trusthell | WEEK 8.

WEEK 8.

WEEK 8
Orihime Inoue and Mikazuki Munechika are dead thanks to the Wordsmith's motive. While only two have died this past week, it feels much emptier around here now.

There's only ten of you left. There's so few of you now.

Saturday is given to regrouping and rest; on Sunday morning the clock chimes as it always has, but at least there are no bodies to find today. It seems you're safe for now. The night before wasn't necessarily a peaceful one, however; you'll probably feel a bit groggy when you wake up, and it seems you've regained something that you didn't realize you'd lost...

Unfortunately, regardless of how well you may or may not have done this week, it seems that there's nothing else for you here. No new floors have opened up below the seventh; it looks like for now, that truly is all.

Perhaps it's a good sign. Perhaps it's one of the worst yet. Only time will tell.

~~APPRENTICES REMAINING: 10~~

APPRENTICES REMAINING: 8

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[OOC: Welcome to week eight of Trustfell! Feel free to make as many top levels as you'd like and tag out to other characters! This post is for all of your interactions this week... at least until the weekend. Don't forget to save those threads for coins and the activity check!

If you'd like to get in contact with the Wordsmith, you can do so through letters or the switchboard!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Well, shit.

Ah well, Elda nods and glides into the room, taking her hand back to herself and dropping the smile. She makes her way over to the desk chair assuming it's not destroyed to take up a seat at it. ]

[Lusamine promptly flops back on the bed, after ensuring Elda is inside and the door is closed--thankfully the desk isn't destroyed, she hasn't tried to take out more aggression on it.]

...I think I've gone and died like an idiot, Elda.

[ . . . Well that is not what she expected to hear. Like at all. She blinks once, and then twice and... ]

You?

[ An idiot? ]

...Tell me. Have I told you of my research? Rather, the research of my former husband that I took up.

[Lusamine's tone is blank at that.]

Some, but I tell you true when I say I barely understood your explanation. I believe it had something to do those dimension things we're all from?

Yes. Something like that. My husband had originally discovered them...and I took up his research, when he was gone. He had notes on a creature named Nihilego that were left behind...

[Lusamine raises her hand in the air when she speaks, looking at her nails. Still red, after all this time.]

I thought that if I researched the creature in question, I would be able to find him again. And yet...every dream I have had, for the past few weeks...I've felt so uneasy, upon waking. It is different, from how I have--had been acting, at home.

[ Elda tries to follow her, rocking in the chair. She's listening, of course. ... Nihilego. Wanting to find it to find her husband. Okay, that all makes sense. ]

Truth told, some of my memories feel distant from my current disposition as well.

[ but she sounds like she's saying something more here. ]

Nihilego are very interesting creatures. They lack much physical structure, but they are parasitic in nature. They've been known to adapt to situations around them by infecting a suitable host with a neurotoxin that they excrete.

[...]

The neurotoxin suppresses the host's personality, acting to increase the excitement of the host so that they may act wildly to protect it. By likewise sealing away the inhibitions...the host simply acts carelessly, without any consideration to those around them. It makes the things that one holds back come out far more easily.

[It's all said so blankly, but her hand goes back down. She's. Not looking at Elda.]

[ . . . Haha, what?

Elda's expression goes from attentive but lightly confused to predatory as Lusamine goes on, a suspicion coiling up into her heart, and not one she find terribly pleasant. So she was studying some creature that secretes a poison, one which makes the host act carelessly, to make locked things come out-

Oh.

In a way, that's not unlike what some blood affinities - all of them, really, in different ways - do. But... ]

So what would those freaks get out of it all?

Protection. Devotion. We have never been certain of the creature's level of intelligence, but more than anything, it does such things for it's own survival. That's all it wants.

[...]

I had managed to open many portals at home, in order to give it a suitable world. If I did not become so enamored with their own world...I would have done nothing to stop them from going on a rampage, if they wished it.

[Her voice...starts to waver a bit here.]

...I haven't been exposed to that neurotoxin in almost two months. I'm starting to feel things again. I feel things that aren't a singleminded devotion to Nihilego. That's why it feels so...disorienting, to continue to have these dreams. Because now I can think about it, and I think I have done something very terrible.

[ A parasite that makes someone subject to their will. A toxin that ensures there's a host which'll just do whatever needs to be done for them. Opening portals to put the world into danger, with some sort of rampage.

Elda snarls, and she stands abruptly, leaping over the table. ]

You were taken in by those fiends, Lusamine. By your own word, that toxin had scrambled your brain.

[ #lusaminedidnothingwrong

Even if her response is ill formed, but, ]

Where does your death come into this?

...My recent dream had me in the world of that creature. Two children had come to confront me, I believe...I...

[Here comes the hardest bit to swallow.]

My daughter, Lillie. She was one of them. She...shouted at me, and all I did was shrug and practically spit her words back in her face. I...

[...that's gonna be a gongshow of a subject, let's just tip toe over that for now--]

I sent out a Nihilego that I had managed to capture, and I was preparing to fuse with it. But...I did not close my eyes. I don't remember closing my eyes, and before I even felt the fusion take place, I woke up.

I...don't think I survived what happened.

[...she doesn't want to think of an alternative. She hadn't cared about Lillie or that creature she took with her in weeks, and yet--something about this struck her as wrong. Very wrong. So incredibly wrong, even if it was just for Lillie--]

Edited (words) 2017-03-13 00:56 (UTC)

[ What the fuck.

Elda had been totally ready to suppose Lusamine's every action, excuse every mis-step and assure her (after all, Hanyuu had been wrong about her hopeless "Endless June," Silver had been wrong about his father, she had been wrong about Karin's nature (even if the truth was arguably worse) so it's not impossible to be mistaken.

But that's... not at all what she expected.

Fuse with? She was giving up her ... What? Her body? Her mind? Her humanity to that thing? And her daughter? ]

Those devils put you in opposition to your daughter? They made you offer your body to them?

[ Elda's eyes are burning now. ]

Edited 2017-03-13 01:03 (UTC)

...It was my plan, in that state. I wanted to stay with those creatures so badly, and I would have done anything to keep things as they were. But...

[Lusamine clutches at her own head, looking utterly dismayed. It feels wrong to say that she didn't know--because while it's the truth on some ends of this, there's a point where there should be a gap between her thought process and the creature's...

And it all feels like it bled together.]

I don't know where they started and where I did, at that point. All I knew is that I wanted to stay with them. I felt like I had to, and at this point...even Mohn was the farthest thing from my head.

[Considering she continued this whole thing for his sake, that. Kind of scares her.]

[ . . . ]

Lusamine. May I have your hand?

[...If it were anyone else, she'd. Probably be shouting for them to go. That she can't do this. That she wants to be alone.

For Elda...well, she'll get her hand over there one way or another. Reach it to her if she's nearby, or walk over to her and place it in front of her.]

[ By then, Elda'd gotten right up next to her, and actually had held her hand out too. But she takes Lusamine's in both of hers. She cradles the thing, and she runs her index and middle finger along the bottom of the womans's wrist. ]

I can feel your pulse, your heartbeat. Whatever else, you are alive and you are free of that toxin or whatever it was now.

[ She's going to start there, very firmly, looking hard into the woman's eyes. ]

[...she can actually feel something starting to form in her eyes again. She's only cried a few times here--when they sent Gold to his death, and once Gangrel had been executed.

Lusamine doesn't look away, though. She won't disrespect Elda like that.]

...That may have been only thanks to you and Gangrel.

[That's all she says, though, allowing Elda to continue.]

That doesn't matter.

[ Because really, it doesn't, at least not in the mind of the vampire. She keeps her hard eye contact, her fingers remaining there by her pulse, but pressing her hands a little. Squeezing. Affirming. ]

What matters is what is, Lusamine. That you, regardless of other circumstances, are alive.

[ Elda isn't good at this sort of thing, she never had been. Though now, she remembers a strange part from a memory she got back weeks ago. Karin had said it then, even as she was right about to kill Yuriya Tachibana (and really, she should have) that "I know you can be tough, but I always thought that you were a kind person." She... honestly, in that memory, she had been too angry to consider her granddaughter's words. But as she thinks of her actions over the last two weeks, maybe the girl was on to something.

Elda Marker had certainly been more kind than she thought possible, lately. ]

And we will make sure it remains that way, that those devils are fended off, and that you can return to hug that daughter of yours.

[ Because really, no mother should ever have to fight a daughter. ]

No. It does matter!

[Hi, Elda. Remember the level of offense you took at Lusamine saying she hated Gangrel? The general tone, at least.

Congrats, it's coming out in Lusamine.]

Do you even realize just what I would have done, if I did not become so used to the two of you in my lives? I let you read those notes for a reason, Elda. You stated at that trial, that Gangrel and I had-- [No, she corrects herself.] have absolute trust. You should know as well as anyone that it likewise applies to you.

Weeks prior, I felt nothing else but the desire to play my part and rise so far out of suspicion that if I did murder someone, I would never be suspected and I could go back to Nihilego. That is all I wanted, weeks ago. I was willing and waiting for a motive to come up that would strike my fancy so I could return to that creature. Not even Gold or Silver could have stopped me. Nor Vanille, nor Orihime, nor even Guzma, should it have come down to it.

[...her tone lightens a bit, as she goes on.]

When I finally began to put some of you above even Nihilego...I felt disgusted, at first. That I was betraying this creature and losing my will do protect it. And yet, it felt so natural to come to care for you all, and want to see you all get out alive. I wanted to ensure that. And even after losing my trust in Gold and Silver, it extended to the both of you. And with Gangrel's death...

[There's...a pause, and Lusamine places her other free hand on top of Elda's.]

...I wanted you to stop me. Do you even realize that weeks ago, I could have done the same thing with a conscience clouded by that toxin's influence? Without any remorse for my actions.

[Lusamine clutches Elda's hands tightly when she says that, but she's been maintaining eye contact this whole time. It would be disrespectful to do otherwise.]

Please never say that what you two have done doesn't matter. You may not have simply saved my life with that.

[There's something else she could say. It's strange, feeling so remarkably alive after all of this time...]

Lillie...is an incredibly beautiful child, you know. She deserves the world.

[ Elda wonders if they are even talking about the same thing at this point. Elda meant that it doesn't matter if Lusamine was dead back home, or any of the circumstances back there. That they... well, that because Lusamine is alive now, that status is all that matters, because that status means that they can go and fix things. Rip that Nihilego thing to shreds. Allow her to see Alola again and make up whatever conflict she was forced into with her daughter.

... But then, if Lusamine needed to shout and rage, Elda Marker would be the last on to stop her. After all, this was clearly something important to her. And so Elda listens, despite wanting to snap back at the initial outburst. ]

Very well, then I will not belittle it any further.

[ It's... strange, to think that Lusamine feels that way, so strongly about her. She wonders, if there were times Lusamine thought about what she would think, in the same way Elda's claws had been stayed out of concern for Hanyuu's opinion more than any sort of turgid morality.

... ]

I would like to meet Lillie, that beautiful child.

[...yeah, that was definitely a misunderstanding on her end.

But at that...Lusamine pauses a bit, before a small smile crosses her face.]

She is. She's a darling girl...I think you would like her quite a bit. She has a compassionate heart, more than anyone I have ever seen.

[...]

I...owe her the world and more, after all of this.

I suspect I might. [ . . . ] Did you not have another child, as well?

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1/? oh lord jesus here we go

2/?

3/3

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