middaeg | Vita agitas maledictus

Entry tags:

Vita agitas maledictus

Who: Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (

whomthebelltolls) and various! (Check prompt headers for openness of prompts)
When: Aureur, particularly around the event!
Where: Aefenglom, and the Dreamscape
What: Memshare stuff, mostly, but can be used as a catch-all for quests and the like.
Warnings: Oh boy Blood, gore, excessive violence, murder, human experimentation, body horror, cannibalism, addictive substance use and abuse, genocide, suicide (both ideation and comitting), self-harm, PTSD, religious institutions grooming people to use their blood and bodies for shady purposes, also probably some mentions of human trafficking, sexual assault/abuse in other peoples' backstories or memories. And the kitchen sink.

[1: SEMI-OPEN Memshare prompt - For people that had plans]

[What a curious little dream. The Hall of Mirrors, but some of them are indistinguishable - even if she knows, in reality, that many of the ones she's staring at bear some kind of decor upon them, especially her own - and yet here they stand.

She hears footsteps behind her, and cants her head briefly in the direction they come from. A familiar face, then, as she continues to investigate the mirror.] I wonder what it means this time? [And she pushes her hand against the surface of the mirror, immediately withdrawing it after as the surface ripples as it starts to suck her hand into it, like she's just put her hand into a pool of quicksilver.

She shakes her hand a bit, looking at it - no, it's... fine, then turns to her companion as though she's not quite sure she's seeing things properly.

It doesn't matter whose mirror it is - whether her own, or another - because the curiosity takes her and she motions toward it like she wonders if they should try... stepping through the surface. Maybe this is their chance to get home? After all, they fell out of the mirrors, maybe going back in them is the way back home?

It doesn't matter if it's her mirror or theirs, she is sort of curious, and wants to investigate. What in the world is the dream doing this time?]

[2: OPEN - In the dream]

[Clang. Maria's Rakuyo separates into its two sides as she pulls it apart, and sets up before her mirror. Those that know her well will probably note that, unlike before, the whole thing is coated in a fine layer of blood... and it's leaking yet even more. Still, she stands, her back to the mirror, her front to whoever wants to approach.

Her face is drawn into a dark scowl, and her ice-blue eyes rake over the other inhabitants of this dream with a deadly intensity. Too many people, too much curiosity - and none are permitted anywhere near her mirror any longer. The first person that approaches she appraises only briefly, before stepping forward as though to attack. And she will, if they take even another pace toward her.] Stand down. There is nothing for you in this mirror.

[3: OPEN - The Morning After, around Aefenglom]

[Maria awakens to tears on her face, and an awful, empty ache in her chest. In a daze, she stands, ad goes about her morning routine, mind still trying to parse all she had seen. All that had been seen. It's not until she sees herself in a mirror - a regular dressing mirror near the wardrobe in her room - that she finally stops to look at herself, even if it brings up memories anew.

Maria raises a single hand to the fresh tears that spill down her face, gently catching one on the back of a finger. She holds it up, looks at it, marvels a bit at the idea. It has been... so very long since she's wept, and yet, the tears continue to flow, seemingly without end. The Fishing Hamlet - she's not seen it with such terrible clarity in so long. Not heard the voices that curse and scream at her with such acuity since...

... Since before she claimed her own life.

She wipes at her eyes, notes they're red-rimmed and sunken in her reflection. She hasn't slept well. She supposes she won't sleep very well again for a long, long time, then turns back at a thought. A single, stray thought that brings her eyes to rest upon the Rakuyo and Evelyn that even now seem to sleep comfortably in their places beside her bed.

It would be so simple... she steps forward, and before she knows it, she has the sword in her hands, and is raising it up. The bite of cold, sharp metal against the side of her neck is as familiar as it is dreadful; she vaguely remembers how it felt when it severed through the muscle and tendons, what it felt like when the blood rushed out and her mind went woozy and darkness closed in rapidly at the corners of her vision. She doesn't move her hands, though.

What would be the point? She'd just wake up again. And again. Her curse is to live with what she had done, perhaps forever. She wonders if this is how Annalise feels, fated to never find rest, no matter how the journey of life wears on. It's fitting, the greatest among the Vilebloods would end up having to share that same, sorry fate.

The sword drops with a clatter, Maria turns back, unsure when she even got dressed, but knowing she needs to leave. Her bed suddenly has too many poor memories associated with it - a pity, considering how recently some good ones were made there - and she hits the town.

Right to a tavern.

Right to the alcohol.

She surrounds herself with several bottles, and she drinks. It's gotten harder and harder to lose her mind into the sway of the alcohol since her blood started to burn with a fire so similar and yet so not to the burn of the Vileblood corruption. Yet, still she tries.

Bottle in one hand, the other covering her eyes, she drinks, and that's how she'll be found the entire rest of the day, in a sorry state, trying so hard to forget.]

[4: Wildcard!]

[For all your Not-Memshare Needs! Maria is doing Pile's Plantagorium, Hold Birb Gently, and Dorchacht Devil for quests.

Anyone who wants to get in on the first prompt there, you can message me through PM, at Reslari at Reslari#9561 on Discord, or hit up my plotting post. You can also plot with me for anything else!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I haven't had that happen yet. [Alucard suspects he'll invite that to actually happen now, but it's Trevor and Sypha. They were there when the worst things have happened.] Yet being the operative word.

[He breathes out, watching a passing breeze rustle at some of the grass.]

That qualifies as some of the worst, but for the purpose of discussion, my focus is on personal rather than this world's horrors. Does that make sense?

Mmm... sort of. Some people take slavery very personally. It wasn't quite so invasive before, though. Nor so pointed.

[Maria didn't much care at the time - it wasn't her responsibility. It wasn't any of their responsibility to destabilize an entire region, but they did anyway, for ethical reasons. Even at the risk of some kind of war that Aefenglom would never have won.]

I don't know what the point of this all was, but it was... [She makes that same "I ate something grotesque" face from before.] ... Unnecessary. We already share too much of ourselves in this place. It did not need to go that far.

A personal matter, but not actively reliving memories.

[Alucard had understood the gravity of the slavery situation. He remembers meeting Geralt and learning of the situation and the strong reaction it caused in the dhampir. But that's a situation. That isn't having Hector watch Dracula's murder.]

On that we are in absolute agreement. People have their walls for a reason. You can't force anyone to break them down so boldly and brazenly.

There are some things some people are not meant to know. And there are some people who do not, or cannot handle what others may see...

[She stares at the sky, at a cloud drifting past. It doesn't have a really distinct shape, and her mind can't decide what it wants it to vaguely resemble.

Then, apropos of absolutely nothing, and completely out of left field...]

Did you know that I don't want to go home? Or rather, that I cannot, but even if I could, I wouldn't want to?

On that, we are in complete agreement. [Alucard runs his hand over the grass slowly, watching the movement of the greenery.] Once I understood what was happening last night, I did nothing but guard my own mirror for that reason.

[It's nice to say that much out loud, knowing that someone will get it and not ask after the particulars.]

...I did not. [But he understands that implication: home is worse than here.]

Yes, I did the same. But by then it was too late. [Giorno and Alex both had seen into the very thing she had fought - to the death - to protect. She has no real desire to harm either of them - Giorno is almost family by now, and Alex... Alex has her heart - but then what was the point of her original sacrifice? Without the muddling of the Nightmare, more logical conclusions are easier to come by, and it's not like it affects anything here. Still, it hurts. That they know. That her fragile peace has been broken, because attention has been called to a wound she never really let heal. To a horrific truth that should never be forgiven. Because she doesn't deserve it.

This is too complicated. She's neither drunk enough to forget the philosophical questions here, nor sober enough to try to puzzle it out.

So she grabs the next topic of conversation and tries to ignore everything else. She rambles, with the running, liquid train of thought of someone who is too drunk to stop speaking.]

So many of the Mirrorbound want to go back. They have families, friends, loved ones they left behind. They have things they still have yet to do, something to return to. There's another from my world here, and I saw her memories. They showed me the town I had lived in for so many years in its final death throes. A predictable end, really, but an end all the same. Yet here I lay, and I can't even feel bad about it. [She pulls up a few strands of grass, and looks at them, backlit by the sky above, as though they're fascinating somehow.]

It's always the people you wanted in there least, isn't it? [Hector, in Alucard's case. The man had advised Dracula's war against humanity, and clearly had high regard for him. And so he had seen the moments of Dracula's death, watched him collapse into ash, and then...fuck. It wasn't something Alucard needed people who weren't Trevor and Sypha to see, and they only had dispensation because they had been there at the time of Dracula's death.

He's happy to let the topic go though, for it's a grim and awful things. Not that what Maria says is any less grim, or even less personal. Only different, and it takes Alucard a few moments to consider and determine how to respond.]

So you feel differently than others, because of circumstances that you've lived in and don't want to dwell on. You're more than entitled to that, and beyond something that trite, I can't fault your reasoning. I think anyone faced with that information would feel the same.

It's not just that I feel differently from others in that I don't want to go home. It is also that I don't feel bad about what happened to my home. That it's a fetid, rotting thing waiting only for its death, and I'm not only not surprised, but not concerned. [She finally casts away the strands of grass away.] ... I can't even bring myself to grieve for it. Nor the hand I had in its downfall.

[Well that was... more than maybe she wanted to share, but the words are there, and she can't take them back.] Or that I won't be there to see it when it breathes its last. I can't be there to see it.

[Home is always a complicated, perilous thing. The matter of complication is what makes a difference, and Maria's case is something Alucard isn't sure he's meant to truly hear. Something about the alcohol perhaps. Or just that weird liminal space they're both occupying in trying to get both feet on the ground while reeling from last night.

There's no right words or a correct response. These are feelings, and deeply personal ones at that.]

You have your reasons for it, and it seems like those feelings have been put in place for some time. Maybe not in full as they are now, but to a smaller degree that has grown since.

Hm, maybe. But that says more about me, doesn't it? [She may not be willing to talk about all the awful sins she's committed, but roundaboutly discussing self-loathing? Sign her up. It's easy to do between the effects of the last night, and the alcohol today. Again, depressive chemicals and depression. Great mixes.]

I would be perfectly fine making a home out of Aefenglom. Even when most people fight with tooth and nail to return to whatever it was they were doing. But should I really? And should I really be allowed to stay here and have a happy life, while my home rots to nothing? Should I have a second chance at life, when I ran away from it the first time?

[She shakes her head. Just like the tears earlier, the words just keep flowing, unbound and unchecked. Even if every one makes her all the more miserable because of it.] That is what I'm trying to drink, and burn out of my mind.

I don't think you can drink away a decision you've made with regards to where you want to call home and having no affection for where you were.

[Alucard recognizes this self loathing because it's almost Belmont self loathing. He has also learned to deal with is far, far more gracefully than he might have a few months ago, because the combination of being here and having to learn emotional intelligence? That's powerful.]

Guilt's a powerful thing.

[The more hunters change, the more they stay the same, doesn't it seem?]

That it is. Strong enough, and you can drown in it.

[She says from experience. But she does seem to go quietly thoughtful, then, which is also dangerous. Maria shouldn't let herself get too into her own head on the best of days; to have it happen after these events, and while drunk? Well, it's no wonder she pressed the blade of her sword to her own throat earlier.]

[Hunters are just Like This, Alucard is convinced.]

No truer words said. [Alucard's not sure if the silence is good or alarming. He just waits, turning his eyes skyward.]

You've kept your head above water for a long time. You can keep doing it.

[She waits a moment to respond, watching a cloud drift by, watching it change shape. It turns from a mass vaguely resembling a ship, to one more resembling a horse, and she knows her mind is sobering at too alarming a rate.]

Do I let you find out later, or do I tell you now? I thought it was still common knowledge, but apparently my little outburst when we first arrived has passed into memory by now.

Outburst? [Alucard pauses. Considers Maria, the fact she arrived so terribly early to this place and--]

You did something more hunter related when you were first exposed to this place, I presume?

I threatened Mhairi. [She'll just say that outright. Most of the early Mirrorbound should know about it, anyway.] It put quite the crack in Nerissa's mask.

[Not that she really blames Nerissa, but it was interesting to see how quickly she stopped being so friendly, and much more on edge.] They didn't have the answer to my other questions, though, and I don't suspect we will find out any time soon.

I can't say any of that surprises me. [But Alucard sighs, finally flopping back on the grass himself. It's actually the exact thing he wanted, having this much open space to just flop around. Enjoy the weather as it grows warmer, although it means Trevor will be around less.]

Which questions were those?

[Her fingers toy with the grass again - not tearing up any this time, just ruffling it like she would someone's hair.]

How someone who is already long dead could ever be brought to this place. A fresh corpse would make sense, but not one that must surely be naught but dust and rotting bones by now. Surely, no feat of necromancy is so powerful to restore someone to their former appearance from so little.

And the even better question of why, as common of a question as that is among the Mirrorbound, it's made yet more complicated.

Surely not, yet it's happened all the same. [Alucard won't doubt that it's happened, the matter is much, much too specific.] So consider this: bringing people here already requires an immense and untold amount of magic. Why shouldn't such power also extend to the long dead?

It's an unsatisfying answer, obviously, but still an answer. The why we'll probably never know.

A while back, someone posited a theory about this place. Many who came through the mirrors seem to have done so at the expense of their own magic, or... other inherent abilities. I know I lost something when I arrived. Yet the price does not seem to be equal. The power I lost was not nearly equivalent to the way I have heard some people speak of what they lost, and yet, the power that brought me here had to be far greater than what brought them.

Because I did have to be brought back from beyond the grave. Because that extra step was necessary.

[She sighs.] The logic does not add up. Nor, I suppose, why me specifically. It seems a bit too precise for this world to be specifically looking for... what, an old, dead Hunter from Yharnam?

It's an interesting theory, I will say that much. [The expensive of their own magic and abilities is an absolute understatement in Alucard's case, as he well and truly hates not having his natural abilities on hand. Oh to just turn into a wolf and laze around in front of the fireplace.]

Why are you so sure this place has specific collection criteria for those who pass through the mirrors? [It's not a great question to try and prod at Maria's self-depreciation, admittedly.]

Perhaps better said, does knowing why make a true difference or does it change your feelings about not wanting to return home?

Because if it were random, what is the chances it would even be able to find something as intensely specific as what I am? How does a wheel land on that particular collection of traits? And how is it worth the additional effort, when there must be others that did not require such lengths to bring them here?

[It should go for higher common denominators, people with more clout and renown. Especially if it really was the world and it was after things that could help save it, like some other people have posited.]

But no, not for me. Except, my curiosity has always been a curse to me. At least I can say this one may help others who do wish to return home.

If it is random, then by definition it is within the realm of plausibility for you to be found and placed here. Just as it's within the realm of plausibility that I get dragged her, my natural dhampir abilities removed and with too many complicated feelings for the word witch that works against this place's supposed goals.

[Random is random, is the point. Alucard's also more than a little surprised at some of the words that have left his own mouth, but there is a time and place to reflect on that.]

Would you be satisfied with any version of the truth, Maria?

Mm... yet, what if there is a criteria? What do you think we have in common with everyone else here? [Pause.] What do we have so distinctly in common with each other?

[... Okay, aside from a love of half-decent conversation? Is that the common thread?? Also she's drunk and probably forgetting some stuff.]

But... no. I wouldn't. I don't even like the thought of most of the reasons for it, when I try to ponder what it is. They all seem to point to us being here for some purpose, and once we fulfill it, we get sent home. Which is against what I want. Yet, I still want to know, against all logic.

Stupid, considering how much I try to keep people away from certain knowledge for their own good, isn't it?

It's not stupid, but it does create interesting parallels.

[Parallels that can now be quietly left alone.]

Whatever our purpose is, it's on us to discover it and weather everything else in the mean time. That's all that can be expected of a person regardless of where they are.

Vita agitas maledictus

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And bro of the year award goes to: Alucard