Re: MORITURI TE SALUTANT!! [S!4]
08-23-2012, 04:11 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sanzh.
Varljiv stared at the mirrors encircling him. They reflected back falsehood, the artificial facade he had chosen to adopt, and were no impediment to him. Intended to confuse and bewilder, the planes of polished glass were of no consequence for the Aspect of Lies-- the false nature of their reflections was plainly laid manifest. There was another lie, of course-- they were intended to obscure the true path out of the labyrinth. This falsehood was just as easily dispelled. Still recovering from the primal terror of moments earlier, the snake began to cautiously move. Scales pushed against dusty, time-worn flooring.
"Oh my god. This is hell."
Not quite. Varljiv thought in response. Carlie's comment was hoarse and short of breath, but broke the silence of Varljiv's thoughts, brought him back from his microcosm of endless reflections. Carefully angling himself, he could almost see the silhouette of another figure, flitting across the panes of glass. She was human, thin and fatigued. The Aspect of Lies indulged himself in thinking through how to best manipulate this situation, his mental cogs grinding forward with unchecked alacrity-- the piercing, terrifying certainty of moments earlier was steadily replaced with his usual scheming. He slid forward, navigating the hall of mirrors and swiftly approaching his quarry.
Carlie sat down, propping her tired body against one of the mirrors. She didn't care that the accumulated dust of the manor now coated her, or that she was being pursued by gangsters or that she was deep in the throes of her subconscious or whatever else. Desperate gasps for breath punctuated her monologuing-- she was too tired to coherently maintain her habit of voicing her thought process.
"R-right, okay, so maybe they won't find me here? I can hope for that, right?" She said to herself, in between heavy breaths. Carlie paused, scanning the lines of reflections. "Yeah, of course they aren't here, the only person who'd be here is--"
Carlie's eyes met Varljiv's-- each stared at its opposite reflection.
"--is that giant snake." She hesitantly finished.
---
"Right, you boys keep quiet-- I want this girlie alive, not plugged fulla lead." Mickey Keller whispered. The pair of thugs accompanying him eased up slightly. One of them loosened his grip on his battered submachine gun, slipping his finger outside of the trigger guard in a thin modicum of discipline. Together, they formed a loose rank-- Mickey Keller heading the formation, flanked on either side by a hired gun.
But even Mickey's brusque comment could not wholly ease the tension that permeated the mansion. The thin layer of dust, flecks of plaster and broken ceramics, broken artifacts of the Shrewdish estate-- they were treading inside a mausoleum to a now-forgotten glory of a dead family, and even for a band of simple-minded ruffians it was disquieting. That they now patrolled a hall of mirrors only further amplified their tensions. Distorted reflections haunted them as they walked, taunting their failure to catch a tired, desperate woman.
Mickey Keller stopped. The two gangsters with him halted immediately as he did.
The gangsters could hear two voices-- muffled and indistinct, obscured by the layers of labyrinth separating listener from speaker, but still audible. He could also see, through a tarnished and time-worn mirror, the reflection of an enormous snake.
---
"Okay, calm down Carlie, this is all just in your head, there's nothing to--"
Varljiv failed to repress a spiteful, hissing laugh. "You are not good at lying-- especially not to yourself, child." He derisively chided.
"I'm not-- hey!" Carlie indignantly stamped her foot, paying no attention to the swirls of dust and broken ceramics that coated her battered trainers. She was already physically tired, exasperating from running through the mansion's maze-like corridors-- and now she was mentally tired, as some forgotten part of her mind now manifested itself in mocking her.
"I'm not a child, I'm twenty-five." She indignantly complained.
A pair of shortened, dull fangs gleamed as the snake tauntingly smiled. After an artificial eternity locked in outright terror, encountering someone this naive was refreshing-- early in his existence, he had found a scant source of amusement in the lies of the delusional, those who were lying to themselves. An existence of categorizing lies had killed even that pleasure, but after moments of tortuous truth it was a slight relief.
Those moments-- the translucent skeleton of a woman, haunting the Aspect of Lies with her piercing certainty-- his mind quickly slipped back to the matter at hand. "I'm not going to waste my time debating that, child. Not when we have something more pressing to discuss. The Haruspex's game."
A strained sigh was Carlie's response. "Look, now really not the time to discuss this." She began, watching the snake's focused, intent stare. "God, listen to you, Carlie, talking to a giant snake right n--"
"Would you prefer to talk to an urn?" Varljiv ridiculed in return.
If Carlie had responded, Varljiv never heard it. A hail of gunfire saw to that, as Mickey Keller and his two accomplices shredded the monstrous serpent. Bullets ripped through shimmering scales, shards of broken glass lacerated his body further. From the countless shears and penetrations rending the now-dead Aspect's body, blood pooled and rippled, ichorous and black.
Mickey paused, taking a moment to observe his work. He was having some difficulty wholly comprehending what he had just done. He was desensitized to violence. There was no importance placed on how he had shredded the mansion with gunfire, how he killed a giant reptile. But he had no understanding of how a gigantic snake had talked, or how he had been brought back to life, or how anything in this mansion had happened.
He leaned against a wall, reeling back. The contorted reflections were nauseating.
"Boss? We gonna find that floozy or what?" His accomplice asked.
Carlie silently gulped, praying that the network of mirrors did not reveal her location. Sound came as a deadened muffle-- her ears still rung from the terrifying roar of gunfire. Everything seemed to move slowly. The only constant was the reflection of a serpent's broken visage, mocking her just as it had done with its spiteful lies.
"...Yeah. I don't think she's here though." Mickey responded. Panes of glass, already tarnished with years of neglect, exposed the wooden framework comprising the maze. Bullet-holes allowed tight beams of light to penetrate the labyrinth, exposing the dust that floated through the air.
It was all too much for him-- he was hired as muscle, pure application of brute force, and he had no pretensions of being something greater than that. He was being forced to think, and he was not entirely comfortable doing so. He needed to collect his thoughts, and he needed to do so somewhere outside of the maze.
"Ain't nothing but dust here, boys. We'll find her somewhere else." He finished.
---
Several minutes had passed. Carlie had ambled through the hall of mirrors, and now found herself standing next to the serpent's corpse. Wherever ink-like blood had not pooled, phantasmal light glinted and shined off the thin layer of shards now decorating the floor.
"Okay, so, creepy lady said that only seven would return. And I'm pretty snake-thing here is dead." She nervously mumbled to herself. No mirrors echoed her actions-- all of the ones nearby had been destroyed, reduced to nothing but a few solitary fragments clinging to their torn framework. She was forced to endure her feeble attempt at self-assuagement in solitude. "Well, brain? I'm waiting here, you know." She added, irritated at the failure of her subconscious to react to the reptile's death. She glanced back down, towards the corpse, reflexively verifying that the aberrantly large snake no longer lived. Caliginous flames spat and licked across her fingertips, fading as they transitioned into a spectra of colors.
"Oh no." She gasped. Before she could jerk back her already-glowing hand, the light enveloped the corpse. The brilliant luminescence was everywhere, reflected off distant mirrors and coruscating off countless broken fragments.
Resurrection works oddly for those in the realm of pseudo-deities, particularly for those who had not fully died. While Varljiv's form had been destroyed, that form was merely a representation of what he was-- the falsehood that he was, stretching back from the seven untruths that had formed him down to the catalogued lies of every magistrate, every beggar, every god and king alike. He was dictated by function, and that function had not been undone; all that had occurred was its primal manifestation had been disrupted.
Carlie's ability was not suited for the realm of Aspects. If her powers were bound by a set of rules, they were rules wholly inapplicable to the kin of divine byproducts and immortals. But it had worked as best it could, attempting to pull together fragmented lies into an undamaged form-- and as it did so, it incorporated a new lie: the paradoxes that haunted Shrewdish manor, the echoes of impossible, dead timelines wove themselves into the textile that was the Aspect of Lies' being.
Varljiv awoke. His body rippled as it attempted to find a suitable form amongst the countless impossibilities that now held him together, before finally settling on a state somewhere between half-alive and half-dead.
"Woahwoahwoah! Shit!" Was a frightened, panicked girl's response.
Varljiv stared at the mirrors encircling him. They reflected back falsehood, the artificial facade he had chosen to adopt, and were no impediment to him. Intended to confuse and bewilder, the planes of polished glass were of no consequence for the Aspect of Lies-- the false nature of their reflections was plainly laid manifest. There was another lie, of course-- they were intended to obscure the true path out of the labyrinth. This falsehood was just as easily dispelled. Still recovering from the primal terror of moments earlier, the snake began to cautiously move. Scales pushed against dusty, time-worn flooring.
"Oh my god. This is hell."
Not quite. Varljiv thought in response. Carlie's comment was hoarse and short of breath, but broke the silence of Varljiv's thoughts, brought him back from his microcosm of endless reflections. Carefully angling himself, he could almost see the silhouette of another figure, flitting across the panes of glass. She was human, thin and fatigued. The Aspect of Lies indulged himself in thinking through how to best manipulate this situation, his mental cogs grinding forward with unchecked alacrity-- the piercing, terrifying certainty of moments earlier was steadily replaced with his usual scheming. He slid forward, navigating the hall of mirrors and swiftly approaching his quarry.
Carlie sat down, propping her tired body against one of the mirrors. She didn't care that the accumulated dust of the manor now coated her, or that she was being pursued by gangsters or that she was deep in the throes of her subconscious or whatever else. Desperate gasps for breath punctuated her monologuing-- she was too tired to coherently maintain her habit of voicing her thought process.
"R-right, okay, so maybe they won't find me here? I can hope for that, right?" She said to herself, in between heavy breaths. Carlie paused, scanning the lines of reflections. "Yeah, of course they aren't here, the only person who'd be here is--"
Carlie's eyes met Varljiv's-- each stared at its opposite reflection.
"--is that giant snake." She hesitantly finished.
---
"Right, you boys keep quiet-- I want this girlie alive, not plugged fulla lead." Mickey Keller whispered. The pair of thugs accompanying him eased up slightly. One of them loosened his grip on his battered submachine gun, slipping his finger outside of the trigger guard in a thin modicum of discipline. Together, they formed a loose rank-- Mickey Keller heading the formation, flanked on either side by a hired gun.
But even Mickey's brusque comment could not wholly ease the tension that permeated the mansion. The thin layer of dust, flecks of plaster and broken ceramics, broken artifacts of the Shrewdish estate-- they were treading inside a mausoleum to a now-forgotten glory of a dead family, and even for a band of simple-minded ruffians it was disquieting. That they now patrolled a hall of mirrors only further amplified their tensions. Distorted reflections haunted them as they walked, taunting their failure to catch a tired, desperate woman.
Mickey Keller stopped. The two gangsters with him halted immediately as he did.
The gangsters could hear two voices-- muffled and indistinct, obscured by the layers of labyrinth separating listener from speaker, but still audible. He could also see, through a tarnished and time-worn mirror, the reflection of an enormous snake.
---
"Okay, calm down Carlie, this is all just in your head, there's nothing to--"
Varljiv failed to repress a spiteful, hissing laugh. "You are not good at lying-- especially not to yourself, child." He derisively chided.
"I'm not-- hey!" Carlie indignantly stamped her foot, paying no attention to the swirls of dust and broken ceramics that coated her battered trainers. She was already physically tired, exasperating from running through the mansion's maze-like corridors-- and now she was mentally tired, as some forgotten part of her mind now manifested itself in mocking her.
"I'm not a child, I'm twenty-five." She indignantly complained.
A pair of shortened, dull fangs gleamed as the snake tauntingly smiled. After an artificial eternity locked in outright terror, encountering someone this naive was refreshing-- early in his existence, he had found a scant source of amusement in the lies of the delusional, those who were lying to themselves. An existence of categorizing lies had killed even that pleasure, but after moments of tortuous truth it was a slight relief.
Those moments-- the translucent skeleton of a woman, haunting the Aspect of Lies with her piercing certainty-- his mind quickly slipped back to the matter at hand. "I'm not going to waste my time debating that, child. Not when we have something more pressing to discuss. The Haruspex's game."
A strained sigh was Carlie's response. "Look, now really not the time to discuss this." She began, watching the snake's focused, intent stare. "God, listen to you, Carlie, talking to a giant snake right n--"
"Would you prefer to talk to an urn?" Varljiv ridiculed in return.
If Carlie had responded, Varljiv never heard it. A hail of gunfire saw to that, as Mickey Keller and his two accomplices shredded the monstrous serpent. Bullets ripped through shimmering scales, shards of broken glass lacerated his body further. From the countless shears and penetrations rending the now-dead Aspect's body, blood pooled and rippled, ichorous and black.
Mickey paused, taking a moment to observe his work. He was having some difficulty wholly comprehending what he had just done. He was desensitized to violence. There was no importance placed on how he had shredded the mansion with gunfire, how he killed a giant reptile. But he had no understanding of how a gigantic snake had talked, or how he had been brought back to life, or how anything in this mansion had happened.
He leaned against a wall, reeling back. The contorted reflections were nauseating.
"Boss? We gonna find that floozy or what?" His accomplice asked.
Carlie silently gulped, praying that the network of mirrors did not reveal her location. Sound came as a deadened muffle-- her ears still rung from the terrifying roar of gunfire. Everything seemed to move slowly. The only constant was the reflection of a serpent's broken visage, mocking her just as it had done with its spiteful lies.
"...Yeah. I don't think she's here though." Mickey responded. Panes of glass, already tarnished with years of neglect, exposed the wooden framework comprising the maze. Bullet-holes allowed tight beams of light to penetrate the labyrinth, exposing the dust that floated through the air.
It was all too much for him-- he was hired as muscle, pure application of brute force, and he had no pretensions of being something greater than that. He was being forced to think, and he was not entirely comfortable doing so. He needed to collect his thoughts, and he needed to do so somewhere outside of the maze.
"Ain't nothing but dust here, boys. We'll find her somewhere else." He finished.
---
Several minutes had passed. Carlie had ambled through the hall of mirrors, and now found herself standing next to the serpent's corpse. Wherever ink-like blood had not pooled, phantasmal light glinted and shined off the thin layer of shards now decorating the floor.
"Okay, so, creepy lady said that only seven would return. And I'm pretty snake-thing here is dead." She nervously mumbled to herself. No mirrors echoed her actions-- all of the ones nearby had been destroyed, reduced to nothing but a few solitary fragments clinging to their torn framework. She was forced to endure her feeble attempt at self-assuagement in solitude. "Well, brain? I'm waiting here, you know." She added, irritated at the failure of her subconscious to react to the reptile's death. She glanced back down, towards the corpse, reflexively verifying that the aberrantly large snake no longer lived. Caliginous flames spat and licked across her fingertips, fading as they transitioned into a spectra of colors.
"Oh no." She gasped. Before she could jerk back her already-glowing hand, the light enveloped the corpse. The brilliant luminescence was everywhere, reflected off distant mirrors and coruscating off countless broken fragments.
Resurrection works oddly for those in the realm of pseudo-deities, particularly for those who had not fully died. While Varljiv's form had been destroyed, that form was merely a representation of what he was-- the falsehood that he was, stretching back from the seven untruths that had formed him down to the catalogued lies of every magistrate, every beggar, every god and king alike. He was dictated by function, and that function had not been undone; all that had occurred was its primal manifestation had been disrupted.
Carlie's ability was not suited for the realm of Aspects. If her powers were bound by a set of rules, they were rules wholly inapplicable to the kin of divine byproducts and immortals. But it had worked as best it could, attempting to pull together fragmented lies into an undamaged form-- and as it did so, it incorporated a new lie: the paradoxes that haunted Shrewdish manor, the echoes of impossible, dead timelines wove themselves into the textile that was the Aspect of Lies' being.
Varljiv awoke. His body rippled as it attempted to find a suitable form amongst the countless impossibilities that now held him together, before finally settling on a state somewhere between half-alive and half-dead.
"Woahwoahwoah! Shit!" Was a frightened, panicked girl's response.