taste the blood as feathers fly

[imatreenow]

Who: Mithos, Sheena, Freyjadour, Sayo, Raine
What: Confessions of a quadmillennial drama queen
When: Saturday the 16th, morning
Where: Somewhere in the village
Summary: Martel is gone and Mithos takes it about as well as usual. Misplaced rage very nearly solves everything (except not really), until someone has to show up and ruin it all. Then other stuff happens.
Rating: T for tantrum

[Cycles, patterns, unrelenting repetition - it becomes a way of life after so many stretched-out years, and especially in somewhere like Luceti, somewhere shaped and re-shaped by comings and goings yet somehow always the same. Over and over again. Mithos climbs the stairs, like he does every morning, to pay pilgrimmage to Martel's room and make sure that even if she remains in the custody of the Malnosso, she at least hasn't returned 'home'. Insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, like maybe this time his sister would stay by his side and he could be where he belongs. When he pushes the door open, he expects to see the same clothes sitting neatly on the chair, folded by patient hands months ago, waiting to be put away by their owner. The panpipes should be on the bedside table, perched precisely where he sets them down every day when he's done playing. The sheets and blankets should be rumpled just so, just as they were the day she was taken, her scent no longer lingering between the threads, neutralized by his own.

He takes a breath and his eyes sweep the space. The bed is right. The panpipes are right. The clothes are gone.

Gone. One word, one sharp syllable lodged into his chest, his ribcage constricting around it and pushing the tips of bone into the raw yielding tissue of his heart - he swears he can feel it puncture. The only sounds he can hear are the ones in his head, gutted memories, hollow voices, the same bad dream returning with a vengeance. His feet carry him to the wardrobe. Pull a drawer open. Empty. He backs away as though singed, sinking to the bed. He crumbles as soon as his body touches the blankets that don't smell of his sister anymore. His legs fold underneath him; his spine curls him into a ball; his fingers shape trembling fists. Tears, at first startled by the suddenness of loss, finally come spilling out.

Time keeps going around him. His swollen tearducts run dry and his body is still, but it's isn't alright. It isn't enough. Crimes should be met with punishment, and it is a crime of the highest order that his sister should be denied reprieve from her imminent death in a world that wanted neither of them. It is a crime of an even higher order that she should be pried from him, that he should be separated from her. But there is nobody on the other end of this crime. Nobody to blame. Nobody to wrest revenge from. Nothing he can do about it.

He refuses to accept that answer. He pushes himself up from the blankets. He stands, and he walks back down the stairs, and he takes up a sword. Out the door. Up the road. No destination in mind - let fate choose his target, and let it choose wisely.]

Comments

[memoryboxes]

Of course I will. I'll stay as long as I can.

Just... please—try not to hurt anyone, alright? If you did, and they made you go away...

[She bites her lip, chest tight.]

You're my family, Mithos. I want you here, close by. I don't want anything to happen to you, or to anyone... I've seen so much pain and bloodshed here--at the drafts, even to myself--that I just... want everyone to live. I've seen so many die and get hurt, people who've helped me....

[She's kind. She can't handle these sorts of things. It wears her down, makes her mind heavy and tired... To think Mithos or anyone could bleed while she sits back helpless--she wishes everyone could exist together. They don't have to like each other but...

The alternative is just too painful for her to bear.]

[imatreenow]

[Her words eddy past him. Try not to hurt anyone? What do those nameless others matter to him, when he never mattered to them? He's too unhinged from society to look at it through her eyes. Causing pain is not the problem, it's a symptom of his own suffering. It isn't his fault.

But he seizes the words he likes. Family - in the violent wake of losing the only blood-related family he has, he doesn't know if he wants to embrace the idea or fling it away in confusion. Without that, he feels smaller and colder and distant. He needs her to be his family. He needs her to want him close by and he needs to hear that she'll be there for him.]

You're my family too. [He's half saying this to himself, but he can't remember if he's ever told her out loud before. The front doors of building two stand a short distance ahead, but he has been paying little attention to his surroundings.]

[memoryboxes]

Yes...

[She's quiet for a moment, holding his arm underhand in a careful half-hug. It's not long that they arrive, but Mithos doesn't seem to quite notice, so she flexes her fingers gently against his shoulder.]

We're here, Mithos.

[Home, in some sense of the word. Something close enough to home.]

[imatreenow]

[He was already home when she put her arm around him so many steps back. He clings close to her side, wiping at his face - made sort of damp and sticky with tears - with his free hand. He thinks he nods.

He's dimly aware of passing through the front door and turning down the hall, but it's hard to see past the inner walls of his mind. Every sharp thud of his heart reminds him that he won't see his sister or hear her voice or feel her arms around him, and then he needs to be even closer to Sayo just to anchor himself to something.]

placeholder....ish, until I talk to Sapph. Feel free to continue.

[falenandawn]

[And the doorway is as far as he will go. If there are sounds of a struggle, he can rush in and check, but he truly doubts that will be the case now.

Mithos needed Sayo, that much was clear. He'll send a quick message to Raine over the journals, however.]

[wise_maiden]

[Once Sheena is settled in at the clinic and resting properly, Raine is able to check her journal once more to check for messages.

Noticing one from Frey, she contacts him back- it could hardly be too long from the initial time he contacted her.]

Did they make it back to the apartment without further trouble?

[falenandawn]

[It wasn't a long time at all- he's taken up a seat outside the front door, leaning back against the wall with his weapon next to him. He was still listening carefully for any signs he might be wrong, but so far, so good.]

They did. Mithos seems calmer in Sayo's presence.


Is Sheena alright? She looked like she had lost a lot of blood...

[wise_maiden]

I have her settled in the clinic now. She'll be fine after she gets some proper rest.


It's good that he's calmer, but that doesn't mean he gets a free pass after this.

[falenandawn]

Thank goodness. I was worried about how unsteady she was becoming, but I had no time to cast with Mithos attacking us.

[He nods as she mentions Mithos' actions, sighing a bit.] He had been doing well, too..... I thought there would be no further violence with Kaori, Sayo and his sister here to give him reasons to not cause problems, but Martel.....

Do you have anything in mind? [this couldn't go unpunished.]

[wise_maiden]

We had kept him in the tunnels before, but even then I wouldn't feel comfortable without talking to the others first. Or at least, plan a better system of keeping track of him. With Martel gone, this sort of reaction is not unexpected. And he doesn't learn. That's the problem.

Also I am just going to say Frey's already cast a healing spell on his own wounds while waiting

[falenandawn]

The tunnels....?

[That would be a suitable punishment, true. Attempted murder was a heavy crime no matter where you went, and it would go without saying that imprisonment would be a logical choice.

But.... 'You're my family too.'. Those words echoed in his head, the raw emotion and need he had shown in front of Sayo still fresh in his mind. He needed her. She's become almost a surrogate, a person he could turn to in his confusion. It wasn't much.... he was still violent and hateful, a danger, but it was a start.]

...What if I told you he was? Learning, that is. In a manner of speaking.

[wise_maiden]

He is a danger to those he does not have some form of liking towards, and even then... as soon as someone no longer conforms to what his ideals of them are...

[falenandawn]

He is. He is already a danger to some people I care for the way he is now, but I could do nothing to stop it but keep an eye on him until now. Today has shown Sayo has become an exception to that. She has become important to him in spite of his hatred.

He called her his family, on their way here. She is all that holds him grounded at the moment, without Martel. [....] I worry if he is learning, that locking him up away from her will do more harm then good in the long run.

[wise_maiden]

He would turn against his own sister if he feared she didn't share his beliefs. But it is true that Sayo must be important to him, or he would never have gone along with her. I just don't trust that he'll not lash out at some point -- and she's still the closest one available for him to do that. And if I allow this...

He needs to learn that he can't just - hurt people like this when something happens.

[falenandawn]

Truly....? He would attack his own sister?

[This... was unexpected.]

....I was going to say that if we lock him in the tunnels, he will escape once more and be an even greater danger in his rage. Indefinitely holding him is almost impossibly, given what Luceti is. But he has shown himself capable of functioning in a non-violent manner if left to his own devices and his ideals are not questioned, or there is nothing that disturbs his emotional state.

[Which might be a concerning thing to say, given Raine might not know how much time he's spent with Mithos. Or that he's brought him into a house full of teenagers, kind, human teenagers, more then once.] But... he would attack his own sister?

[wise_maiden]

He does not accept that his perception of his sister comes from long years of making her into something she wasn't. Martel is a gentle and caring woman, and her beliefs are not her brothers. We've... witnessed him act irrationally in the face of that once before. He wouldn't intentionally hurt her - but he is anything but rational when it comes to certain things.

[She sighs, quietly, her voice softening - Sheena is asleep nearby after all.] But if there is a chance here, then what right do we have to deny him some sanctuary with someone he claims to trust? As long as there is a chance that he can learn something... but how many people will get hurt for that?

[falenandawn]

No, he is far from rational when it comes to what he expects of others. Trying to reason with him when it comes to some things is akin to punching a stone wall bare-fisted. [A pause. Raine was right. they had no right to deny him that solace. He knew it would be hypocritical, in his case, to think it justifiable to lock Mitos up when Kaori had also shown herself to be violent.]

If it were possible, it might be best if we could make a situation where he is isolated, disarmed and watched, yet still has that chance..... It might not be as solid an assurance as placing him behind bars, but it is another possibility.

[wise_maiden]

Well... the last time he stayed with Sayo like this was when he had been affected by a death penalty and didn't have much mobility to begin with. In this case, he is no longer physically hindered, so there is no guarantee that something couldn't go wrong.

[falenandawn]

I remember. I did not even realize it was a death penalty until he came back from asking the Malnosso to remove it.

What if we watch him? Isolate him.... in Sayo's house, perhaps.

[wise_maiden]

I really should talk to the others, but... [Then again, the others were Kratos and Yuan, and Mithos would more than likely have a violent reaction to them being anywhere near him so soon after his sister left. Maybe not.] He views you as someone more... neutral, doesn't he? Would you be comfortable in assisting in something like that?

[falenandawn]

....I do not think the term 'neutral' fits his sentiments towards me well. He dislikes me quite a bit for being as close as I am to Kaori.

But I do not think he would react violently towards me assisting in this, and I would be happy to help.

[wise_maiden]

Then... we'll try it. However, if he violates the arrangement in any way, you know what needs to be done, don't you?

[falenandawn]

I know. He'll get no lenience from me after all this, believe me. He is too much of a danger to people to allow that.

[wise_maiden]

... Understood.

Then... we speak to him and Sayo. There isn't a way to really ... enforce this, between us, but we'll see. If it goes well, we won't have to involve anyone else, but ...

[falenandawn]

We will need to make clear the risks taken with this, and see if Sayo agrees to it. We also need to make sure Mithos understands what we are doing is the only chance he will be given.

[Though he doubted Sayo would disagree.]