poly_chromatic | Falling, Fallen; Action;

Entry tags:

darker than black - yin

Falling, Fallen; Action;

[If anyone knows the pale, white-headed Yin trailing down the City streets, they might notice she's far paler than usual. In fact, she's nearly gray. Pieces of her skin flake off as she passes.]

[She did check in at work, but couldn't stay long, pieces of her dusting off at intervals was a bit of a problem. Thankfully, she doesn't work in the food industry. Now she walks the streets, her specter searching for a remedy so she can return to work.]

[ooc: The only person she full trusts enough to fall into the arms of is Hei. Others can offer, but she will just turn to dust and leaves on them.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It's like following a trail of breadcrumbs. Except more grotesque. ]

[ Eyes on the pavement, Hei tracks the pale dustings of Yin-flakes down the street. Moving through the rush-hour crowd like a shark fin cutting through water, sweating with everyone else in the unseasonable September heat. To observers, he seems like he's heading to a diner or food-stall for lunch. But there's something purposefully liquid in the way he slips through a space just before it closes, or drifts to the left or right to avoid an emerging pedestrian bottleneck. The changes in his cadence are accomplished so smoothly that no one will recognize when he alters his pace to narrow the gap on his target. ]

[ Yin. ]

[ Eyes fixed on the back of her shiny head, he walks faster. Up close, then abreast of her, then in front of her. Cutting her path off, he stares, his gaze a little too blank and focused. But that's mostly to repress any concern. ]

You're cursed.

[ It's an epidemic all over the Network. Meant to be humorous, but really it's just revolting. ]

[She's long stopped keeping track of the network. Yin just barely stops in time when Hei cuts her off, but she stops right in front of him all the same, her eyes not quite lifting to his face.]

[She nods to his remark.] It was interfering with my work. [And if Hei needed her for anything beyond spying, she was uncertain how much help she would be there.]

[ A coolish breeze passes by, whipping Hei's clothes and sends stranding of Yin's hair floating across her cheeks and neck. How has he never noticed before how abnormally thin that neck is? And her lips: they're so creepily pale and dry, like whitish scraps of lace. He's half-expecting her to dissolve like a house of cards, bits and pieces of her fluttering down the street. The visualized image sends a slow prickle of dread crawling up his spine. He sets it aside, moving closer and taking Yin's arm with a light, high-wire-act sort of precision, silencing the clamor in his head with the force of deliberate calm. ]

I'll take you home.

[ Quiet and matter-of-fact. If she's going to fall to pieces, it's smarter for it to happen within four walls. ]

[Even Hei's feather touch causes skin to flake off. Dry and crumpled, it floats away on the wind.]

[Yin offers nothing but a nod of her head to his offer. If she's going to fall apart, she doesn't care where it happens, as long as Hei's by her side. That's the part she has any preference on.]

[ She may not care. But Hei can't emulate that same nonchalance. ]

[ When she starts flaking, he diplomatically withdraws his hand. A gusty breeze flaps the yellowing squares of paper pinned to the alley-wall next to him and Yin. Reasons never to use a leaf blower, says one fluttering page. Pollutant, noisy, allergy-triggering, gas-wasting. If Hei didn't know better, he'd think the City was mocking him. He steps closer to deflect the buffeting wind, as if it might rip Yin to shreds like an invisible slew of ninja-stars. Focuses on her face, her lips extraordinarily dry, like white moth's wings. (Why does this strike him as surreally art nouveau rather than gruesome? It's beyond him.) ]

Think you can make it on foot?

[ He'd carry her -- but the lightest touch seems to send her crumbling. Under the circumstances, Hei isn't sure how delicate he can be. (He's not particularly 'delicate' on a good day, much less today.) ]

[Today is far from a good day. At least while Hei shields her, Yin is left unmolested by the wind, but any brush with it will start peeling Yin away in layers.]

[And, for once, she looks up at him. Thin as he is, Hei's still more substantial than Yin, his broad shoulders and back blocking out the wind entirely. He can't touch her, so she reaches out for his hand.]

Yes. [A whisper barely over the City's din. She can walk just fine, especially like this.]

[ Not a good day at all. ]

[ A flicker of surprise overwhelms Hei's default reserve when Yin reaches for his hand. Why would she do that? It's obvious the slightest physical contact scrapes skin-particles off her. He's not sure if the movement is reflex, or something else. Maybe, Hei thinks, as the breeze picks up again, there lies in Yin a fear that she'll be overcome by the curse -- a very reasonable fear, given her physical state, which is always fragile, underfed, and in the grip of a perpetual chill from being City Dead. (The idea that she might want to hold his hand, for no reason but because ... It doesn't register. Why would it?) ]

[ Carefully, Hei maneuvers his arm so she can slip her peeling fingers into it. But it's clear, by the way he crooks his elbow, that he's wary of her walking too close, or of jostling her by accident. There's a moment to scan the street for oncoming crowds, before he leads Yin down the street. It feels strange, drifting side-by-side with her, quiet and decorous as a Victorian couple. He's even, in the proper etiquette, taken the outer step of the pavement. ]

[ Of course that has little to do with manners. (Does BK201 have any? Beyond what gets him what he wants?). He's simply blocking her off from the breeze, and from any bumping pedestrians. ]

[As she slips her fingers in, flakes of skin peel off and collect on his clothing. Even without touch, her skin grows more transparent in areas, and slips as she walks, as though the merest friction from particles of air itself are stripping Yin's very body away.]

[But if this has to happen, then, yes, she wants to be touching Hei. Just because. The distance prevents her from leaning her head on his shoulder, though.]

[When they reach her apartment, she has to reach in a pocket to retrieve her keys, causing more decay.]

[ On their journey, Hei watches her atrophy with a cold, dreadful sense of the inevitable. The flakes of her skin, scattering across the pavement, clinging to the wrinkled fabric of his sleeve, remind him briefly, absurdly, of the white flakes of fish floating in the thick soup he'd had for breakfast. His stomach doesn't lurch at the idea -- it's survived grislier sights, both real and imagined -- but a thin needle of anxiety pierces the tough skin of his self-possession anyway. ]

[ By the time they reach her flat, she's so pale he thinks he can see right through her. Like she might float away, airy and insubstantial, if not for being anchored down by her enormous eyes. In a precise, controlled movement, he plucks the keys from her crumbling fingers. Slips it into the lock himself, before ushering her in. ]

[She gives no protest, and there's no resistance from limbs when Hei takes the keys. Yin simply watches Hei open the door, listlessly.]

[Once inside she doesn't even look around, she settles in an arm chair, white pieces about the size of decaying leaves flaking off her as she does. She had been searching for a solution, but so far the day has given none. Instead, she sits there, waiting for the curse to takes it full course, or for Hei to give her some sort of an order. Until then, she sits.]

[ The only order she'll receive is, ]

Don't move from that chair.

[ Any friction aggravates the flaking; better for her to minimize it. Standing at the doorway, Hei feels a sick sense of helplessness muddying the clear trajectory of his thoughts. There has to be a solution to this curse. As injury tallies go, it's pretty tame. Hei's worked splinters of wood from his skin and seen capillaries burst and bloom only for those bruises to fade within the week. This won't last beyond 24 hours. But within that time-frame, there's no guarantee Yin will make it. What if she shivers into dust-motes long before the clock strikes twelve? As a Doll, she may not be affected by such concerns. But Hei is. ]

[ He wants to reach out and touch her hand. Instead, drifting closer, he curls his fingers on the back of her chair. Quiet and calm, he says, ]

I'll stay here.

[ Keep an eye on her, and scan the Network for any cures to the curse. ]

[But she can't keep to that simple, small order. Not when Hei is so close. She looks up at him and, again, her hand reaches out for his. If this has to continue, if she's going to fall all apart anyway, she might as well have that small comfort.]

[Sure, tomorrow she'll return to normal City Dead status, but not before Hei watches her completely crumble before his eyes.]

[ Hei is leaning against the wall, right next to her chair, his ankles neatly crossed, scanning Network texts. His eyes are starting to lose focus, the words swimming on the screen, when Yin's hand skims into his line of sight. Frowning, he glances at her, ready to snap: I told you. Don't move. But her expression stops him short. It's the kind of solemn, pleading look -- one-hundred-percent clear-eyed focus -- that always made something soften in his spine and his head -- and that made something stir both in his sternum and below the belt. But now she looks so altered, peeling apart, all her expressions are like grim parodies of themselves. He fights to keep this from his expression. ]

[ He kneels instead, beside her chair, and passes his arms around her, careful not to put any pressure on her anywhere. She's too fragile for a tighter hug, and he's worried that even his arm around her waist might hurt her. But her interest in contact shows that she's still planted in the world, doesn't it? Not dead yet, if she's being her usual quietly willful, unDoll-like self, and ignoring his orders. ]

[ He leans his forehead against hers, no weight, just the rustle-crackle of his hair on hers, and her eyes seem to become one lilac blur. ]

I'll figure something out.

[ Not It's okay or You'll be fine. Those are lies, even as he's not sure his words are true. But Hei is used to transmuting disaster into victory. ]

[Everything won't be fine. Even as he tells her he'll find a way, her hair, her skin, everything is peeling away. Dust gathers against the inside of her clothing. Every little movement was bad enough, but now she doesn't have to move, and nothing has to brush up against her. She's decomposing right in front of Hei into a fine, white leafy dust.]

[First her fingers, then her shoes hit the floor with a loud thud Yin would never make with them.]

[ If this were happening to him, Hei knows he could endure it. He's been trained to withstand any pain or damage to himself, as long as it has a purpose. You can't exist in the world they do without a familiarization with pain. You have to practice hurting, then numbing yourself to it, developing a hard psychic callus that no disaster can breach. But this ... he can't abide by this. The meaningless cruelty of it. Yin, frittering away before his eyes, like a statue composed of white powder. He feels a stab of dark inevitability in hearing her shoes clatter to the floor. Catches his breath on the sudden edge of restrained violence -- a rage against the City, against himself for not circumventing this. His arms tighten around her, without meaning to. ]

[ As if, by snatching her close, clutching her inexorably tight, he'll be able to keep her from floating away. ]

[ (Or maybe he's consoling himself -- and her -- with the fact that if she disintegrates, she won't go alone.) ]

[She can see snatches of anger in a clenched jaw, and some semblance of pain, though Yin thinks it might also be a hallucination as she slips away. Some mind trick due to the dust gathering in all of her figurative cogs.]

[And yet, she'll just come back tomorrow, no matter what happens now. And the last thing her specter will show her sight is Hei's face. Her lips twitch at the fact, just before they crumble.]

[Whether it's Hei's tight grasp, or just time has run out, Yin fully decomposes into a pile of white leaves, a white dust coat his clothes, and Yin is completely gone.]

[To say that Yin looked terrible when she stopped by would be an understatement. Penny had been too occupied too say much to Yin before she had slipped out, but worry prompts her to send a quick text message.]

you ok, Yin? did you make it home ok? :(

[Yin feels a stirring at receiving a message from Penny. For her teammates to have some level of concern is normal. They need her on the team. But Penny...is not a teammate. And this isn't about work.]

Got home fine. There is a curse.

[She doesn't know how ok she is or isn't right now. Turning into dust doesn't sound ok.]

ok. take it easy, call if you need anything?

[She hasn't noticed the turning-to-dust phenomenon that's going around, as the Welcome Center is relatively quiet today. This is probably for the best.]

[As she is unable to text a nod, Yin actually responds.]

I will.

thnx <3

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Falling, Fallen; Action;

action;<3

action;<3

Re: action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

action;<3

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;