poly_chromatic | Action; Radio Silence

Entry tags:

darker than black - yin

Action; Radio Silence

[Another weekend full of mixed curses, and it seems to have passed Yin over. Some people might be relieved for this, but, instead, Yin just feels a blank emptiness whenever she recalls the weekend she was cursed to be her old self. To feel again.]

[That person is no longer her, and she can never go back to really being Kirsi, but there's still a definite fascination with the memories Yin has of that time. She keeps thinking about it, and it feels like there's a numbness in response every time.]

[Run into her lost in thought at the grocery store, Welcome Center, on the streets passing by, or anywhere near a body of water.]

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[Grocery shopping is the one chore Pai doesn't mind doing. It gets her away from the zoo at the Beach House, and it gives her control over the food in the house. Korra never buys enough food.

She's a little surprised to see Yin at the grocery store.]

What are you doing here?

[ Sleep hasn't been in the cards these few days. He constantly feels suffocated indoors. Pai and Korra are zonked out and unlikely to offer company; he's already completed his patrols Underground; it's too cloudy to stargaze; it's too early to go to work. ]

[ So he goes walking, with a strange furtive feeling, into the post-dawn stillness. The heavy atmosphere of his mind dogs his steps; his shadow seems outsized and gravely awkward against the cheerful City backdrop. Otherwise, though, he passes unnoticed, in his rumpled civvies and messy mop of hair. Quiet, timid-faced twentysomethings suffering quarter-life crises are all over the place, and why should anyone look at him and see more? He's both grateful for and suspicious of the lack of attention -- so different from the paranoia back home. It gives him a curious sense of slippage, as if he is struggling to really be present in the world. When he catches his reflection flitting across dusty shopfront glass, he sometimes thinks: Who's that? Or: What's my cover, again? Who am I meant to be impersonating this time? ]

[ Most of the time, he finds he doesn't want to think. At all. ]

[ It's probably that -- and his kneejerk hyperwareness -- that alerts him to Yin's presence on the street. ]

[Yin returns from the grocery store, having bought cat food and toothpaste. She doesn't seem to need sleep anymore and has contemplated getting a second job to fill the night hours. For now, shopping.]

[She stops. She's not anywhere near Hei's level of awareness, but she still turns in his direction.]

[To anyone else it might seem like the same old Yin. She looks almost emotionless as she glances over at Hei, but what Hei will see is her specter, no longer just a little puddle. Shaped like Yin, it stands by her, smiles slyly and puts a finger to its mouth.]

[Don't tell her.]

[Yin lifts up her basket of cat food. At least, this time, she's got a tube of toothpaste to go with it. She might not eat any longer, but she still brushes her teeth.]

Shopping.

Why do you have a cat?

[Now that she lives with 8 of them, Pai has decided quite firmly that They Are Useless.]

To keep the ticking quieter.

[ With the shopfront lit up like a stage-set, Yin is just a dark silhouette. Her specter is not. ]

[ Hei stares, nearly breathless, blinking as if willing the sight to fade. As if it's a trick of light. He's seen that ghostly face in sporadic dreams. But he's not dreaming now. The sick shuddering of his heart, the choked sensation in his throat ... It's too real. The specter lifts a finger to smile-shaped lips. And Hei feels frozen to the pavement. There's no other way to put it. His thoughts are clear. Likewise, his perception. But he can't move his body. He seems rooted to the spot. Fiercely, he thinks, Move it. Nothing happens. Beads of sweat start popping out on his forehead. ]

[ Fear is a sickening thing. He's almost forgotten how pervasive it can be. ]

[ Trying to control his mind through the clumsy conduit of his body, he thinks: It has to be a trick. A curse. Anything. So why can't he move? ]

You should have gotten a rabbit. They're easier to feed. [At least, they are when they're bloodsucking rabbits who can drink from your arm.]

[To anyone else, Yin would seem herself in every way. And for a moment to Hei, she will as well. The specter vanishes completely and Yin approaches Hei.]

[When she's close, though, he might see a slight uplift to her lips. A smirk Yin could never have.]

I was accustomed to a cat.

[ The specter dissipates like a mirage. And suddenly Yin is stepping closer. She looks almost fairyish, with her delicate, pallid features and her glistening eyes; perhaps more so now that she's no longer a semi-silhouette, surrounded instead by the kind of uneasy gloom only found in darkened alleys where the sun doesn't ever reach. But it's that smile on her face that chills him. He stands and stares at her like the survivor of a direct hit, confused by the reality of what is happening. ]

[ Until his eyes narrow, flat yet blazing. ]

What. Have you done. With Yin?

[ It comes out like a threat more than a question. Like he's segued on instinct into combat mode, refusing to be paralyzed by something that can still be fought, dissected, vanquished. (As if the City's curses are ever that straightforward.) ]

[Yin takes a step back. Eyebrows furrowed, she looks more like herself, but that's still an expression. Anyone else would see this one, a look of confused mild grief.]

Hei?

[Of course a Doll would be a creature of habit. Although the question was, why would a doll have a pet in the first place?]

Why?

One stayed with me before.

[ It's like being trapped in a miasma. One minute it's Yin's face yet not. An eerie half-made counterfeit. The next, it's as if it was nothing but a trick of light. Yin is there, staring at him, her brows drawn together in her pale face. Hei blinks, trying to focus, to pin clarity to a City where everything blurs into seamless nonsense. An illusion? No. It has to be a curse. It's the weekend. The ones where the City's magic goes haywire; where it seeps into his pores until he metamorphoses into something unrecognizable, a victim of a toxic chemical storm. ]

[ At the sound of her Hei, he swallows dryly. Instead of wariness or fear there's something concerned in the way he looks at her, one hand lifting to curl around the dip of her elbow. ]

I -- [ His voice holds a ragged, tight-gripped calm. ] I think ... I'm cursed.

[And just as quickly as it was Yin, it is no longer Yin. The face is hers, but the smile that curves around her lips isn't one Yin could ever make.]

[When Hei touches her, Yin's body presses up against his.]

A curse? [There's the sound of concern in her tone.] Let me help.

But why? [Seriously. How does a doll get a cat?]

He needed a place to stay. [If possible, she's starting to droop. But surely that's just the lighting.]

[ Ratcheting towards panic, Hei watches the transition across Yin's face. The way she crowds up languorously against him, the lilt in her otherwise unruffled voice. The ambient sunlight makes her eyes gleam and her pale skin glow. There's a snaky grace to her movements that is the complete opposite of anything Yin has ever been -- quiet, sedate, still. ]

[ He would rub his eyes, but it's clear enough he can't trust his body. Which is chilling, for someone who needs to be in complete, superlative self-possession so he can make it do things like fling himself out of skyscrapers and scale anything in sight with a wire and whisper things he'll never mean to his marks so he can slip between their fingers when he turns allegiances and they claw at him in impotent fury. ]

[ Here, his dread is so enormous it pinions him. Yin is right in front of him now, her hand on his shirtfront, and he can't move against her. ]

You're not --

[ Not Yin, he wants to say. But inside him, there's a kernel of doubt. Her expression seems to be shifting in the insubstantial light the way campfire embers will brighten in the wind. Yin. Not-Yin. Same temperature, same scent as always: cool. In that moment, he understands. The body is Yin's. But right now it's no better than a canvas. A blank surface to project the worst fears of his own mind. No. Not in his mind. The fears that have already manifested themselves, back home. The changes coming over Yin like a thundercloud. Turning her into somebody else— no: just a crueler reflection. ]

[ Teeth gritted, he shakes the paralysis off. Grips Yin's shoulders in both hands. Adrenaline and revulsion racing in his bloodstream. Forcefully, he wrenches her off. Not hard enough to bruise, but enough to unbalance her. ]

[ (Because if this is Yin, he'd rather play no part in hurting her.) ]

Were you ordered to take him in?

No. [In a sense, she had been expected to take Mao in because he was a teammate, and because Hei was concerned about the ticking affecting Yin. But she had wanted to. Even then, and she knew it. Maybe at the time she hadn't realized it, but talking with Pai now Yin acknowledges the truth.]

[Unbalance her it does, but more than just physically. Her lithe form doesn't handle the change well. It's from the floor Yin looks up to Hei, eyes a little wide. More than just worry, there's an undercurrent of hurt in her expression.]

[Whatever affliction Hei is going through is caused by her. That's about all Yin can gather from the events before her, being unable to see and hear what he does.]

[Because of this revelation, for his sake, she stays there, hesitant to rise, or get close to him again. It's best if he leaves, so she'll wait there, silent and unmoving, and allow him to do so. At least, that's her plan.]

[Hei, however, will see a shift to a stronger expression, one obviously not caused merely by Yin.]

But, Hei, I am.

[ She falls. And the shock -- the regret -- coils around Hei's skull and hisses in his ear before it tunnels straight down into his lungs, squeezing the air out of him. Yin's face seems very white, with no color whatsoever in her face; almost grey-tinged. Even her eyes look washed out. Like something made of soft fragile frost. Something he's trampled over in a dizzy-making trick of light. His breath his suddenly tight in his throat and his mind crackles with adrenaline. Yin, I'm sorry, he wants to say. But then something wavers on the surface of her face, like a noh mask settling on the skin. She says, But, Hei, I am, and the words are so oddly-shaped. ]

[ Not Yin at all. ]

[ He doesn't argue, No you aren't. But he stares. There's uncertainty there, along with tangled strands of something sharper. Angrier. It's not panic. It feels like it, but that's not what curls and sets root in his chest. He stares at his hand, expecting it to shake, but it doesn't. It curls and uncurls into a fist. The muscle memory of combat snaps into place. ]

I'm cursed, Yin. Stay away.

[ His voice is tight and bitterly controlled. A warning and a plea. He doesn't look at her again. He just executes a sharp, almost military turn, and exits the street. (The more distance he puts between them, the safer for her.) ]

So you chose to take him in.

[Strange. But she remembers how Contractors were changing, before she made the decision to destroy Heaven's Gate. Perhaps Dolls were changing as well. ]

Yes.

[This Doll is definitely changing.]

[It's in his voice, the effort to temper it, the curling of his fist - whatever curse has befallen him it's painful, maybe frightening. For Hei to feel those things enough Yin can infer them, the City must have come up with a horrible curse.]

[She stays in place, scared to move, worried she will want to reach out for him. So Yin stays there, instead, and waits until Hei is out of range before she finally leaves and slowly makes her way home, dejectedly.]

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Action; Radio Silence

action;

action; I walk an insomniac's road, the only one that I have ever known?

action; We need to find better roads

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action; but there are so few options :c

action;

action; /MAKES MORE >/

action;

my hero >3<

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action;

action;

1/2

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