middaeg | [closed] I think I've thought myself to death

Entry tags:

[closed] I think I've thought myself to death

Who: Fang and Kaede
When: 3/3
Where: Somewhere ambiguously in Aefenglom
What: Two cats get in a fight.
Warnings: description of burns, likely discussion of the events of Snatched (and thus torture)

[The chill was finally beginning to let up, after the damnable snows disappeared last month. Fang welcomed the dark clouds that brought rain; at least that was familiar, and spoke of warming temperatures. She—and her Monster, too—was a warm-weather creature.]

[The turnskin glances down at her hands, not minding the small drops sporadically beginning to fall, blooming small little dots on the street cobbles and the cloak she wore to ward off the chill. Even as people began to move inside, she didn't move from her bench.]

[The note in her hands was a formal blessing from the Coven's doctors that her silver wounds had truly begun healing, more suggested exercises to continue for months to come, and notice that they were reducing the medication for the lingering pain.]

[No sense in putting it off. Fang's never been mindful of her scars before, and she's certainly seen the wound every time she's changed her bandages, so there was no surprise waiting. Fang didn't mind them, but... well, she could name a few that would. She unwound the cushioning gauze ringed around her wrists, revealing the severe scars encircling her wrist where the manacles had sat, the flesh raw-looking and twisted like a sculptor's impression of webbing done in wax. Not fully healed, and sensitive to the stray cold droplets of beginning rain, but no longer at risk for infection.]

[Fang flexed her hands idly—they responded about as nimbly as they ever had, now, though she still had a ways to go to rebuild her grip strength to what it was—before unwinding the gauze around her neck.]

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[The snow seemed to have gone for good, though frost still glittered on the grass in the mornings. The rain that took its place was a marked downgrade, as far as Kaede was concerned. The feathers she had built up to fend off the chill and walk as if she had snowshoes over the drifts just got sodden and wet in the rain, seeming twice as heavy. More than enough reason for the Chimera's ears to flatten in irritation as the telltale patter of rain drew close; she'd been trying to beat the front home.

At least this time she'd thought to bring a waterproof casing for the book she was carrying. The Chimera ducked under an awning that seemed to be out of the way, tugged her split hood away from her antlers—and spotted someone, just before she started shaking her feathers out like a wet dog.]

Wh—oh. It's you.

[The rain had already begun to wash scents out of the air, the steady drumbeat of the cold droplets, a thousand retreating steps and a thousand creaking carriage wheels on wet cobblestones muffling the city's noise. So the Turnskin's appearance was doubly surprising.

Both that Fang was out and about, and the unmistakable wounds crawling down her wrists.]

What are you doing here?

[Her hands didn't cease unwinding the bandages at her neck, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Kaede.]

Sitting.

[Har har. A light shrug, the best as she could from this position.] Seemed as good a place as any. That should be my last visit to the docs for a while. Here on out, my recovery's up to me and time.

[The gauze came off, revealing a burn scar just as unsightly as her wrists, but in a slightly thicker patch. Fang's hand reached up, brushing the back of her neck gingerly; the gap between the fur felt odd, where the scar divided it.]

[The Chimera's ears had started to lift up again—they tilted back at that, and she snorted.

The rest, though...wasn't so funny. Any further mirth died in Kaede's throat, her tailtip twitching in unsettled, jerky motions. The rain finally coming down seemed like a distant afterthought as Kaede's eyes glued to the sight of Fang's burns, the bitter realization of what they were.

She'd known, vaguely, what was underneath the bandages. She'd never been there to see them changed, but knew there was damage underneath—and more.

The antlered Chimera's voice had changed, now to the quieter, more solemn end of the spectrum.]

...they did that to you.

[The Rathmores were gone, but far from forgotten.]

[She would never be able to forget them now, just like they wanted.]

...Yeah.

[Fang's gaze flickered away from Kaede, out along the street. The fingers at the back of her neck curled, dragging across the warped texture of her healing skin. The sensation toed the line between uncomfortable and painful.]

I got off easy. [Something Fang believed, even if she couldn't truthfully say her wounds weren't bad. Silver was anathema to Turnskins; touching the damn metal left her instincts screaming as much as her nerves, in a way that went beyond simple pain, and then left in contact with it so long the nerves in the wound began to die... She may have gotten off easy in the big picture, but Fang couldn't pretend it wasn't the worst thing she's ever had to endure.] It's nothin' to worry about now.

[The uncertain drizzle began a more uniform fall, but Fang didn't flinch, nor give any indication of moving from her unsheltered bench.]

[Kaede's next exhale was edged with a growl. No matter how much the gleam of the guillotine's fall had soothed her mind and killer's heart, the stretch of time from Chariot being stolen from her to then felt long as a wretched eternity.

She knew, too well, what it was like to be held back and useless while the guilt of actions finished and those left undone tore at her mind.]

Compared to who?

[She wasn't expecting an answer; her voice was still a frustrated growl at the memories those wounds dredged up.]

[A few raindrops escaping the gutter and spilling onto her tail distracted the Chimera from her thoughts; she flicked it back under shelter, and glanced up at her Bomded-in-law.]

Hey. You're going to get all wet there.

[Kaede reached out to touch Fang's shoulder, to tug the Turnskin to the nearest bit of shelter—the same awning she was standing under, connected to some empty shop with the street on one side and a vacant lot overgrown with dead grass and discarded crates on the other.]

[The rain didn't bother Fang. To some part of her, the Monster part, it almost felt natural—comforting. Her gaze didn't move from the distant street corner even as Kaede tugged at her winter cloak, but she did absently rise and shuffle along.]

[Compared to who? Fang interpreted that growl as directed at her, similar to the exasperation and condolences of people who claimed nothing was her fault.]

Compared to the ones that were flayed alive, [she muttered. Those two in particular stood out.] To the machine guy that was pulled apart, piece by piece. The man that lost an eye. To—

[Fang's voice cut off abruptly, her throat closing up. It's been well over a month, but she could still hear it, too vividly, just behind her hearing. The tear of muscle and tendon and ligament, the slow crack of bone—]

[Her eyes shut. Fang's head and shoulders droop forward as the nauseating memory is real again for once horrible second, her heart beating too quickly.]

[Ah. The list of sordid details she'd seen the aftermath of, in glimpses and whispers—it was an unexpected, unpleasant reminder. Kaede's hackles bristled, laid flat again—and she had to shake her head to stop them from doing it again. The memories, of soot and ash and burnt skin, the iron tang of blood new and ancient, the endless halls of the infirmary—they bled too easily into others. The sting of disinfectant, the glare of lights too bright in her eyes, needles, helmets. The distant shrieks of other diclonius while she was shuffled from holding cell to holding cell. They all mixed into the same ball of dreadful memory, becoming heavier than the wretched sum of their parts.

Kaede felt the taller woman pitch forward before she saw. Her thoughts scattered again as she turned back with a sound halfway to inquisitive and half to a worried mutter. Fang didn't just fall like that. She didn't just...stop like that, either.]

Fang?

[She didn't straighten or open her eyes. If Kaede weren't a Chimera, Fang would've assumed her next words, generously called a whisper, would be lost to the rain's increasing speed.]

Compared to Chariot.

[Fang's hands would get better, eventually. Soon, even. But Chariot's leg... Her hands curled into fists at her side.]

[Three words, whispered and picked out over the rain, put more of a chill in Kaede's spine than all the cold rain of the past week. Her breaths were insufficient to push away the vise tautness in her chest. She stiffened, shoulders tense, and her hand fell away from Fang's cloak.]

...I know.

[Harsh, maybe. But pragmatic. Fang could still walk—walk without poison crushing down on her steps, without a twisted, broken leg.]

Like hell you do.

[Fang hadn't meant to say that. She's a little surprised herself, but there the words were, with a bitter and somewhat distressed undercurrent. She opened her eyes, blinking, and leaned back against the old shop's wall.]

...I was there, Kaede. [A pause, that uncertain lead lump building in her chest again.] They knew we were Bonded. They made me watch. [She swallowed thickly, focused on something in the distance across the street.] Made me choose.

[That rebuke startled Kaede, set her on edge with her hackles bristling. No apology followed, only out of character bitterness. And words that made her blood run cold as rainwater.

The Chimera's voice was soft—dangerously so.]

...choose what, Fang.

[She regretted the words as soon as she spoke them. She wouldn't like the answer. She didn't want an answer.]

Choose what.

[That tone, that razor's edge in Kaede's voice that anticipated something rightfully horrible made the damned guilt bubble up again—like something was squeezing Fang by her throat, her limbs running cold like they weren't her own and a strange, surreal kind of not-quite-dizziness settling in.]

[A small rational part of her, the hunter and the predator, recognized the danger. She didn't care. Fang had held her tongue for too many weeks; someone had to know. That hellish week, the choices she was forced to make, reached farther than just her and Chariot. Kaede's hurt was a consequence, too.]

[Fang's voice was rougher this time, like the words stuck on the way out.]

Which one of us got the shit end of the stick, [the Turnskin mumbled—confessed—bitterly. Fang knew she wasn't the one that harmed Chariot.]

[But she still made a choice.]

[For a wrenching moment, Kaede was stunned into silence. The gears in her mind churned, linking the dots into a final, horrible picture.

The only outward sign was her ears, turning and slowly pinning flat against their skull, until the tigerlike spot on the back of them was visible.]

You did—

[Kaede's arm jerked up suddenly, seizing onto the Turnskin's shoulder. Not as a helpful guide, but as a desperate, unchecked vise.]

You did that. To her.

[Fang winced under the iron grip, but otherwise did not move, her gaze remaining averted forward. There's a low growl of thunder in the distance. ]

[For all Fang felt culpability in how things turned out, Kaede's words still pained her like barbs.]

The Rathmores did that. I chose how, I guess. Between guilt and pain.

[The gears of Kaede's mind snagged on something, ground like shearing metal—and snapped. The chill and horror vanished, overrun with a burst of disbelief and rage that answered her when nothing else did. Anger burned away despair. Anger tore through inaction. She knew what to do with anger. The book held in the crook of her arm tumbled to the ground, forgotten.

The Chimera dug her claws in to the taller woman's shoulder, lips pulling back from her teeth. Her voice changed as abruptly as her mood, from whispered horror to a crackling snarl.]

Why?

[The motion started as a grab for Fang's face, her chin, to make her look at Kaede. Make Fang meet her gaze.

But in the middle, her fingers hooked. Her hand braced behind her claws, and she scythed them at the Turnskin's face instead.]

Edited (no bookslap) 2020-03-05 01:53 (UTC)

[Pain spiked in her shoulder; a hiss whistled through Fang's teeth and she started to turn, but, well. Kaede beat her to that punch.]

[Lines of fire unexpectedly bloomed across the right half of her face, stunning Fang in turn. She reeled back, staggering into the rain with a muffled cry behind grit teeth and tearing free of the clawed grip on her shoulder.]

[Somewhere in the whirlwind of shock and burning pain in her mind, hand clamped over the wounded half of her face, some part of Fang thought: Fair.]

[The impact jarred through Kaede's wrist, the brief heat on her claws wiped away by the rain. They were distant things, faint echoes detached from her mind. When Fang jerked away, the fabric of her cloak pulled and loosened the Chimera's grip until she was left clutching a handful of canvas. And then even that slipped as the Turnskin tugged them both out into the rain.

If only Kaede let other things go so easily. The downpour plastered her exposed hair and feathers to her head, beat its infuriating rhythm on her head, but the Chimera didn't withdraw under the awning again. She stalked after Fang, shaking water out of her eyes and raising a clawed hand to her shoulder to follow up and grab the Turnskin's arm again.]

Answer me!

[She bellowed, voice barely muffled by the driving rain.]

[Blood welled hot against her hand, the rain and her hair stinging the edges of the wounds her hand didn't shield. Reflexive anger bubbled up as the shock wore off, but something cold and leaden and remorseful sat under it. Fang had expected some severe reaction, but that... And to think, she'd complained once about Lightning backhanding her. Despite her responsive anger, Fang couldn't find too much fault with that blow.]

[But Kaede's pursuing, stalking toward her, reaching, and the waxing moons and some primal and insulted instinct spurred Fang to knock Kaede's grasping hand aside.]

Because guilt's already drowning her! If they put that damned device on me, it would've destroyed her!

[That was the logic her tormented mind had used in the moment. That all factors considered, the sheer survivor's guilt was the harder to live with.]

[Fang still wasn't certain she was right.]

[The other Monster swatting Kaede's hand away like an insect put heated spurs to her rage; the Chimera snarled, whipping her claws back—points first, for a full strike this time.

The moons' whispers—she'd gotten so used to them being distant, forgettable things. She'd forgotten how intrusive and noisy they could be. Like the rain. Making it difficult just to string a reasonable thought together.

But mostly, Kaede didn't have an answer for that. Would she have done the same, in that impossible position, had their places had been switched? If Kaede could have taken that pain onto herself—and left Chariot's guilt to tear her to pieces?

Would she?

Would she?]

[Everything I do—Why? Is this what you meant to happen?!]

[There was a lot Fang didn't pretend to understand about Kaede. A snarl and brandished claws, however, was universal language.]

[Guess I deserve it, after what I did!]

[And for one horrible, slow-motion instant, Fang considered allowing it. That lead weight in her gut and the cold in her limbs that had nothing to do with the weather urged her not to defend herself. She made a choice, after all. Like when her family had turned to Cie'th.]

[Don't... if you take another step, you'll fall off the edge into something you can't walk back from...]

[Fang suddenly steps in, her hand leaving her face to catch Kaede's swinging forearm on her own in a terrible impact of bone-on-bone. It's just a spark in spite of the rain, her anger acting as desperate kindling, something that still might not catch—but for now, the embers will do. Fang made a choice, but she also made a promise.]

I'll give you that first one free, [she said lowly, more clearly than her previous muttering. Even with here eye closed—miraculously unharmed by Kaede's claws—it still stung with blood, and the rain relentlessly stung the bloody furrows on her face. She itched to swing back. Itched to scream, to roar, to follow the moons' advice and return what was inflicted on her.] But any more you're gonna have to bloody earn.

[Earn was punctuated with a hard shove against Kaede's sternum—and even then, Fang could feel her wrist threatening to buckle. Whatever. She didn't need her hands to fight. Not this kind of fight, anyway.]

[There wasn't much Kaede considered herself justified in. Not any more. She didn't have the right to. She was just a fucking monster, the boogeyman in a dozen dreams. A bad person. She had been. She always would be. Spite fueled her (petty, stupid), yet crumbled to ashes in the end. Vengeance brought her nothing but grief, even when it felt like the only justice in the world at all. None of those things meant anything, and Kaede had realized that far too late.

Her attachment to someone, that bewildering, precious thread, remained one of the few things that still mattered to her. One of the few things she could call her own. Something threatening that, someone harming someone precious to her (was it really Fang's fault?), drove Kaede to a blind rage that left reason—

(Would Kaede really have chosen differently?)

—behind.

(What did she know? She wasn't there.)

Violence was simpler.]

How fucking generous of you—!

[Earn. Like this was a game. The Chimera's face twisted in fury, the echoing pain of the bone-impact from their arms striking and the shove from the Turnskin driving her back. The sight of the damage she'd done for Fang's face was a dim, detached shock (she shouldn't have done that) before Kaede returned to herself. Her tail lashed to regain her balance, sodden feathers and all, and she lunged right back in, both claws raised to seize Fang's shoulders.]

[A straight forward approach. She could manage this without her hands; the claws on her feet scratched against the cobble to give her purchase despite the rain, and Fang pivoted in a circle, whipping her leg out in a thrusting kick.]

[Rage was always easy; that was something they unfortunately had in common. It didn't matter at herself, at someone else, or something else. As long as it was given a focus and untethered from its leash, it would sink its claws into something.]

[And after a month and a half of thrashing within the confines of her chest, boy did it want to sink its claws into something.]

[Conscious thoughts were too slow, and too complicated.

Fang's torso wheeled away out of her reach, but before Kaede could react properly the Turnskin's kick smashed into her collarbone. The Chimera's breath wheezed out of her lungs as her progress came to a crashing halt, her arms pulling back to grab the thing impeding her movement. Her claws latched on to the newest obstruction, and she spun on her heel to fling it away—pulling the person attached with it.]

[Those claws were getting annoying. Pain pricked into her leg as they found purchase, then burned into lines as Kaede lurched and threw. Fang landed a few feet away, tumbling against the muddy street until she regained control and rolled to her feet. ]

That all? [she growled--quite literally--whipping her soaked hair out of her open eye and dropping into a lower stance.]

[The strain on her shoulders made little headway on the adrenaline coursing through her mind, reducing the scope of the world to what was right in front of her. The rain made shapes nondescript blobs, leached of color and only distinguished by their movements—and their voices. The Chimera fixed on Fang's voice, skulking after it in the rain. Fang was on her feet again, still answering her, still ready to fight. It whipped her anger onward, drove her further onward. Her breath had recovered, though her voice was still hoarse and crackly.]

No.

[Again, the Chimera charged. No thoughts spared to tactics, to reason. She swung her arms at Fang like she could still throw punches with claws so large they cut into her palms, a life's experience overriding a year of changing instinct.]

[Fang wasn't used to a defensive fight, but between her limited depth perception and her enfeebled hands, she had little choice. Blocking Kaede's blows on her forearms hurt, jarring further down her arms and grunting through grit teeth. One landed squarely against her ribs, preoccupied with protecting her face as Fang was.]

[When the opportunity presented itself, Fang stepped closer, trying to trap the Chimera's arms in a grapple, sharply diving a knee at her ribs.]

[Each punch knocked away infuriated Kaede, driving the next and the next with greater ferocity. One finally struck home solidly; that felt satisfying, even as the blow jammed her sharpened nails into her own hands hard enough to draw blood.

Getting grappled was less so. The Chimera snarled and thrashed—interrupted by another wheeze and burst of sparks in her mind when Fang's knee connected with her side. Her bucking attempts to get away faltered this time as she tried to get her breath back.]

[Holding on through Kaede's thrashing was harder than Fang wanted to admit, between the rain and the bone-deep bruises forming from Kaede's blows. The cold and the pain both make her body less responsive than she'd like it to be. But her grip stays, somehow, and in the Chimera's stunned moment, Fang let loose a wordless yell—it came out like a jaguar's roar—hooked her leg behind Kaede's, and threw them both forward to the muddy cobbles.]

[She couldn't win a straight fight as she was. But she had size and mass and strength over the Chimera. If Fang could keep her pinned...]

[Just as Kaede felt like she was getting some leeway in escaping the Turnskin's grasp, her knee bend unbidden, and the world hurtled dizzyingly upwards. The torrential rain crashed down on her face directly, and before she could so much as blink it away the ground slammed into her back. The last tine of Kaede's antlers clacked against the rain-slick cobblestones, the very last and newest of them beginning to fracture midway.

Whatever breath she'd clawed back burst out of her mouth as a gasping wheeze to answer the Monster roaring in her face, and the strength in her limbs lapsed for a stunned moment.]

[It's amazing, how she'd forgotten the moons' influence. It'd scarcely been a month (a tense, restless, helpless month) of being magic-starved, and following the whispers against her nerves was just as easy as letting anger take the help. The Chimera pinned beneath her was a prey creature and a challenger rolled all into one; instinct, spurred by pain and fury and the moons, held the same answer for both. The Turnskin's head lunged forward with a snarling growl, fangs bared, towards Kaede's throat.]

[But it was that same surge of instinct that froze her in place, sharp predator's teeth pressed lightly against skin. She's one of yours. Stop. One of Fang's pack. Kaede was Chariot's, her fellow Bonded, and by extension, hers.]

[Fang pulled back slowly, the storm beating on her back, her features settling into a bristling wariness. Was that enough?]

[Something sharp pressed against her throat--something that would have made a human mind freeze. The animal one panicked, the Chimera thrashing first feebly, then wildly to get away, somewhere, somehow. The damaged tine snapped, a piece of antler as long as a finger breaking away. The sudden gap, and the sudden release of the points at her throat gave Kaede just enough room to move an arm, catch the Turnskin's side--and shove her bodily away.

The sodden, feathered Monster rolled to her feet--but this time she didn't get up to charge again, staying slouched forwards on four limbs like a beast as she dragged in breath after breath to try and fill her lungs. A moment, if her opponent just gave her a moment--

Opponent?

This was Fang. Chariot's Bonded. Someone...important, to Kaede too, even if it was mostly through their shared connection.

Not an opponent.]

[A flurry of violent movement, and Fang hit the street again with an oof, this time on her side. This go around was different—the tone of the encounter changed in the way Kaede thrashed, in the stance she took, and Fang was slow to push herself up to sit—not to stand.]

[She looked after the Chimera not too far away. The adrenaline was fading; her wounds and various other scratches and bruises throbbed horribly, and the cold putting a numbing, clumsy edge on what didn't.]

[Fang was getting so very tired of being in pain.]

[For all that the Turnskin remained sitting in the drenched street, staring down Kaede, the tension didn't leave her, even if the challenge did. the newly reignited embers in her spirit dwindled as the guilt reasserted itself again, but didn't flicker out entirely this time.]

[This wasn't about her choice anymore, was it?]

[(Why was she doing this?)

Hadn't it been enough, that she finally knew? Hadn't it been enough, to see Fang in miserable pieces? What else did Kaede deserve out of this? Overreaction? A child's petty understanding of retribution?

(It wasn't fair.)

The Chimera still crouched there, chest aching, neck throbbing from how her antlers twisted. The bite, the welts, were nothing. The rain, distracting as it was, couldn't pull her thoughts away this time.

Not when the evidence of her choice was staring her in the face, blood streaming red over Fang's brow and cheek, the eye pinched shut. Kaede didn't even know if it was still there. Distant revulsion set in, then regret, then guilt--always guilt. Anger wasn't enough to push her past these.

The Chimera had struck first. And now she was the first to look away.

The rain fell on and on, constant and uncaring.]

[It said something about these alien impulses of theirs, that the moment Kaede glanced aside, something whispered, strike now.]

[But it was just an inkling; a little intrusive thought, annoying as a gnat. Fang stood, stiffly, brushing the plastered hair out of her face again. How the hell did they get to this point?]

[You did that.]

[Right. An apology loaded itself on the tip of her tongue, but—for what? For Fang's decision? For the lack of foresight in telling Kaede? For fighting back? For not stopping her?]

[The Turnskin spared a lingering look at the other drenched Monster, both too close and too far. No. An apology, right now, would just be another unwanted blow for both of them. Thunder grumbled again, and Fang gingerly lifted a hand to her face to feel around her eye. Kaede still hadn't moved, nor spoke, so...]

[Fang wasn't sure if it was a show of trust in showing her back as she walked off, back towards the Coven, or a declaration of finality. There was no point in this.]

[Kaede's ears twitched at the sound of movement that didn't belong, her head snapping around. She began to bristle when Fang stood, looking at her—but the taller woman didn't sink into a posture to attack from. Didn't seem angry at how Kaede had torn her face to ribbons. She just looked...tired.

And then she turned—and walked away. For a brief moment, Kaede's mind sparked indignant; was she really—was she that unimportant?

But. Who was she to ask?

Kaede's mind grasped for answers, for things that could possibly justify this. The moons—an excuse. The energy she'd become so dependent on wearing paper thin—also an excuse. Anger, that had gone ashen cold and exposed her actions for what they were. That the thing who'd hurt someone so important to her was in front of her, admitting so—because Fang's hand was forced in an impossible decision. The real culprits had been dead and cold in the ground for a month. What justification was that?

All this little spat had done was leave Fang with a clawed up face, and made Kaede drop her book. Maybe its waterproofing had held up better than that on her sodden cloak.

Stiffly, Kaede stood; the cold rain had already made her joints feel creaky. She shook the water from her antlers, her hair from her face, collected her book—and vanished into the gloom.]

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[closed] I think I've thought myself to death

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