poly_chromatic | 34 - Cluck Cluck Cluck

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Diva's Palace

Entry tags:

blood plus - karl fei-ong

34 - Cluck Cluck Cluck

[ The feed snaps on to a very irritable Karl, sprawled out on a chaise by the pool, a book lying half-open in his lap. There's something of the cooked and crispy variety piled on the table near him. Several somethings. Apparently, Karl thought it simpler to roast the flock of talking chickens than to let them cluck away. ]

[ Glancing at the Device, he scowls, ]

For a limited time only. If you're in the mood for an extra-roasted meal, stop by here and pick it up. No strings. [ He even promises not to attack you. If you leave fast enough. ] Hopefully these feathered rats taste better than the advice they dole out.

[ On cue, a colorful rooster flutters to perch on the chaise. Tilting its head at Karl, it opines, ] Remember, mon ami, you can't court a woman like you’d go at a piece of steak. For many of the fairer sex, less is more. Teasing is pleasing. Light is rig--

[ Cut off by Karl thwacking the bird with his book, matter-of-fact and vicious. Expect the pile of chickens to grow significantly larger. ]

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[Eyes averting in favor of peering down at her protectee. All efforts not to huff in sheer frustration that he's right. How could she know what she wants is she doesn't even know who she really is?]

[But there is one thing she knows. The ache that grows more potent by the day, half-focused dreams of something that should be with her. Cravings that make her curl into the lingering skin-warmth on her bedsheets after Setsuna leaves]

[and are ever so slightly eased in Karl's presence.]

If I knew what I wanted... would you give it to me?

Edited 2012-12-20 04:42 (UTC)

[ Karl frowns, but isn't at anything. Like her, he too slips his gaze to the chicken -- Not one more word out of you. At her question, he appears to be trying different words, like keys, to check which one fits this particular mechanism. ]

If your wish wasn't a threat to Diva, then of course.

[ Plain and earnest. He despises Saya, but filigreed with that hatred is worship, passion, purpose, keen and overwhelming. She's sister to his Queen. His Bride. Family. It all serves to infuse him with a potent cocktail of priorities -- dissimilar but unignorable. ]

[Surprised at his answer, and at the twinge at the base of her spine upon hearing it. A long breath as she fights herself on what she wants to say, knows will go badly.]

Then why don't you want Setsuna here? [He's not what she needs, even he probably knows that. But a breath and a shadow can fill her void better than nothing.]

[She looks up at Karl with the hard, demanding eyes of a Queen.] Tell me the truth, and maybe I'll reconsider. [Or maybe she'll keep it up in a fit of defiance. But it's the only chance he's getting.]

[ Why doesn't he want Setsuna here? Because I don't like how he looks at you. Because he's butting into family affairs, making sides when there should be none, filling your head with ideas and concepts you don't need. ]

[ Because I've been passed over and rejected too many times already. I won't stand for it happening here. ]

[ He can't say any of that. But he meets her look levelly; she may be the firestorm to Diva's blizzard, but the sensations she evokes in him aren't fear and servitude. They're the opposite. Something dark and sharp and hungry, a silent jockeying for power. ]

Because he has no business being here. He has no history with you. No bond. [ His lip curls, but it's too tight and vicious to be a smile, ] I do.

[He's made himself a liar, as expected. Not a flicker of caring for her wants, only what he thinks she should want. He wants to remake her into something that serves his needs, a willful horse to be broken.]

[She should hate him for that. She's trying.]

Wanting me dead is no bond. I'm worth no more to you than these poor birds you've slain. [And that shouldn't upset her.]

[ His whole being prickles to those words, a hayfever of the psyche. His gaze darkens, but it's not in anger. He's just looking at her: clear-eyed, deceptively calm, ]

Hate can be a powerful bond, Saya. Sometimes it's the only thing left that keeps one alive. [ A smile then, thin and white as a sickle. ] What is revenge if not the ultimate obsession, after all? Without the person you want dead, you are nothing.

[ The same urge that's kept him going for decades. She's no stranger to it. Not really. What was her quest to kill Diva about, if not vengeance? ]

[~~That whole 'turning the entire human race into Chiropterans' thing~~ Saya wants to argue, but the inexperience of her limited memories leaves her without the words for it. Her argumentative instinct won't permit any appearance of agreement even so, and she turns back toward the bird in her arms, who has taken silent at the least convenient time.]

[But at the least, his chilling declaration helps one of her wishes shake free of the confused fog.] I want to know what I did to you. If you hate me, I should at least know what I did.

[She blinks back her tears, all but one.] But you can't give me that, can you?

[ That? ffft. The human race would've been better off. The salt aroma of tears is in the air before he even notices her crying. Part of him bridles in contempt -- it's just one sign among the many, of how far she is from perfection. Just a whimpering, sniveling, ordinary girl. ]

[ But another part, unchecked, unfrozen, reaches out, thumbing the tear off to leave a wet streak in its wake. His eyes are cast down; his answer is terse and tight, ] You have to remember on your own. [ He has a convoluted sense of fairness. Her memories are hers, while his are his. The two cannot juxtapose into anything resembling coherence. ]

[Of course. Deciding whether he means it literally or just enjoys seeing her squirm isn't as important to her as it might be. Reasons to dislike Karl abound and yet she resists. Not even a flinch at his touch.]

You said there was blood. A kind of blood that would make me remember. [She remembers the word, but if she says it she thinks it might choke her.]

[ Karl inclines his head, but still doesn't meet her eye. He focuses on his fingers, still damp with her tears. They seem to tighten across his skin, drying there. ]

The blood of a Chevalier. [ His gaze flickers to her, dark and sharp, then drops again. ] Your Chevalier. The same as I am Diva's.

[ But Haji isn't here -- thank heaven for small mercies. Otherwise he'd do his utmost to snatch Saya away. ]

[Hers. The faintest smile as what she's been longing for is confirmed, a dream suddenly made real -- but no closer to her. And won't become so by giving in to the rising tantrum half of her wants to throw.]

[But there must be something...] What was that I heard the other day about trades? [The golden eggs, which she'd dismissed as frivolous and now craves with a desperation that only just lets her remain still.]

[ The whole time Saya absorbs his answer, Karl stares off across the garden, affording her a view only of his dangling hair and edge of his profile. But now he glances around quickly, pinning her with the full anger in his flashing eyes. ]

[ Isn't it odd, yet not odd at all, that he can parse the shape and color of her thoughts? ]

...With those eggs? [ Coolly, ] You can't trade for people.

[ And he'll do everything possible to stymie her efforts if she considers an actual Deity trade. ]

[Trading for a person sounds horrible -- and yet she would do it in half an instant for someone whose name she doesn't recall. Yet.]

What about just the blood? [A gruesome exchange and a poor substitute, not to mention the stomach-turning image of drinking someone's cold blood from a glass, but a chance and perhaps the only one.]

Just the blood? [ The anger melts away. There's a devilish point to Karl's smile now. He takes her shoulder, drawing her to him, as if they're both sharing a naughty secret together. ] It could be arranged. But the question is, would you sacrifice all the happy little memories you've accrued here, at its expense?

[ Memories of Charlie. Of Setsuna. Because once she learns who -- what -- she is, Karl suffers no illusions that she'll do her best to push them away. And how delicious that would be to witness. How fitting, seeing how often they've interfered. ]

[Saya drops the chicken, sending it to the ground in a flurry of feathers and noise she barely hears. Much as she wants to recoil from the idea of sacrificing yet more of her memories, neither that consequence nor his touch give her much pause. She's deceiving them all as it is, if that brief and bitter flash of a bloody jungle clearing was is the truth. Maybe it would be better for them if she weren't trying to hold on to a life that was never hers to keep.]

If... that's the only way.

[ There's an impulse to whoop for joy, to twirl Saya around and drown her in biting bloody kisses. Karl reigns the wild surge in, lifting his hand to cup the side of her face. So much pain and resignation in her gaze. But she's always loveliest when she's hurting, mottled in pretty bruises and radiating fury and grief. ]

[ Just like in Vietnam. ]

Then let me fetch you a golden egg. Or show you how to contact a Deity, if that doesn't work.

[A slow nod ends in her turning her cheek into his touch, her hand pressing flat on the back of his. Whatever he's taken from her and intends to take with this promise fulfilled, whatever regrets she'll have later, right now she is only grateful.] Thank you, Karl.

[ Something like surprise crosses Karl's face at the Thanks. She's a Queen -- when do they thank anyone? They simply take, as is their right. It's all he's learnt in his years of serving Diva. But something in him still sparks at her touch, bright and gold, like fireflies in the gloom. ]

[ He's not sure what the feeling is. ]

Let's go back inside. [ Quiet and almost, almost kind. She still hasn't had breakfast. And he wants to be there when she finally resolves to make the trade. ]

[ An apocalypse couldn't keep him away. ]

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34 - Cluck Cluck Cluck

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