deercountry | You say I'm bleeding?

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You say I'm bleeding? | Open

Who: Luca and you!
What: Luca dealing with various levels of corruption. There's a prompt for him just being super corrupted after he literally eats handfuls of candy (and he also has amnesia, animal parts, paranoia, and is singing, just pretend the linked song is being sung by a thirteen year old boy), and also a prompt for him after he goes into beast mode.
When: The high corruption candy Luca is in the first half of the month, the beast mode is mid month
Where: Either prompt can be anywhere as long as it's outside

Content Warnings: Self harm, blood, strong language being used by a child (in the linked song)

The Chocolatier - OTA
Luca has a sweet tooth. It's not usually an issue, since he likes plenty of healthy foods as well and balances candy with balanced meals, but he definitely does enjoy sweets. So when a strange creature comes to him and offers him the most amazing chocolate he's ever smelled, and all he has to do is bleed? Well, Luca just had to take him up on the offer. Enthusiastically.

He ends up with a very decent amount of chocolate, too. It's only fair after Luca found a sharp rock and used it to open both palms so he could bleed and bleed for the Chocolatier. Anyone who saw him now would see he's still bleeding, but too far gone from corruption to notice or care.

His intent hadn't originally been to eat all the candy himself, and someone might notice that he's set eight pieces of candy aside, having mentally told himself who each piece would go to. Right in front of him, however, is a small pile that's all that's left of what he picked for himself, as he's already eaten quite a few pieces, and it shows. He's grown bat wings and a snake tail from the candy, though the truffle and coconut chocolate had left their own physical mark on him as well, as the confusion from the amnesia and the paranoia had intermingled to push him farther into corruption, leaving him with claws, sharp teeth and slit pupils.

And then there was the singing, because of course he ate some of the almond candy, and of course as he desperately tries to reach for what little he remembers, the only memory he's able to grasp is one of Charlie teaching him curse words.

The Serpent - OTA
Though the candy has worn off by now, it's left it's mark. The hours spent being paranoid and confused had brought him into the depths of corruption, and while his mind had returned from the effects of the candy, the madness that had seeped into his mind was not so easy to shake. Maybe he'd have teetered over the edge on his own. Maybe he'd have pulled himself back, bit by bit. 'Maybe' didn't matter, though, because it's when he feels Luz's mind sinking into beasthood that he looses his last thread of humanity.

"Luz!" he calls out, the familial bond between them letting him feel exactly what's happening. "Luz, don't worry, I'll keep you safe!"

And with that thought, he races through the streets, green scales spreading along his skin, blue fins racing down his back, and before long, a massive serpent is slithering down the street.

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"Wait."

Ange pauses too for a moment, her brain quickly working inside of her head to process everything she's hearing here. Thankfully the information he's providing her with makes it a whole lot easier to just ignore the initial question, since Ange would love to never have to publically answer that one, thanks.

"Something asked you?" That's what's mainly preoccupying her thoughts. If something asked for his blood, then it could very easily be influencing Luca right now.. "Do you remember what or who it was?"

"It was...it was..." he struggles to remember. He manages to pull of a brief flash of an image in his mind. "It looked scary. Horns and hands and teeth. But it was really nice. It gave me chocolate."

And maybe if he hadn't been influenced by the strange aura around the Chocolatier he'd realize how flawed his logic was, but as things are, he doesn't.

It is kind of weird, she thinks. The way this boy is describing that.. well, that whatever it was as something so clearly omnious, and yet at the same time it sounds like he doesn't realise just how omnious he's making it sound.

Whatever that thing was, it's really got to have some influence over him here. Concerningly so, though Ange at the same time has absolutely no idea how to help get rid of it.

"Is that.. when you got these?"

She points at the claws on his hands.

Ange is mostly trying to gently nudge his brain along. To help him realise that something is wrong with him - no, with this entire situation.

He stares at the claws. He didn't have those before, did he?

"Um."

He thinks about it, then shakes his head. After a bit, a faint wisp of memory and a clear image of how he got the claws thankfully came back.

"No, those came later. Those came on their own. I tried this one round chocolate that was really good, and I started becoming more and more worried that someone would take it...then the teeth and claws came the more worried I got." Mostly because his corruption was setting in at that point. "It's like they showed up to keep my chocolate safe!"

"Why are you so worried though that someone will take it?"

Sure, it would be easy to blame that thought on the mind of a child. After all, it's not like people are always the most rational of thinkers - especially the younger people get.

On the other hand, Luca doesn't seem that young. Surely not young enough to get that paranoid over a chocolate. It feels like there's something more than that, especially when the feeling is strong enough to corrupt him. That's not good.

Maybe that's why she's trying to let him think about it.

"Does it seem like anyone is trying to steal it? I mean, I'm near you, and I'm not taking anything from you now, am I?"

Why is he worried someone might try to take it?

"No one has yet...I don't think. But this isn't normal chocolate. It's very special chocolate. It's the best, most amazing chocolate."

He looks at her. No, she hasn't tried to take it.

"No, you haven't. Not yet."

Not yet, he says. It seems like it's not that easy to get rid of the paranoia, huh.

"Still. It's your chocolate, you know. Most people aren't going to be total a--" Oh god, Ange, wait, he's young, watch what word you're using there! "--total jerks and take that from you."

Not that Ange trusts other people so much, but it's still the sentiment she wants to convey to him here. Maybe these odd changes about him will revert if Luca just manages to calm down.

"I've never had anything stolen from me in this place. So don't worry so much about it, you know? It's all going to be fine."

"I haven't had anything stolen either, but I haven't had anything worth stealing."

Sure, he had his bike, his clothes, various odds and ends he's accumulated. But this chocolate is different from all of that.

"This isn't normal chocolate. I...I think it's what gave me the horns. And the tail. It's not my normal tail." At least he's remembering that much. "And one piece made me sing!"

"But that's.. strange, right?" The hesitance isn't really on her part. Ange knows it's strange. She's not sure if it's corruption, or some sort of other side effect, but either way.. If it's randomly caused by pieces of chocolate gifted by some shady figure, then Ange absolutely knows it can't be good in any way, regardless of its exact nature. She's just saying it like that because she's trying to help guide him along towards the right conclusion.

Especially since Luca seems well on his way there at this point. His words seem to indicate that he's starting to piece it together himself as well now.

"That's not supposed to happen when you eat chocolate."

Not when you eat normal chocolate, anyway.

"Um..." he thinks about it. "Yeah, but that's what makes the chocolate so special, right?"

Sure, something was incredibly bizarre with this chocolate, but does that necessarily make it a bad thing? Except that he's becoming more corrupted...

"And it tastes great! And the tail and horns aren't bothering me."

Ange frowns as she realises that this is going absolutely nowhere. Not that she blames the boy - she entirely blames the chocolate, and whoever gave it to him. She'd snatch that chocolate right out of his hands and throw it straight into the ocean, were it not for the fact that she feels like it might just make things worse here somehow.

Maybe she just has to try a different angle.

"What if other people saw you with those though?"

Sure, sure, Ange knows Luca can turn into a monster and all that. But she recalls that form looking different than these new parts he's grown..

.. she thinks. Her memories from her time as a kid are still pretty blurry. Regardless, her point about the tail and horns is--

"Don't you think they would worry about you?"

"Worried?" He seems confused. He's struggling to remember who he knows and how they'd feel about any of this, after all. "Why would they be worried?"

"Haven't you noticed that people here sometimes.." Her voice trails off. After all, considering what the other had shown her back when Ange was so much younger, she figures that he might not understand the nuances of it as quickly. Changing between this form and something more monstrous might be normal for him, after all.

".. change?"

She decides to settle on first.

He pauses, like he's thinking...struggling to remember. He looks at his claws. He gets a flash of it happening before. Not from chocolate. From fear. From blood. He shakes his head to try and banish the memory.

"Yes. I have. In a place with sleeper blood and organs and...it was bad."

The Sleeper Farm. His memories are slowly trickling back, piece by piece.

Thankfully he doesn't have to elaborate on what exactly that place was, on what those circumstances were. Ange knows it without him having to go into it further - exactly because she went through the same thing. She was also in that place. She also saw what happened there, what it looked like.

It's no wonder that it happened there before, of all places.

"Right. And that change.. it didn't seem right either, did it? That must have felt strange and bad too."

"No. It was bad. It was really, really bad."

And that's helping him understand why this might be a bad thing, because while his memories of that time are still fuzzy, he still gets a distinct sense of dread remembering them.

"How...how do you think I would go back from this?"

Edited 2022-03-17 01:55 (UTC)

Ange isn't sure.

But she can't just say that, right? After this entire conversation with him, and after managing to convince him that something here is very wrong, it just doesn't feel right to say that she doesn't know how to turn him back to normal - even though it's very much the truth.

Instead Ange frowns, thinking. She's got to be able to find some way to turn him back.

"Maybe we should find a healer."

That, or wait until it maybe goes back to normal after a while - but Ange doesn't want to risk that. Especially not in this place, where these sorts of things can escalate beyond belief.

"They could take a look at you and see if they can help. How does that sound?"

"Yeah."

He doesn't know if a healer can do anything about most of this, but they can probably help the cuts on his hands, at least.

"Yeah, that sounds fine."

"Alright." It's a start, honestly. Just him agreeing with this already feels like a lot to her, and maybe one of the healers will have a better idea of how to deal with this than Ange does.

Or at least some idea, because Ange has absolutely none.

"Come on," she says, already taking a step in the direction of the district full of healers. "You'll feel better again in no time, I'm sure."

Or so she hopes, anyway. But she's at least trying to portray a bit more of a positive outlook than that for Luca's own sake.

Luca follows, managing to keep his thoughts straight enough to be able to feel confident that a healer would be a good thing. He's not certain how a healer can help all the new parts he's grown, of course, but even if they can only help some things that's still good, right?

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