15 . JOHNUARY

[necrolord]

Who: John Gaius and company.
What: All around him, John's friends and loved ones begin to shed their skins. Also: Riteoir.
When: January
Where: Gaze and the new city.

Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

[hauntedsavior]

[his touch on her skin is the closest she feels she will ever get to what she desires, after how long he stays silent. and what a fool she is to continue making demands of her God. what an awful, awful fool she would be to think that she has this authority, that she is owed anything from someone stronger than her, smarter than her, greater than her. she should count herself lucky that he looks her way.]

[her eyelids flutter open and she is staring at him staring into her. she is basking in the warmth that he shines on her as a barren rock four billion miles from its sun might. even now, she recognizes the way he looks at her. even now, she knows that she's trained herself to be satisfied with anything she can get. like creatures who live deep, deep in the undersea trenches of the First House, she has transformed into an unrecognizable beast of teeth and eyes, greedy for nourishment and skin utterly transparent. she is an ugly creature, and no one would love her.]

[and then he says that he does not remember her name, and she feels something.]

I... [her eyes open wider, both of them, and her mouth with them, and her jaw trembles as though she hasn't had enough reason to bawl in the past ten minutes. she is a fool. she has always been a fool. she is so unlovable and insignificant that the Lord her God does not even remember who she is and why would he when there is nothing but pity and regret in the way he l̸o̴o̴k̵s̷ ̸a̵t̴ ̶h̶e̵r̷. she is nothing. she is nothing. she is nothing.]

[she curls her fist and punches him in the stomach, a reaction that she had hoped she would be able to delay forever. her face twists and she feels her body connecting to as much ambient thanergy as she can within this library. life does not become her any longer.]

I am your fealty! I have given everything to you! [a window shatters not far away, the glass covering the floor with glitter.] You are the reason I live and breathe and you are the reason I tear my own body to pieces. You are the root of everything. You are wretched. You are heartless. And I cannot help but love you. [a bookshelf near apollonia's head goes up, sending pages and wood splinters flying. her words tremble through the sound of the dust settling.] I am made whole by you.

[her body shakes. she cannot think of anything else to say.]

[she turns her back on her God.]

[necrolord]

[ Well. That goes badly.

Of all things, he didn't expect the punch. It doubles him over with a plain human wheeze of surprise, blinking in bewilderment, dazedly ready for some grander attack— ready to weather whatever she does to him, whatever means she chooses to pry him apart in vengeance— but she doesn't. She just yells.

Her voice fractures, catches, splinters like the wood which hits in chips around his feet. You are heartless doesn't hurt him; I am made whole by you twists his expression in distant anguish, in recognition, in ugly longing. He can't even pretend he isn't the one who did this to her. He'd do it. He would love the heaving undying corpse she'd make of herself for him.

She turns away, and he lets her go. ]