there's a monster in my closet

[reddosmod]

MAY 2022 EVENT

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Half man, half goat gazing through the sky in front of mountain.]
[Image Two: Deer-like skeletal creature talking in a forest.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Bees crawling out of and over a calm man's cheek.]
[Image Two: Humanoid figure with honeycomb skin.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Skull beside dried flowers.]
[Image Two: Red wilting flowers. ]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

SELF EVALUATION

WHEN: May
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Body horror, heavy themes of dysphoria and body dysmorphia, acceptance of self, forced physical transformations.

---

An excerpt from Book of Bausphomette:

"They say you should walk a mile in someone's shoes before casting judgment. The true rhetoric can be applied to Bausphomette's version of 'self-evaluation.' It shouldn't come as a surprise that a Pthumerian would have a very different idea of self-evaluation than the typical person, but here we are and I'm going to give you a heads up: don't freak out about the fur.

Or scales. Really, it could be anything, but when your body starts to change into something you can't recognize, you're not going crazy and you're not turning into a Beast. Or okay, you're turning into a beast but not a Beast with a capital B. You will be yourself, have your normal personality, your normal thoughts, your normal habits...You just...Won't exactly look like yourself. People have been known to turn into minotaurs or sprout ten wings or become half-goat on top and all fish on the bottom. Either way, you're not going to be physically recognizable.

But you will be yourself. You will just have new vocal cords or have to learn a new means of communication. Telling your loved ones about your sudden transformation might be a bit alarming, but I think that's kind of the point. Bausphomette seems to believe the monstrous transformation will allow people to consider different parts of themselves that are usually hindered by social judgments. Are you really happy with yourself enough to not mind being a beast? How does this impact your relationship with your body? Does your body matter to you as much as you believed? Can you adapt to this new body and come to love it?

Granted, not everyone has hated this process. It has made some parts of life especially exciting...If you know what I mean. Thankfully the process doesn't last! The general idea is that once you have accepted something about yourself you will begin to turn back to your usual body! Of course, for more stubborn folks, this has been known to take a few months...Try not to be too stubborn or resistant to the new change! ...It will only make it worse."

QUICK FACTS 1. Your character can have various monstery attributes during May. They should be monsterous - not cute little ears or a non-distracting tail.

2. The lesson the characters learn can vary greatly and depend on what players choose to explore.

3. Feel free to go as heavy-handed with the body horror. Your character can magically just wake up with the body or go through some painful transformation.

4. Characters should NOT have mental alteration during this period. The point is that they are still themselves regardless of their new appearance.

5. Have the size of the beast be appropriate to the setting's size.

6. Temporary powers can be gained through the beast's body for the month. Do not break the setting.

HUMMING IN THE SKIN

WHEN: May
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Increased bouts of mindless violence, optional insect-based horror, insects in skin, honeycomb in skin, bodies as hives for insects, extreme body horror.

---

An old article clipping was gathered from a newspaper that used to run in Trench. It seems like the rest of the article is missing except for the end:

"And, he said, "They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What's blood for, if not for shedding?"

We do not know what this Sleeper's intent was, but we do know the impact lasted. Reports of symptoms include feeling as though your skin is humming, that there's itchiness you can't quite get rid of like something is always crawling over your skin and around inside of you. Some people claim that this remains a mental only terror that keeps them up at night. Some have been known to scratch open holes in their skin and pull themselves apart just to make sure they aren't filled with bugs. We wish we could say that it was only a paranoid curse, but it seems there is some foundation to the concern.

Some who have gotten cuts or other injuries at this time will discover various insects, but especially bees crawling out from exposed wounds. Once you have gotten an injury, the humming seems to get worse. A descent to madness happens swiftly, but all at once, you become calm and content with the situation. Your skin slowly becomes honeycombed, bees moving in and out of you freely. You become a walking, talking hive.

But of course, that's just the worst-case scenario. For the most part, people who are itching mindlessly seem to be driven to bouts of violence, wanting to get rid of the feeling by randomly attacking those nearby. Strangely enough, the bloodshed during these attacks does not seem to contribute to blood pollution.

Instead, blood shed during this time of month seems to be instantaneously soaked up by your immediate surroundings. The bees from these people have been seen flying everywhere, and instead of collecting pollen, they seem to be collecting blood magic. Either to bring it back to their walking hives or using it for other deeds..."

IMPOSTERS

WHEN: May-June
WHERE: Outside where flowers can be found
CONTENT WARNINGS: Demonic, violent, blood thirsty flowers?? Parasite style monsters.

---

From Plantlife and You: Trench Edition:

"This is a tricky subject as it does not technically have to do with actual plantlife but rather the nefarious imitation of plantlife.

As spring begins be cautious of the plants around you. It might be lovely to see tulips popping open and other spring delights coming to light. We all like to see the splashes of color pop up around Trench, especially after such cold, long months...But be wary.

Among these flowers are insidious imposters. Telling them apart from the original flowers is almost impossible. You can only do your best to be careful around any plantlife you interact with. They look like flowers, but these creatures are demonic beasts who have perfectly cultivated a flawless mimic. Instead of sunlight and water, they soak in the blood of Trench up through their roots. If you pick the wrong flower, blood will squirt out from the roots and vines.

The bees from Sleeper bodies seem intent on pollinating these exact flowers with blood, leaving little bloody streaks in their wake, but the bees jump between normal flowers and the imposters, making it difficult to properly figure out which is which.

I know what you're thinking: okay, so what? They eat blood, big deal, they are just flowers...

Ha! Did you really think it would be that simple? No, no, these imposters will invade your gardens and your homes. Their little vines will wrap around your foot when you're in the garden or taking a walk. It's not evident at first, but it doesn't take much for a flower to grow on your body. Harmless, painless, but they will suck your blood dry. They have been known as silent killers, parasitic, draining you of life and energy and magic slowly but surely.

And the catch is once you have one flower growing on you, more will come, and it can distort your personality and make you feel or act as though you are drunk. Things won't make sense and you won't exactly know how to ask for help. Your only luck is that someone else will notice. Taking the flowers off requires an icy bath or shower and some serious salt scrub. To prevent this in general, you will want to keep your skin covered thoroughly and not allow pollen to brush against you since that's all it takes. Good luck!"

CODING

Comments

[hearthebell]

[From a distance, L might actually believe that. He has no reason not to, just as he has no reason to believe that this creature is someone he knows, let alone fairly familiarly.

Everyone with ghosts to hide this month is wrestling, long-form, with a monster that won't go away until the real beast within is reckoned with. Some were just born not knowing how that worked, and never learned.

Has L found one such ghost, in a startlingly literal sense? The wisps of shroud drift and float around Paul, even as keeps his cautious distance. Not just from Paul, these days; from everything, because what if it all does burn?

The creature's speaking voice is of no help to identify it. He sincerely does not know that this is Paul, but takes a reluctant, if sincere, step forward.]

And something must always give, before a loss or a victory. What matters is that you can stand up to demands of necessity more resiliently than the flowers.

[terriblepurpose]

[The laugh that brings forth is like the tumble of clear water over smooth stone, the being rising to its feet in a veil of prismatic rainbows as light refracts off of it. If that light bends strangely, what about this isn't already strange?

It holds out the flower to the demon, demonstratively, spinning its stems between its fingers. This is a mundane flower, an early pink carnation, but it seems to delight the pale thing holding it.]

Or we should learn our resilience from the flowers. They meet their necessities admirably, don't you think?

[The transformation has been, to the dreamy mind contained within this body, a fascinating development. There had been some consternation, at first, yes, but a walk outside and the discovery of the symbiotic (are they?) flowers crowning his head (why do you think that?) have lifted his spirits considerably.]

Why don't you try holding it? See what happens?

[hearthebell]

See if I can help you, you mean.

[Though the apparition might believe, or have come to believe, that the process is symbiotic, L can't be so sure. But something about the way it looks, how he imagines it might feel, resonates within him. He doesn't know it's because of their Bond, but he gets the exact opposite impression. This is malignant... and what if he can't help?

It seems like the more likely outcome, lately, no matter his intentions. He doesn't answer the fey question about the resilience of flowers and their necessities, instead reaching out to take the offered flower.

It doesn't burn. Either L has very suddenly learned to control something that has been unreliable up until this point, or this is not a flower.]

Lycka...

[The orca appears at his shoulder, roughly plushie-sized. By now, she has forgiven him, at least to the extent where she will not split from him for days at a time.]

Please find out what you can about this. Why it won't burn, and what can make it.

[She's off, and L kneels to grasp for a fistful of other flowers still rooted in soil. These are genuine, curling to ash in his hand.]

[terriblepurpose]

[At the orca's manifestation, the figure (Paul) stills, surfaces aligning along their sharp edges as the demon (Lazarus) crouches to incinerate a different cluster of bright petals, and why had he been so sure that what he offered him had been harmless?]

That's not why I asked.

[He says it softly, the chime-like quality of his voice subdued.]

I wanted to see. [He crouches to Lazarus' level, planes splitting apart in new configurations.] Isn't that what you're doing? Or there another reason you're out here, looking at flowers?

[He already knows he's stepping over a threshold by not revealing himself to Lazarus now. It's no way to build back the trust he damaged the last time they saw one another, but that's also why he hesitates, his head swimming and his hidden tongue gummy in his true mouth.

He's missed talking to him. He doesn't want to give it up so quickly. Soon - but not yet.]

[hearthebell]

[L's eyes avoid glass-like surfaces these days, more than they did before, and that's saying something. But the motions catch his eye, and he reaches down to set the dangerous flower he's holding beside his feet.]

I was thinking of decapitations and romantic gestures, and... how picking a flower apparently applies to both of them.

[As honest as it is strange. There's a sort of defiance to the way the man presents it; he's not for everyone. He knows he isn't; he's learned how to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff in that regard.]

So many things we accept as gentle are really very brutal in practice. Don't worry; if the way to fix this is brutal, I'll be upfront about it.

[terriblepurpose]

To fix - ?

[A further lilting rise in tone, perplexed, until realization strikes. Paul reaches for the flowers sprouting from his head with sharp, glass-like fingers that brush against them with paradoxical gentleness.]

You don't need to worry about that. [He reassures Lazarus, quietly.] They're part of an experiment.

[Surely, that's enough explanation. He has things well in hand, even if he hasn't quite gotten to the step of how he'll remove them later. He lowers his hand and links his fingers together in front of him.]

It's not the only romantic gesture like that, is it? All the giving of hearts. Or breaking them. [He tilts his head slightly to the left.] Is there someone you're performing decapitations for?

[hearthebell]

[L nods resolutely; he has no qualms, no feelings of conflicts over what he understands to be malignant. He does in fact need to worry, and recognizes as much.]

Experiments can be dangerous. Sometimes the gains don't outweigh the risks.

[He knows. Does he ever know.

L gives the creature of shining angles an odd look at the question. The fever dream-like way it's phrased is reminiscent of something, or more specifically someone. He jerks his horned head sideways on the edge of a vigorous shake in the negative, because what does he know about breaking hearts?

It's too aggressive. He's jumping at shadows, surely. Whatever or whoever this creature is, it's no real harm to say, even if it's speaking to him like someone who isn't fully uninformed about Lazarus Sauveterre.]

Bold of you, to ask who I'd become an executioner for. Fortunately, that's not the demand.

[He hasn't heard one way or another if Shoyo likes flowers. He'd probably prefer a pack of protein shakes or a new and optimized volleyball. But if he did? Well... it would stand to reason that he'd do it, right?]

It happens that they're shockingly manageable. I can't think of why you'd ask, unless you got into this by believing you were just compiling a lover's bouquet.

[terriblepurpose]

[There is something to this that feels like the gaining of a secret, or seeing a teacher through the slit of a drape unnoticed. Paul had always been a quiet and curious child, and there had been a heady, uneasy rush to knowing things that he hadn't been meant to. He'd grown past that, or so he thought.

But it's also something else, a greater weight. He's gotten so used to Lazarus as a teacher; he almost lost sight of the man.]

I ask too many questions for my own good. [The carved smile stays still, as it can be expected to.] A bad habit. I'd ask you to forgive me, if I could tell you that it wouldn't happen again.

[He shakes his head in turn, flowers bobbing, and leans forward to splay fingertips in the dirt under green leaves.]

But it's not a risk asking you about them, is it? [Subdued.] Although not much for me to gain, either. Speaking of weights.

[And a fey impulse must seize him, a shudder of quicksilver that manifests in an abrupt:] Do you think love is a kind of experiment?

[With a balance of gains against risks, a hypothesis put out to be tested.]

[hearthebell]

Everyone with a curious streak asks exactly as many questions as they can get away with.

[It gives him a sense of control to think that he can shut this down anytime. That's helped him lately; he's needed help and looked for the fractured and still functional ways he can provide it for himself.

He's so scorching hot, even to be close to. To touch would probably wound. His silent answer is surprisingly expressive; it says that he fully expects it to happen again, with a kind of dogged resignedness.

At first, it seems like he's going to dismiss the inquiry from an apparent stranger outright. He likes Shoyo too much, cares too much about his eventual fate (without him, he's sure) to just give it away to a disguised stranger. But the second question hooks him in the lip, pulls out the pain and anguish he'd rather keep buried.]

Love? It's nothing more than a person trying to see something good about themselves through someone else's eyes. That's why rejection hurts, isn't it?

[He's more callous and cruel than he'd be to Paul, if he knew. It gives his honesty barbs.]

Even the worst person can pretend they're good if someone else is convinced they see it. It would only be an experiment if it wasn't so easy to manipulate.

[terriblepurpose]

[Called out, Paul would let his mouth slant into a crooked, sheepish smile if he could, and it's the first time (is it?) that his altered form has troubled him. Besides that, the subject of what he can get away with has become more fraught, and he should remember that, even under the bobbing wreath of soothing flowers.

So has the subject of love. The frank truth of Lazarus' words strikes down to bone, but it's not unwelcome. This is the kind of council that makes Lazarus unique, a commitment to the brute reality of what people are.

And yet: something kicks at him, a pang that pierces through his muddled haze. He flexes his left hand once more, half-consciously.]

But if you are good to them...is there a difference?

[There is. He can half-hold it in his mind, the understanding that (my actions don't only belong to me) there is only so far that a person can insulate and isolate. The orbit of an act may be long, but it always comes back to -]

Or what if they see an aspect of you hidden from yourself? [There is a hesitant note in his lovely voice, dissonance at the edges.] Even in the worst person.

[hearthebell]

[L's eyes keep darting back to the flowers; when Lycka comes back, he'll have an idea of how to deal with them; she can't be far off, now. In the meantime... he's seen this before, somewhere, this strange combination of innocence and wisdom. Is it that he truly can't place it, or that he's not permitting himself to?

Why does the creatures speak like they're friends? Are they? It would be surprising enough that L even has any, because though there are a handful of people who are kind to him, they don't know him, and once they do, that will change, like it always does. Is it suspicious as hell, or is it nice to be spoken to like a friend by this strange and lovely creature?]

Deep down, I do think that people know who they are. They might reframe it to make it more flattering... a stubborn person might say he's "steadfast", or a argumentative person might say that he "never backs down from a fight." Someone who is weak might say that he is "gentle" or "kind." When someone loves with him, they see the reframe, as he does. The reframe goes away when love does, even if nothing has changed.

[terriblepurpose]

[Their first meeting drifts to the surface of Paul's thoughts as he takes Lazarus' scathingly sharp speech in, his many-angled and luminous body stilled nearly perfectly besides the rise and fall of his chest, the continued sway of the flowers not quite in sync with the wind.

He had only glimpsed the depths of deprivation that had formed Lazarus then, mapped him against the image of a mentat. He knows better than that now. He has seen the locked room, the endless puzzle. He's seen the desert and the distant storm. He knows Lazarus.]

That's not true.

[He says it low and heated, defiance laced tight to each syllable, and he may not know gentle or kind, but stubborn, argumentative -]

A person's mind might change, the way they see someone else may alter - but the qualities of a person aren't changed by a shift in another's perception. And you're speaking of subjectives, things on a spectrum of judgment. Unless what you mean is everyone is the worst interpretation of themselves -

[He should stop. (If he knew how to stop, he wouldn't be here.)]

Is that what they're like, this person of manageable expectations? Weak?

[hearthebell]

[That's familiar, too, and even if it's not clear yet, and there's no way to see it for sure with Paul's changes, that defiance is so like something he misses that it aches. It sets him on-edge and raises the temperature around him a few degrees.

He's sure he's right; how could he not be right? That's his job: to have it figured out, and tell people what they don't want to hear, and purge the messenger along with all those raw and unsettled feelings.

Is Shōyō weak? Does L just frame it nicely because Shōyō is kind to him and hasn't rejected him yet?]

...no. They're not like that.

[Normalcy bias kicks in. He doesn't want this crystalline being to sound familiar anymore, and so when Lycka rushes back to his side and gives him the report, he's all too glad to relay more unpleasant things that ultimately will lead to a better outcome. However uncanny he finds the creature of shining angles, there's a job to do.]

She says an ice bath or a salt scrub will kill the flowers... and that salt is probably quicker, considering there's a general store nearby.

[He tucks a pale bloodstone into Lycka's mouth for payment, and she's off again.]

We'll take care of this, OK?

[terriblepurpose]

[Another protest dies in Paul's throat before it even fully forms, his reluctance to part with his project subdued by a grasp of consequence. He knows what it is to be denied the chance to offer up help. This is a concession he can make, surely.

(We'll take care of this, meaning: I'll take care of you. He falters, undone, in the grips of his own awful need.)]

All right.

[He allows, softly. It's a fair exchange.]

You aren't, either. Like that. [He wraps his arms around his knees, straightening his back to balance his weight in his heels.] I know things about people. It's what I'm for.

[Inspiration strikes like a hammer. He beholds Lazarus through gleaming iridescent lens, light arcing around him in illusory ripples, and cocks his head in a gesture that he forgets to mask as his own.]

Do you want to know things about you?

[hearthebell]

[L nods his horned head curtly, unaware that Paul has privately framed this as a favor to him, by merit of permitting.

His expression slips toward wryness, a brow quirking at the angled crystal being's propsal.]

Remarkable... your offer manages to contain several things I don't believe in.

[There's a kind of worldly defiance wrapped up in the words, preliminary disappointment that is also a triumph. He's very like the impoverished child who, on Christmas Eve, crows that he will find nothing chosen and wrapped for him the morning, taking gleeful comfort in the hollow certainty of absence.

Won't stay. Won't keep caring, won't come back, but I was right, I was right.

It's a hole, but one all filled up with buoyant, brilliant light, and nothing can sink or hide there.

Except, maybe, a shred of a skeptic's curiosity that can withstand the harsh heat of knowing and ask, quietly, if it's possible to be proven wrong.]

That being said, I care about what people know, or... believe that they know, or the Barnum statements they choose to flatter and amaze the naive.

[Please be a charlatan so I can feel good about ripping you to pieces.]

[terriblepurpose]

[Another pale shadow of an old feeling falls across him. Paul has always thrilled to a challenge from a teacher. That he has disappointed this one so often only whets the desire shaped like need to get it right, even if it's just once, just this way.

(If he were in his right mind, he'd refrain. He'd remind himself that this is half-cheat and all-reckless, a trick that risks as much devastation as triumph. He'd recall how crucial Lazarus' privacy is to him, enough that the breaking of it was the cause of their rupture.)]

You're not naive. [He starts with quiet certainty.] You're a cynic. But anyone could tell you that. They could tell you it's a shell around a vulnerability. Given where we are, what you look like, they could come up with all kinds of things to say about the the horns and the flames.

That would be naive, the kind that mistakes itself for clever. Vague enough to fit what's obvious, obliquely flattering enough to encourage acceptance. [His voice softens and warms, more human, less a bell.] Almost everyone wants to hear that there's a softness inside of them that someone else can see. Cynics most of all.

But that's not what you want to hear. You don't think there's a softness in you. There's no room for it, or anything else, except your purpose.

[He thinks of the first time he showed Lazarus a meditative sequence, how his nervous system had shuddered with electric arcs of deprivation and power. His cool assurance over a brilliance that spins on an axis like no other, and always, always aimed at one singular purpose -]

You're not a cynic. You're an idealist, and that's what you burn for.

[Then, with a hitch of breath:] I'm sorry.

[hearthebell]

[Two things are certain.

The first is that this is not a charlatan, who can be ripped to pieces.

The second is that this is Paul. And L wants so badly to pretend that it isn't, to be meaner in his game, and overcorrect in a different direction that places this angular creature as far from that distant person as possible.

Barring someone carving out parts of his brain selectively, he just can't do it. Maybe for a little while, pale and watching following those all-too-intimate revelations.

Because there is no softness in him, nothing that can die so long as his body lives, the body attached to the mind that will burn for everything he cares about.

He tries, as hard as he can, to pretend there isn't an arrow piercing his chest and making it difficult to breathe. The pressure and pain are there, but it's not so bad, at least not worse than what he feels when he's trying to relax and be gentle and kind and silly with Shoyo.]

If it's a Barnum statement... it's better than most I've heard.

[Any who know him would see this as a concession, a retreat, a petrified dancing-back in the face of something he's aggrieved and appalled by.]

But I'm not an idealist. I gave up on what I wanted a long time ago. Now, I just hope that people survive...

[And that it's not my fault, truly, for failing to warn them. He thinks to what was said about that Cassandra when they met, the seer fated to be correct, but not believed.]

I hope that all is well. What I know is that there is an effect in a different box that no one else has to be concerned with immediately, and... it's mine. It's horrible, but... it's mine, and I tried.

[He sees Lycka in the distance, with the salt in her mouth.]

...I'll help you. As much as I can. I'm glad to.

[terriblepurpose]

[There can be little doubt of recognition. Lazarus' flinch might be lost on someone less familiar, but Paul knows him. It's the reason he can elicit the flinch in the first place, the reason guilt pools under his tongue like bitter brine.

It's more than that. It's a tidal pull of grief, not for himself, or even for the connection between them he's been so careless with. It's for Lazarus, barely holding himself together in front of someone who pulled him apart - who violated his trust, who abandoned him, who lied to him - and still trying, even though he knows.]

It's not what you want to hear. [It sticks, it coats.] I didn't say it wasn't true.

If it were true that there was nothing soft left in you, you wouldn't stop to help me. [His voice rises, upset (at who more? himself, or Lazarus?), against his will.] Who's here to make you? What do you gain out of it? You didn't ask me for anything. You didn't even hesitate.

If it were true, you wouldn't be here, looking at flowers, trying to be the person they think you are, even if you don't believe it. You wouldn't be thinking about putting everything that happens to you in a box, so it doesn't touch anyone else. You could do anything you want to, here, and you choose to help other people.

What if you let yourself believe there's more to you? [It falls again, this time into urgency verging on a plea.] What is there you have to lose, if everyone else is wrong, and you're still right?

[hearthebell]

[Whatever he wants to hear, it's not the ringing in his ears that starts and doesn't abate as Paul speaks. He's not allergic to the truth, has never flinched from it, so that can't be what this is, making him sick, giving him symptoms.]

Call it soft if you want to, but... I'm really just bad at walking away. Even when I probably should.

[He couldn't walk away from the Kira case. From the journal in the Emperor's study. From Paul.]

If there was more, then...

[Others aren't bad at walking away. She did; Paul did. Shoyo will.]

...then I don't think...

[That's right. You don't think; you don't learn.

He blinks several times, clears his throat, takes the salt when Lycka glides gently to his side.]

I think that as long as I have my little laws, and some kind of true north, I still have something left to lose.

[He shakes some salt into his palm, tilting his chin to beckon Paul closer.]

[terriblepurpose]

[There it is, again. The unworkable knot that Paul cannot fit his nails to in order to pry the trailing end of it free, a ball of tangled threads that twitch like snakes under Lazarus' skin. All he can see in himself is a desert, or a monster, or an automaton, and Paul doesn't know how to show him anything else.

Or maybe he does. Paul uncurls to crawl closer on his knees, obediently bowing his head to Lazarus' ministrations. There are only a handful of people he would let come so close to what seems to be a vulnerability, even if it doesn't feel like one. Especially after what he did, and what Lazarus now knows him to be.]

True north.

[An ideal, a point that calls ever homeward, invisible and integral arcs of humming power that protect fragile life from baleful stellar winds. It all adds up the same.]

Isn't that something that keeps you from being lost, too?

[Another risky question to ask, his eyes turned away and the back of his neck exposed, his fingers digging into the ground in anticipation of the sting of salt.]

[hearthebell]

[L nods, gentled by the quiet trust in Paul's approach and posture.]

True north.

[He confirms softly. It sounds like the closest thing a heretic can say to a prayer.]

It's essential, you know, for some people.

[Paul does know, because hasn't he had the same worries?]

When you have to learn what so many others seem to know... of course you're lost without it. Lost people are dangerous, because others can make them do or believe anything if they might have a hope of getting back on track.

[When you don't have a compass, it's only natural to look for a guide. Is that where I went wrong? Letting him follow the wrong guide?]

Hold as still as possible; I'll be as gentle as I can.

[And he'll know, because of the pain they share by nature of the Bond. He feels the wincing contact almost immediately, bracing himself and rolling salt beneath his deft, determined fingertips. Sure enough, the flowers seem to begin to blanch and wither.]

[terriblepurpose]

[If his thoughts were not so muddled, Paul would draw up his defenses at the implication he senses in Lazarus' description of the lost. He's told him how he struggles to understand certain things; he's implied it, at least, he's certain. He wears it close enough to the skin that he thinks, sometimes, that anyone can see it. It doesn't mean he's easy to manipulate. That he can't find his own way back to a path, whether or not he takes the advice of anyone else.

Maybe it's the shimmering scales that cover him that stall the impulse. Maybe it's not wanting to argue the point, to acknowledge that it's meant (gently, and that's the worst part of it, like gentleness is something he still deserves) for him as much as anyone else.

He remembers walking away. That's why he says nothing to gainsay him, and Paul knows it.]

I can take it.

[A specific kind of reassurance, even while he purposefully relaxes the muscles of his neck and his head, delicate-looking plates shifting minutely on anchoring skin. He can take it, the burn of salt seeping down thin roots, the strange peeling sensation he takes as a byproduct of some chemical defense before a shining flake of unglass falls to the ground between his hands.

He stares at it, blinking slowly, and he digs his fingers harder into the earth with a long, slow exhale.]

Keep going. [There's tension strung in his voice like piano wire, a voice that could nearly be his again.] What makes a true north? How do you know if you've found it.

[hearthebell]

[It says a lot, that L only feels free to obliquely self-reference under these circumstances. He doesn't presume to fully understand Paul as much as he presumes to fully understand anyone, but he comprehends his own miserable, lonely status quo, often very similar to the existences of the criminals he's spent a lifetime chasing down. Occasionally he recognizes someone else who can approach that existence, and whether or not it's actually a criminal, he gravitates and grieves, coming as close as he ever does to actual real empathy.

He's always thought that Paul was someone he could inherently understand. Maybe a part of him needs to believe it, and maybe another part insists that he must let it go for both their sakes, before he insists that this creature in front of him is a mirror out of the kind of delusion that only walks hand-in-hand with intense desire.]

Hey...

[Soft and halting. He strokes Paul's hair as he works, very slightly, just a few strands if he can find them. If he cannot, he comes as close as he can while trying to ignore the prickling peeling sensation at his own scalp through merit of the bond.]

I won't stop unless it gets to the point I can't actually work through it, but I don't think it'll come to that before we're finished.

[He tempers his breathing as he speaks, an effort noticeable to those who know him, but those who know him are also very familiar with his high tolerance for pain.

It helps take the mind off of it to talk, probably for both of them.]

True north... it's something that you know to be good, or right, but... it doesn't often feel so.

[He seems off-kilter, as if he's being asked to describe something simple and obvious but difficult to put into words, like a color or a melody.]

It can even hurt or feel terribly isolating. What matters is that you know it's real, and true, and something worth defending... however it--

[A verbal stumble that he doesn't mean to happen; words and fingers catch for a moment at their tasks.]

However it feels doesn't matter. It's just about knowing it must be done, and following through, whatever the cost. The world needs people like that, even if it's all you have to contribute.

[Though his perspective has shifted since arriving here, in many ways L still feels that his greatest value comes from this willingness to pursue something without relenting until the job is done, or his attempt has left him unable to.]

[terriblepurpose]

[Dark, wet curls appear like unfurling fronds as more of the jagged captured unreal light fall from Paul's head. He leans into the stroking of those curls with all the mute neediness of a shivering animal, with a minute nod to Lazarus' terms. The rest of his acknowledgment comes in a deliberate cascade of endorphins, enough to blunt the edges of the pain, but not enough to dampen it entirely.

Pain is a vital feedback mechanism. Lazarus understands that, and he tells Paul so, even when his words hitch as more flakes and petals fall in a gritty salt-snow stained with rapidly greying fluid that is not blood, Pale or otherwise.]

But how do you know what you know?

[The question is a soft one, asked in the slightly distanced tone of someone immersing himself in words to escape the body that forms them. The heat of Lazarus' fingers is soothing where the salt scalds, nuances of sensation he evaluates as abstractly as he can.]

Epistemology. [The barest huff of an unamused laugh.] What's true, what's right. If you can't know the difference by how it feels, then can't you commit to following through on the wrong thing, thinking that it's right?

[Of course you can. Such is the stuff of tragedy. But there's the distinction between knowing and knowing: Paul has always believed he'd be able to make the distinction, when it came to it. He imagined it would open up for him like every other puzzle, solved by the application of structure and logic, and he'd know what was right and what was wrong with the clarity he used to know everything with.

He knows so much more now. He knows so much less.]

What if you make a mistake? [There's a sting in his eyes, loose salt trailing down. He doesn't lift his head.] What kind of contribution is that?

[hearthebell]

With inherent bias, you mean?

[Because the only way to truly "know what one knows" is having a truly objective viewpoint, not a luxury available to any human, however detached or determined they are to maintain it.]

Most people know what matters to them, even if only vaguely. Some ideal to uphold or injustice to correct. It could be altruistic or selfish, but... it informs and unifies every other decision. Otherwise, fear and desire run circles around us and chase us down paths we never would have chosen, so it's imperative to arm against them with something that's stronger than both of those things. Purpose compels action when nothing else will.

[He wonders if it's the right time to say that his "true north" is a name he gives to whoever he needs most to defeat at any given time, that their downfall informs most of what he says and does. It was Light Yagami for a long time; now it might be the Emperor, the fire that burns in him as grim and obsessive raison d'être.

No; it's not the right time. It might never be. There are ways he's mangled, to bone and to soul, that Paul never needs to know about.]

It's... always possible to make a mistake, of course.

[Does Paul believe that L has made one? Or that he himself has? He notes the way Paul's head hangs as his hair begins to reappear like grass under crumbling frost.]

That being said, every direction has its opposite. For every true north, there's a true south, and someone else just as committed to it. If I've made a mistake and there's an objective "right" in the world, it's got a champion, too, somewhere, and a fair shot.