tell me now of the very soul that look alike

[inferus]

WHO: Wrath + Red + Others
WHEN: Event threads / Tower Aftermath threads
WHERE: Serthica
WHAT: November Catch-All. Please let me know if you would like a closed thread with either of mine.
WARNINGS: Cursing, memory-loss, curses, talks of Hell/demons. Will edit if more specific warnings come up.

[ closed starters will be below. ]

Comments

[matermali]

"You came out stronger for your trials. I should expect nothing less of you." The Doctor may have dropped an anchor with kind words, but it was Red who found strength in them to climb the chains.

It frightens Vanessa to think of anyone entering her mind like that, despite how she's intruded into the memories of others. The Doctor had once acted like he had nothing to fear from within her mind, but she wonders if he still thinks that now. For whatever reason, that hasn't sent the Doctor or Red fleeing in the opposite direction.

Whatever he had to say about Red to draw out her confidence, Vanessa doesn't ask. Such a matter is private, and she's touched to know even this much. Rather awed, too. The Doctor goes out of his way to protect others in ways she didn't know could be possible. She wonders if─hopes that─it reminds her that she's no longer lonely. Even when they should part once the beacon is discovered.

It's a waste to worry about that, but she often does. What will happen to Red? Can she go find her own life? Can she stay free but anchored? Isn't it what Vanessa would want for herself? What she can't have, she would pray for others, but she has nothing left to say to God.

[growlies]

Red doesn't know that she deserves that praise, staring at the smoke as it slips up from the end of the joint. It feels like nothing much is ever under her control, but she also knows Vanessa wouldn't give the words lightly - she would only say them if she really meant them. The warm haze of the alcohol she'd downed remains in the pit of her stomach, and she allows it all to fully relax her as wound up as she'd been when she arrived. She offers the joint back to Vanessa in the quiet that follows.

"...here it felt like the Unwinding was shit enough but then the Tower came and kicked it clear out of the fuckin' water."

She cradles the glass again.

"Makes you wonder what'll come next."

There's the beacon, but Red tries not to think about that. They're staying here to help the city so they'll be here when it's unearthed and powered up again. Fei's gone somehow already. Things feel so very tentative at times. She hates that, but that's the price of living on a mortal realm, the chance to care about people and the chance to lose them too.

[matermali]

Though she takes the cigarette back, Vanessa only takes one lingering pull before letting it hang uselessly between her fingers, her gaze often slipping between looking somewhere far-off and then peering Red and her disposition over. Idly, she wonders how much alcohol such a small form can handle.

Whatever comes next, Vanessa will need to take care with how she defends herself and others in the future. It's a comfort to know that Red has found a way to anchor her monster, but that resistance hasn't yet been tested against the monster within Vanessa, and should the Verbis Diablo truly consume souls, then hers ought to be the only one lost to it, if it hasn't been already.

Again there's a bittersweet mingling of resentment and gratitude when she considers how the Doctor put her to sleep. Grateful for Red's sake...and the Doctor's. The both of them might still have the chance to learn what it means to live for their own sakes.

"At least we need not wonder at who our friends are." It's no small thing, especially in Vanessa's dark corner of the world. "I hope you know that you may always rely on me to look upon you with affection and trust. To a degree not easily found in the life I've led."

[growlies]

Red releases a slow breath, pulling her knees up to her chest as she rests her chin there, allowing the alcohol and the marijuana to mingle together in her system. Her fingertips press against her legs, and she closes her eyes until Vanessa speaks. Then she's looking over her knees at her.

She is not so eloquent especially at the moment - the way Vanessa says it, it's almost like poetry. But she swallows through some thick feeling in her throat.

"I feel the same, and yeah, never before in my own... existence." Has she had that before someone she trusts, and yes. "So."

It matters. It's important.

"Thanks for coming after me when that asshole dragged me through the hallways by that rope."

[matermali]

Vanessa hasn't imbibed enough of anything to feel much beyond the slight calming of her nerves, which is enough to make her appreciate Red's words for what they are without worrying too much about how undeserving she is of such considerations. She hopes that Red has met others to also earn such a trust, and that she will continue to. That she will know love in all its forms, and with each heartbreak find a way to turn that love inward. To do what Vanessa never could.

The image of Red sitting in such a position is all too familiar. How many times has Vanessa clutched at her knees whenever the ground below felt too unsteady?

She stretches to pull the ash tray near, resting the cigarette there should Red wish for any more. Vanessa isn't sure she needs it, but she isn't one to hinder the vices of her friends. She's one to sit near and nurture, at least when she isn't drowning in her own woe. The vision that Red creates is enough to pull Vanessa out of that self-pity, long enough to appreciate that trust that Red is offering.

Carefully, she smooths back the girl's long hair, letting it trail between her fingers after combing it behind her ear. She would have chased the minotaur ceaselessly to try to save Red. She would have found a way to tear into it with the bats even sooner, more like.

"It was the Doctor who managed to save you." Something that he had done more than once. She had expected him to be clever, and he was when he used the rope, but she hadn't expected an axe throw quite like that. "I know in my heart that he, too, would do anything to ensure your happiness."

[growlies]

Red breathes out the heaviness in her lungs and stares at her own hands. She doesn't say anything in response, because there's nothing to say. This entire world is temporary. They're not supposed to be here. The beacon will be activated again, and they're all supposed to go through it back to where they belong, back to their own worlds, far away from the one that brought them together.

This isn't that place where they belong. No matter how much she cares about Vanessa, about the Doctor, about Emilia and Hermione, and- and Fei's already gone. No matter what she'd do to protect them. The rest will go too, and if she gets sent back, she gets sent back somewhere she doesn't belong. Really, she doesn't belong anywhere (too mortal and not, too girl and not, too monster and not), but what a depressing fucking thing to say or think or anything.

She looks over at Vanessa - an aching kind of smile. She does take the cigarette, another drag, focusing on Vanessa's gentle touch in her hair as her eyes close again.

"The beacon's gonna get activated next, huh? If we do what we're supposed to do here."

[matermali]

She hates to talk of it, but there's no use hiding from the path that the Merchant has been driving them all down. It's always been a precarious state of being–a family in transit–yet the closeness is no shallower for it. The loyalty will be lifelong, for however much longer that is, if Vanessa's memory will remain her own. She hopes that Red will remain a presence in her heart until the very end.

"That is the hope."

She doesn't blame Red's lack of enthusiasm for the idea. If Vanessa didn't have to go...if Sir Malcolm's life didn't depend on it, then...what would she do? It's a dangerous way of thinking. Far too indulgent.

"You don't have to go, should it be activated. Will you make a new life here?"

If Serthica remains too dangerous, then there are safer cities, aren't there? There will be threats everywhere, no doubt, but what does Red have to fear with Cerberus at her beckoning? Isn't it better to take the gamble for the idea of freedom? It's something Vanessa would risk, if she could.

[growlies]

"I don't know."

Truthfully, Red hasn't really thought about it much. If she stays, she stays surrounded by a bunch of people who are entirely human, who don't tango with gods, who were born and will one day die. She stays in a world where the Undead want to claim her, and they probably shouldn't get their hands on Cerberus. If she goes, she doesn't know what happens either. Hades will try to find her, but maybe she'll have time before he does.

She did escape with two people who could have been her friends maybe if she were able to spend any time with them before being dragged here instead. She never thought she'd actually be able to leave the Underworld at all when she escaped, thought it'd drag her right back in and under its water, drown her for trying. Probably it's only because Persephone was with them, and it was her hand she held on the way out.

She doesn't lift her head again even when she asks: "...what about you?"

[matermali]

Vanessa doesn't much like the thought of Red returning to a life spent running. Yet, how can Vanessa pass any judgment on such considerations? Vanessa has spent her whole life running, though she would like to claim she had turned to face the beast more often than not. In truth, she'd only faced it to invite it in.

Despite her growing connection with this place—with Red and the Doctor—she has obligations as well, and for the first time in a long while, Vanessa is returning so that she can stop running. It's the only way to save her friend. Sir Malcolm had once called her the daughter he deserved, and it had not been meant in kindness, but it was true enough. Their past sins and paths forward were inexorably twined, and she knows that she can't abandon him now.

Even if it means returning to where Satan thrives.

Eyes cast off to the side, Vanessa sighs and murmurs, "My path forward is the same. Serthica hasn't changed that."

But it has changed how she feels about it. In some ways, she's found a peace with what's within; in the connection she's found to others who are strikingly like her. In other ways, it has sent her adrift. Her life could have been better here, even in its current state. At least here, nobody hunts the Mother of Evil for her singular use and nothing else.