Difference between revisions of "GoldenCat/MenageATrois"

Revision as of 01:01, 16 April 2006

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Menage a Trois

Sun is high on the sky...
The work on the Garrisson is done.

The Boil burnt all around them. Pools of water on the gutters.. the fetid smell all around... the ugly buildings surrounding them. The air, foul as it always is on the Boil. But it gives a respite, as the winds blow through the open buildings... as the skies part up slightly, no more a diffuse white, but a cold sunlight coming down from the heavens from patches in the colorless white clouds... showing the blue sky above. Hopeful.

Vorpal: Vorpal sighs as she walks down the alleyway. Squinting her sensitive eyes, she raises her hand to cover the sun long enough that she can get her hood up once again. However great and mighty the Unconquered Sun is, he truly could be a nuisance once in a while...

"You were in a generous mood there", she observes, aiming a glance at the powerful presence of the Dark Angel at her side.

Selina de Windia: Selina has much less trouble with the sun, something that satisfies her for some reason. Fitting that they were the creations of the Malfeans to do the real work -- ghosts were such limited beings. She looks over to Vorpal for a moment, confused.

"Huh? Oh, the loan?"

Vorpal: "Mm-hm", the Pale Angel confirms, but leaves it there. Her hair gives her some trouble with the hood again, and she needs to tug and tuck a little under the black velvet to set everything into a satisfying order.

Alexander: A feather falls. Then another. They seem almost... ethereal. Selina hears it first, the beating of wings... and the light pouring down on them. Then, something coming closer, and closer, with the feathers and the light... something that holds Vorpal's arm. Something with a too, too cheerful and pure voice.

"Milady!"

Dust rises, as he almost steps to the ground... but does not, holding Vorpal's arm, coming in front of her, then pushing up, and spiriting her away to the heavens... smiling at the pale woman in his arms with relief, with longing, with the happyness that came just from seeing her. "How did it go?"

Selina de Windia: "There wasn't any reason not to." She admits, considering. "I don't need to make any profit off of this."

She hears Alex coming quite early, not bothering to turn around at first, but looking when she notices the other woman is being drawn up, into the sky.

...what is with these people?

Vorpal: Her back stiffens at his touch, and she has to stifle a strangled gasp as she feels her boots leave the street pavement. Perhaps it is all those years cultivating the image as an unapproachable and untouchable woman that has left her so unprepared for something such as this, but for a moment, she truly is stunned beyond words. After all those years, for someone to simply swoop down and pick her up is... It is...

And in the front of the Dark Angel, too!

"You... idiot! " she hisses vehemently, even as she feels his strong arms around her waist, the sweet scent of his skin, the warmth of his chest... "You stupid, moronic, imbecilic... idiot."

Selina de Windia: Alex is a fool in love as he is in many other things. Selina thinks to herself as she slides smoothly and effortlessly into a shadow nearby, cloaking herself in the dullness of being quickly passed over even by a determined searcher. A sweet fool, I would suppose, but a fool nonetheless.

The question remained now, did she want to shadow them?

She should have felt angry.

She should have felt jealous.

Oddly, right now, there was nothing there, as there had been before. It was as if the game had been played out to the end. She could claim what she wanted if it came down to that -- no one she knew could rival her in that -- but that would be cheating. Knocking your opponent's pieces off the board, or moving more than you should, and being able to force it to be recognized. It left a hollow feeling.

And besides...

The fire seems to have gone out of it all.

As if knowing she could do it on a whim now, had left her with no desire to do so.

Nonetheless, I suppose I shall watch them.

Alexander: She holds her to him, tightly, so far above now the air is cleaner... and giggles. He giggles like a little boy who just pulled a prank. Always the good boy, he had never done such things, like Cedric did. Well... rarely. There was that time at the Summerfall state with Reina. Good times... He giggled, and held her to him, silencing her with a kiss.

Happy.
Gentle.
Lovingly.

"Sorry, I just had to do this, Milady..."

Vorpal: And now kissing, too! The boy has some nerve! This, this here, it won't go unpunished for long... Squeeze his throat a bit, unscrew his head, shave his white and soft hair away...!

She fumes soundlessly -- and, admitted, rather powerlessly -- even as she responds to his kiss, allowing herself be carried by him, feeling how that warm sensation is building up deep inside once again.

"You do realize", she begin when she finally lifts a hand to push Alex's head away. Her voice is venomous, but it is mixed with a strange tint of... giddyness? Approval? Something that nonetheless makes the true message of her words a bit unclear, "This is going to cause a scandal, my Prince. "

Alexander: He is still happy. This was fun. To be carefree for once. To try and make the weight of the world leave his shoulders... he smiles at her, looking at the city broken and ugly beneath them... and back at her. "To know that their Prince is together with a Deathknight? They just got saved by the Dark Angel, they will not be too much against this idea... right?"

"I need to be honest with them, however. I want to change this, milady. All of this."

Selina de Windia: Did I look that ridiculous when I was in love?

She hoped not. Though the people she'd fallen in love with, outwardly, were dead. So they couldn't really tell anyone if she had, unless they had become ghosts. Except for Moon.

I am in love with him, aren't I?

Though she was letting him be for a bit. He'd had plenty of her presence in the past few days, it wouldn't hurt to let him interact with the newcomers and the rest without her hovering over his shoulder or at his side.

Vorpal wasn't smacking Alex for his presumption. It kind of figured, really.

Way too much bluster there for it to all be real.

A few other past meetings with the woman had confirmed that thought. Selina should have taken that kiss back in Windia, then.

This is where being more respectful than you usually are gets you, you stupid bitch.

Your game gets tired, and someone else gets there before you.

Those kinds almost never want coddling, they want to be swept off their feet.

Ah well. What was the term? Sour grapes? Perhaps she ought to mind-bend the woman to wanting her afterall. It was, after all, only her due for her trouble.

Alexander: He is still happy. This was fun. To be carefree for once. To try and make the weight of the world leave his shoulders... and it did, for a moment. Even with her on his arms. She had been terrible. She could still be. A month before, all he felt for her was fear. Not even gratitude. When they came out of the night and destroyed all of the undead... she felt terrifying then. She was. When she broke him and the Dark Angel, all shadows and terror. But now... he could forget all the weight because he had his arm around her waist.

How things changed.
How they could still change.
How he wished them to chage.

Her complaints warmed him. To know he had gotten to her. He remembered himself with Cedric, with Karn... they always made him feel the same. He looked at her, at that pale skin, at those red eyes, and he was happy.

You came to damn my soul, did you not?

Why does it seem like you are doing the opposite?

"To know that their Prince is together with a Deathknight? You are my jailor.” He says, even though he did not mean it anymore. “My savior. There is no changing it. They will need to get used to it.” He nuzzled her a bit, now that the air was fresh and cool for them... and then looked down. Beneath them, a expanse of desolation, ugly, dirty, made of iron, the corpse of a misshapen child of the gods. He grimaced. “They will need to get used to many things.”

Selina de Windia: It should be me up there now.

But then, the Lover had told her to seduce the boy, hadn't she? This was, in a way, convenient. It had happened without her having to wait suspiciously in the sidelines, before she'd even seen the boy again.

Which of course, meant she would now be called to break them apart. That woman could never break someone with the arts of seduction.

What a pretty excuse that would be.

She had stood up to her deathlord before, but that was not something one did all the time. The perfect excuse, because it was so true.

Or would she? She had no way to know. But Selina did feel the fury boiling beneath the surface. It was an odd detachment, which she wondered how long would last. As if she was looking at herself, as another woman, taking bets on when she would snap.

Vorpal: "Jailor", she repeats, and all of a sudden, the world seems like a cold and unforgiving place to her.

Cold, like the lands around the Fortress of Red Ice. Unforgiving, like the citadel's crimson walls that hold back the endless masses of moaning souls begging to be allowed back in, pleading for another chance to bask in the presence of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. The same Lover who even now is waiting for her deathknights to deliver her the wondrous price they had been sent to retrieve.

Truth be told, Vorpal had almost forgotten about that. Or had liked to think she had done so.

Which brings another strange detail to her mind. It has been a very long time since the Lover has last contacted her. Why?

Vorpal sees the malformed ugliness of the city spreading out underneath them, but does not notice it. She feels the warmth of Alex's arms encircling her waist, but somehow, she no longer enjoys the sensation.

Utter silence. A champion left without information about her general's plans. That doesn't mean the general wouldn't have plans. It only means --

Abruptly, she looks down, at the location where they had left the Dark Angel.

-- she's telling them to someone else.

"Alex", she says, quietly, pressing a hand over his."Set me down. Please."

Alexander: The prince is taken aback. She freezes. Something, everything becomes so... awkward.

I was going to tell her all I wish to do...
... all I wish to give her...
all...

This is not fair.
This is not fair.. .

The moment broken, the angel's wings take her back to the ground, on the roof of their Manse in Highlane. The descent is silent. But he holds her tightly. Not wanting her to go away, she seems so close to going away... "There."

He lays her on the roof, wishing her not to get up, not to leave... "I have things to tell you..."

Vorpal: "Ahn, that's better", she says as her boots touch the roof. After gently detaching herself from Alex's grasp, she bends her arms backwards and arches her back, leather creaking. "Oof", she grimaces. "What the heck is wrong with it now?"

Looking back at Alex, she notes his tone of voice... and suddenly flashes him an assuring smile. "Don't worry", she says and reaches out to stroke the chin of his handsome face. "I just didn't feel like flying much longer."

Whatever the situation is, a commander can never show weakness or fear.

"So...." She tilts her head a bit, expectantly, "Go on. What is it that you want to tell me?"

Selina de Windia: Selina has not been idle, indeed, she was following their descent, flitting through the shadows of the city as she had two days before, when it was still wrapped in war. The facade breaks a bit more.

You especially do not defy your deathlord when she holds your child as ransom for your service.

She flies occasionally, low, just enough to see where they are going, barely noticable through the cloak of her magic. It feels like the old days. The good days. When she stalked other exalts with the intent to kill.

Something in her responds well to that recollection.

Why not? Yes. Why not?

It would be sweet balm to my regret, that blood.

Alexander: "Oh..."

It seems odd to now, as he flutters up the air for a moment, angling behind her, holding her. Making her watch the city as he keeps himself in the air behind her, his lips close to her ears...

He tried to get the feel again. "See it? This city? I do not know how... but it exists. Here on Whiteshield. Horrible, like this. It... I cannot allow that to exist, milady. I want to change it. I realised... it is not just to destroy the dead. It is not just beating them back... I need to change this. I need to make this beautiful. To make it so people never live like Moon... I just wanted to beat the undead, and make a new home for me, for Cedric, for Fiona and Millia... but I have to change this. To make a better world."

His hand moves to her chest, listening to her heartbeat, as he whisper in hear ear, soft. "To make you shine in Gold. To make you have your self back."

Vorpal: Sati!

It strikes as a white-hot flash behind her eyes. She gasps, soundlessly, but keeps herself from flinching.

...a lonely woman on endless wastes of ice... clotheless, save for a cloak of purest white fur.

...a gigantic dragon, terrifying in all its beauty, with glittering azure scales and the eyes the color of swirling clouds...

...a shriek of defiance, an outrageous demand...

...crimson blood of virgin snow...

She draws in a deep, shuddering sigh, fighting down the rising surge of terrible, terrible fear.

...a fathomless sensation of fury and anger when a loved woman reveals how rotten to the core her heart is...

To make her shine in gold...

...that is not possible.

She forces a laugh, and hopes it sounds easy to his ears. "That's quite an undertakement, o' Chosen of Sun. How are you planning to go about it?"

Alexander: He lets go, and sits down close to her, more at ease, watching what may as well be endless wastes before him...

"That, I am still thinking. I need to find out how a city work. I need to talk to Iria, to Iron Tears. I need to find out how a kingdom works." And he knew it would be more difficult than it sounded. But he would do it. He would do it. "As for the gold... that is something I still have to find out as well. But I... I remember you, on my dreams. And if you were golden once, you can be again. I am sure of it."

He begun to realise how filled with nothing his words were.

"... you think I am silly, don't you?"

Selina de Windia: "That is not possible." Comes the whisper behind them both, as jade-alloyed steel gleams in the light as it passes in front of Vorpal's throat quicker than thought, just a finger's breadth from the flesh. "She was never in gold for this turn of the wheel." The whisper is sultry, soft and dangerous, malevolent. "She has been a contemptable cowering shadow all her life."

Selina had creeped up there, around the back of the manse, cloaked in her magic, divested herself of the greatcoat before she'd made the roof.

"And what does that make me -- who loves this cowardly shadow like a fool? Who idolized it." Red lips let forth hot breath on the back of her neck. "Less than a shadow. Give me your phantom blood, shadow." The blade draws a bit closer. "Or a reason not to take it."

Alexander: The Prince jumps in surprise, Ainerach appearing in his hand on a flash of golden light, motes of gold in the air around the women as he tries to get up, clumsily, surprised. "Just... what? What are you talking about? What the hell are you doing?!?"

Vorpal: -- the closeness of the other Abyssal's body, the heat of her breath, the fast, eager pulse of her heart--

All of it registers to her consciousness in an eyeblink. Her eyes widen slightly at the sound of the other voice, but otherwise, she does not move.

-- the blade hovering inches away from her throat, the sensation of bloodlust so powerful it feels almost tangible --

Caught completely by surprise.

Vorpal's arms move up and slowly, deliberately, she folds them over her chest.

-- A sense of immediate, imminent death, a presence so prepared to cause her harm --

She bends her head, her gaze falling, her hair curtaining her face...

... and she chuckles.

"Challenging me", Vorpal explains, simply.

And without a warning, the Pale Angel becames like lumimous mist. She takes a single step backwards, towards the Dark Angel, into her -- and for a fleeting instant, Black and White exist in the exact same location in the universe, their hearts touching, a chill running through the living woman's system. Then the ghost is through, standing behind her, a gloved hand rising, snaking forward --

...and coming to rest gently on Selina's chin.

"I suppose it's your turn now to feel betrayed, eh, Moranine?" she whispers to the other Abyssal's ear, her breath cool in contrast to the Dark Angel's heat. "Still the little bitch wrapped in a cloak of self-serving justice. You haven't learned anything over all these years."

She lets go of the woman, and steps back. There is no need to point out that she hadn't just snapped Selina's neck as she could have - as she should have done. A return of a strange sort of courtesy.

Selina de Windia: It was an old trick seen more than once now, one she could have dealt with or escaped. The very idea that the Pale Angel can have that kind of contempt for her abilities shocks her into not reacting as she should.

You aren't taking this seriously?

It's time to make you respect me.

"You've got it all wrong." Selina replies, turning around, pupils slit to the barest lines. "You betrayed me, all those ages ago. You were self-serving, all those ages ago. I remember." She's smiling now, razored, primed for the murder of the other deathknight. "But now? Yeah, I've become a bitch to match you, Sati."

"Don't use that lame trick again. You're a Deathknight, not some pitiful ghost. It's time to stop pretending." And she does it for the fourth time now, as she had with Moon, with Iron Tears, with the Parishioner. Death essence shapes her into the purest angel, the basest whore. Her gem gleams at her throat, and the vision of loveliness smiles at the other Abyssal. "My reason, Pale Angel. I'm waiting."

Alexander: The blade vanishes from his hand. This was getting out of hand...

He had seen this before. More than once. But now... now it was more intense than it used to. And the names... the names called to the other Him. Called for him to speak. Love, Care, Betrayal, Remorse, Anger... calling for Him. Calling for Him to take him over like he had more than once before... the prince saw his vision blur for a moment...

I cannot help them... I cannot help them if he does...

He closed his eyes, focused, and opened them once again. "Will you stop? Stop that!"

"Stop trying to be greater than one another! Can you two just talk this over?"

Selina de Windia: "Yes, I should stop." She looks toward the Prince for a moment, raw hate lurking below the surface of her eyes. "So I can be derided again, ignored again."

Selina looks back to Vorpal. "By a coward who hides behind her mistress' coat-tails. I regret the foolishness of youth which I possessed."

Alexander: She was beautiful. Too, too beautiful. He had never, ever seen something this beautiful, this desirable.

Inside, a part of him that loved her felt defiled.
The young man felt the blood rushing to his loins, to his cheeks.

Beauty.
Want.
Desire.
posses

She makes him randy, more than he ever thought he could be.

And he just watches.

Transfixed.
All diplomacy gone, knowing that his first action will be one of lust, not righteousness, not peace, but raw, animal, dirty lust.

Vorpal: Her eyes fixate on the Dark Angel's perfect features. Beautiful, beautiful beyond comprehension, so desirable that a mere glimpse of such vision would haunt her dreams for years to come. Alone in the bed she would wake, screaming, panting with lust, her white hands reaching out in vain to hold and caress that lovely being...

Suddenly, she is striding forward. Her hands swing by her sides. She enters the range of Selina's rapier weaponless, nothing about her stance suggesting that she is prepared to defend herself from an attack. She marches, fearless, all the way up to the goddess of forbidden fantasies that is the Dark Angel and halts there. She stands with her pupils diluted, her chest heaving, almost brushing Selina's high breasts.

She wants her.

It is obvious about her stance, about her every move, about the way her eyes burn with barely held fire. This goddess is her dreams come true, her love eternal, nothing in Creation could keep her away from this vision of desire...

After a moment, she speaks.

"What the fuck is this?"

"You dare?" Vorpal hisses, and never before has her quiet voice dripped so fully with revulsion, utter, unveiled disgust. "You dare to say 'pretending' in the same breath with your accusations? You dare to say it with all that whining about how the world should be about you, you and you, all the while wearing that.... that... " She gestures with her hand, her fingers brushing over the other woman's face, "mirage?"

Selina de Windia: Selina flinches back, sensing the other woman's intent to strike her for a moment. As intense as her own fury, which cools at...those words. Replaced, for the moment, with disappointed puzzlement. But she steps back a pace.

"...You think I hide behind this? For someone who insists her legend isn't worthy of being looked up to, you seem to think I ought to hold your views a bit too much."

Vorpal: "I thought I told you not to look at my legend", the Pale Angel snaps, "but at me instead!"

Her eyes blazing, she takes another step up to the Dark Angel, coming to stand at the same distance as before. She's shorter than Selina is, but that doesn't seem to matter, not here, not now. Without a blade to raise in defense, she knows the Dark Angel could slay her in the blink of an eye at any time she wants, but somehow, that doesn't seem to matter, either.

All that is important to her right now is her personal rage, a sense of betrayal, a fathomless sensation of fury and anger when a loved woman reveals how rotten to the core her heart is...

Aching love.

A heart shattered to riven pieces.

She's screaming at the top of her lungs now, words gushing forth from her lips on their own. "You were about to sacrifice millions of lives for your dream! Did you really think that if I truly loved you, I would just stand by and watch you do that? What kind of respect did you have for me anyway?!" Her voice breaks over the last few words, and her tirade is cut short by a hiccuping sob.

It is a sound that all of them have heard before.

Selina de Windia: Selina looks wide eyed at the other woman. They had never done this, before. They had always called her a monster, cursed her name. Which, in the end, made it easy for her to kill them. They were betrayers. When she tore Fialine apart, there was only the fury and the hurt at someone who had stabbed her in the heart.

You never understood why that horrible 'dream' was attempted, Sati.

You took the easy way out, to the end. Instead of making the hard choices.

How can I feel anything but contempt for a coward like you?

That was Moranine talking, those thoughts. Born from the fragmented memories so old that ancient was inadequate to describe them.

Selina pushed that down, hard. It did not need to be invoked now, she was already teetering on the brink. "You...you had nothing but derision for me when we met!" The goddess' lower lip quivers a bit, but she steadies it for now. "Respect you?" Her voice is a hoarse croak, tightened, anger warring with the urge to cry herself. "How can I even get close to someone who bats me away with contempt all the time?!"

Vorpal: A 'coward' like me?, comes an echo from Sati.

A coward?

I saved you from your own self! I saved you and doing so, doomed myself to be hated by you for the rest of the eternity!

Was that a coward's way out?

"Bitch", she says through clenched teeth, her voice trembling, her hair tumbling about her shoulders as she shakes her head. "You never had any room for anyone but yourself down there! You stupid, stupid, stupid little bitch! "

And as she says that, she leans forward, grabs the Dark Angel by the shoulders and plants her lips directly over Selina's mouth.

Selina de Windia: Was mostly true, that. She wouldn't have even bothered denying it most times. Many Exalts were self centered, and Selina by necessity of how her life had developed, was definitely one of them.

In any case, she didn't really stop Vorpal. Not that she could have, at this point. Selina was simply too overwhelmed to mount a defense against that. She makes a muffled little squeak as her lips meet the Pale Angel's, eyes closing so she doesn't have to look in the other woman's, not right now. Her wings move forward, half-way around them, almost protectively.

Alexander: Alex watched...
Never feeling so young in all his life. Words failed him. Everything failed him.
Their emotions roared, and he was there, caught in the middle of them, muted by their beauty, by his heat.

It was humilliating.

It felt so... hollow.

He did not know what to think or feel as they kissed... just that even he had forgotten himself.

And as their eyes closed, he begun to turn around, ready to leave...

Vorpal: As as Alex is turning to leave, a single black-gloved hand reaches out from underneath dark feathers. Her fingers curl around his belt and just the way he had lifted her not too long ago, it is now the Prince who finds himself raised to the air. There is no denying the Pale Angel's request. Gently, carefully, Alex is pulled inside the cocoon of black wings.

Alexander: "H-hey! Wait! Let me go! Let me go!" He protests... to no avail.

Let me go, do whatever you two wish, I cannot understand you anyway!
Let me go, let me go, let.. me...

He is taken, his breath hard... but it begins to ease. White within Black.
It was warm. So warm, there...
Too sweet even for oblivion. Too sweet for the powers of social violence that had pushed his lust just before.

It does not vanish, not while he can feel the lust in the Dark Angel... but in their arms, held, kissing... his breath normalized, his lust subsided and he just... smiled...

Selina de Windia: As their lips parted, Selina's mind was practically blank. To have wanted something for so long, then have it rush at you when you aren't expecting it and (argueably) in the proper mindset for it is certainly disconcerting. And so she is.

But she retains the presence of mind to pet Alex on the head, lightly. Not enough to release the essence holding her heightened appearance, but for now, it does not occur to her.

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