Jaidon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cridecoeur) wrote2009-08-24 09:16 am
cridecoeur) wrote2009-08-24 09:16 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
title: machines and spirits ought to know
author:cridecoeur
prompt: self-searching for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
parthenon
characters: sin, virtue, hestia
rating: r
word count 810
warnings: hestia's still a crossdresser who needs to put on some fucking shoes, and a minor character gets offed.
a/n: this is a character study piece for someone i'm trying to take longer than 700 words to kill - at which i'm utterly failing - because i like his character so much and whose voice i was having trouble capturing from the outside. this also contains a bit more of hestia's back story. the structure may seem familiar; the opening scene of machines and spirits was a character study of leper that worked so well i decided to keep it as part of the storyline. that said, i will say another thing: leper may be a sociopath but this kid's fucking crazy.
She burned with brightness, a pinnacle and a beacon, light blooming out of dark, bursts of color, red and green and blue, sliding over skin, wavering reflections, underwater bodies, reaching out, hand to hand, mouth to mouth, like to like. I watched the cradle of her hands, shaping the earth, shaping the air, shaping and shaping and shaping, drawing light from dark. I knew her voice, her cadence, her laughter. I knew the shape of her body, the space she occupied. I knew the warmth of her skin and the deepening color of her eyes, the reflection of my face, my blackened skin and the fire of my eyes, my mouth.
Then the sickness took her.
Then came Hestia.
I watched them from the doorway of her room, heads bent together, his dark hair and hers, their hands clasped, their voices mingling, their bodies like bookends, shaping the negative spaces. I watched her grow more like him, closer and closer to darkness. I could not let that darkness take her.
I waited until she slept, body limp beneath the sheets, hair a tangle around her face, arms spread, ready to receive benediction, ready to be absolved. I straddled her body and took her throat between my hands, the blackened husk of my body peeling away to reveal flesh and bone and blood and hair, a human body, a lie. I squeezed and watched her eyes open, watched the shock of her death settling over her, hands scrabbling at my arms before the breath left her body and the light left her eyes and that darkness slipped from her.
I choked the sickness from her, until she was flawless again.
Virtue, whom I killed out of love, whom I killed to save.
I am Sin, and I am God’s gift to a sick world.
When Hestia came again, I stood aside and let him enter our house, our parent’s house, let him walk up the stairs to her room, to the foot of her bed, her bed become a casket, the sheets scorched and tangled, let him draw beside her, hand brushing over her throat, over bruises where their should be burn marks, where there would be, if the sickness hadn’t taken her.
He stilled.
He turned to me, one hand raised.
I was upon him.
I bore him to the ground, his body beneath mine, warmth rising, heat, the struggle, my knees pinning him to the ground, my hands at his throat. He bore death with less grace, a strength in his body that she had not, a sickness far advanced, darkness fully consuming him. He struck at my face, at the frailty of a new human body, fingers digging into my eyes, until I released him, and he could roll us over, knees in my stomach, striking again, the heel of his hand against my nose, breaking.
I clutched at my face, fingers slickening with blood, and he rolled away, rolled to his feet, ran, out the door and down the stairs, leaving the husk of my body to reform, skin blackening, bones and organs dissolving, a body consumed by fire, scorching the floor as I stood, the wall as I steadied myself, the stairs as I ran after him, the door as I pushed it open. I chased him across the yard, gaining ground, my stride longer and his bare feet slipping over morning-wet grass.
He rounded the corner of the house, and I followed, only to find him standing, legs spread, garden house in hand, hard-edged and smiling.
Just for the record, he said; I really wish this were enough to kill you.
He sprayed water over my body, in an arc.
I screamed.
A driving agony.
Steam-heat.
A dissolution.
Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness.
A trembling.
The first catch of a spark, oxygen hungry.
The long return, banked, slow-burning.
A flare.
A spreading flame.
A burning body reformed.
The cradle of the sky.
A noise, rising.
The grass smoldering beneath my body - the grass flattened by Hestia’s feet.
I stood and shook the ash from my body - new flesh, reformed. I walked back around the house to where the door stood open, creaking, walked inside and up the stairs to Virtue’s bedroom. I let the heat of my body rise, the flame expanding, consuming, until the whole room caught and smoke thickened the air. I watched Virtue burn down to the bones of her, watched even after the floor shuddered and collapsed, bringing down the walls, my body full fire, and then I pulled the husk of myself together and walked back out, out of the house smoking and crumbling, across the yard, smoldering, to the street where Hestia had peeled his car away from the curb - rubber burns as testaments.
I walked out of that house, and I did not look back.
author:
cridecoeurprompt: self-searching for
parthenoncharacters: sin, virtue, hestia
rating: r
word count 810
warnings: hestia's still a crossdresser who needs to put on some fucking shoes, and a minor character gets offed.
a/n: this is a character study piece for someone i'm trying to take longer than 700 words to kill - at which i'm utterly failing - because i like his character so much and whose voice i was having trouble capturing from the outside. this also contains a bit more of hestia's back story. the structure may seem familiar; the opening scene of machines and spirits was a character study of leper that worked so well i decided to keep it as part of the storyline. that said, i will say another thing: leper may be a sociopath but this kid's fucking crazy.
She burned with brightness, a pinnacle and a beacon, light blooming out of dark, bursts of color, red and green and blue, sliding over skin, wavering reflections, underwater bodies, reaching out, hand to hand, mouth to mouth, like to like. I watched the cradle of her hands, shaping the earth, shaping the air, shaping and shaping and shaping, drawing light from dark. I knew her voice, her cadence, her laughter. I knew the shape of her body, the space she occupied. I knew the warmth of her skin and the deepening color of her eyes, the reflection of my face, my blackened skin and the fire of my eyes, my mouth.
Then the sickness took her.
Then came Hestia.
I watched them from the doorway of her room, heads bent together, his dark hair and hers, their hands clasped, their voices mingling, their bodies like bookends, shaping the negative spaces. I watched her grow more like him, closer and closer to darkness. I could not let that darkness take her.
I waited until she slept, body limp beneath the sheets, hair a tangle around her face, arms spread, ready to receive benediction, ready to be absolved. I straddled her body and took her throat between my hands, the blackened husk of my body peeling away to reveal flesh and bone and blood and hair, a human body, a lie. I squeezed and watched her eyes open, watched the shock of her death settling over her, hands scrabbling at my arms before the breath left her body and the light left her eyes and that darkness slipped from her.
I choked the sickness from her, until she was flawless again.
Virtue, whom I killed out of love, whom I killed to save.
I am Sin, and I am God’s gift to a sick world.
When Hestia came again, I stood aside and let him enter our house, our parent’s house, let him walk up the stairs to her room, to the foot of her bed, her bed become a casket, the sheets scorched and tangled, let him draw beside her, hand brushing over her throat, over bruises where their should be burn marks, where there would be, if the sickness hadn’t taken her.
He stilled.
He turned to me, one hand raised.
I was upon him.
I bore him to the ground, his body beneath mine, warmth rising, heat, the struggle, my knees pinning him to the ground, my hands at his throat. He bore death with less grace, a strength in his body that she had not, a sickness far advanced, darkness fully consuming him. He struck at my face, at the frailty of a new human body, fingers digging into my eyes, until I released him, and he could roll us over, knees in my stomach, striking again, the heel of his hand against my nose, breaking.
I clutched at my face, fingers slickening with blood, and he rolled away, rolled to his feet, ran, out the door and down the stairs, leaving the husk of my body to reform, skin blackening, bones and organs dissolving, a body consumed by fire, scorching the floor as I stood, the wall as I steadied myself, the stairs as I ran after him, the door as I pushed it open. I chased him across the yard, gaining ground, my stride longer and his bare feet slipping over morning-wet grass.
He rounded the corner of the house, and I followed, only to find him standing, legs spread, garden house in hand, hard-edged and smiling.
Just for the record, he said; I really wish this were enough to kill you.
He sprayed water over my body, in an arc.
I screamed.
A driving agony.
Steam-heat.
A dissolution.
Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness.
A trembling.
The first catch of a spark, oxygen hungry.
The long return, banked, slow-burning.
A flare.
A spreading flame.
A burning body reformed.
The cradle of the sky.
A noise, rising.
The grass smoldering beneath my body - the grass flattened by Hestia’s feet.
I stood and shook the ash from my body - new flesh, reformed. I walked back around the house to where the door stood open, creaking, walked inside and up the stairs to Virtue’s bedroom. I let the heat of my body rise, the flame expanding, consuming, until the whole room caught and smoke thickened the air. I watched Virtue burn down to the bones of her, watched even after the floor shuddered and collapsed, bringing down the walls, my body full fire, and then I pulled the husk of myself together and walked back out, out of the house smoking and crumbling, across the yard, smoldering, to the street where Hestia had peeled his car away from the curb - rubber burns as testaments.
I walked out of that house, and I did not look back.