Entry 593; Day 1160

[misterblackbird]

[Filtered from Known DELILAH Members || Unhackable]
It's a very strange thing to think of turning such an age as twenty-one in the City. At least, that's the best I've managed to figure out about it--I think I'm turning twenty-one.

I was seventeen when I arrived in the City for the first time, and I stayed here through my eighteenth birthday. I could have been here through my nineteenth birthday as well, but the City saw fit to show mercy enough to send me home for a fortnight of my time and a week of the City's time. I suppose that was a mercy. So I was seventeen again while I was at home, of course, and I didn't remember anything about the City. And that would mean that I was seventeen again when the City drew me back in--unless, of course, I gained that year back with my memories, but I somehow doubt that. So that meant I turned eighteen for the second time in the City that next year.

I suppose this year I could be turning eighteen, since I suppose I'm still seventeen in my own world, or twenty-one or even twenty-two, if one counts all the time I've spent in the City as a continuous stay as I myself do. But I rather think I'm turning twenty-one. I feel, more or less, as I have every year that I've spent here, even if it is strange to have even one's own age stopped, to some degree, by the City. Time stops in our worlds while we're here, even our own lives. So that must mean that while I'm turning twenty-one here, I'm yet still seventeen at the same time.

Either way, if I were in my world, today I've reached my majority. Not that I haven't already been living independently for years now, of course, and managing my own household. And I've long since inherited both my title and my fortune--if I'm twenty-one, that means I've had both for ten years, for an entire decade, now.

Which, when I do think on it, is a strange thought unto itself. I think in many regards, I never expected that I should--that I should live so long as this. I never thought that my father would defeat and destroy me, and destroy the whole of my world. But, somehow, I think I believed that he and I were bound to destroy one another, that neither of us should live, but that he would, at least, be defeated. I have never doubted that he would fall and all his shadowy empire would fall with him. I know he cannot continue with his wicked games and plans. But I wonder, knowing things as I do now, seeing now how far and wide his poison has spread, if it means that the price of his defeat will be my end as well. I am his son, after all.

But if it means his defeat, if it means that Merry and my uncle Neil and the whole of London and the whole of the world could be safe from him, then I think it's a price I'd pay. It would be the end of the house and name and title and line, but it would be a worthwhile end for an infamous name.

I'm glad Merry isn't here to see me say all this now. Riff knows it all well enough--and has for years. I'll throw it to the winds of the Network because I don't care so much what the Network thinks of all this. Have it, and with my blessings. How unusual is it to think on death at one's birthday?

I'll put the blame for all this on those birds from yesterday.

Perhaps I should have made plans for a celebration, but that seems excessive so close to Christmas. I'll celebrate on my own tonight, I think. I can't recall the last time I visited Pandora's. That seems a good place for a celebration like this, to find oneself turning such a significant age, and to find oneself already carrying the honours of the age for ten years before.

Perhaps it doesn't matter at all, really. After all, the City is a separate thing from home. After all, it also means that I've been here for another year. It was about this time that the City took me back in, after that holiday in my own world.

I should have really learnt from my past years here, as long as I've been here.

Although, I suppose I've learnt enough to only ask about the birds yesterday. And yet, I've also learnt that I really need not ask about those birds at all. I had my own little flock of them all day yesterday and I know well what they said to me. It's the same as any curse of its kind that the City puts on us. I've learnt that much, at least.

And that's just as well.

~C.

[ooc: Happy birthday, Cain♥ May you have many more (alas, alack). For those who are wondering, Cain actually doesn't have a canon birthday, and Kaori Yuki even said she hated choosing things like height and birthdays for her characters. So I chose December 18th because, lmao, it's actually Kaori Yuki's birthday. And Cain does seem like he'd be a winter baby. Happy birthday, Cain...]

Comments

[beyourarmy]

Every time you talk about how long you've been here, in anyway, I'm still really surprised. Saying you'd be twenty-one, or twenty-two just reminds me of that all over again. It's a little scary. I guess a happy birthday is order!

...have a few issues with your dad, huh?

[misterblackbird]

It's a bit terrifying to me too, do remember that. After all, I'm the one who's been here.

Still, thank you.

And, yes, you might say that.

[beyourarmy]

True. It's just a reminder I might end up here for a while. You still seem sane, at least.

Things with my father are just...nothing. No issues, but we're not close or anything. [Until you get into the whole God thing.] Kinda hope you don't just get taken out when you go back, though. That'd kinda suck.

[misterblackbird]

I do try my best to keep my sanity. It's not an easy thing sometimes, I must admit.

I won't let that happen. I've yet a great many things to accomplish. I just wonder sometimes how this will all end.

[beyourarmy]

I wouldn't think so. I barely keep it, myself.

Good. Going in with a self-defeated attitude wouldn't get you anywhere. This is better to hear.

No ex-husband of mine is gonna get taken out easily!

[misterblackbird]

Honestly, are you still on about that?

[beyourarmy]

Aw, come on. It was hilarious. Worst match the City could have ever come up with.

NOT HERE

[allinhishands]

[And a nice bottle of wine is sent to his son. It hardly matters that he can't see this, he knows the day his child was born. Is it poisoned with something scentless and tasteless? Well who knows?

Daddy will never say.

Do enjoy the little note in his handwriting saying "Happy Birthday"~]

NOT HERE EITHER

[misterblackbird]

[Cain knows that handwriting. He knows it all too well.

So please excuse him if he goes out into some corner of the back garden behind the opera house and shatters the bottle into the snow. Let it stay there, let it stain the snow. He won't consume it. He knows he risked enough by carrying it through the opera house.

So it stains the snow like blood. And that seems fitting.]

DITTO

[he_who_kills]

[HWK puts two and two together. He slips out later and thoroughly covers over the wine splatter in salt.]

okay my massive paper is literally due tomorrow but at last I am at a break point

[primrosella]

[And as previously schemed, a rather large model of Trafalgar Square will be arriving at the Opera House for this merry occasion, along with a box containing a miniature Real Working Victorian Carriage™ (tiny horse not included) and three little hand-sewn dolls, one of whom is wearing a dapper black suit, one who looks conspicuously like Merryweather, and one in a rather familiar red cloak and tiny blonde braids.]

<3<3<3 Good luck! Paper first, then RP! o/

[misterblackbird]

[It's strange to be twenty-one and still receiving toys as birthday gifts. And yet...it delights him, in a sort of blissfully melancholy way. He will keep it with the others (though it will need a table of its own, it would seem). It's almost magical, this tiny world. Everything is as he remembers it, which is a comfort, somehow, both that he should remember his own home so well and that it should all be here as a reminder.

He knows who sent this gift. And he isn't sure how he can ever thank her (besides a proper thank-you note, obviously). After this past year (especially after this past October), somehow, something like this is all the more precious to him.

Cain will have to go looking for a tiny toy horse now, won't he? Yes, he absolutely will. That way, the three of them (the dolls, of course, but...) can take a turn around the square together--as soon as possible.

So he's twenty-one and playing with toys, but there's a great deal more to it than that. And for someone who, at twenty-one, has been carrying his title for ten years, perhaps there isn't anything wrong with indulging now in something that wasn't possible years ago...]

[ooc: Also that whole scheming thread? Tears. Real tears ;~;]

I'm at a creative impasse and need to think about something besides law before I try editing. o/

[primrosella]

[A little later in the day, a TOTALLY PRIVATE NO DADS (or anybody else) ALLOWED Network message will assuredly arrive as a follow-up.]

Happy birthday, Cain.


[OOC: It's sad that I have to ask whether they were tears of laughter or of feelings. >> ]

Fair enough, fair enough. Good luck!! <3

[misterblackbird]

Thank you, Rosella. It's perfectly wonderful.

[ooc: Tears of laughter at the subject line soap opera, tears of feelings at the wedding ;;]

<3 !!!

[primrosella]

Is it? I'm glad. We're the same age again, you know--for a few months now, at least.


[OOC: ACCURATE REACTIONS ON ALL ACCOUNTS.]

<3<3<3

[misterblackbird]

Yes, of course it is. I won't ask where you found it or how you got it--I'll let that stay a mystery. But it's perfectly wonderful.

I suppose we are, aren't we--until spring, at least. You really should stop aging for a little while so I can catch up.

[primrosella]

Oh, I wouldn't have told you anyway. But rest assured, it's the fruit of quite an adventure.

Do you think so? Perhaps I'll turn twenty-one again when March comes around, then. Then we could stay that way the whole year.

[he_who_kills]

[Small skull bottle left on your dresser. The tiny note attached says it's filled with black widow venom (carefully milked from the OP basement's spiders).]

[misterblackbird]

[You are the best, He-Who-Kills. This is definitely getting pride of place in the poison collection.]

[had_not_lived]

Oh! Happy birthday!

[misterblackbird]

Thank you, Neil.

I hope you don't think I was fishing for birthday wishes today. I hadn't meant to say much, but I suppose I was thinking about all these things all the same.

[had_not_lived]

Why wouldn't I want to wish you a happy birthday? [Besides, he knew already.]

[misterblackbird]

I didn't mean it like that, exactly.

[had_not_lived]

I know, I know. But I think-- it's always best to focus on the good things, here, when you can. Even if you're not celebrating much.

[Stop talking about death Cain, it's your birthday. :|]

[misterblackbird]

That's how it always is, really, as we try to live in between the curses.

[But he always talks about death. He can't stop now.]