logsinthenight | Don't Fuck with the Forest Spirits || OTA

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Don't Fuck with the Forest Spirits || OTA

characters: Vanitas (

evulsed) + OTA
location: mostly The Church, the Invincible + the Boathouse
date/time: July 19 and the days following
content: just waking-up-after-being-dismembered things
warnings: violence

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[ He should go back to his room, so that's the direction he heads, but the way he perceives these things is different from before.

When he enters the pub on the way up to his room he stops in the corner, watching the forest spirits behind the bar with a fierce sort of intensity. It isn't aggressive, exactly, but the look is still pretty intense, given that Vanitas doesn't really seem to blink as he's doing it.

Eventually he'll head back up to his room, which has been very quiet compared to before. His Unversed vanished when he was killed, meaning it's been abandoned for the better part of a week, now. The first thing he does is crouch in the doorway and summon a Flood. ]

It isn't polite to stare.

[Even though that's almost, nearly more of a glare. And Mary's staring at him, too, from where she's sitting in a booth and coloring. He's back. And maybe she shouldn't have said anything, but she just couldn't help herself. There's a prickling of fear in the back of her neck...but that just makes her angry.]

[ Vanitas' eyes cut to the girl, and it takes him a moment to place her. Not because she's hard to recognize, but because he's been so wrapped up in what he's just come back from that he hasn't been thinking about anything that preceded his trip into the woods. On reflex, his mouth ticks up in the corners, like he can't decide if he's going to smile or bare his teeth. ]

Then what are you looking at?

Nooothing...

[Pursing her lips, Mary looks back down at whatever it was she was drawing. She pulls out a black crayon from her box and scribbles messily on top of the artwork. At least this is a more productive way of letting out her emotions than, you know, with a knife.]

[ He should leave well enough alone, but Vanitas is volatile at the best of times and now is no different. Now, in fact, is worse— so he turns toward her and slips into the seat directly across from Mary. His eyes flick down to her drawing, then back to her face. ]

I saw what you were hiding you know.

[Mary's crayon stops in its destructive path, and she feels her teeth gnash together behind her lips.]

Are you going to tell people?

[ He watches her steadily, unblinking. ]

I haven't decided yet.

[Humming in thought, Mary abandons her drawing and opens to a new page in her sketchbook. She doesn't put the black crayon away, but seems to start drawing something less manic.]

If you tell on me, we won't be able to play anymore!

[ Vanitas' eyes go heavy and speculative, still watching her face instead of what she's drawing on the paper. ]

Why not?

Because things will be different. We won't be any different, but everyone else will be.

[Always watching in a way that they weren't before. Always cautious, always wary. Finishing with the black crayon, she grabs a few different colors.]

I like how things are now. Don't you?

No.

[ It's an honest answer, and Vanitas can't say why he gives it to Mary of all people. Maybe because she has a hidden darkness. Maybe because she'd been the one to skewer him, to his own surprise. Maybe because he doesn't think anyone would take her seriously if she told.

His eyes flick over her, like he's assessing her. ]

Why don't you just play with everybody, instead of hiding it?

Because I tried that once, and that's how I died.

[Her mouth turns down into a frown. She has the very abrupt, intense urge to chew on her crayons, mash them into itty bitty unusable pieces. But no, no, if she did that, she couldn't color with them anymore.]

My friends didn't like it when I tried to play with them! They ran away from me! And then, when I caught up, they set me on fire!

[ This is a sentiment Vanitas really can't understand or empathize with&msdah; not the least of which is the idea of having friends, and the concept of losing them because of what he is. He's never had something to lose, beyond his own life. ]

If you'd been faster, they wouldn't have caught you.

[ At least, that's what Xehanort always told him. ]

...it doesn't matter.

[The ending would've been the same. She would've been all alone. Wouldn't she? Mary goes quiet as she finishes her drawing, and then holds it up to show him.]

Look! It's us!

[She's drawn the two of them speckled with blood. You know, for kids!]

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evulsed - 2019-07-26 11:30 (UTC) - Expand

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2/3 cw: violent descriptions

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⟪ Moving like a ghost around a holy site is not new to her –– she had heard his cries, had seen Eugene care for him, and had chosen to leave the medic to it. No need to crowd the newly resurrected. She gives him some time instead, just a little to return back to his room and take a breather.

Eventually, she heads for the Invincible. Knock-knock at the door to his chambers, polite but insistent. She had taken a detour before heading upstairs, and if he opens the door, or calls for her to enter, she'll glide inside carrying a tray with a hot meal for him.

It's no universal cure, no. He hadn't screamed like a creature who could be soothed with food.

But it's a show of human care, and that could be worth something, maybe. ⟫

[ Vanitas jerks his head up when the knock comes at his door, and every little Flood that's seeped out of him since his return does the same. It would be easy to tell himself that maybe they were knocking somewhere else, maybe across the hall— but he isn't so ignorant as that.

He doesn't get visitors. He doesn't want, or need them.

Still, he gets up off his uneven bed and pulls open the door. Without any expectations, he isn't as surprised as he probably should be that it's that witch woman standing there with her hands under a platter. The smell of food hits him like a truck, reminding Vanitas suddenly and violently that he hasn't eaten, and it prevents him from saying or doing anything to stop her gliding into his room.

Only once it's too late to do anything but accept the situation does Vanitas turn around to face her and speak. His Unversed retreat into the shadowy corners of his room, nothing but red eyes that follow Melisandre without coming closer. ]

I didn't know you could leave the church.

[ He means it to come out more aggressively provocative than it does. Maybe he's still tired. ]

They let me out for a haunt now and again.

⟪ To speak in jest has never been among her otherwise extensive skillset, though it doesn't seem to deter her from the occasional attempt. She sets the tray down on whatever flat surface he seems most likely to be eating at, not at all bothered by red eyes following her every movement. ⟫

I'll keep you company while you eat.

⟪ Alright, so perhaps her purpose is less to annoy him and more to make sure he eats at all. Whatever he has gone through, it must have been an ordeal, to reduce the arrogant youth she had met briefly once before into a screaming mess. ⟫

[ It's so radially beyond Vanitas' realm of understanding of things that for a moment, he looks almost hunted, suspicion making his eyes narrow. Still, his gaze flicks to the steaming plate and whatever is on it.

Ever since speaking with the doctor, chiefly he only eats crackers; but whatever that is is making him salivate, which only furthers his discomfort. His fingers pull into loose fists at his sides. ]

Why?

⟪ Frankly, Melisandre's approach to offering people food is a little haphazard, since she has to rely on recommendations from others to begin with –– her world was neither rich in selection, nor did it feature a good deal of common food items others speak so highly of here.

It is food found commonly in bars and utterly strange to her: a good helping of some root vegetable sliced and fried in salt and such, a serving, arranged into a bowl, of chicken pieces, not much less fried. Chicken she knows, but the availability and quantity disturbs her. Some odd, small bowls for sauces to dip the whole deal in. A small bowl of some vegetable soup, apparently to make up for all the fried things. A carafe of water with a slice or two of lemon in it, and a bottle of a foreign material (apparently, it is meant to be called 'plastic') containing some sweet, fizzy drink. Comfort food, she'd been assured. ⟫

It is nicer to eat with company, or so I have found. ⟪ Well, perhaps it's better to be honest now: ⟫ When I was alive ⟪ oh, we're making distinctions here that go back to even before she died ⟫ I would often find myself forgoing the comforts of food after I had faced hardships. There are not many of us, here, and you and yours ⟪ a flicker of her red eyes to the creatures lurking in the shadows ⟫ strike closest to my home.

[ Vanitas isn't sure he agrees with that sentiment. Eating is strange enough, without having others around to witness Vanitas' particular struggle with the concept. After his first interaction with it, and how quickly it had all come back up, the truth of the matter is that he's much too nervous to experiment with it.

That doesn't stop the smell from luring him in. Vanitas drifts closer, his gaze cutting between the plate and Melisandre as though waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he's close enough to touch the meal and still nothing happens, he squares his shoulders, as if his hesitancy had never happened to begin with. ]

I didn't have to eat before I came here.

[ He glances over the collection, and reaches for one of the wedges. It looks the most familiar, and by that, most like the crackers. ]

⟪ In some manner, she is strongly reminded of those who came new to the Temples. Of herself, too, she'd had her first day at one point, but it's the seeing she recalls most. Witnessing children, much younger than him, fighting hunger and fear at once, waiting which one would win out in the end.

She makes a point of not staring. A.. .conscious effort, at least. ⟫

It has been more than two centuries since I had to eat to live.

⟪ Her voice is light, conversational. ⟫ It is bizarre trying to make a habit of it now, isn't it? When I was alive, I had to feign interest in food –– it wasn't a great strength of mine.

[ She might not be staring, but Vanitas doesn't return the courtesy. In the places of two hundred years, where the witch learned how to navigate— however rockily— situations such as this, Vanitas doesn't know anything. Living all but alone in the desert, cast out only to find his other half, and then tucked away into the darkness of another person's heart— being around the people of this town consistently, for weeks, is more human interaction than he's ever had in his life. ]

Why did you pretend?

[ He hasn't bitten into the potato yet, evidently interested enough by what Melisandre is telling him to be distracted from the whole point of her arrival. ]

⟪ In her way, she recalls her first months in Westeros, when after the emptiness and silence of Asshai, she was thrust into a world of people –– but then, she never got to be close to any of them, because it was not her place, because if the King is not a social man, then neither is she. ⟫

Most creatures, but mankind most of all, prefers to kill that which they do not understand.

⟪ She steps over to the window, to see if she can catch a glimpse of the bonfire from here. ⟫

Or banish it, at best.

You could've just killed them first.

[ It's the simplest, most straightforward solution. If they were a threat to her, then why not get rid of them beforehand? Then again, he doesn't know her whole story, and Vanitas himself could understand sparing a life if it was for his own gain. He hadn't killed Aqua at first for that reason. It was only once she'd outlived her use that he'd changed his mind.

With her back to him he bites down on the potato wedge, and the burst of grease and salt startle him enough to be momentarily distracted— enough to really take a good look at what's on the platter and on offer. It stirs his hunger to the point he can't ignore it anymore, and Vanitas sits down on the edge of his bed to dig in. ]

Haven't we all fantasised of that?

⦑ Perhaps most people haven't, but Melisandre certainly has, and at length. Reduce all those to ash who oppose her, so the path is clear and the only enemy which remains is the Great Other and his army of wights, no petty lords.

Of course, that is not the point of saving a world. ⦒

Unfortunately, all the murder would only have more people coming after me. It'll be a cycle I am bound to lose a few rounds in, no?

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