Log:Sororal Stubbornness
Sororal Stubbornness | |
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"It's not my fault if I stab you for being stupid."
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Participants | 3 July, 2018 Merle was too protective for her own good, saw things she shouldn't have, and now needs to make a pinkie promise not to blab. Only problem is, she's stubborn AND protective. Sophia calls in November to attempt persuasion, because a High Wyrd Fairest who thinks she's a god is totally the right person to convince a barely ex-Hunter to submit to being bound to Fate by fairy magic. Nobody died, and Merle even got cold beer out of the deal. |
Location
Sophia's Place | |
Merle's curled onto the edge of the couch, and even though her sock-clad feet are tucked under her, there's a vibrancy to her posture that shows she's on edge and prepared to move quickly. A bottle of beer dangles from her hand and the table nearby has a mostly empty bottle of amber liquid on it. The knock on the door gets her attention and her head swivels to look over at it, then toward her sister as if waiting for Sophia to open it and admit whomever is there.
Smiling to Sophia when she steps in, November dips her head, a quick glance around the apartment, exits noted, preceding an extension of that smile toward Merle. The rainbow carries herself with implicit authority -- the world will shape itself to suit her whims, because that is what it does. It isn't arrogance. It's simply fate in action. "How much does she know?" The question, while using the third person, is spoken directly to Merle herself, one lovely russet brow arching in patient inquiry. If Merle is the observant sort, she may note that the rainbow seems to have her very own personal Photoshop filter; she's ever so slightly more -real- than the world around her, more vibrant, higher contrast.
<OOC> Merle says, "Merle is very biased. Racist, almost. She feels that anything that is not entirely pure mortal is wrong and should not exist. She's spent much of her time and energy in the bulk of her life actively fighting against supernatural stuff. And in addition to that, she's afraid of what actually /seeing/ Lost all the time as they appear to each other is going to do to her sanity. She's pretty sure she'll go off and end up on a mindless killing spree if she's forced to see it."
<OOC> Merle says, "Yes, they are actual sisters (half sisters, just a few months apart, share a deadbeat father). Merle loves her sister and is highly overprotective of her, part of it based on guilt about her being Taken and Merle not stopping it. Which plays into #3 which is that Merle is angry at Sophia being Lost, but not at her as her sister. Tinged with a healthy dose of being mad that, in Merle's eyes, Sophia is forcing her into a position where she is going to lose her mind and end up a mindless killing machine." <<>> How November reacts? She tilts her head, oh, half an inch to the right, wordless confirmation that she is listening, and regards Merle with polite, expectant silence -- her question hasn't been answered yet, see. A slow blink and an ever-so-slight hint of a smile is all the confirmation Merle's getting regarding whether the rainbow's one of 'those'. Glancing aside when Sophia speaks, the Definitely A Human Ancient shakes her head, hair rippling in the motion's wake in such a way that it almost seems to be shifting colours on its own. Almost. "We do not ensorcell the unwilling." Angling her head as she speaks, to make it clear that she is speaking to Merle, as well, she adds, "-We- had limited choices. It is your sister's right to preserve her own. A pledge of secrecy would be enough." Speaking more directly to Merle now, she adds, "I will not apologise for what I am, but I regret the discomfort your current situation has caused you." Her head cants again in silent speculation. "I envy you." And she seems a smidge perplexed to discover that, though naturally, being November, she doesn't clarify just WHAT she envies.
"I won't expect an apology," she assures, because of course if she HAD expected one, she would have received one, right? That's the way the world -works-. "-and I laugh at our present circumstances, not at you. I...am significantly more myself than Sophia has become. She clings to her humanity." And, because this IS November, the mercurial creature is suddenly perking up, eager to share. "Would you like to see me?" She hastens to add, "No pledge necessary."
"For the sake of pertinent disclosure, I am one of the founders of the local freehold. I have a vested interest in its safety and continued security, and presently function as the leader of the organisation tasked with handling sticky situations such as these." While she speaks, November, being November, makes the intense effort of overcoming the Mask LOOK like easy breezy nothing. Pfft. Vanity, thy name is Fair(est). While she isn't any taller than before, she -seems- taller, limbs attenuated ever so slightly more so than a human's could be, proportions subtly .. well, more beautiful, in a faerie sort of way. Smoother, too, and, you know, the whole MADE OF TRANSPARENT ICE thing. Light refracts a bit too much, too eagerly shattering itself into its component spectra, from the spiraling fractals of glass-like feathery/ferny frost over her skin, and, more obvious now, the floor around her feet, too, is covered in a slight outstretching series of frost-swirls, colours rising like so much rainbowy steam above them, a blurring of the lines between faerie and mundane reality. Yadda yadda full body halo of ever-shifting colour, yadda yadda SHE HAS A FLIPPING FROST TIARA growing from her head, yadda yadda her hair is actually defying the laws of physics by floating around like a semi-liquid substance and being transparent enough to see through if it weren't, you know, also constantly a fantastic drug trip's worth of colours. Little floaty diamond-dust snow and ever so slightly larger chips of ice splinter the light, as well, in her vicinity, drifting this way and that like significantly more aesthetically appealing dust motes in a sunbeam. Yes, yes, also the ears. St00pid pointy ears. St00pid looking like a st00pid elf. ...also the OH RIGHT, haha, gut-punch to the hind-brain with HIIIII I sure feel a LOT like the creepy monster who kidnapped your sister.
She swallows hard, gulping back the sudden acidic burn stemming from her belly to her throat in response to the way her body and mind react to the change. But she manages to not flinch, not wince, not turn her gaze away even though it's clear some part of her wants to. "How much do you know about me?" she asks in her gravel-pocked voice. "How much do you know about what I do to things like you?" Yet it's not a threat. Clearly it's not. It's almost a pleading sort of question, as if she's making a plea to understand why she reacts the way she does and somehow make it clear that's not the route she wants to go.
When Merle asks her questions, she moves her head to the side in a half-shake of negation. "You, personally? Very little." That Irish/Massachusetts blend is .. ah, well, beautiful. Some people have musical voices. Then there are flipping High Wyrd Fairests whose voices -are- music, the tones lilting and pure in a way human instruments could never master. "Hunters? A bit more. I knew one, once, who became one of us, but she was broken even before that." Silent a moment, those slanted, alien eyes regard Merle without blinking as her colours swirl through sober blues and teals, quite visible, thanks to the conveniently creamy walls here in the apartment, the rainbow's focus weighing the other woman against some unspoken standard. Wisps of rose and gold streak through her ice as she offers, "I belong to the Dawn, the Auroral Court." A slight pause. "The Court of Sacrifice. The Court of Hope. Potential. In many places, we are hunted out by our own kind, or, less likely to cause bloodshed but certainly a source of psychological decay, shunned by them." Glancing toward the direction Sophia had gone, she looks back to Merle to explain, "We cause change. We open doors, and we believe that, despite the darkness of the world, the light will hold its own. Change, for those of us like myself and your sister, is particularly dangerous; we are caught between realities, and it is only our grasp on what is real that keeps us sane." And, because she is -trying- to be truthful, she tacks on a judicious, "For us." The sober blues shift, warming abruptly in golds and ambers touched with paler sky-colours, desert sun, as the living rainbow smiles at Merle and breathes laughter. "I tell you this to help you understand; I am less individual than ideal. There is very little left of me which is remotely human, and there are a fair number of us like me here. You may sense them." A hand lifts, gesturing a vague, but graceful sweep westward. "Stay to the west bank of the Tam, here in the valley, and you are not fair prey for the true dangers, the True Fae." More sober again, golds muddying toward earthy browns, she adds a more softly-spoken, "Your sister could become like me, if she relies upon the magic too often, instead of mundane means. Keep her close. Don't let her be tempted. The slope is deceptive, and it is all too easy to slip."
Oh, slippery slope huh? Merle seems to know that sort of thing all too well. She even has the decency to slightly shudder at the idea. But the track marks on her arms show it's an entirely different slope that she's slipped down more than once. "Sophia and I-- we're... we /were/ Hunters. I dragged her into it. She really had no business being one. I wanted to protect her from it all. It's my curse and I had no right to force her into it. But I did. And she was /good/. Better than me, I think. I just had the experience she lacked. And maybe we never came up against the-- the True Fae as you call them, but we have fought things before. Vampires, demons, things that changed shape at will and became bloodthirsty monsters. This is just-- it's yet another in the long list of things that go bump in the night and in the daytime." She pauses, but only for the briefest of moments before continuing, finally looking over once more. "My first instinct is to kill. I can't control it. And I knew /some/ of this before. When Sophia disappeared, I was there. I tried to get her back. I tried for years. I learned everything I could, tried everything. So I'm not entirely clueless even though I maybe don't necessarily know everything. And this isn't even the biggest secret I've ever had weighing on me. So while I think it's useless to ask me to /promise/ not to say anything, I have no problem doing so. I just don't want to have to look around and see it all every time I open my eyes because if I can't hold back, if I strike out, I could put my sister in danger. And I don't want to do that. But you have to understand I can't /control/ it."
Curious, hints of teal and aqua sweeping through her flesh, she asks, "Did you know that we dream of Faerie? Reliving it, our enslavement there. Your sister wouldn't, not often, and wouldn't recall much of it -- perhaps dread, perhaps a few flashes, faces, situations." She doesn't seem particularly distressed when she admits, "I dream of it almost every night. Those of us with so little humanity all seem to do so." And, getting to the POINT of that tangent, she explains, "In your case, I expect it would suffice to pledge that you will not betray the secrets of the freehold or those associated with it. As a people, we understand, very much, not wanting to be bound."
Her eyes lift and she studies November for a long moment. "What exactly is this pledge? I just know it's some sort of promise of secrecy and protection and in return I'm supposed to see-- /that/." There's a wave of her hand in November's direction as if to explain seeing through the mask. "I don't know how all this works. But I do know one thing. I know that I will always, and I mean /always/, protect my sister in any way I can. I know that accepting what she is now is part of it. And I'm trying my best to accept it. But if any of your people's goons come after me, I won't hesitate to kill them all. Do you understand? I'm being entirely up front with you because I don't want there to be trouble. I don't want there to be any sort of misunderstanding about why and how I do operate."
Here, she smiles, though it's a bit rueful. "We are not like the Kindred, lovely; our 'magic', so to speak, comes not from human blood, but rather the excess of human emotion. You get overwrought, you start glowing, so to speak, and we can siphon off a bit of that energy to use, ourselves. The True Fae can harvest from us, but we -- aside from finding goblin fruits to supplement it -- can only gather what we require from you. It...is a very pleasant experience. Quite addicting. Some of us do go too far with it; we're no more perfect than the humans we were before we were taken off to be altered." Yes, altered. Like the Fae merrily pluck up humans like too-large slacks and have them altered so the waist will fit. A hand shifts, fingers waving away the tangent with a graceful uncurling of digits. "In any event, this energy, which we call Glamour, is power. An ensorcellment pledge would require Sophia to grant you a measure of this power, to leave a bit of Glamour within you, which would grant you the ability to see us as we truly are. Breaking the terms of the pledge, whatever they happened to be, would revoke that blessing." The rainbow's colours swirl slowly, throughout, hair and ice motes lazily drifting this way and that on unfelt currents. "The freeholders of Fate's Harvest are legally obligated to protect all ensorcelled from harm by the Fae and their agents. Were you to be ensorcelled, you would, in effect, be an adjunct to the Freehold itself. Generally, ensorcelled are expected to pledge their own membership to it, since it is the safe thing to do. Dozens of protectors are better than none."
"The whole energy thing, the uh, the Glamour as you call it. I heard about it before. In learning about what happened to my sister. I /did/ learn things. But it's easier to read a textbook than it is to figure it out on your own by trial and error. Took me months to learn that much and here you are just laying it all out." Merle's no slouch when it comes to research, she's just lazy about it if there's a better option. "So this blessing that lets me see things. It's not something I can turn off?" She frowns a bit at thoughts of the pledging membership. "I'm just... not used to being a part of a group. I don't do well in groups. I tend to fuck things up and leave on bad terms because nobody else seems to think hit first and ask questions never isn't the best option in every situation."
"You are only human, Merle. If they get you into the Hedge, you're lost as a wee little lamb. Even we are in danger, there, always, but we're bound to the Wyrd, yes? You still have all of that delightful human self-determination in that head of yours; you can't feel what we feel, can't navigate. It would more than likely be a case of stumbling blindly about, slowly going batshit insane as the Hedge nipped away your sense of right and wrong, little piece by little piece. It doesn't urge you toward immorality; it simply doesn't remind you that morals are necessary." Morals, schmorals. November doesn't seem particularly bothered by the topic. It's information, and she's relaying it, calmly and, as always, in such a way that it's a pleasure to hear, if not a pleasure to listen to what she's actually saying. "It's a psychoactive realm, a feedback loop. The Fae can navigate it as easily as breathing. Bring hand-forged cold iron against them, and the form you face will more easily be destroyed, but the physical structure you see is not the Fae itself. You -would- piss off the equivalent of a god, however. Quite thoroughly, as well. Do you enjoy the prospect of molesting the divine?"
"'Unnatural' by whose laws, lovely?" the rainbow challenges, arching an amused and frosty brow. "Yours is only one world of many, and human scientists spend lifetimes finding brand new ways to break the face of established order." Helpfully, she extends an arm to gesture toward Merle's band shirt, which has gone from a respectable white to a 'I'm a soft and fluffy baby bunny' shade of pink. ... for a week. "I communicated with Colours. We made a bargain. It will do certain things for me in return. 'Law' is a construct of agreed-upon rules and regulations. The 'laws' of 'nature' were simply agreed upon by people other than you. Existing outside of that range is no more a crime than licking lollies instead of biting them."
That shirt, once white, turns black, and the design upon it is a lovely shade of white instead, the precision of hues involved chosen to best flatter Merle's own natural colouration. Yellow-toned, blue-toned, red-toned, whichever makes the skanky wonder look her best. The rejection of herself as a person, and her personal choices? Oh, her colours take on a slightly sharper edge, less dreamy, and the limey greens and chartreuses grow a smidge more prominent amidst the rest, but the rainbow's tone never changes: calm, polite and reasonable. "I respect your belief in your deity." She would, wouldn't she? Being one, and all. Threads of blues weave through the green. "It can be a source of great strength and solace." Her head tilts, and, just as calmly, politely and reasonably, she adds, "It can also spark genocide, religious/racial/sexual prejudice and persecution, and in-system biases which torture millions of people without perceptible consequence due to others' heartfelt belief in sociomoral rectitude." The rainbow frowns, a thoughtful, evanescent shift in ice which SHOULD, by any reasonable law of nature, be -solid-. "It's a pity he is inaccessible. The Christian god certainly has a lot to answer for." Because casually chatting with deities is something people do. "At least most humans aren't tearing out each other's hearts on pyramids these days." That's a plus. Right? With a shake of her head, she dismisses the speculations and lifts a hand to wave toward Sophia's hideyhole. "Mutual non-violence. Add it to the pledge. You don't attack us, we don't attack you. Both of us benefit, and if you run into a nightbumper you'd like a bit of help with, at least you know -we- don't eat our human friends when we get peckish."
Yes. That is totally what Merle wants to do right now, November. "As regards oaths and oathmaking, your actions will reflect upon your sister." A point of leverage? Possibly, but the rainbow's overall attitude seems more geared toward the dissemination of information. Little emotional energy is invested in it. "I am a wildcard, by our standards. It is what I was made to be. Open-minded. There are those among us with temperaments more similar to your own black and white; I rather expect that they would look poorly upon Sophia, were you to actively hunt our people. Cutting an idiot for being too stupid to listen to your warnings is something else entirely; I'm quite fond of Darwinism."
Merle has, apparently, swapped her emptied beer bottle for the mostly empty whiskey bottle she clutches in her hand as she stands there, watching November through halfway-lowered lashes. "I suppose you'll have to like warn everyone or something. Not to take it personally if I turn around, see one of you like /that/ and find a knife in my hand."
"Were I to request a pledge regarding violence from you, I would make no such stipulation. Fools deserve to reap what they have sown, if they have proven that they will not learn better." Yep. Snowskin here. Ex-Hunter bitch-slicing someone in da face for being stupid? Nooooo problem. Smiling to Merle, however, November turns to step closer to the exit with a light, "Warning others is your job, and Sophia's. I will inform the Council, but please do work out terms for secrecy with your sister, if only that of the freehold. It -is- a pity your reaction is so...mmm...sharp. We could use more hunters to protect the humans of the valley. I rather doubt you would appreciate the Thorns on a regular basis."
It is a polite agreement, a confirmation, an acknowledgement and a closure, all in one. Plucking it out of nowhere, the rainbow half-turns toward Merle and lobs a light underhand toss toward the woman's original seat, rather than at Merle herself. A pale pebble bounces there, one side speckly, the other less so. "Keep the speckles up. It chills liquids, but only in glasses." Isn't there something bad about accepting gifts from fairies? "A gift, freely given, with neither let nor lien." Ah, there we go. Merle's safe! Merle's safe, and November's opening the door to slip outside, humanity sliding back to veil the oh so much prettier truth as she tugs the handle behind her. |