For a moment, you think this one might actually be locked, but you give it one more push, and it opens.
Another flood of memory—
—that Heaven would have rejected you; said you were impure things, worthy of loathing— that it would hurt you, break you; just like b̫̝͘ẹ̡̪̣͓̝͙f̥̬͓͡o͙̖͈͘ṛ͈̜̟e͉̩̬̰͔ͅ—!
His hand was on was on your hilt then, though, and together you shouted that it was a Lie! Violence, like love, could not be denied.
...They took you away from him too, of course. But all it took was a moment to know: he is a blade, too.
Up close, you can see that there is quite a bit of extra detail on and around this door. In fact, the whole doorframe is surrounded with photos and knickknacks, like some kind of magpie’s scrapbook: there are various photos of BAD END members, of pep!pep! at the beach, of the garden at ☆ZRAEL; there are snack wrappers from the conbini; a dangling tsum tsum of Scythe; a neat-looking leaf from the park; a handprint in what looks like old blood.
Beneath the name “HELLFIRE” (the katakana are enthusiastically oversized) are many other names: “Kiri,” “Cut Through All Foes,” “Khrysaor, Temptation of Angels,” and—written like an addendum to that last one—a fourth, which is not in katakana but rather some strange script that makes your vision blur at the edges: “Khysael.”
Most prominent of all, though, is the carved crest on the door: a detailed lotus and aconite, twining together into one whole. And you understand, intuitively, that this is as much a name as all the others.
You trace over Hellfire, and Kiri, and Cut Through All Foes, and Khrysaor, Temptation of Angels, and feel how perfectly clean the cuts were that carved them in the door—parting the industrial hardwood with the ease of soft butter. Talk about Superior Attribute: Cutting (5), right?
When you trace over Khysael—that name in some λ-language—the shape of the letters feels almost like a poem, or a tiny fragment of one:
Thousand-cutting soul; a thousand ways of ending
Finally, you run your fingers over the grooves of the floral crest, and with that comes with a kind of certainty: that these are your (her) flowers, as much a part of you as your cutting edge:
Lotus, Key of the Descending Angel. Aconite, Key of Rage.
(In fact, if Sashay has read Hellfire's profile before, they may recall that it says exactly that.)
There is blood on the wind. The rest of the dorm falls away, and you find yourself on the battlefield.
…Or the remnants of one, in any event. It’s not just blood on the breeze, but the sickening smell of spilled entrails, and the groans of dying men: You really did it! You slew them all. The one who wielded lays in the blood-soaked soil beside you—and it is his own blood which has soaked it. His lamellar has broken apart around the head of the spear that pierced through his gut, but his face is still set in a howl of triumph.
It isn’t any particular battlefield, or any particular warrior. You loved them all, but there were so many, and you were wielded again and again and again.
In the distance, past the tattered flags and corpses of men and horses, is the sheen of what looks like a pond.
they also remember everything else, but not in the same way. everything else is just what life was back then, so they're making a beeline straight for the pond, ignoring everything else. ]
The surface of the pond is mirror-smooth, and reflects velvet-dark night sky, moonless and glimmering with stars—and each and every one of those stars is falling.
It is peaceful here. And you know: here, in the water, is the way home.
It is dark, in the deeps, like the dark of the sky had come down into the water itself. In fact, it is too dark to see anything; you can only feel how far the dark stretches: a welcoming void.
...But you haven't found anything yet, and your lungs are starting to strain.
It's hard to drown yourself, even intentionally. Every instinct of the body fights against it.
...But you hold yourself under, and you let the water fill your lungs as you submerge yourself completely.
It seems as though the water reflects the void not just on the surface but underneath, for it is dark, too dark to see anything—but there is not need to be afraid, for here the void is right, it is warm, it is good—and though it looked to only be a pond it's so, so much deeper than that, and you find yourself like a weight, sinking
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Not locked, you're fairly sure, but touching it feels like a thorn-sharp mix of love and rejection.
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
now to Jason's. ]
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Another flood of memory—
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
[ and finally they're going to go to Hellfire's. ]
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Beneath the name “HELLFIRE” (the katakana are enthusiastically oversized) are many other names:
“Kiri,” “Cut Through All Foes,” “Khrysaor, Temptation of Angels,” and—written like an addendum to that last one—a fourth, which is not in katakana but rather some strange script that makes your vision blur at the edges: “Khysael.”
Most prominent of all, though, is the carved crest on the door: a detailed lotus and aconite, twining together into one whole. And you understand, intuitively, that this is as much a name as all the others.
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
they trace each name with a finger, before opening the door. ]
1/2
Talk about Superior Attribute: Cutting (5), right?
When you trace over Khysael—that name in some λ-language—the shape of the letters feels almost like a poem, or a tiny fragment of one:
Finally, you run your fingers over the grooves of the floral crest, and with that comes with a kind of certainty: that these are your (her) flowers, as much a part of you as your cutting edge:
Lotus, Key of the Descending Angel.
Aconite, Key of Rage.
(In fact, if Sashay has read Hellfire's profile before, they may recall that it says exactly that.)
2/2
There is blood on the wind.
The rest of the dorm falls away, and you find yourself on the battlefield.
…Or the remnants of one, in any event. It’s not just blood on the breeze, but the sickening smell of spilled entrails, and the groans of dying men: You really did it! You slew them all. The one who wielded lays in the blood-soaked soil beside you—and it is his own blood which has soaked it. His lamellar has broken apart around the head of the spear that pierced through his gut, but his face is still set in a howl of triumph.
It isn’t any particular battlefield, or any particular warrior. You loved them all, but there were so many, and you were wielded again and again and again.
In the distance, past the tattered flags and corpses of men and horses, is the sheen of what looks like a pond.
Re: 2/2
they also remember everything else, but not in the same way. everything else is just what life was back then, so they're making a beeline straight for the pond, ignoring everything else. ]
Re: 2/2
It is peaceful here. And you know: here, in the water, is the way home.
Re: 2/2
what if they put their hand into the pond. ]
Re: 2/2
Re: 2/2
time to dive into pond ]
Re: 2/2
...But you haven't found anything yet, and your lungs are starting to strain.
Re: 2/2
Re: 2/2
...But you hold yourself under, and you let the water fill your lungs as you submerge yourself completely.
It seems as though the water reflects the void not just on the surface but underneath, for it is dark, too dark to see anything—but there is not need to be afraid, for here the void is right, it is warm, it is good—and though it looked to only be a pond it's so, so much deeper than that, and you find yourself like a weight, sinking
down, and
down, and
down.
You emerge from the water to a starry sky.