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(Closed) Deceuer Catch All
Who: Asura + Plotted CR
When: Deceuer
Where: Various locations in Aefenglom, the Outer City, and the Wilde.
What: Quest and event threads, along with a healthy dose of clowning. I'm always down for building new CR, so if you'd like a thread starter, feel free to hmu @ the Dec plotting post!
Warnings: Light violence.
When: Deceuer
Where: Various locations in Aefenglom, the Outer City, and the Wilde.
What: Quest and event threads, along with a healthy dose of clowning. I'm always down for building new CR, so if you'd like a thread starter, feel free to hmu @ the Dec plotting post!
Warnings: Light violence.
PALOMA;
So yeah, Winter's one hell of an asshole, but as its onset continues its treacherous work, at least it has given Asura this: the early hours of the morning with Paloma settled atop him after a night of battling rooftop collapses, clearing thoroughfares, and keeping the night's watch while the day-shift rested. And now, now it's their turn to claim a few hours of recuperation (duly earned and much needed, with the snowstorm planted well and fast over the city). The mattress is soft, the bedding is warm (heated through by the fire which burns in the marrow of Asura's crystalline skeleton), and while sleep does not immediately claim the King (it's strange, attempting to find rest at this hour), he is undeniably relaxed as his fingers comb through the billowing curls of Paloma's hair, the weight of her curled against him perfectly tranquilizing. ]
You asleep, Palomabella? [ The lack of response confirms his suspicion that yes, she'd gone and dozed off before him, leaving him as the one to follow after.
And follow Asura does, waking some time later only to find he hasn't woken at all. That around him, a dreamscape has formed though he'd drawn no runic circles and cast no spell, and its architect is his Bonded; the fledgeling Kindred who should have no command over magic at all.
(But then, he remembers: the dreams of Kindred can only be entered upon crafting a suitable pledge and an exchange of vows. And what have he and Paloma done, if not make an indelible promise, linking their souls?) ]
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Is the background ache of dull hunger shaping her dream, then, if everything else is tiring but wonderful? Is it the Beast? Or is it because she never goes a day without awareness of how little of other Kindred she’s learned?
Paloma is in that night class again and doesn’t look up or notice Asura’s presence in it. Life Drawing, a part-time position as TA, and it’s late summer in SoCal. The building’s too old for proper AC, so they’ve got a couple larger fans blowing, though she’s sweaty and sticky in her spaghetti strap sundress. A model is nude while charcoal-using students look enviously on, with the exception of a tall, ghostly pale red-haired man dressed expensively.
He shines. Not literally, but every time Paloma’s head moves in his direction from behind her little desk, his eerie handsomeness swallows the light around him and enhances itself. Her throat, damp and reflecting the bright ceiling lights, subtly bobs as she avoids his eyes, avoids everyone’s eyes in a bid to take minimal space in this classroom. The man frowns delicately at his developing sketch, utterly free of fault, and waits until the teacher’s already assisting another student to lean back in his chair and call softly for: ]
Paloma?
[ Goosebumps. Everywhere. Everywhere. She’s completely locked in behind her desk, not equipped to fight what his void-black eyes do to her, but somehow Paloma breaks off to creep to his side, still without noticing Asura. ]
What d’you need, Carlos? [ They’re whispering, naturally. It’s Life Drawing. She thanks God when he looks at the canvas and tries not to think about the curve of his smile or what she might do if he doesn’t... stop. ]
Just your hand. [ At her startled, nervous glance, he raises his sickly white hands. Several of his long fingers are smudged. ] A hand, I meant. English is not my first, sorry.
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("And I'm not, really. Much of an artist. I study-- studied the history of it, before." So this is it, then. The 'before' which Paloma hadn't cared to elaborate upon when surrounded by the beauty of her rooftop garden and swathed in the affections Asura would so freely give to her.) ]
I could use a hand over here, too. [ Unceremoniously, he turns the canvas before him so it'll meet with Paloma's line of sight, revealing an altogether poor drawing (rife with stick-figure fault), consisting of three creatures: a fruit bat (with large squiggles denoting flailing wings) and a butterfly (wreathed by shorter and longer lines, evocative of the 'glow' of a halo), both resting atop a dragon (with horns similar to Asura's own). ] Could you tell me what these three things have in common?
[ Will Paloma take notice of him, blatant as he's being? Will she come back to herself and take the reins of the dream before her memory (her privacy is something which Asura holds in high regard) reveals more than Paloma would ever care to say herself? There's only one true way to know, and that's by pushing just a little bit more by leaaaaaniiiing precariously back in his chair, defying gravity as he plays charming with a wink of his eye: ]
Can't figure it out for the life of me.
[ C'mon, Paloma, don't stare right through him like he's a damn side-character or something. ]
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Most of the classroom slows and blurs into mixed watercolor, vague shapes and undefined light. Paloma stares, bewildered, at someone and something who should not exist in her mortal world. Halloween is at least a couple of months off, and while there's undeniably a lurch of instant attraction and longing that makes her breath hitch, he's wrong. Completely wrong, here, now. She studies his canvas while the memory of her sire continues to smile with one side of his mouth, faintly amused. ]
That- that's not the model, umm...
[ Blinking furiously, her heart stutters and almost remembers that it's already permanently stopped. She stands a little taller, moves her shoulders back just a bit, seeing Asura with a new alertness as her hands untwist from each other. On a certain level she comprehends what's happening; her dreams are never, ever so vivid to the last detail. This is magic, she thinks. ]
You didn't sign up for this class.
[ Her smile is tremulous and shaky, but she is looking at and not through Asura. ]
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Paloma, she's here, and before she slips away again (no longer present as her truest self), Asura will make his play at steering her clear of the (vampire) ginger with the half-cocked smile that looms behind her. Whatever Carlos' significance in this dream-memory is, Asura doesn't wish to know it, not if it isn't Paloma herself who chooses to divulge the details out of her own volition.
That's why... with the clack! of Asura's chair hitting the ground, he pronounces: ] No, I didn't.
And you didn't, either. At least, not for the second time. [ Here, the air about the King softens, eyes lowered to half-mast and veiled by thick, ravendark lashes as he rises, no longer so sing-song when he says her True name with an intensity that can only be called ardent— ] So, Miss Paloma Cecilia Vasquez...
What do you say to playing hooky with me? [ —and bids her to ditch Life Drawing with him. ]
Let's leave this place— [ The past which she held cloistered in her chest. ] —in the dust.
[ By now, moving to reach out to her is second nature (it seems too much a crime, for the both of them to exist in the same space and not to touch), his taloned fingers seeking out her hand. ]
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Oh. An escape? Gonna wake me up?
[ She taps their fingertips without grabbing on, sensing it will remove the set pieces of this old stage. The memory of sweat makes hers uncharacteristically damp; less than ideal for helping students draw with charcoal. Indecision does not paralyze but stays her hand. What she could do is run into his arms like always and turn her face away from the truest monster she ever let in, never revisiting this moment or mentioning it again...
So why? What's Paloma waiting for? Understanding her hesitation takes long, uncomfortable moments, and she's just watching his mouth, not his eyes. ]
You don't... want to know what this is?
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When she hesitates, sets the tips of her fingers against his talons, asking him if he's sure that he wants to turn his eyes from this, Asura understands two things: the first, he cannot protect Paloma from this dream-memory (it is not his place, she did not ask to be saved). The second, if he should avert his gaze, prioritizing Paloma's privacy above all else, he'll have broken his vow—
("Asura, are you actually sure you want what's in me?")
—I do, he'd said back then, and he meant it. And if she's inviting him in, allowing him to be privy to all this damn humidity and sweaty-student stink (and the Ginger blob of color who's immune to the swelter and heat), he's not going to turn his back on it (on her). Paloma, she's not looking him in the eye, but... ]
I do. [ And so: his vow remains the same. ] But on your terms, Paloma.
[ ("Who will guard me? Who's going to hear my secrets after he trusted me with his? You. It'll be you.") ]
You're lucid dreaming now, but before it was different. Don't you go and disappear on me again, yeah? [ His free hand touches lightly to Paloma's face, after that, delineating the shape of her jaw with barely-there touches; tucking a sweat-damp strand of hair back, behind the shell of her ear. ] No one deserves to be subjected to another piss-poor drawing of mine just so I can grab your attention again.
[ Much as he'd enjoyed that, much as he'd put on a repeat performance. ]
Not when you're the only artist here, and all these colors [ a gesture to all those color-blobs and smears ] are yours to pain the rest of your story with.
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Her eyes, huge and staring, dart up for a proper and honest look. How do I do this, what are the words I need, what, how, what do I do? She can't ask these things because he can't answer them. They're hers to figure out. ]
Okay. Okay, don't let go of me, please. [ Resolved to stay here, Paloma braves gripping the hand he'd lifted to push back the hair that'll just bounce into place in another moment. The dream remains, even clarifies, nothing so vivid as the smiling Kindred in front of his canvas, turning his pale face to watch her.
She watches him, too, afraid and accusing. ]
That's Carlos. He didn't need to take a class for beginners, he could paint anything, but he said it was a refresher. This is just some night. [ Nothing special about this date. Her palm slides across his, clammy and warm at the same time. ]
It was after another lesson he asked if I'd go to dinner with him. I thought he was playing a mean joke, but he meant it. And I did.
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And when Paloma's gaze locks with his own in the here and now, the fear that he perceives in her is a far cry from the panic which had seized upon her in a dream of before: it is old, this manner of dread; a thing so perfectly instilled that it lingers even here, in this place where Paloma herself holds absolute power. And seeing that apprehension cross Paloma's features...? It could make Asura sick with wrath on her behalf, if only he let it. But he can't, because his partner and Bonded, she needs to see this story through without any callous interruption.
What she's entrusting to Asura now, it's more important than anything else. ]
The ginger— [ Carlos' name is something that will never fall from Asura's lips. ] —he's a Toreador, isn't he?
[ A Kindred who seduced with art, taking interest in humans who shared in their passions. Alongside the Nosferatu, Tremere, and Giovanni, the clan used to have a foothold in Milan, but no longer. ]
But you couldn't have known it. [ And for that, Paloma couldn't blame herself. But... ] What did you see in him?
[ It had been good and it had been human, whatever had made her say yes. ]
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Someone who wanted me.
[ Yes, it was that simple, that pathetic. He's wrong. Asura is wrong, she can and will blame herself for weakness and the sin of stupidity, of desperation. It hadn't been good right out the gate, but it had been enough that she didn't want to disappear for a while. Until the good times, he was someone who smiled and wanted her and it hadn't been apparent that he played a different kind of game.
The classroom and everyone else in it melts into puddles of blurred color, its texture and depth unknowable until Paloma, frowning, plucks out a memory.
A date. In the evening, obviously. She and Asura are holding hands on the sidewalk of a brightly lit street riddled with restaurants and boutiques. Towering over everything is a theater from which the Toreador is emerging, his arm looped around another Paloma's waist. This one is flushed, giddy from whatever they'd just seen, and looking at her makes the dreamer want to scream recrimination. Her fingers squeeze his from the strength of that want. ]
He gave me that shawl. Ridiculously expensive. I couldn't get him to open up about whatever the hell he did to afford the gifts, and he could tell my heart wasn't in telling him to stop because I loved his attention... so. [ So the gifts didn't stop, nor the sense of obligation to reciprocate. ]
Never did more than ask to kiss me, would you believe it? [ Memory-Paloma and Carlos are locked in one right this second, posed under lamplight by a dark-windowed café like they're on camera. ]
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[ Who had signed up for a drawing class. Who took time to woo and court a human. Who read as someone absent to any duties toward Clan and Prince. ]
He seems like a lone wolf, without much of anyone to keep him in check or to assist with landing that kind of meal on the regular.
[ And more and more, this story which Paloma's just begun to illustrate which such finesse and nuance that Asura can hardly believe that this is her first time commanding the skeins of a dreamscape, starts to veer toward an ending (and beginning) which no human deserves, least of all Paloma. Paloma, who still can't see that none of this is her fault. ]
Is he— [ It's a difficult question to pose, one he's purposely chosen to avoid out of respect for the sole exception to Asura's revulsion toward Kindred-kind. Even before the dream, they'd skirted past this mention many times, because even if the pain's old, being ripped away from who and what you were before is a wound which doesn't go away. It never heals. And Asura, he knows this for himself. ] —responsible for embracing you, Paloma?
[ Responsible, he says. Because Paloma is not. It's his turn, now, to tighten his hold upon the link of their hands, talons grazing just so against her skin in a unspoken reminder that he is here; that his body is that of a weapon. He can be used in any way she needs him to be (that is his choice, his promise to her). ]
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Paloma has relived these memories enough that they don't need the finesse of practiced dreamscaping to summon, imperfect and volatile. They are prone to wobbling and blurring apart when Asura says embracing. Her mind wants to recall with a hot-blooded clarity that final night in the hotel, shoving a dingy hotel carpet under their feet and a cramped hallway to either side of them. The hallway's end fluctuates from impossibly far to putting a door with chipped wood and a room number right in front of them, though the number is hazy. Not significant enough to remember. ]
Ah. Um—
[ She can hear a man's low voice on the other side of the door, a whisper, repeating and resetting to the first note. A broken record. The door cracks in places as if impacted, jigsaw puzzle pieces depressing and pushing out but never keeping the right shape. She does and does not want it to open.
If not for his talons, Paloma might've lost the whole project to panic. Asura's strength is her strength. Her eyes are glazed over and the nausea is... suffocating. ]
Yeah. Yes. [ Sick. This whole night and everyone in it, just sick. Something toxic, something animal dries out her mouth. ]
A special birthday present surprise. He said. But he didn't. Right away.
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Asura is resolute when he lifts the link of their hands, presses the flat of Paloma's palm to the door which fissures and cracks, its many fragments expanding and contracting as though it were a living, breathing entity all its own. Like it were the monster, and not the Kindred (less than a man) with waxen skin and hair as red as their transgressions. ]
Push, when you are ready. [ Sliding over the back of Paloma's hand is Asura's massive one, fingers flexing in their sprawl, silent (as always) in their reminder that his power is her own. ] We'll break it down together.
Whatever he did, whatever he lead you to believe, it is in the past. [ And this is her retelling, her account which reflects terror and dread in this restrictive, never-ending hall. She can't go back, she can't advance, but Paloma, she isn't so immobilized. She isn't trapped. In this dream-memory, she is an architect; she can build something more: ] Now, you are the one who decides how to move forward.
[ Clear to him, that she has no wish to relive the before and after of the Embrace.
The question is now: ] What is it that you want to see beyond this door? You are strong enough to will it into existence.
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Echoes of his thunder rattle around in the cage of her ribs. It strengthens her heart and at first she thinks he's growling some more but recognizes it as her own private, suppressed hatred, hot and drumming her nerves raw to their last fraying thread. It pinches her mouth, it soaks her in a gasoline where her sire's voice is the match. It's all the venom of what Carlos did oozing through her pores. ]
What I want is— can you hear him?
[ Caressing and intimate and loving, the man on the other side of the door's lazy murmuring sharpens into clarity:
I want to show you something
I want to show you something
I want to show you something. ]
You hear him, right?
[ He says it again. I want to show you something. A skipping record, playing the same ugly song. The door bulges around her fingertips, curling into claws. Fear was, is, a natural response. Fury and naked loathing shatter the chipped wood keeping her away from the man who remade her in his image. He's in the process of dressing a faceless, colorless nude body on a hotel bed surrounded by opened condom wrappers, some pills on a dresser that didn't even belong to them but had come with this cheap and anonymous room. He blinks at her.
I want to show you something, is the only thing he says, and Paloma peels off of Asura to drive him into the muddy carpet. ]