#ch: tófi sethson

[menodoramoon]

A Letter to Torvald, Written in a Fine Hand.

Left personally in the mailbox with no return address. Though, it is not hard to discern the sender. Nor is it an unknown where the sender resides. June, I expect. July, realistically. Held tight from March, finally delivered whenever suits the receiver. A response to Morgenhistorier.

Torvald,

I think your new title comes easier now because I know the significance in a name. Because we are much the same and much different. Do you prefer it for the masking of your past? For the necessity of survival? Or is it a renewal for you? A new life?

People here call me Moon, as you do, because I find it easier than my long, pretentious family name. Have you ever liked it? Menodora. Moon? Måne?

I ask so many questions, it's rude, I know. I don't know how I can face you again, despite the fact that we've parted as friends. I had left us in an impossible situation when we said goodbye at the Moon Market. Or, better yet, when I refused to say it in the perfect words and left you stranded by fussing children and the organic oats.

Do not mind my sentimentality, I could never master it. In dreams and wakefulness still.

I imagine you may have spied me leaving this note, if you have even received it at all. I truly think myself foolish for craving and wanting things that are not meant to be satisfied. But you should know this by now. This desperation in me for closure that I'll never get.

I want to thank you for everything. Your patience, your understanding. I cannot muster words, usually, for what I feel.

Countesses don't feel, they act. As you well remember I was taught.

I am grateful for the renewal of our friendship, and grateful more for you as my friend.

All the love owed, all the thanks I cannot voice.

Best, and Kindly

Menodora Perhonen. Or Moon, if you prefer.

@ofseptarsis

[veevacious]

Vee nods. Right. Okay, so oils, probably. Vee wonders if they could steal some time to work on it in the art studio between classes. But, then again, they could work on it late at night at home, too?

"I'll get your approval on the initial draft, then," Vee says. "And then I can choose based on what it is you like? Cost-wise, oils would be more, but I'm a fairly inexpensive artist. Still a student and all."

Which was true. Vee wouldn't completely undervalue themselves, but they were no professional. They were in school for this! So, they could ask for about the minimum that was expected of them and still feel like they were being fairly compensated.

"With a photo reference, I'm sure I can get you that portrait quickly. But I still don't mind trying without a photo if you're not opposed to the description." Vee smiles. "That sounds really nice, though. A portrait-- I feel like people don't commission as many portraits these days. At least traditionally. It all feels digital. Not that it's bad."

Vee had done a fair share of digital art in their life!

Art was a thing that just, somehow, clicked. Back in Gravesfield, Manny and Camila encouraged Vee to learn to do. Be. Live as a normal teenager. So art classes as an elective and they took off from there.

Besides the enjoyment of doing art and making others happy, there was the fact that it seemed to be worth getting to know Tófi. For multiple reasons. He was interesting. He was also -- like Vee thought -- possible like her.

"Right now? Just the references. And, if you wanted to send me-- uh--" Scribbled down on a sticky note that Vee had pulled out of their bag... a sketched up mockup of a business card. (A draft for their graphic design class from before.) "You can email me here, and -- uh -- we can talk about pricing. Like I said, I'm pretty affordable, since I'm a student. I don't want you to feel taken advantage of."

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[menodoramoon]

falsk håb | Regency

Summary: Hope & Mourning go hand in hand. Swyn Regency AU. <3 Or, Moon + "Childless Mothers" + Cycles. Characters: Regency!Moon, Regency!Tófi, Regency!Aurora Content Warnings: Infertility?? Words: 962 Read: Doc below the Cut.

[menodoramoon]

What was it that he must think of her? The Light Countess of Mjaunie: burning their home, stabbing their shoulder, threatening their throat. She felt small and cornered at once, even if she was the one with some amount of perceived control.

No. Any instant, Tófi Sethson could easily overtake her. They could easily throw her from them, take her life. She knows they won't, they'd said as much.

But they could...

The key was the potential for the thing. Was her mistrust of the reality a matter of their monstrous nature? Or was it the fear of a familiar cycle, come back after some dormancy?

Lowering the light dagger could have been a mistake. It was giving up the facade of control, of fierceness and power. There was part of her that had often felt powerless around Tófi, even when she feigned bravery on the battlefield.

The moment they betrayed her had burned itself in her memory, and now look.

She was not even worth killing anymore. Isn't that what Seth would want? His dear son to deliver her heart to them?

The thought inspires a feeling of sickness just as much as Tófi's jest inspires a feeling of incredulous surprise.

"You confuse me," Menodora says simply, eyes focused on their hand on hers moreso than anything else. She can't look at their reptilian eyes. She'd only seen them a handful of times.

If she looked, perhaps she'd feel the phantom sting of their palm on her cheek again. Or perhaps she'd see more than an amused smile, like the one she had perceived in their tone.

A joke from another life. A recollection to before she'd let her temper rage and burn and blaze.

She could be particularly vicious.

But she couldn't bring herself to go any further.

Menodora retracts the light blade from their shoulder, correct in her assumption. (Her private inadequacy.)

It cauterizes the sound and she is left to wonder, exactly, what Septarian blood pooled like. Poured like.

"I know I'm resilient," she murmurs, her other hand falling to her side, "but it pales in comparison to your regenerative powers. It seems a bit unfair."

Said lighter, an awkward attempt at adding levity.

"I don't think I have it in me to scratch your eye out. That other me must have been much more ruthless. Or maybe her grief reached further than what I ever could."

Menodora tightens her grip lightly, the hand at his chest. Drawing the fabric of his shirt for a moment before releasing because she had to (and it would be rude to wrinkle his garments.)

"I'll pay for the damages," Menodora murmurs, though with the articulation to be understood. "I'm--" sorry? That's the word she might to use... It comes out more formal as she tries again. "I apologize. Sincerely."

Hopefully they know that that's true. She's not meant to let her magic spiral out of control, in bursts of flame and destruction. It was classic Mjauman, wasnt it? The fire. The burning...

Tófi may not remember, but they'd spoken to her about it long ago. Perhaps when she first picked up fire as a specialty, before the addition of aether? Was it a disappointment that their student took up a specialty that was so deeply tied to monstrous trauma?

Does she feel better now? She's had her outburst... does she feel better?

"I don't know," she answers honestly. In English. Despite it being a first language to her, Danish felt-- foreign again. She was losing touch with it in a way that stung deeply. "I fear my burning has burnt a bridge between us. I fear your sharp tongue had severed some ties before that."

She digs her nails into her palm, wincing as she does. Is it about the pain, or something else?

"I don't think we can go back to what we had, Tófi," she says, another part of her threatening to break. She can feel that rage dissipating from her body, leaving a weak and exhausted state.

It had been so long since she had used her magic in such a way. She felt the toll of it, the tax on her body.

"I'll miss it. Whether it was an illusion of propriety and friendship, or was genuine, I don't believe it can be salvaged. Or at least the same."

She doesn't break her skin, but damnit does she want to.

"I don't think I'll be the same after today. And I don't know if it's you I have to thank or blame."

They are dear to her, an interwoven part of her history. They are loathed by her, and intertwined part of her unraveling.

Gods, and then it hits her. A choked, anguished sob and laugh at once. Not a flood of tears, not a moment of hysteria. Like it's funny. Like this loss is funny. A cruel joke.

"Our friendship was nice while it lasted," she hums through a strained tone, her voice tight, finally withdrawing her hand and stepping back. "I'm sorry I had to burn it."

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon

[veevacious]

"A landscape?" Vee asks, eye brows raised. They don't know why they're surprised. Tófi could very well enjoy a landscape. Maybe it was because Vee thought Tófi would be the type of person to have -- like -- paintings of gothic skulls or something that Vee thought was technically more difficult or refined.

Landscapes, however, Vee felt pretty confident in. "Usually I do landscapes in paintings. Oil or acrylics on canvas, would that be acceptable to you. Or would you prefer something else?"

Vee thinks this could be it, but then Vee is surprised that Tófi is asking them for a sketch of a person without references. Vee doesn't know about that one… but at the same time, Vee had done that sort of thing before, hadn't they? Made art based on words on the page to capture the sort-of likeness of fictional book characters.

"I'd be interested to try!" Vee says, "I'd definitely give it my best shot. I'd just hate if you came away from a session disappointed." Vee admits. "We could start with some sketches to try to narrow down the likeness and if we get it to your liking, I can paint it for you? I just wouldn't want you to feel like you wasted your time."

So, ultimately, Vee nods.

"I don't think either of those things, a landscape and a portrait, are outside of my skills. Yea, I can do those, that sounds right. And we can talk about the specifics of style and color as well. Would you want to meet somewhere to talk about the portrait in the near future? I'll bring my whole travel art set so we can have all the tools to try to get that likeness down? And then, of course, if you're unhappy, we could either figure out something else and focus on the landscape?"

They just… don't want to let them down.

It's such a silly, dumb thing… but Vee thinks Tófi has to be like her somehow. There was just this Thing about them, and Vee didn't want to lose their approval. Which, she could dig into that later, but she won't. Not now. Vee didn't have people to interact with -- besides their colony -- until they were older. It was hard to figure out what other people thought of them. It caused a great deal of anxiety. But Vee wasn't a quitter! Vee could do this!

"So, uh…" She takes out one of her sticky notes and scrawls her phone number and personal art email -- "Here's my contact information. For when you want it! And, uh, if you want to email me the landscape references..."

Maybe Camila would remind her of 'stranger danger' if she ever heard, but… it was fine! This was a window of opportunity!

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[veevacious]

"Oh? Oh. Oh good. Good, good, good. I'd hate if you did, yea, sorry," Vee says, trying their best to just recover what they're trying to say. Anything is better than stumbling through this conversation and bumbling through the buzz of words. "Yea, I'm bad at rolling with it. I overthink everything, but, I mean, it comes in handy sometimes. I am often overprepared! Except now."

She looks around.

"With this conversation. Which I'm taking up by talking too much."

…

And the moments of Tófi's contemplation strike total fear into Vee that 'oh my gosh, he hates me, and not only that, he's not like me and actually I have to go tell Mama that we have to move again because I'm a big dummy' but actually no, that's not what happens.

Tófi is very nice and tells them that he's honored to have been a model. Vee wouldn't go so far, but they do beam back. And stand on their toes to try to figure out what it was that interested him in her sketchbook.

Was it still the blocky-ness of their shoulders? Vee could probably also grab a white marker and try to reshape it. She liked working in all sorts of mediums. Despite her digital arts major, she was very much into traditional drawing. Just not…. for class credit.

It felt restrictive, but she knew it was for the sake of fundamentals. Still, she liked throwing inks and paints and mixed media into Strathmore or Canson sketchbooks -- whatever was on sale -- or trying her hand at watercolors in Arches, or sometimes she grabbed markers and Bristol pads.

Her eyebrows raise.

"Oh, um. I have before, but I guess I'd want to know what you'd like? I mean, the answer is 'yes, I do,' but I have a strict policy that if I don't seem like the right person for it, I'll politely decline because I would want you to get what you wanted. Not something that wasn't right for you."

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[veevacious]

He's weird. Uncanny. He gave off similar energy to how some other Isles creatures did... without the brimstone. But he wasn't a creature. He was a person-- a human. Or...

"Well, you look great for your age..."

Could he be that old if he was something else? Basilisks have a generally similar life expectancy, compared to humans. Other facts, like the consumption of magic affected that, but overall, Vee doesn't expect any sort of additional longevity for their basilisk status.

When Mr Tófi concedes the point, Vee thinks they've broken through and they could talk about the things Tófi did that were artistic. Quite different. She feels a little bad, actually!

Mr Tófi was convinced and convicted in the fact he was not artistically inclined. But that didn't mean he didn't think he was good at other things? Vee just placed soooooo much value in art, she couldn't think of a world where she wasn't artistic, or pursuing being better. If Tófi was confident in their status...

"Oh, um," Vee starts, trying not to sound too rude or pushy now, "I mean. I hope you don't feel a pressure to entertain me. I mean, if you want to talk. I mean!! I like talking to you. You're sort of like me, I think!" What exactly that meant, Vee didn't elaborate. But... "Or not, but I think we could be alike! This conversation is good. I can talk to an Appreciator, I'm not better for being artistic at all. And I -- uh -- can fix the shoulders in the picture. Let me just, uh, I can do it if I block in the edges and make it more of the empty space. Oh, wow, I hope I didn't offend you, Mr Tófi."

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[veevacious]

'but I just happen to be a boring old man that would much rather appreciate other's work than do it myself'

"Okay, but you can't be that old," Vee says, tilting their head. If anything, Mr. Tófi seemed a bit too self-deprecating. Sure, intelligent, but maybe they just needed to be reminded that they, too, could be creative, if they wished it. "And I wouldn't call you lazy. If you don't enjoy it, you don't enjoy you. But that doesn't mean you can't do it. There's a difference, see?"

Maybe Vee shouldn't be lecturing the self-proclaimed old-man about art, but this was something important to Vee. They spent their whole life at the mercy of others and their free time at the mercy of survival. Now that they could pursue art, they would! And they'll tell others that art and storytelling and all these other things were worth pursuing if they wanted to!

Vee shakes their head, intrigued by Tófi's ideas. "I think it could be a bit of both, then," Vee says, "at least a little bit. Sure, you could study the evolution of humanity, but stories are also part of that study. People can dissect why and where great epics come from, but those stories are still stories that are told and passed down and around... Animating and Illustrating, in some ways, are adaptive as well. It's translating them into another medium, right? Translation is an art. Adaptation is an art. Oral tradition is an art, and a history much more fragile but just as important as the written ones."

Vee smiles.

"You don't have to be artistic, but I think you can be or might be if you really thought about what you consider art."

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[veevacious]

Trust the process. Easier said than done but that was something Vee always had to remind herself when working on their underpaintings or sketching their concepts for 3D design.

Vee didn't really think Tófi was lying when they said that Vee's work was good, but the reinforcement was nice. Vee knew there were more prescriptive art styles, and Vee wanted to keep their art organic. Though, their face does tinge red as Tófi points out a few of their errors, but that's okay! Vee was open to feedback, however awkward it could feel to do so.

"Oh, you don't do anything artistic?" Vee actually finds that hard to believe. To her, everyone had some artistic or creative hobby, even if they didn't realize it. Storytelling, or visual art, or music -- listening or maybe analyzing, sometimes dance... "Or just visual art? I mean, there's lots of ways to be creative, Mr Tófi," Vee says. "I'm a digital arts and creative writing double major. You don't like telling stories or anything?"

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[menodoramoon]

Her heart is racing, fierce like fire. The beat of it is deafening in her ears. And yet, how could it be? She is heartless, isn't she? To turn on a friend this way? Only Tófi isn't a friend, and never had been.

There's blood that clings to his shoulder, and she wonders what would happen if she dislodged that dagger. Would it pour and pool? Crimson and raw? Black like tar? She's forgotten what the blood of a Septarian looks like, it's been too long.

Or would her blade still be 'defective,' cauterizing the wound the moment that it left their flesh.

Her eyes are nearly watering from the thought of it.

A drumming. A thrumming. A buzz in her ears as Tófi's words reverberate through her. They're dissonant in her head and discordant in her chest.

There's nothing she can do against them now, is there? They've always been the semi-immortal septarian, and she's always just been 'Diamonds.' A kid, running around with a tiara. Maybe she grew taller, but she was still always her.

Any moment, she would plunge into the frigid realization that it was a worthless effort. This horrid loop of wanting to fight and realizing the futility of it.

Has it always been her that's gone to Tófi. Maybe when she was a child? But-- she'd gone to his home on his hatching day, hadn't she? But they had been the one to invite her to the Acorn Drop. And then... they had been the one to approach her at the Gala. She had been to one to approach them in The Moon Market...

It was mutual, this reciprocated hurt they inflicted on each other...

"Don't forget that you've sought me out when it's suited you," she snaps in return, pressing her dagger closer to his throat. The way it can touch and not burn... but she wants to.

And that's the scary thing, isn't it? She could be just as cruel as they are believed to be.

"You're the one who spilled wine on my dress for a lark. You're the one who invited me to meet you on my birthday. Don't pretend that it's been one-sided this whole time. Don't pretend that you're above me in this."

Did you not want clarity for that first dream? Didn't we share something there?

She looks hard into their eyes. Looking, searching, and finding nothing. They sound far too casual, far too pleasant for someone who has a dagger lodged in their shoulder, albeit, one made of light. Does it not hurt them? Or are they merely being brave in the face of the monster killer?

'But I didn't murder anyone!' she had cried out, facing the Commission. They ignored her. Left her in her quiet torment at the wording they had chosen when relaying events. 'Everyone will read that I had killed him! It's not true!'

She hadn't killed anyone. It was the word vanquish that was misunderstood. Part of Menodora had always held an ache there, as if that was a scar that had never properly healed. To become The Undaunted Countess, everyone had to believe she'd vanquished who had been one of her only friends.

Her title rested on the fall of someone she at one point loved, even if it was just because they had been akin to family to her.

"What about leaving me?" Menodora asks, something in her shifting. She can't name it, whatever it is. This sadness, this weight. This feeling where she recalls the loneliness of those days in such a visceral manner. "With The Commission? With all of their damnable pity and the whole of Mjaunie mourning for me!"

Sometimes, Menodora had a curious resemblance to the late Grevinde, Comitessa. Her imploring eyes and faraway looks. Her light hair twisted down her back... The way she felt things too much...

"What about sacrificing your reputation for my sake? You had the choice to kill me back then, too. You had a chance to win the Mjaunie Civil War and you threw it away because I -- what -- severed your finger?" She asks, seriously. Voice hard. "Surely, you regret that. Surely, you regret not ending my line there. and claiming victory for yourself? It would have been so easy, but you took mercy on a child. Why?"

And it's in her grief that Menodora recalls standing in front of Tófi, the Child of Nemesis, certain that they'd end her life just because she'd asked. Because, in that dream, Tófi had hated her, and had previously tried to kill her in a war far bigger than Mjaunie...

Her grip slips somewhat and she withdraws the blade at Tófi's throat an inch or two, seeing there the scorch of the light dagger's touch.

She's unpredictable. That's something she and Stella seemed to share...

Menodora has to remind herself that she can't kill him. Not without using that spell again-- the one tainting her arms. Her wrists. Her hands...

Her mind drifts back to that night at the Gala. His wine spilled on her dress. His jacket on her shoulders.

"You said that I could not kill you without killing myself in the process," Moon starts, softly, tightening her grip on the knife in his shoulder. Her voice shakes in such a pained and strained quiet that even she can barely stand it. "You know the truth of my feelings now, Tófi. You've reminded me just how futile my efforts are and always will be." The dagger at his throat begins to fade to nothing, dissipating into heat and air. Her stained right hand falls to rest again on his chest. Over their heart...

It's sentimentality. It's also somethiing else.

He could have killed her back then. But... hadn't she offered them the same mercy? She had aimed at the devil and -- purposefully -- missed.

"Aren't you at least a little concerned what a grief-stricken woman like myself could do to you now?"

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon

[veevacious]

Vee can't help it. Beaming, they say, "well, I'm glad! I'm always afraid because everything is a work in progress somehow." Which sounds pretentious, but it's how they were taught. Their mama -- Camila -- always said as much. Manny always said something similar, but maybe not so concise. "And, I mean, I'm a student, but maybe one day I'll be really good."

Illustration wasn't their area of study, but they really did want to be good at it. They were moving towards sculpture and video, separately, but illustration always had a place in their heart.

"Not really. I only started real art study in High School -- American, I'm sure you can tell -- but then I got accepted into the Art Department here and now I've sort of taken it and run. But I've always 'been artistic', to a degree. Before that, I didn't have a whole lot of time to study it," Vee admits. "What about you. Are you an artist of any kind?"

Which seems like a fair question, considering Tófi's interest.

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[menodoramoon]

Echoes of failure. Echoes of disapproval. Echoes of being nothing like what anyone had hoped. She had thought Tófi's opinion would matter the least to her. After all, they had killed her mother in cold blood. She shouldn't give a damn what they said.

Yet, this was a person who knows her most. This was the person who knew her the longest, save for The Commission. They'd known her from childhood, raised her in the way of nurturing her mind. Was she a waste of time and effort? Was she worth nothing?

Their words strike against her, wounding her over and over. If Tófi had their way, she'd have more fortitude. She wouldn't give up. She would be a stronger person. She's not.

Tófi: wishes they had killed her. Wishes they had killed her because who she has become means little to them. It must have all been some ruse, the way they claimed to care for her before. The person she was, the person she is. She remembers them giving her a gentle kiss on New Year's, and it was jarring to be treated so gently by the person who now claims they would have killed her all those years ago.

How would they do it? How would Tófi betray her twice over? The same as her mother, or something tailored to Tófi's view of her. Was she heartless, and thus, he'd take her's from her? Or did he find her pathetic, and thus, it would be some mercy to kill her quickly? Something swift and deft? Would they draw it out, make an example of her?

She could wretch right now with the implications. One death was enough. Would Seth have approved of Tófi's actions? Likely. Tófi would win their father's approval, and she would follow by way of her mother's fate.

Her heart, her feelings feel wounded. But Tófi has already made their thoughts on her feelings clear. They were useless. She was useless.

'a pathetic waste of life' ... 'an empty, cowardly husk of yourself' ...

'If you felt this way, why couldn't you kill me in that dream!' she wants to yell, 'why can't you bring yourself to kill me now!?'

It's a wretched thing to think. And yet, if she were laying her feelings bare, she doesn't care about Tófi's honorable deaths. She doesn't care about glory on the battlefield. She wants Tófi to do something about the words he says. Verbally massacre her, sure. But only if they had the decency to finish it with a blade.

Oh, but they're monstrous, aren't they? Their claws would be fine. She'd accept that. It would be thematic. Perhaps ironic. The show of three bold marks raked across her skin, because she'd taken the fourth and buried it in their history.

Gods, and she feels so sick. And she feels so trapped. And she feels so done. Hopeless and lost and confused in all these ways Tófi abhorred.

But fuck what Tófi thinks because he was the opportunist who took her mother's life and fled instead of finishing the job.

They loved her in a dream, once. But that's another trick. Cruel fate allowing her heart to open to them. She should never have, lest they tear it from her chest.

Her hand burns hot with fire. With this agony. With this feeling of murderous intent. She feels monstrous herself, morally. She can't be like them. She can't be.

It's the same repetition. The differences between them. The way she forces them. And the way she can't help but see those similar lines. A mirror she doesn't want. It sees not her as she is, but the her as she was. Smiling because Mr. Advisor had told her some new fact that was forbidden.

Who was she now?

Ha. Tófi thinks she's pathetic. She knows that. She's thought that. This isn't news, even if the realization of it is several lashes against her psyche. The confirmation hurts.

The fire the blazed in her hand hurts.

She looks up, sees Tófi for what they are. A monster. Scales and burning. Immune? Resistant?

Her face twists with some kind of angst, some kind of loss, some kind of sadness. She looks at her hands, and the way the glamor can't hold. Not when the pain was great. Not when she can expect scarring from this.

The darkened veins and purple tinge crawl, creep up her arms. Higher than it had been before. Perhaps she should see that as a sign to stop, but Tófi's words reverberate in such a way that she can't stop herself. She can't think.

And there's something in Tófi's face that looks satisfied that she cannot take. This look of realization, this look of -- maybe -- hope?

She can't allow it. She can't let them see how desperate she's become. She can't let them see who she is in this state, because this was a failing. This wasn't her. This was emotion and hurt roiling and forcing her to be someone else.

She's not herself. She's not anyone.

Another attempt and she finds her strength. She finds it in her to summon a smaller blade of light, requiring less control, and presses Tófi against the doorframe. Presses her free hand into their shoulder to pin them. She knows she can't outmatch them in strength, but to summon fire there. It was a threat she could muster, perhaps, if her magic did not betray her. She presses her short blade, reminiscent of her twin daggers, near their throat. The burning of it, the radiance. She feels anger. She feels...

She doesn't want to hurt them. She doesn't. But she does.

For every fucking inadequacy they accused her of. For every fucking failure they levy against her.

"I don't need your approval, Tófi," she says, voice hard and proper, yet strained with emotion. "I do not need validation from the treacherous Prince of the Dark Monster Nation, an underhanded betrayer to Mjaunie."

Her eyes are stormy, a variation of her brighter blue. She is no longer stunned into silence, allowing them to lay into her with their verbal abuse. Even if she is not a stronger person by far, she is strong enough to pretend.

She can always pretend to be more.

Fire blazes around them. Growing. She could snuff it out now, but the way the heat burns, the way her lungs strain... it feels good. Right.

"Do not fucking lecture me," she says, pressing the blade closer, "on the person you -- a murderer, a spineless assassin -- want me to be! Maybe when I was a child, you cared for me because I was easy to manipulate, easy to control. You wanted me to believe the best of monsters, yet you used a peace banquet, where a treaty in your favor was to be signed, as an opportunity to sow more chaos in the current Civil War. Have you ever considered that you were the reason I grew to know the true nature of monsters?"

Her tone is biting. Her blade is so close to his neck. She can't. She won't...

The darkness creeps up her wrists. Stings. Leaves their own kind of burn.

He'd told her there was no way to kill them without killing herself. This, she might be able to live with. Die with. She could accept those terms. That blaze in her is self-destructive enough to crave it.

"You don't care and neither do I, but I do not forgive you."

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon

[veevacious]

Reader, Tófi wasn't special. Vee was nervous around everyone. SO! His off putting manner wasn't the reason Vee was nervous, it was everything about the situation!!! It would be the same with anyone!!!

Handing over the sketchbook, Vee didn't realize how much they were holding their breath. Oh wow, okay, this was fine. She had to turn in sketchbook reviews anyways. Other art students saw her stuff, a random person with a dad joke wasn't going to kill her.

No, the mortifying ordeal of being known would.

"Um... yes. Does that... offend you?" Vee asks, knowing that it wasn't so much that she found Tófi blocky, it was because it was a gesture drawing and it was a general shape and-- "I don't mean to offend you. It's really just supposed to be quick observations, and you've got sort of -- well, not broad -- but good shoulders so I---"

Shut up, Vee.

"I can redo it if you want."

@ofseptarsis

Drawn from Life || Open !

[menodoramoon]

She doesn't notice.

His irritation bubbles in his tone. Their words are curt and terse.

She doesn't realize.

His way of asking very real questions. The way his tone is pointedly sharp at the defense of his own kind. At the callousness of Moon's awareness.

She is spiraling downwards. Careening towards unease and depression in a freefall she doesn't even understand. It's easier when it's around Tófi. And that would be her mistake.

Her eyes shift blue under the duress of intense emotions. His turn a sort of gold. It's difficult to look at, even if she did grow used to it. Even if a kinder version of it was known to her in a different sort of dream…

His hand strikes her.

...

Open. Harsh...

Moon's eyes are bright blue with -- alarm? No, it's something else. It's this stunned quietness that has taken over her features. Left her with very little to say.

Her hand traces lightly at her face, at the mark she's sure has just begun to bloom there. It stings… it's… not so bad.

Tófi speaks. They're harsh words that he says to her but perhaps not born solely of cruelty. Words that emphasized everything she ever feared that she was, that confirmed the worst bits of her. There is no delicacy to it, he is speaking his mind. Moon is forced to listen…

Pathetic. Pitiful. Self-absorbed. Utterly useless.

He once respected her. He respected this idea of the young warrior her. Someone she no longer is and cannot be and won't allow herself to be. There was no glory in such an underhanded victory.

She had only been practical...

Only done what he had not expected.

Was that what made her respectable?

But what is worst is him calling her despair, her desire to act on it, cowardly. Or at least to say that it is for cowards.

Part of her breaks at that. It's not so simple or easily hidden as a fracture or crack. It's this deep shattering that she knows is only a reaffirmation of his words.

She cannot be a coward. She can't let that reflect-- she can't let anyone know-- she can't--***

Her mind whirrs like an overwound motor. She feels dizzy, ill. Like she might cry but she can't. Moon won't allow herself to cry in front of him. Not anymore. Not when she's being reminded just how monstrous they can be, and how badly things could go if she was foolish enough to forget his nature.

Moon hates herself. She hates who she is, she hates that Tófi is right, she hates everything about this moment. She doesn't want--

*-- she can't.

Cretin. Sad, disgusting excuse… incompetent…

Gods, Moon can't. She can't look at him, but the only things that echo in her mind are his words. The barb and hook of each one clinging to her form, echoing in her mind. It makes her nauseous. She wants to throw herself at the floor, dissolve. Disappear. Her mind is a cacophony. She should leave. She needs to go. But between her and the exit is him. And every word he's said. And fifty-three years of history between them and hundreds of years before that.

She was a fucking idiot for thinking they could be friends. For trusting him. At least she had been insufferable now before she fell too easily into the fanciful notion that the two of them really could have been anything but enemies.

These dreams had misled her twice over, her emotions had misled her constantly. She him so much right now, but she hates herself more.

"Stop it, Tófi," she murmurs, voice low, words shaking. Both a demand and a plea. She feels her throat tighten. Her heart is racing. She feels like her heart is going to explode. (He'd like that, wouldn't he. She'd just be another fun Perhonen carcass to pick at.) She can feel something at her fingertips. A stinging. A numbness. A burning-- She can't. She can't, she can't, she can't---

I didn't ask for thi-- (selfish). I do care--! (selfish). You don't understand-- (selfish).

There is no version of a reply that she can form that would disprove their point. She would never be who they wanted her to be, she would never be what she wanted to be. And maybe that was all for the better. Best realize the futility of it than allow it to become a fatality.

("Please...")

Moon bites hard on her lip, Tófi's last question feeling like it's pierced her armor. Like he could have done all those years ago if he hadn't underestimated her… if he had treated her like the threat she was.

'But that is too much to ask of you, is not it? You would much rather focus on dreams than face the real world'

**" -- Stop it! -- "**

It was like casting the darkest spell, not that she realizes. Not when she's pushing him away from her, her head feeling so light she barely registers her own consciousness…

Not when she wants him to be quiet, to stop talking, her feelings roiling and boiling and threatening to combust in her throat. She could shriek. She could scream. It's cavernous in her mind, the echoes creating a chaotic discordance.

Menodora doesn't consider herself dangerous, which is the worst kind of dangerous to be. The familiar motions -- reach back, summon magic, swing forward --*

Swish. Crackle. Break.

Light sword. Light blade. Only it's not right. It's warm-- too warm to the touch. Too warm to the conjuring. To her right hand in which she wields it. The shapes of it presses against her mind... it doesn't feel elegant like the inwrought clock-hand it's based on, the intricate fibers of light tracing over each other to meet at a single point. It felt chaotic and jumbled, tangled. It felt like it was turning in on itself. Like she was. That combustion in her throat jumping to her hand as her blue streams of light erupt into fire and burn away at her sight. Into the air.

She's forced to look away -- from both Tófi and the blade. Forced to let go of the quivering construct as her body shakes with the effort of it all. Staggered. Smelling the distinct scent of her hair burning? The sound of crackling wood? The air of destruction that she's not caused since she was twelve, being taught to perfect such a thing.

Her hand burns. Her forearm stings with a constellation of small pinpricks… all where her magic has left small scars.

She's cast the room into small fires. Little bits of destruction, littering bits of her own disquietude.

Oh. She is the dangerous magick after all...

' I'm not just some kid, ' she'd insisted, once.

She is half-blinded with the wildfire of her own magic, kneeling on the ground. Tófi must be half-blinded too, she imagines. Maybe she'd check... once she can bring herself to look at him.

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon

[menodoramoon]

She hadn't known what Tófi would say to her about her dreams, about her damnable insistence of their significance. Their insight into them was not what she had expected. Just the simple mention that her dreams seem to so often involve motherhood, either that she is one or that she is the substitute for one in the absence of a child. Even in this life, she feels like a childless mother, the way that Stella has come to reject her.

What an ache that is.

She wonders how she could possibly have been so despaired in the dream to have wanted Tófi to kill her. Certainly, in this life, she couldn't be so... but was that a heartless, cruel thought? For all the love she has for Stella, would she be so melodramatic as to offer Tófi a knife. Would they kill her in this realm, knowing that her death would likely earn Tófi approval from the very kin that she'd threatened harm to.

Sixteen years old and threatening the lives of encroaching monsters. Used her former mentor as an example of her strength... it was unfortunate the way they fell out. It was tragic the way the found each other, the past only barely warded away, like shadows attempting to overcome a candle flame.

(A candle's flame is about as much hope as she can muster as well.)

Where had that shining version of her gone? The one who was so light she could have flown had she been the child of another god? She had woven rainbows into the air, something that Tófi did not hide their distaste for. Yet, Moon was unbothered by their opinion. She was happy. It was enough.

In this life, nothing seems like it's enough and any closer she hopes to achieve is far from her stained fingertips. Closure with Stella has been denied to her. Closure with Tófi is an enigma. Her friendships are currently open, no end in sight... but the knowledge tht she won't be here forever haunts her.

"It's selfish," Menodora says, "to want to -- say -- abdicate such responsibilities. Don't you think?" People relied on her. Say she ran away to this small town forever... wouldn't that be a fantasy? Wouldn't that be so incredibly selfish... "Being just a mother is a luxury I can't afford to allow."

Not when there were monsters... like you... at large.

It's a painful, scorching thought. The idea of it would be unfair to the Tófi she sees before her... but the Tófi in her memory had a hand stained in blood.

Could Tófi do to Stella what they had done to her. Moon doesn't believe so. If she thought the likelihood was high, would she even be standing here?

Perhaps.

Her thoughts, distant and ringing with some sort of perpetual grief, grow closer.

It's strange, her melancholy. There's a shadow eclipsing her at every turn, this sadness that stains the impression of her. Superimposes upon her.

She does her best to ward them, but they grow ever nearer.

One day, she would shatter completely.

Diamonds are born from pressure, but Menodora is not one. Only feigns the appearance of something so precious. There is nothing special about her, aside from a hastily spun narrative.

I am tired, Tofi, she might have said. My life seems not to ebb and flow like a gentle tide, but crashes down like violent waves. I am unsettled.

Menodora, instead -- in reality --, simply nods. A acknowledgement, thought a silent one. An confirmation.

"My dear, I feel guilty for everything," Moon says with a slightly pained laugh.

She frowns. The expression... it's clear that she's thinking.

"I suppose I've put so much stock in my dreams before. I am forced to ask what makes this one different. I've always tied dreams to magic and intuition. Is the fact that this one is of the town what makes it different? That it is shared, and not purely my own."

She recalls a time that she had sleepwalked to the study, where Tófi would hold lessons about Mjaunie's history. It was more private than the library, which was all as well for The Commission to keep a civilized monster out of sight. It ruined their narrative...

Tófi had walked in to Menodora sleeping away on her desk, no books in sight. Just dazed, her light magic -- just starting to form after intensive magic tutoring that rushed her progress -- floating around her. Like a protection.

Moon only vaguely remembered the dream from then, though she found it impressive seeing as she was only twelve at the time.

(A vision of a woman with butterfly wings, antennae, and magic pouring from her hands in beautiful bursts. She looked beautiful, and terrible, and frightening.)

That memory -- if you could call it that -- lingered only so much. There was no reason it should stay with her, but Moon's dreams were often impossible to forget if they left an impression enough.

'...those actions have no consequences and I don't particularly resent you for any of it, if that helps'

Does it help? Moon can't help but look at them, trying to find something that wasn't there. They continue, speaking about what matters. What did happen. But it doesn't ease Menodora. She realizes...

"I wish you would resent me," Menodora says, a quiet thing. A near-whisper. A shameful, guilty admission. "I said awful things to you in the dream, and I can't help but think... that there's part of me that was in her. That selfishly wanted you to be the one to do it."

It's an insane admission, she knows. If Tófi could kill her with her consent, would he? It's not the same vengeance that Seth would want, Moon imagines. Seth would want the death to be painful, unwanted. Some act of revenge instead of fulfilling a favor to a Perhonen.

Her last name feels wrong. In the dream, she'd taken her step-mother's last name. In the dream, Comitessa was not her mother, but perished to a similar, unrelated fate all the same.

"Is it... I feel unwell with it. These thoughts where I can't help wonder if I'd be happier in some other life and if this one is worth--..."

She wish she would clasp her hand over her mouth. It would feel ridiculous for Tófi to see her act that way, performatively proper when they were one of the people who knew her and those practiced mannerisms best.

They had tried to kill Stella in that dream. Well, historically speaking. In their false history. It had been that that caused Moon to resent him, so. That sparked their imaginary animosity. Yet, when they were at camp, there was nothing that bothered her about them. She was sweet and light.

But here, he'd succeeded in killing her mother and Moon felt only apprehension in their presence. Even when she felt acceptance, she was barely able to relax.

"Tófi, I don't think I'm alright. Even outside of the dream. I don't know why I did this, I don't know why I'm here. If I asked you to, in reality, would you kill me? I'm not asking, but I have to wonder... would you do it? Would Seth approve?"

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon

[menodoramoon]

Menodora doesn't know whether Tófi's insistence that the dream is merely a dream is a relief or a twist of the knife. She's too distraught -- generally -- to believe it to be irritating. Actually, to find it irritating would be nice because she could believe it was only something so petty. There wasn't a luxury to be in incredulous disbelief.

There is a moment of validation, however. Tófi acknowledges her feelings, which does feel better than she had expected. She shouldn't seek such validation from someone with whom she shares such a complex history, but every dream seems to link the two of them in some inexplicable way. They are in love or they endure detestation of each other. Was there no middling acceptance of the other?

"I'm afraid of them," Moon says, "these feelings eat at me as if caustic, and I don't know where to put them or what to do with them." In a way that is so signatured as hers, she returns Tófi's searching gaze with her own. He looks to her to find her, and she is selfish enough to turn to them for answers.

Was it not enough that to feel them once in the dream? Must she endure them in this life as well?

She unfurls the dream's events -- the later events -- and it surprises her how much she is willling to say. How much she is willing to tell them. Tófi who constantly opposed her, who felt better fit as a child of Nemesis and an adversary to herself than whatever comforting relationship they shared in the last dream.

Yet, the way his hand is on her upper arm... Why does she find such a comfort in that? She shouldn't but she does. Is it the familiarity? Did they always know how to calm her or was it knowledge lingering from the dream?

Moon remembers the way they held her in their home last time. After she'd threatened them, they'd lightly held her, tried to calm her. It was painful, in this strange way. After they'd caused her enough grief to cry, she somehow found some solace in them anyways.

Something in her was broken, she was sure of it.

Much like something has stalled in their conversation. Tófi seems to be taking in the dream and its contents, the things Moon has said. The things she had experienced as Menodora, though the child of Iris, not strictly, only Comitessa.

Their stare feels too penetrating. Seeing Menodora, even if she is the one who volunteered the information. She finds herself trying desperately to keep Their gaze, because to look away felt like losing this connection between them. Or what little bit of a connection they had for being so out-of-sync. She tries to keep some semblance of somber or serene feelings, but she knows she is more than somber. It's a sobering amount of sadness that has taken over her. She feels wide awake, chilled by the dream. Yet reality hasn't replaced that Mist-Born reality.

It is the fact that she'd asked them to kill her that has caught their attention and their tongue. Specially, when Menodora asks them why? It is a question that she knows now will never get an answer. If the dream did not remain in Tófi's mind, then they would have no reason or way to answer and Moon would be left to speculate. What a horrid Zeigarnik effect. Another incomplete cycle...

'Did you really want me to kill you?' they ask. Followed by a harder question to answer, 'Do you resent me for not doing so?'

Did... She? On either count. Moon tries to look inwards, the rest of the room fading away. She tries to unearth her true feelings, finding the simple truth was that it was too complex to untangle.

"I believe I did," Moon says. "In the moment. I did, I pressed the dagger in your hand and hoped you'd be goaded enough. I insulted the tenants of your character, I'd acting unkindly. Unwisely. Recklessly."

But then, "Somehow, Stella came back. Somehow, some one else. As a shade? Is that what it was? Not wholly herself, but not an echo either. It was joyous, but to have felt all of it... I resented you in the moment." 

She looks to their eyes. Both of them. "I'd tried to claw our your eye, I think. Your only good one. I was not on my best behavior, I will admit."

Her attempt at humor was only so successful. It leaves a dull, stabbing pain in her... The feelings she was experiencing when Tófi had lifted her, wanted to carry her to the infirmary. She'd been consumed by pain-turned-rage. She had wanted to hurt them in hopes they would hurt her in turn.

(It is fair, she thinks. She deserves that hurt, even in a dream.)

Tófi goes on to exlain that she's not mad , not lost her mind. Though, they blame magic, which Moon finds both predictable and perhaps plausible. It was magic that caused the collective dreams. It was magic and monsters to tore mothers and daughters apart in her family for generations. 

Maybe she shouldn't mix monsters and magic and Mjaunie and summer camps this way.

"It's very unwelcoming of the town," Moon says, clinging to Tófi's pragmatic answer, as if that was a more merciful answer than the idea that Moon deserved such an experience. Or, worse, that Stella deserved such a fate.

The town was a cruel judge of character.

"It's painful," Moon says, her expression stark. "The one before had been beautiful," she says, whatever implications they want to draw from it, they can. "This one felt all too close to the things that haunt me. In that dream, I was someone else still better than the me I am now. Our Regency dream may have given me my mother and given us Aurora, but this past dream relieved me of the title and my focus was only on Stella."

Her voice shakes somewhat.

"I was a mother more than a Countess. I think I liked that infinitely better than the life I live now. To think such a thing, though, is selfish. But, still, what would it take to draw from that me as well? The town is humorous. It likes to show me all the ways I could be better, doesn't it? Who else I could be if I weren't me."

@ofseptarsis

genfødte sandheder || Tófi & Moon