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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 10, 2010 20:02:15 GMT -5
This room is quiet.
In her room, the walls were exactly the same as they had been when she'd first arrived. Crack traced from the ceiling to the floor, peeling wall-paper (gray, of course), spider-webs and little bumps covered the ceiling, and there was an inch worth of dust on the windowsill to the left of the lumpy bed. Nothing had changed in two long years. It was interesting.
This whole palace is quiet.
Aione sat on her bed, knees curled to her chin as she stared without looking at her sheets. Her appearance certainly had changed. Long, flowing red hair and bright, curious silver eyes had become short, ragged black locks, dull gray orbs, and badly scarred skin. Innocent and kind...had become broken and corrupt. Sweet white dresses were replaced with a black, lace mourning dress. So much had changed in only two years. It was terrifying.
My mind is quiet.
With a weak, strangled cry, Aione's hands moved from limp at her sides to tangled in her hair, holding her head like it would fall from her shoulder. Her empty gaze shifted to one of desperation...shattering pain.
Where is she? Where is she?!
Ai? Where are you?!
In her mind, there wasn't any response.
Inner Ai, Aione, looked down at her small pale hands. They had been stained with blood only a few days ago. Blood of the only one she'd ever loved. The one who held her hand...until he was gone. "C-Cold..." she locked her palms together, entwining her fingers, "...so cold..."
Where is Ai? She won't talk. She's quiet.
Is she gone?
Inner Ai squeezed her hands to the point where her knuckles went white and her skin went red.
She left me. She went with him. She left me alone. They left me alone.
Burying her face in her knees, covered by waves of black lace, the broken girl lifted her hands to cover her ears. She couldn't stand the quiet. She needed something to keep it away. A voice. She needed Ai. She needed her good little angel. The silence was deafening.
Tristan is gone. He's gone. He's gone. And Ai went with him. I have nothing. I have no one. I'm alone.
I'm alone again.
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 13, 2010 1:13:32 GMT -5
Silence was the most awkward of sounds. Long ago Elric had adjusted to the nature of silence as an acceptable alternative to the torment of noises. Solitude had been silence interspersed with the noises of his own labor and the labor of others. Noises invariably were a sign of danger in action. Silence was not the absence of danger, but rather seemed to be a time while danger was dormant for a little while. Alertness was necessary to recognize the differences between the dangerous silence and the passive silence.
Things had been very noisy as of late, and Elric did not take too well to that. It meant, first and foremost, that events were transpiring and were throwing slaves and Boogies alike into chaos. The masters tried and keep order, but there was only so much they could do. Then there was all the talking in hushed tones that Elric could hear but not understand. Things had been broken; people in particular had been broken recently.
Speaking with Piper and Kristopher recently had not prepared him for this influx of noise. The noise amongst friends varied between pleasure at the very best times and mild discomfort at the worst of them. This influx of noise was unsettling and left his skin feeling much too tight. Given the choice he would have crawled under a rock and just let everything smooth out.
Such was not the case he realized as he was staring at the door. He had been staring at the door for the past five minutes while lost in his own train of thought. His hand hovered in front of the doorknob, but there was a knot in his stomach as he tried to force himself to grasp it and turn. Opening the door would not be the challenge, but it was the factor of the unknown that he would be dealing with when he stepped to the other side that left him uneasy.
"I'm horrible with people," he mumbled to himself.
There really was no explanation for why Naelona had asked him to do such a thing. As far as the rumors went she really did not like females. Looking at the body of her slave force one could certainly see the lack of females. It was not something Elric would have considered outside of his current set of circumstances.
Elric could not fathom the reasoning behind his orders, so he had no choice but to obey blindly. Certainly he was the poorest choice for such a task, unless she had expected some kind of difficulty?
That was the thought that kept running through Elric's mind as he knocked twice on the door and then pushed it open awkwardly. "H-hello?" he offered meekly before he even taken a good look at what was inside.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 13, 2010 18:52:47 GMT -5
With her hands covering her ears, Aione didn't hear the soft click of the door knob or the creak of the door opening just a crack. She didn't even hear the voice that came from the other side ever so softly. Everything was quiet. Still, quiet, and awful cold. Cold enough that her fragile limbs began to shiver. The one thing she did notice, however, was the smallest bit of light that had invaded her dim room. Still not removing her hands, Ai raised her empty eyes to stare at the sliver of light.
Who's there?
Aione's voice wasn't coming up as she'd hoped it would. In fact, she didn't speak at all. Her mouth moved, and the air exited her lips, but no voice would follow. She was still a little raw from all the crying and screaming from then...sadly, as of now, she would have preferred the screaming to the silence. This time she lowered her hold on her head, letting the quiet in, only hearing the faintest sound of her breathing, her heartbeat, and the faintest sound of the stranger's breathing as well.
Who are you?
This time she got a little irritated at herself. Closing her eyes for a moment, Aione scanned her mind for whatever was left of her. It was there, if only a spark, but it was under what felt like a million leagues of ice-water. Too cold and too deep to tread, she would just have to make do with an act. She tilted her head, mimicking the attitude of her previous persona, staring at the sliver of light that was part of a world that was too warm for her. Her mask was in place, with a smile made of glass.
But no mask in all the Wonderland and worlds beyond could hide eyes as frozen as hers.
"Wh-Who...are you...stranger-san...?"
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 13, 2010 19:45:08 GMT -5
The door remained open and Elric stood on the threshold for some time without moving. Oftentimes his mind had exaggerated and pronounced the silence between people. Even a few seconds of silence felt heavy in the air when one expected noise. This silence needed no aid from the devices of his mind; it was long enough on its own.
That unbearable sound of silence pushed hard against Elric's chest and made it difficult to breathe. Were he here of his own volition he might have simply backed away without another word from either party. That choice was not available to him now.
The girl was struggling with words. Was it the words themselves of the thoughts behind them? At what point was the difficulty presenting itself as such a horrific challenge to overcome? It seemed so odd when the words finally came. The noise of speech was both a relief and a peculiarity to his ears. The words felt forced or faked. Furthermore, her eyes seemed... dead. Then again, it was not hard to imagine such things in an awful place like this.
He took a step into the room and only felt another flood of awkward pressure wash over him. He stood his ground just next to the threshold standing in a way that implied he was ready to step back through it if necessary.
His initial consideration for his first response nit-picked as the addendum to his title of stranger. Lessons from Piper and Kristopher taught him better than to raise such a detail just yet. "My name is Elric," he offered her. "May I ask your name?" It seemed to be the natural choice for a step forward in communication.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 14, 2010 14:29:42 GMT -5
Now that Aione could see the stranger in the doorway, her mask slipped just slightly. She didn't recognize this boy at all. She could tell he was human though, just from the way he hesitated. Boogies weren't like that. Trying to keep her act up, sh lowered her knees so she was sitting pretzel-style on her bed, black lace and black silk covering her body. She looked like a ink stain on gray paper, standing out only slightly, but blending in at the same time. Blending into the dark.
How morbid.
When the boy, Elric, asked her of her name, the black-haired woman forced her smile again and bowed her head. "Nice to meet you, Elric-san. Call me Ai---" her voice caught in her throat again, pulling at that spark under the water. She swallowed her name. "Call me Higurashi-san. Please." Aione kept her head bowed for a moment longer to regain her composure before looking up again. Her misty eyes didn't reflect any light.
I'm not her. I can never be 'Ai-chan'.
"What do you need from me, Elric-san? Are you looking for someone, or did someone send you here...?
I'm not her. I will never be her. I'm just little, lonely me.
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 14, 2010 19:11:09 GMT -5
That peculiar suffix just kept on attaching itself to something in every other sentence the girl produced. Considering that it was only attached to names it seemed to be a generic title like Mister or Miss. The exact meaning or origin was lost on him, but he tried to take it in stride. It gave the atmosphere a more formal quality and Elric found himself retreating back into the comfort of his own grooming.
Whatever the girl's name was, she had second-guessed herself and provided a second name before finishing the first. It was peculiar being on a first name basis with people. Elric simply found that his last name was too cumbersome for most to manage. "Miss Higurashi, it will be, then."
Elric took a few steps into the dark room. It looked like something a painter lost in his or her own darkness would produce. Some people would be put off by the dark, but Elric liked it. Darkness was comfortable, while bright lights were painful and distracting. Bright lights also had a tendency to bring back unpleasant memories of days long past. Those were days that he wished to forget.
"I was sent to make sure you were all right, Miss Higurashi." She did not look all right, but Elric did not offer that. It was not the polite thing to say to a lady, after all. Another part of him gagged on the previous thought, but he went on regardless. "Is there anything you need?"
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 14, 2010 19:41:21 GMT -5
Aione listened to Elric taking his steps, rather than watching him. Since a few days ago her eyes had been acting funny, and now it hurt a little to focus on things. She just started through him, glass smile in place, beautiful and breakable. It wasn't until he spoke that she tried to focus on him, and even then her eyes were still sore. Was she okay? It was a foolish question.
Do you ask the shattered glass if the mirror is okay?
Still she kept the mask on. "I see. I'm guessing then that you are a servant to the Boogie my master left me too. Naelona-sama, am I right?" Ai's head tilted, her eyes closing as her smile brightened slightly. Artificial light, dim in comparison to hers. "Nothing is wrong right now, Elric-san. Thank you for the concern...even if it was just a request from your mistress. If that's all, you can go. I don't mind being a..."
Without her noticing it, her hand clenched tight to the sheets for a split second. She did, however, notice her voice dying again. The spark burst, lighting her eyes with something between cold terror and hot hatred, and she started to push herself to the spot where the bed and wall left a gap. Pushing herself into the corner.
"A...Alone..."
Alone. Leave me alone. I want silence. It's what I deserve. It's my fault. It'smyfaultit'smyfaultit'smyfaultit'smyfault...
It's my fault they're dead. My fault they're gone.
Backed against the wall, eyes mad and wide with that inhuman light, the smile began to crack. She looked almost insane with that expression, half smiling and half hysterical.
It'smyfaultit'smyfaultit'smyfaultit'smyfault...
"...alone..."
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 14, 2010 20:14:50 GMT -5
A girl locked away in the darkness all by her lonesome self. He was not certain that there was room in his heart at the moment for the poetic tragedy of it, but he was certain that she was not speaking her mind. It was something in her eyes that seemed disconnected with her voice. The quality was supernatural, in a sense. Her reflection was lying.
Elric retained a certain degree of composure standing there. He even stood straight up and brought his entire height to bear in this dealing. For the first time in a long while he realized exactly how tall he must have seemed to everyone else.
Dismissal at this time seemed to be the only route available to him. The professional demeanor would not allow him to do anything else if she requested it from him. He already braced himself for his departure when she stumbled on her own words. It did not matter what she said anymore, because her point was perfectly clear. She was alone and it was torturous.
Was it so awful to be alone?
A memory spanning back several years remembered day after day of being alone. It brought with it an odd sort of numbness that had rendered him immune to most of the pain of the world. He no longer connected with the people around him and he was lost in his own individual hell. However, that was a path to a slow death with no legacy.
Except Elric did have a legacy on that path. That was a legacy best left in the unwritten chapter on his life.
He tried not to smile, but a smirk sneaked its way into the corners of his mouth. "I understand, Miss Higurashi," he offered before stepping further into the room. He pushed himself against a wall near the bed where she was standing. "Be that as it may, I must place myself here for a little while, though."
A little bit of his stiff professional demeanor dissolved away and he sat down on the floor against that wall there. He continued to watch Miss Higurashi from his position on the floor, but he was not going to leave her alone just yet.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 17, 2010 18:15:01 GMT -5
Though her expression remained tourtured, the light in Aione's eyes began to dim as fast as it had lit. There wasn't enough strength in her body or her heart to keep that light going. In barely a moment it had returned to that weak little spark, lost behind fogged, dead gray glass. It returned to the water, behind walls of waves that were impossible to tread.
Ai closed her eyes and breathed deep before looking down at Elric with her cool, blank face. The mask was already broken, so she didn't bother to replace it.
"I'm sorry, Elric-san...about that..." her voice was not in it's true form, small and shaken like a child, "...I've been going through a lot...lately...gomen nasai..." The young women felt her legs wobble behind the black lace of her dress. Uh oh. She took another quick breath and tried to steady herself, feeling a little weak now.
It had been a few days since she'd spoken to anyone, but should talking really wear her out like this? After such a short time?
She wobbled a little worse, feeling like her legs were to give out.
Crap.
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 17, 2010 21:57:41 GMT -5
From his seat Elric was able to watch the Miss Higurashi. He was proud of himself for realizing when someone said one thing and meant another. Such an accomplishment felt like a good step forward. Somehow he had missed the basic lessons socialization had to offer him when he was younger. Maybe he had simply forgotten the basics over the years?
Whatever the reason was, it hardly mattered anymore. What mattered was that he work on improving his human interactions. He had told Naelona that no one would miss him if he vanished when he first passed ownership. Such was no longer the case--for better or worse.
He was brought out of his own contemplations by Miss Higurashi's speech. She did not sound well and looked like she was straining. Considering the apparent emotional trauma dealing with a death would cause Elric could not blame her for feeling that way.
"Apologies are hardly necessary, Miss Higurashi. You are working with a great deal of stress right now." It really seemed silly to apologize to Elric. After all, she did nothing wrong to him aside from offering to send him away. Being here was probably better than walking about for a while.
He almost missed it while considering what would have happened if he left. The company he had been sent to watch was swaying life a tree ready to blow over in the wind. It was instinct that told him to jump up and spring towards her so he could catch her if she fell. The last thing she'd need on top of everything else in her life was a head injury.
"I'll be there to catch you when you fall."
He remembered that sometimes it didn't matter if you caught them or not. They were already broken before they fell. Elric did not notice the tears form at the corners of his eyes.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 18, 2010 8:26:58 GMT -5
Just as Elric had noticed, Aione was barley a breath away from losing her balance and falling face-first. She hadn't even noticed until now how tired she was, or how sick her body felt, or how little air she had in her lungs. Being in her room, alone, in silence, she had apparently locked herself away from her own body. Sure she had bathed and drank, but she hadn't eaten in days. She'd simply forgotten to. And now her foolishness was taking its toll on her.
Oh...
In a moment, the broken woman looked down at Elric. Another weak light reached her wide eyes, now filled with tears and confusion.
"Why are you crying?"
Ai didn't know how she'd done so without taking a step, but she slid just the same on the gray wooden floor, falling toward the white-haired boy. Her expression shifted from torture to surprise.
I can't catch myself.
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 18, 2010 14:59:47 GMT -5
"Why are you crying?"
"Why are you crying?"
Her there were two voices asking him the same question, and they both warranted to the same automatic response out of Elric. "I'm not crying." He lifted his hand to wipe away whatever was collecting at his eyes. There was not much of a chance to do take care of it. Miss Higurashi seemed to finally lose the last bit of strength in her legs as she fell backwards.
Elric was right there and he caught her on the way down. She seemed small and frail compared to him. At the very least it meant she was not problematic for him to hold there. He laid her down gently on the floor taking special care with her head. A few seconds later he had snatched a pillow and lifted her head once more to set the pillow underneath it.
He tried to ask this girl once more for what she needed. Elric was hardly a reader of minds. "Do you need food? Drink? Or just some rest?" They all seemed adequate explanations for her condition.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 18, 2010 18:46:45 GMT -5
Aione's surprised eyes shut about a foot from hitting the floor. She didn't wait for the impact she knew was coming, but she was stunned when that collision never hit. Instead she felt herself being caught by a pair of arms. For barley a moment, eyes still shut, she pictured something...was it a memory or a dream...someone she loved very, very much, holding her almost like she was being held now. But then she remembered Elric, sitting so near, ready to spring and catch her.
Diamond orbs reopened in time for the older boy to lay her down and reach for a pillow.
"You were crying. Don't lie."
He lifted her head and slid the pillow under her, and Ai couldn't help the weak, dry laugh that escaped her lips. "You're...acting like a mother hen." She paused at the sound of her voice. it was sounding a little stronger than before, but still just as shaken. Kami-sama, when did I sound so dead? "I think...I just need some food...in me. I haven't eaten...in days..." Aione's dull eyes morphed with sorrow. "...thank you for asking..."
A flash of pain shot through her face again and, like she still had strength to spare, her hand shot out and caught Elric's wrist. Her hands were so cold, it felt funny to feel the warmth of skin against them. "B-But please!! You don't have to go...not now! Don't leave me alone!"
Her hand shivered once, feeling her weakness kicking in again.
"J-Just...don't leave me..."
...I'm scared...Oniisan, I'm scared...
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Post by Elric Vlarintos on Sept 18, 2010 19:32:18 GMT -5
It was such an odd thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. Elric enjoyed taking care of people who were unable to take care of themselves. The only limiting factor seemed to be that getting close to people to take care of them was a challenge of Olympic proportions at times. Somehow he was managing to balance everything now, and it was working fine. Maybe that was why Naelona had sent him here--she knew he would do a good job.
She poked into the matter of the tears once more. Elric hardly agreed that two tears could be construed as him crying. There had been no sobbing, no continued tearing, or anything else. His eyes had gotten wet and it could easily have just been him flushing something out of his system. He did honor the comment with another response.
She was hungry, so food would be good. Probably not too much at first, lest she get a stomachache if she ate too quickly. He would run off and get her a quick bite to eat and be right back.
As he moved to leave she grabbed his wrist. It was hardly a powerful enough of a grip to keep him there, but he stopped all the same. "Don't leave?" he echoed her plea. It seemed so odd that a moment ago he had been so stubborn to stay. The second he found out what she had needed he had been ready to spring up and leave.
So the important question was this? Did she just want him to stay? Or was it a need comparable to the need she had for food? Thinking about it made his head hurt, so he just relaxed himself and sat down next to the girl and held her hand. It was cold and he wondered if she might have need for a blanket too. Without thinking he put his other hand to her forehead to check her temperature.
"I'll stay right here for you. May I use your first name, Miss Higurashi?" At this point formalities seemed pointless and silly.
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Post by Aione Higurashi on Sept 18, 2010 19:55:30 GMT -5
Aione's hand trembled as it was held, feeling warmer now than she had in days. Her body was weak and cold...it felt good to have a hand in hers. She squeezed it gently when he moved to touch her forehead. Did she have a fever? She felt cold, but not in the ill sort of way. She didn't have a headache or anything. It was more of a 'living in the Arctic' kind of chill. Regardless, she closed her eyes to the warmth, almost lifting her head into his palm, like a cat would.
"Th...thank you..."
The young woman smiled. It was only a shard of the true, warm smile she used to give, but it wasn't forced. But it wasn't real either. It was half-way between there and not.
When Elric asked for her first name, the smile faltered.
"I...I'm not sure if..." Ai swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and forced herself to continued, "My name is A-Aione...'loved one'..." the last thing she said she said in Japanese. To Elric, it would sound like she was repeating her name, but she was really saying the definition of her name in her native tongue. But when she said it, her eyes echoed with ice.
What a horrible name. For somebody like me. Loved one? Me?
All my loved ones are gone.
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