#plastic intermingled with porcelain and flesh.ic

[abendrotbrav]

...it’s a dream again. This one, she is cognizant, bleary eyed and with dark circles, shaking hands. This one-

She is holding her heart like an apple in her hands. The blood of her own heart stains her lips, that heart still bleeding, beating, in her hands, in her mouth. But her chest is whole.

There is a body at her feet. The girl, her, younger, glowing and bright and dark-haired like past nights long ago, almost looks... bored, with it all. (An essence in the middle. This is an origin, this is-)

(This is a saint graph, and it is surrendering unto Sophia devouring it.)

(This is... ‘her’.)

 A slow blink, almost a realization. (Her runes are glowing, bright, brighter with each bite, her magical circuits glowing, alight, visible. The soul upon the body.)

“...Cu?” There is only a small quarter of a ventricle left, appetizing, and before she fully comes to herself, she laps it up, like a cat. The blood dripping down her hand is licked up. The body at her feet dissolves into light, a satisfied smile.

(A surge of mana. Her body, her soul, is absolutely changing before his eyes. Still her. But something more. Her mana circuits, swollen, changing into something more capable. Strong.)

“What’re you doing here?” She’s tired, from this changing. A multitude of things suddenly explained. But her walk is catlike, still sleepy. “I feel... it doesn’t hurt.” A grin on her face. An awed sound to her voice.

“I feel full. It’s nice...” A slump, into his chest, face still stained, a satisfied look. (There are many things that now make sense. A growing inhumanity, but now- it is completely so. This is not a human, but it is still Sophia. Her soul has not changed, she has not become something not herself- she has just grown. Become stronger. More herself.)

“...I thought I was gonna die young, but... I feel alive. Like... when you take all my mana, but instead of feeling empty, too... I feel really nice. Is that bad...?”

@despondentdruid​ - starter

[abendrotbrav]

@tenkoseiensei​ said: 'hey, ain't'cha tired?' without sounding too concerned he smiles at her, the same small smile they always taped to their faces, batting his lashes the same slow, demure way he has seen her do to others when she wanted to convince them that she was listening, maybe even too intently for the slightest of changes and social signals. only she should understand just what he means by this single sentence, and without saying anything more in the breath after it, he only smiles a little bit wider.

“. . .”

The porcelain mask tightens, like the sharp crumble of a plastic bottle. Not broken, but flexed, straining under the force. A smile that should've so soft is instead like a knife, and her blinks even are harsh and severe.

“Hey, ain’t’cha tired?”

It rings in her head like a soda can falling to the floor, over and over and over and over and over. A noise that penetrates her brain, as she watched that same gesture, and her eyes are wide and large and full of emotion, as always, but while they are always soft at the edges, the color is cold and her gaze is empty of feeling. Her face has all the features of smiling, even the crinkles in her eyes, but her stare itself- her glare itself-

"Yan Qing. You think you can call me tired, standing there like that?” Ah, first names. What an easy way to express displeasure. A cornered rattlesnake, a cat with its tail pinned in a trap, and she is still, far too still. She has no evidence, no proof, does not know this man more than a stranger in the street-

-but she does know him, because he demures and smiles the same way, he asks such a question that he must know it himself, and she’s desperate for him to be the same, isn’t she, hungry and vindictive and eager? She walks closer, far too sharp, even her movements changed, a flounce and beat that she normally has now vanished into still lines and sharp edges.

Swift and quick, those unfeeling hands (and they are rough, one can tell close up, maybe he has even noticed from her lack of pain to them that they can barely feel at all) yank the red rope around his neck, and in her mind he is a hanged man, and this is his noose, but she does not choke him, but drag him closer to her, closer to hell.

Her eyes stare into his and the intimacy of such closeness is not lost on her as she presses her forehead, not all that gentle but not roughly either, into his, green into green, envy and envy meeting as her smile vanishes. With how fast it was, it’s funny it was ever there at all.

“You must be so tired. You don’t even have someone to live for. At least I have that much, Yan Qing.” Such cruel words, venom on her tongue, amplified as her other hand cups his cheek, closer and closer, the lack of a malicious smile almost worse than one being there. Her expression is blank, devoid of any feeling, closed off, but there is a violent energy in the way her hand around that red rope shakes, or the cold fury in her eyes.

“Do you want me to help you? Do you want me to hug you and coo everything will be alright if you just make a friend? If you just believe hard enough? That once you find somebody broken like you you’ll be able to fix them, then everything will be okay? That we’ll all live happily ever after and achieve all our stupid little dreams? Don’t be ridiculous. Tools like us don’t have happy endings. We don’t deserve them. We serve our use until we are disposed of. You can’t have forgotten that just by being here. The people who use us never change.” ‘We’. ‘Us’. How quickly, even in her hissing, that she makes them the same, makes them united- in what? Misery? Suffering?

Was there even a point for any of this?

“Of course I’m tired.” But that is the point, isn’t it. It wasn’t really the question, but she’s answering nonetheless, rings under her eyes and she is nothing but a tired metal soldier, wound up and marching to the edge of oblivion without any other goal but to follow the last orders of the one who cranked her up.

Puppet without a master, tangled up in herself, given the strings and told to puppet herself. She stares into green and it stares back, and she sees herself and she sees hair like her sister’s, and she nearly recoils if she was not at the same time so attached, because if someone rips her open and looks at her guts then she never has to purposefully expose herself, and she grins sharp and violent at that thought, even as something, soft and tired and desperate for a connection, vibrates at it too.

Even, in all her violence and rage, lashing out to defend herself, a small bit of hope is in her fingers and eyes, the faintest tremble, the tiniest shake, before she quashes it in paranoia and distrust. The grin falls again, the curtains on a stage, and she yanks herself back, lets him go, cold again.

“You should know, asking something like that.” Should know. But her voice is treacherously lighter, at the idea of being known, being understood. “Fuck you. You don’t get to ask those kind of things without being hurt back. Fuck you.”

“Don’t play this game with me in front of anyone else, or I’ll shove poison down your throat.” Burn of the layers, burn off even the vapors. A mask stares at a mask and two mirrors reflect endlessly, and she is desperate enough to hope hope hope all the same.

What an idiotic woman. She wants to kill him. Herself. Everyone. 

Anything but being known. Anything for being known.

[abendrotbrav]

An email has been sent to every servant, staff member, and basically anyone she could get the contact information for in the nearby solar system.

(sparkle text gif below. prepare your eyes.)

[abendrotbrav]

“I AM THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO FUCKING POISON PEOPLE AROUND HERE! THAT’S MY GIMICK! THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME FOX BI-” 

Looks like someone... is not very happy with the current situation! (And like, is pretty confident she could cure this on her own, but in ten days... ehhhhh? She says 50/50. Hubris pride blah blah, Sophia is at LEAST confident in her ability to poison people and cure them of said poison!)

[abendrotbrav]

of-magic-and-stars‌:

@abendrotbravsaid: “The anon won’t be soon!~”

“Oh…..i apologize miss. I meant caster. Is he okay?”

“...I... I don’t think so. But... all we can do is poison the enemy- is, be there for him. Right...?” She doesn’t exactly... know how to be very comforting.

[abendrotbrav]

@corrchoigilt​ said: !!

Ohne Dich kann ich nicht leben. I can’t live without you.

It’s a simple sort of sentiment. The idea that one cannot live without the other. Even a month later... this sort of world that does not allow happiness is one that toys with the heart.

Yet just in that moment, you feels your heart skip a beat waking up in the morning.

You can only assume the time, in this room without windows, yet it is as warm as the sun beside him. It is always morning with him, always dawn, the beginning of another new day, again and again.

You have always loved the dawn. Something faint within you remembers the blue of- something. Something covered in dew, a brilliant blue like the morning’s glory was put into a single sight. The sun rising as the world awakens and you would, one upon a time, look out to see the sun and greet it with a smile.

Those days grew more distant, but slowly, you wonder if the sun found you again, waking up to the warmth of it again, morning after morning, such precious things. The tears well up before you can stop.

You don’t want to die young by his side. You don’t want to die, you don’t want to die and the fear of it tightens your chest. You don’t want to look down from the heavens and see his face when you leave, you want to stay by him until the very end and then follow him to wherever he goes.

The world is dark and lonely and filthy, and you were always on the verge of drowning at home in the salty sea, underneath tears and waves, the rings around your eyes growing and being padded over more and more every year.

But he reached out, in his own way, and you felt his hand pull you out, help you crawl out of the ice and the cold, and you will never forget his warmth, his smile.

Every eye, every feeling, is precious from him to you.

“...would you do that then? Bind yourself to me for eternity?”

A month ago, the sun dipped down from the sky to ease away her shackles and doubts, and nothing else mattered but how warm he was. It was a moment of freedom comparable to little in y ourlife, even as you swore your everything to the soul in front of you, and had the full intent to truly give him everything.

A cloth ring that still is tied round your finger, light blue, spontaneous from his robes as was your own ring on his finger from your skirt, beautiful like that faint image of happiness in the corner of dreams and memories. Like him, matching his eyes, like the sky which you wanted to forever see with him. No matter the place, it was home as long as it was with him.

So hopefully you don’t wake him as you cry, because you know he hates it but you can’t help yourself. It’s an exercise you rarely perform, especially with such wonderful feelings in your chest, and you can’t help yourself, as the hope and love overflows, smiling brightly all the while as you press gnetle, tear stained kisses to his lips.

“You’re ridiculous... eternity is too short a time for you and me.”

[abendrotbrav]

@wrathlead​ said: "yo this shit looks like alcohol---" he is talking about one of her perfumes, please don't let him try it

“!” (That is not a good reaction for the other party involved.)

“Ahhh, Izou, you have a quite particular nose- and eye. That does contain alcohol!” AKA, barely any but trace amounts. “That one is a fine Rosé-” AKA, a rose scented perfume, “-about three years old.” AKA, she hasn’t used it in three years. Really, the spray nozzle should give it away!

“The great mixers at Parfümerie Delfi have toiled in their basements to create this fine blend. Please, I insist- a taste as well-developed as your’s would surely enjoy it very much. 

“I’ll enjoy it, too~”

[abendrotbrav]

summer children.

to be born in the winter  must be wonderful to smile in the face of snow and warm fireplaces rather than being mercilessly cut from the cord  to the scorching sun.

to be born in the winter must be wonderful to be warm and safe born when there is little to do but be swaddled and protected

rather than growing up just in time to worry in the cold if you’ll starve.

[abendrotbrav]

“...not that I meant to drag you in, um, but- did- you... like it...?”

@gallowking​ - torment 2k20

[abendrotbrav]

@memorylost​ said: ❝ The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math. ❞

“...I.” Finding someone stuck in a tree was... very weird. Especially someone that looks so... impassive. Actually, genuinely, how did this happen?

She... actually looks around for a couple seconds. Just, genuinely confused.

“...do you need help, Hakuno?” It feels like talking to a cat. A very blank, unreadable cat. On one hand, the other girl doesn’t look too distressed. On the other...

“...how did you get up there? Are you okay?” She’s getting more worried by the second. That is bad, because Sophia does not like feeling ‘concern’ for other people. This is not a fun feeling, which makes her not quite as logical as normal. Maybe-

“Just stay there, Hakuno! I- I’ll just climb up there!”

This is going to end poorly.

[abendrotbrav]

“Ahem, ahem.” Taps the microphone a few times.

“Pie is a sandwich. As are tacos, ice cream sandwiches, duh, and hotdogs. If you disagree or agree, discuss.”

It was getting too chummy around here anyways.

[abendrotbrav]

Polite is as polite does. Or something like that. Basically, she feels no need to be rude, shaking the man’s hand back with a smile.

“Rose, eh? Like the flower. Nice name! Nice to meet you too!” Sophia would say something, if she wasn’t a) polite, or b) the one who named one of her Pokemon after a berry- she has no room to say a damn word. Not a single one.

“You have any Pokemon, Rose?” She has to admit she’s curious- she’s assuming ‘no’, given he didn’t call them out, but it could be any number of reasons.

[abendrotbrav]

“...do you have somebody you’d commit any evil for?”

[abendrotbrav]

@despondentdruid​ said: “Try to use their nostalgia and insecurity over their broken dreams to get them on your side.”

‘Her side’. That’s a cute thing to say. Her fingertips claw into the desk, her knuckles bone white.

Something pops.

She knows what he means. But even the thought makes her teeth ache. A horrific hunger clawing at her very bones. To sacrifice them all. Something sharp pries at the shell that keeps her insides in, wrenching it open. Her grip tightens.

There is something unbearably inhuman in her eyes, loathing, yet human all the same in its fury. She meets his gaze (he is on her side, she reminds herself) with a smile that is not one all the same.

“Never.” There is something unbearably cruel about her intentions, her wishes. It’s heavy and humid, almost suffocating, thick and sticky in her throat.

“I would rather die than work with them.” And there is no metaphor or hyperbole in her words. Her grip on the desk tightens. A creak, a crack. “Oh, I’ll use their nostalgia. I’ll use every ugly bit of them. I’ll carve it out of them. They took our world away. They defend the worlds they made- that do what?! Make people live in fear of starving? Destroy the weak? Murder children out of cowardice and make them live in ignorance?! I don’t give a fuck about anything else, about their motives. They’re monsters.”

“If I have to break every one of their bones I will. There’s no repenting. There is no mercy. We finally saved this world and what did we get? If they’re helpless then they should have been on our side from the beginning. If they’re responsible they deserve to die even more.” Something in her screams to escape. A coiling feeling sinking fangs into her lungs and setting them aflame. Madness. Something unreachable in her psyche, her soul, writhing about, coiling further. Her grip tightens further. She isn’t angry at him, not quite. Rather-

“If nobody else has the fucking guts to sacrifice them for the sake of everyone we’ve ever known, then I guess I will.”

Her grip on the desk finally releases as she stands up to do- something. Anything else.

(The desk is splintered, with a chunk cracked in, ruined. Her hand is unharmed.)

(A crack on her skin, around her runes, spreads and grows.)

(The human has been lost in the freezing cold, and the inhuman substitutes it for a life to remain.)

[abendrotbrav]

@guiltburied​ said: "you look like a lil mushroom" Pats her head a lil :)

The red and white polka dot skirt was cute, she told herself. Suspender skirts are totally still cute. A puffy little skirt under it for some volume. Wear it over a white button up, look super cute. Even wear a cute lil red beanie to match with a puff on top, and she loves those fucking white puffs on top-

Sophia, however, has to face the facts. She looks like a cosplay of ‘amanita muscaria’, a fucking toadstool. Her hat has fallen off in shock.

“...I gave you gold.” Even for a fae, who like mushroom rings, they’re fairy circles for a reason, this is mortifying! Norton! Norton! “I was so nice to you... and this is my payment...”

Of course... it’s not really that bad. A bit flustering, but not this bad. She just wants to see if he feels bad or not, then laugh at him either way before figuring out what to compare him to next unfortunately themed outfit he wears.

[abendrotbrav]

@vaterslain​ said: “You babe swaddled in the cashmere blanket of ignorance, you ask too little of me.”

“...you call me a babe, old god?” Oh no. That’s the look of a dramatic monologue coming. the fact that she looks so serious despite what was actually just asked of him-

“I have no claim of suffering to be greater than your own, but I still claim that for my life, I have been blanketed in nothing but snow. That even if it does not compare to your own, it is still significant for me. The ice that weaned me.” The beginning, a hook, a cool sounding metaphor that really just means she grew up in Hamburg, in Germany, where it is cold. “The steel of those who live here is nothing but metal. The only ones who are wrapped in blankets are the dead being bured.” Ooh, real grim sounding. Good one, self! She’ll jot that down later to write in a poem or something.

“I have grown in a place where I am not even a plant to be tended to, but a tool, a knife to be forged. My body is the advancement of my parents’ will and I am the extension of my sister’s life at the cost of my own.” Ah, the melodrama. The needless, yet fun, melodrama. “I am here, tethered and bound, and you know this is my wish- to escape this wretched place. Yet you say I am swaddled in ignorance? I thought we reached an understanding.”

A pause, and then, with a loud whoop, not even missing a beat-

“So are you gonna show me how to do those cool action movie scenes or not, old man?!” Yep. That’s what was just asked. Truly, every strategic, amoral mastermind also has a hidden geek side. Or, a hidden, not quite as morally challenged geek side. “I wanna poison my enemies without them noticing in a really cool way for once! Or like, how to look cool as I kill people! How to have a cool story to tell like the movies my little sister likes!” Maybe scratch out the 'not morally challenged’ part. Sophia, your little sister thinks Die Hard is a Lifetime Chritsmas movie! “Or jump off a big building onto a horse without like, breaking my legs!” That’s exactly what you tell your sister We’ve been subtle, I wanna learn how to do something super dramatic and extra and cool looking!”

“C’mon, you’ve proven how cool you are already!” Now she’s buttering him up! Shamelessly so! “We can practice to Ride of the Valkyries or something!”