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 a collection of 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.
[ how is this sword so metaphorically bubblegum-scented and pink
honestly, she can't help but smile at the girlish enthusiasm, even if she is not really ag irl; maybe she should suggest decorating her door like that for real.
You push open the door, and smell 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.
[ You are my secret weapon, he'd said, and really, what had been the difference between you and the blade; for all that you wept, you could only do as you were made— ]
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.
[ she wades into the water without thinking about exactly what she's doing, just—still on the knife's edge of rage/panic/grief as afterimage. it's something else. it's not the battlefield, she needs to—leave. ]
It's hard to drown yourself, even intentionally, when you don't need to breathe.
...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
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Beneath the name “HELLFIRE” (the katakana are enthusiastically oversized) are a collection of 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
honestly, she can't help but smile at the girlish enthusiasm, even if she is not really ag irl; maybe she should suggest decorating her door like that for real.
she opens the door, if she can. ]
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
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.
1/2
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
[ a deep breath. she closes her eyes.
she's alone, and there is no one here who requires her love or her hands to be stained with blood.
she walks toward the bright sheen of water. ]
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
It is peaceful here. And you know: here, in the water, is the way home.
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
All right, why not. She's already dead, what's another one.
So she closes her eyes, and drifts under. ]
Re: CHARACTER ROOMS
...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.