the flames and the white noise of his own defense mechanism. It was one word, barely above a whisper, but in it resided his strength and his will. If Zira couldn't hear him, couldn't know that what she was doing was working to an extent, then they could very well stay there for hours.

DragonSong

The shifter could still see the flashes of fire and destruction as Lucian's powers lashed out, but she clenched her eyes shut and just held onto him, forehead pressed to his temple as she continued her stream of soothing murmurs.

Then he spoke, or at least she thought he did, and her eyes flew open. "Lucy?" She sat back slightly, drawing him with her as she kept her arms around him, pulling him up so they were both sitting in the middle of the bed. "It's me, Luce, I'm here. You're safe, I promise," she whispered.

Magyar

It may have been only minutes, but it felt like hours. Eventually, Lucian blinked and when he opened his eyes again, the world had stopped burning. He was no longer tortured by visions of monsters, and the world was as he had left it.

Except his men, trusted colleagues, were writhing on the floor. One hadn't moved at all since Lucian stopped having his attack.

"I've broken them, haven't I?" He asked quietly, though perhaps not of Zira. Perhaps it wasn't a question, because he knew better than anyone the effects of mental domination. He was looking at it.

DragonSong

"I- I don't-" Zira looked at the guards and winced. She didn't know the men well, but their faces were familiar.

"Should I...?" She wanted to go to them, to at least attempt to take stock of their state, but she wasn't honestly sure if she should let go of Lucian. Her arms relaxed slightly, though they stayed loosely around his shoulders.

Magyar

"It won't matter now." He said bluntly, "If they can collect themselves, they will, but if not... they won't be the same. You can do nothing for them, and though I might be able to... I don't... I don't trust myself. Not yet."

Lucian broke his stare from the men and focused on Zira, "Are you okay?" A rare occaision was the day Lucian showed genuine concern so openly, but a rarer day still when he wore it on his face. His expression was a combination of guilt, anger, and most of all the shadow of fear. His fear was fresh, but he was also afraid for Zira, and her wellbeing. If he'd nearly vegetablized these men, he might have injured her in a similar matter.

DragonSong

It almost felt as though she could still see the flicker of flames in the corners of her eyes, the whisper of a hulking figure leaning over them.

But she smiled, hesitantly brushing her fingertips against his cheek before pulling her hand back. "I'm fine, Lucy. Are you- I mean..." She bit her lip, normally slitted pupils dilated to nearly consume her eyes as she looked him over with concern.

"Gods, I was so scared," she whispered. Without thinking she leaned in to hug him again. "I thought I'd lost you there for a second."

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