Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whomthebelltolls) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
middaeg2020-04-13 11:15 am
whomthebelltolls) wrote in middaeg2020-04-13 11:15 am
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]
[2: OPEN - In the dream]
[3: OPEN - The Morning After, around Aefenglom]
[4: Wildcard!]
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, atReslari at Reslari#9561 on Discord, or hit up my plotting post. You can also plot with me for anything else!]
no subject
When she spoke, her voice shook. ]
I wanted, so badly... to believe I was doing the right thing. That the only way to end this suffering was to kill the Hunters who had gone mad. A Hunter's blood for me, to end this terrible dream...
I knew these men. I knew their families. I knew of their hopes, their aspirations. Saw them slowly be corrupted by the Blood, by their own desire to keep what they cherished safe...
Am I no different than Laurence? Than Ludwig? Am I simply a fool for thinking this can end? There's no more nobility in my work, only the drudge, only the loss of those I called friends, those I cared for...
[ She took a deep, shuddering breath... and could only laugh. A light, mirthless laugh, that seemed to just come as reflex, not as consequence. ]
A hole in the shape of grief...
no subject
Hm. A foreigner, indeed. Perhaps there was more than one reason Eileen wore that mask, given how... violently xenophobic Yharnam could be at the best of times. That was something what stared even before the city began to grow.
Maria figures most of the questions for rhetorical - this place is evidence enough of a few of the answers, without her answering them - but Maria isn't the type to let such things just linger in the air.]
I'm not sure I'm the person to answer that question. I've my own sins to account for, mistakes made I can see the effects of, even here. There's not a one of us who is blameless and without the blood of those dead here. But look... it's already almost over. For better, or, as it seems, worse - this Hunt is almost over.
And even if it wasn't... we're not really here. Not anymore.
no subject
[ She had passed it all on. The badge, the burden. It was obvious to her that her bones were too old, her skills too declined, to face against those Hunters driven mad by the blood any longer. So for her, it really was over. And even so, she felt no satisfaction, no closure for it all. The Hunt wasn't really over when she left the field. But she didn't have the heart to disagree with Maria, either... After all, as she said, she had her own sins to carry.
They weren't really there. Not anymore. And they may not ever return. But that didn't actually matter, did it? ]
We may not be here. The Hunt may be seeing its end. But we will carry our regrets, our sins, with us into this life, whether we wish to or not. This Yharnam, these scents, this brutal cold...
This will be with me forever, Lady Maria. I will never be able to leave it behind.
As I'm sure... there are places you'll never be leaving, either.
no subject
[Hide the secrets, bury the past, pretend it's not haunting every motion and shadow. It's about the only thing that's kept Maria sane in Aefenglom. Even when the voices and the screams inevitably dragged back to the surface, and the guilt and despair rumbled beneath the icy rug she swept it all under. Don't look at her: she doesn't know what to do either. Her advice is meaningless to someone who also has had to carry the weight of her own sins, as well.
And she won't even mention it, either.]
You've got the opportunity that Ludwig and Laurence never did, at least. You've not turned to Beasthood yet.
no subject
[ She turned a much more stern gaze to Maria, narrow. It was harder to miss the harpy features, this way, the ever growing patch of feathers about her hairline, over her ears... ]
A human can inflict as much pain and suffering on the world as a beast, Maria. Do not lie to me and assure me that it matters. It does not. We Hunters are no better than our prey.
no subject
I can't give you the answers you don't already know, nor the comforting lies that you don't want. Most people know what happens in Yharnam, that it's a rotting place, and they choose to dive headlong into the excess and madness anyway. Everyone has suffered because of it.
So I can say, I've nothing for you, Hunter. And while I can sympathize with your grief, I can't do much, when I've my own festering wounds left unhealed. You may need to seek aid elsewhere... or learn to embrace the changes to lifestyle that Aefenglom brings with it. It's a far gentler place than here.
[And that's about as close as Maria comes to admitting her own truth to someone that she doesn't know intimately.]
no subject
Despite how it may have seemed... I wasn't asking you for answers. You're just as trapped as I am.
[ How literally, she couldn't really fathom, but it was impossible to not miss how Maria spoke of things. To see how even as a respected Old Hunter, she was really no different from her, in the end. It wasn't humbling, or comforting, in any way. It just simply... was. ]
Follow, or not. You'll find nothing else worth looking at, here.
no subject
[The exit sounds like a good idea, right now. No use staying in the skeletal remains of a town that she helped destroy, after all.
... Though, something niggles at her. It digs in, and won't leave. If Yharnam is like this, then...]
Might I ask you an unrelated question, Hunter? [She hesitates. Does she dare ask? She doesn't really care - shouldn't care - but the parasitical thought continues to worm away in her mind.] In this time, do you know what became of Cainhurst?
no subject
It was difficult to not think of the Bloody Crow. What he had done. How many he had killed, of her own people... but it was madness born from something that Maria seemed to know nothing of. She couldn't hold it against her. ]
Cainhurst... is no more. All the lingers there are the ghosts of the damned. What stray few Knights were left have all gone mad. One of them was a mark of mine... my last one.
no subject
Something still bothers her. But she won't say it. Maybe it's just the idea that such a long-standing culture had fallen apart, as well. No Yharnam, no Cainhurst. This whole region is nothing but a rotting cyst on the surface of the world, then.
So instead, she simply continues her trek toward the shining light of the mirror's "door".] I'll leave you to your peace then, Hunter. I've probably received much more from this than you have. No sense in prolonging the discomfort, no matter how much these Mirrors are fond of toying with us.