deercountry | nothing is working with me

Entry tags:

nothing is working with me

Who: Open, but due to the content of the prompts, please PM me before tagging if we don't already have CR
What: Winter Mournings
When: December
Where: The Locked Tomb; Trench

Content Warnings: Marked in comment headers, but expect death, child abuse, self-harm, and Nona the Ninth spoilers throughout

[ starters in the comments! ]

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Oh, I believe I'll worry about it.

[hey, here's viktor standing in the doorway. it's in his home, which is a normal enough little house off the willful machine. it's almost entirely unused except the basement and kitchen, because of course it is.

meaning the living room is a bit sparse. maybe she found her way onto a couch, maybe she's unlucky enough to be on the dusty floor.

viktor approaches with the clunk of his cane though. he looks so much healthier, his breathing clear, though one of his hands is distinctly purple now. usually covers that but this caught him off guard, surprisingly enough.

he has a cup of actual coffee (with way, way too much sugar) that he holds out as an offering. she uh, looks like she needs it more.]

[ Kiriona has gotten herself propped up against the couch, but still very much on the floor. Not the most dignified position for her to find the friend she's been blowing off for months. Especially when, by the looks of it, she's in his house. Yikes. Embarrassing.

While Viktor looks healthier, Kiriona looks like she's got one foot in the grave, literally. Death has given her skin a greyish pallor, and her once-bright eyes are looking much murkier. If he's paying close attention, Viktor might notice that at times, Kiriona forgets to breathe.

She takes the coffee anyway, even though she can't actually drink it. The warmth is soothing, at least. ]

Thanks. I just, you know, went too hard too fast. Classic. You're, uh -- [ shit, this is awkward ] -- looking good.

[woof, viktor takes in that decided unhealthy pallor, resisting the urge to openly frown over it. not helpful, probably. he hasn't exactly been great at keeping up with people either, though he knows enough from ortus to know things are... hm. complicated.

this is not the kind of complicated he was expecting, to be fair.

he takes a seat on the couch, letting his cane rest against it.] That does sound like you. Though right now you've never looked more like you need to stop and rest.

I am no longer dying. Built new lungs- Palamedes helped, of course. [the cliff notes there.] Frankly? It looks as though we've somehow swapped general conditions.

[nice way of saying you look half dead, bud]

[ Kiriona laughs. It's a thin, cruel sound, and goes on a touch longer than it should. ]

Congratulations on the new lungs. Sounds romantic.

[ But what would she know? Kiriona isn't one for romance. ]

And yeah, you could say that. Although I'm pretty sure you never went all the way. I'm dead-dead. Mega dead. It's great. [ it isn't. ] I don't get tired anymore, I don't need to eat, or sleep, or any of that shit. I'm God's perfect cavalier. [ She gestures at her knuckles, her knees. ] As soon as I get these stupid crystals out of me, I'll be good to try again.

[viktor resists a snort- all the way, no, not exactly. he focuses more on just... all of that though. lips thinning, growing increasingly aware things have gone even more poorly than he thought.]

I can help with those, if you'd like. I've taken them out before. [at least one thing he can do. otherwise-] Is this the result of a trip home? This... change.

[ Inside Kiriona there are two wolves. The first, largely governed by her pride, wants to refuse the help. The other, more hindbrain one, is in sharp physical pain and wants it to stop.

In the end, the second wins. Besides, without all this stupid crystal, Kiriona can get back to killing Crux. She nods once, and painstakingly hauls herself onto the couch proper. (She does not think about another time, in the Sixth quarters, where she asked for help. That happened to someone else.) ]

Yeah. I'm dead back home, but my dad revived me by sticking my soul back in my dead body. It's like, you know, a birthday present.

I thought he'd do a better job of it. [just. not bothering to hide his distaste for you know who, though he sighs and moves to go get what he needs.

medical kit, bowl of water, gloves, towels. each brought and laid out before he takes a seat on the coffee table. he didn't like this couch much anyway, he decides.]

What is your bloodtype? [he asks as he slips on the gloves.]

[ Before she can think better of it, Kiriona breathes: ]

Me too.

[ But fuck, shit, no. She's not supposed to talk like that. She's not supposed to go there. ]

Not that -- I mean, I'm grateful. And my body's super cool. I'm, like, the best cavalier the Nine Houses has ever seen.

[ It's fine. She's fine. Viktor will get the glass out, and then she'll be outta here. ]

[ah, a long moment to just lay everything out. then a sigh.]

You're aware I don't care for him, so my bias is obvious. That aside it is your life and your body, you are permitted your disappointments and frustrations.

It gets very old very quickly to pretend otherwise, believe me.

[ Sorry about the potential blood on your couch, Viktor.... having friends from the necromancer hell universe probably is rough.

Her mouth twists into something like a smile. ]

Oh, I know. I buried my disappointments for eighteen years.

But then I got everything I wanted, and all it cost was [ she gestures at her chest ] this, so at this point I'm just trying to figure out why I still feel like shit. I guess.

Don't worry about it, though. Or me. I've got a plan.

[he's getting used to blood, bones and things being far more haunted than he's used to. the perils of necromancer connections.

regardless he gets to work, carefully, with whatever he can do to ease the process. he's not exactly a doctor by any means but he has enough knowledge from the whole biomedical engineer bit it's nothing he's overly concerned about.

and has time to think over what she says, for that matter.] I would say it's likely because what you wanted didn't turn out as expected.

[another matter he has some experience in, purple hand and all.] What plan is that?

[ If Viktor has ever worked with a cadaver, Kiriona's body is much like that: cold, slack, lifeless. The primary difference is that she takes more power to cut through, as if her very body has been somehow reinforced. It provides an incredible tactical advantage. It's also gross as hell.

Kiriona smiles faintly, and she doesn't look at Viktor so much as she looks through him. ]

Revenge. I'm gonna hurt the people who hurt me. It's just -- I have to keep working on it. That's all.

Thing is, it happened exactly as I expected. I've got a big important dad, all the prizes I could ever want, and I don't even have to talk to Harrow anymore. Maybe it's like -- I dunno, you're a science guy. When you're so good at experiments that you run out of experiments?

[ totally. ]

[ah, nice to work on a moving corpse. that's a lie, nice is not the word, mildly horrifying is. still it does make things a little easier as he works, he'll admit, though he doesn't particularly think that's a worthwhile pay off.

occasionally he glances up.]

And what happens when your revenge is met? You have everything you say you want, what then?

[ A little easier to work on is the nicest thought anyone has had about Kiriona's new body so far. She'll take it.

What then, though? Kiriona squirms, for the first time since sitting down, at the question. ]

I don't know. [ It's the first honest thing she's said all day. ] I don't think I know how to do anything other than this.

I dunno. What would you do? I mean, you have a whole house, Palamedes, new lungs. Does it ever get... [ Kiriona pauses, searches for a word ] ...boring?

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