ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴜɴᴅʏɪɴɢ (
necrolord) wrote in
deercountry2022-04-18 01:28 pm
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08 . family drama
Who:
necrolord, Gideon, Harrow, Paul; Oscar, Ruby, Ozpin, maybe Qrow and Ange; possibly others.
What: Some kids robbed a lich and got their hands melted off. The fallout is messy.
When: April, following the party, network post, and Oscar's log.
Where: Bone House & Clockhouse
Content Warnings: Marked as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
What: Some kids robbed a lich and got their hands melted off. The fallout is messy.
When: April, following the party, network post, and Oscar's log.
Where: Bone House & Clockhouse
Content Warnings: Marked as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
3/3
[She's processing it. She shakes her head, just the slightest bit disbelieving. But she believes, for better or worse. As if only having just now processed it, she cracks a half hearted smile at the well wishes.]
I was in prison and it was still better than that place. Or maybe I just felt less powerless. [She shrugs, like that's not a depressing thing to say.]
What about... y'know, your house? Is it...? [Better? A family? Kindly?
Does God hate her as much as they told her he did?]
no subject
Yeah. It's, uh. John. His name.
[ Another secret, another betrayal. He's God. He's just some guy. He's too much for Gideon to comprehend, sometimes, and so she doesn't.
Worse than prison is a bleak assessment, and Gideon winces, unsure of what to say. She doesn't say anything, for a moment. For once, she's thinking.
Gideon thinks about training with Paul at dawn, about eating his bad-but-getting-better food, about doing her part to keep his hair as messy as possible. She thinks about Kaworu, floating off the roof in increasingly stupider ways, about the lizard they are raising together, about puns and piggyback rides.
She thinks about Harrow, because Gideon is always thinking about Harrow, about the fragile peace that the two of them share, about the little divot above her lip, about how Gideon gets to see her first thing when she wakes up and last thing before she goes to sleep. About the question she wants to ask, so, so badly, and the fear that's settled deep in her heart over the answer being no.
And then there's God, and he's the odd one out, the only person Gideon does her best not to think about. Kaworu and Paul and even Harrow will love him, will call him Teacher, and she won't, and maybe that's the only thing that stands between their house and kindly. ]
Yeah. [ Gideon breathes, at last ] Yeah, I think -- I think it could be.
[ she offers Faith something that would be a smile, if it weren't so fucking bitter. ]
Except that I'm the one who keeps fucking it up, you know?
no subject
Daughter?Mercenary? Whatever it is that she is to him. If Faith followed God as a disciple, perhaps she'd be more inclined to judge Gideon for casually giving up his secrets.But she doesn't know what's happened between them. And Gideon is her friend in a way that feels more honest and sincrere and secure. So, she trusts that Gideon has a reason to be resentful. After-all, Faith spent her entire childhood cursing her father. And her mother. And God.
The only one there for her was Malice, in the back of her mind, who wept at her misfortunes and begged for her to remember. Malice, who had slaughtered entire worlds.]
I guess his name just being kind of boring is as good a reason as any to keep it secret.
[She smiles, a little, still uncertain about what it means. And then Gideon says that, and Faith lets out a huff of amused familiarity. It's always complicated. More complicated than screwed up kids like them messing it all up, but she knows that feeling. It's a moment of empathy amidst the uncertainty.]
Yeah. I mean, I know the feeling. Don't know the full circumstance behind it, but... [She shakes her head.] You can't ruin it any worse than I ruined my home.
no subject
Yeah, you've got his number. I mean, we live in a house made from bones. John probably cramps his style, and he's the first to say that being God is ninety percent keeping up appearances, or whatever.
[ Sounds like an absolutely horrible deal to Gideon, but that's not for her to judge. God made His choices.
And oh, look, more unexpected camaraderie. Gideon Nav, noted parent-killer twice over, wishes for Faith's sake that she didn't get it, but...it's nice to know Gideon isn't alone, too. If she feels guilty about that, well, she'll just deal with that later. ]
I mean, I fucked up my first one pretty bad, too. [ then, because she knows how bad bad can get, she adds: ] If you didn't kill anyone, you're probably doing okay.
no subject
She opens her mouth to reply and the laughter comes after-all, and she shakes her head because it's not funny, so she covers her mouth like the dainty princess she's not.]
I did a bit more than kill someone. [And she'll leave it at that, because she's not pretending to be something she's not anymore.] It's not a happy story. Makes me come across as a real bitch, which I am, but... y'know.
[She shrugs, suddenly worried Gideon is going to turn to her and look at her with horror and judgement in her eyes and she won't be able to take it.]
no subject
[ Gideon's not going to ask what Faith did, of course. Not directly. That's personal business, and if she's learned anything from growing up on the Ninth, it's that talking about personal business sucks and you should never do it. ]
You're, like, a little bit of a bitch, sure. But I've met worse. [ Gideon sends yet another mental fuck off to Ianthe. ] I mean, you bailed me outta that dinner. That was a pretty nice move.
no subject
I was an assassin. [A personal attack dog. She puts her hands in her jacket pocket.] I was given power to help people fight the powers of darkness or whatever and I used it to kill a lot of people at the behest of this... guy.
The Mayor. He's... god, I don't even know how old he was. But he sold his soul a long time ago, became something... not quite human, not quite demon. He built this town over a gateway to hell, did business with monsters and demons so they could feast on the people to their heart's content. I... there was an accident, and I killed one of his deputies. Then I killed his right hand on purpose. All my friends started shunning me... [Or that's how she remembers it, anyway.] And when I showed up at his doorstep to kill him too, he was the only one who took me in.
The only one who seemed like he actually gave a fuck about me. The others left me to rot in this shitty unprotected motel, he gave me a full protected apartment, as many weapons as I wanted, and he kept me paid enough to get what I wanted without having to steal to survive.
So I killed and tortured people for him. 'Cuz that's how easy it is to get me to turn evil, I guess.
[Can you guess who The Emperor reminds her of?]