(no subject)

[contractuallybinding]

For AU shenanigans

Comments

As a bit of background for scene setting

[contractuallybinding]

You awaken as all Blanks do. You are dressed in a simple deep purple uniform, merely a tunic and trousers. No identification, and though there are pockets, there is nothing in them. You are in a simple bed, in an otherwise sparsely furnished room. There's a small box for possessions and a chair, a small ledge one might make do for writing... and little else. The walls are stone and unremarkable, and a torch glows on the wall, smokelessly burning without consuming any of the wood.

No, there's only four notable things:

One, you don't know who or where you are. In fact, as far as you know, your existence began right at this moment.

Two, on the wall are written these words:
"Thou art a Blank slate, unburdened from thy past.

Thou shalt fight in the Judges' games, to reclaim thy past.

Thou shalt honor the rule of the Judges above all else here and know no other patrons.

Who was once thy friends and allies mattereth not to a Blank. Thy unit is thy family here. None other can thou trust.

Thou hast entered this place willingly."

Three, a small brass telescope is nearby. If you look into it, it will hold an image of a person who is who you used to be (though until you speak, you wont know the voice. Until you see yourself, you wont recognize the person). A brief message to you plays out, and ends with the words "I do this willingly."

And four, you can hear someone else waking up nearby.

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In the semicircle of rooms that surrounded the sparse common area, the one at the top, or directly opposite the door outside has one person within who has systematically gone through every last fragment of an inch of his room upon waking. It hadn't been an issue of trying to find out who he was, after all, his existence at this point, was singular. But each discovery put together a world that was his. So clearly, he should know it.

It wasn't even the intrusion of other sounds that pulled him out. Though he heard and acknowledged them, they would be dealt with on their own time. But a simple satisfaction that anything that he could do, was not only done, but done to every extent he could think of.

Which is why, when he leaves his room to find someone, anyone else, a rather staid looking man gives a rather simple, imperious demand. "Explain yourself."

And perhaps, you have to do so.

[curriculum_fictae]

This poor young man had just been wandering around himself, hardly more than a few minutes out of his own room. Dull roan curls, tall enough to have bonked his head on the somewhat low doorframe he'd come out through, and ungodly pale, to the point where his tips of his fingers don't seem entirely there. He's already wildly nervous about this entire experience, and then -

And then some man in the same shade of purple as him gives him a command, and every single cell in his body screams at him to fulfill it. "I - I don't know anything!" he says, voice pitching up with distress. "I just - I just woke up up here, and there's this thing--" he waves the telescope, "--and then I came out here. That's all the explanation I have."

[contractuallybinding]

Green eyes lock onto the washed out young man, sifting through his shrill distress to find... nothing in it he didn't know.

"Nearly the same... Intriguing." His gaze slides away for a moment. There's a great deal to consider, a pattern or a coincidence? He adjusts the cuffs of his uniform, thoughtfully.

The stare is just as intense when it snaps back. "That thing, let me see it." The dreadful, inexorable command worms through the fades man's senses, crackling in his ears.

[curriculum_fictae]

He - he really would rather not? He really, really wouldn't, and yet his hand moves anyway, offering it out to the other man in the room. "Wh - why? If it's the same, then why does it matter?"

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He takes it without a single, apparent realization of what he's doing. Clearly this is just a good, obedient lad. "I really don't know. But it would be a shame to miss a detail."

And as he had with his own, holds it up to look through.

[curriculum_fictae]

The image plays as soon as the man lifts it to his eye, and he sees a duplicate of the roan-haired fellow in front of him. Even paler somehow, in a severely desaturated grey sweater. He sits somewhere, radiating misery, hunched in on himself to minimise his large stature. He's trying to keep up a cheerful expression, but ... within a few moments it crumples into something much closer than despair.

"This is probably a terrible idea," he says, staring down at his fading hands. "But I can't see how it's any worse than the options I've got." He steels himself, clearly fighting back tears, before meeting whatever device is recording this with a surprising amount of steel in his eyes. "I - I do this willingly."

And then it's gone again, leaving just this terrified, colourless man fretting in front of him, watching him.

[contractuallybinding]

An expression so close to a paternal 'I told you so' oozes onto his face. "That was worth the time. Thank you for your cooperation. It's been quite useful."

Instead of any explanations, he offers the telescope back.

[curriculum_fictae]

God. He kind of hates this man already? That's probably not a good thing, given their matching colours, but. He accepts the telescope unhappily.

"W-was it?" he says. "What did you even see? Do you know who - who the man in the tube even is?"

[end_recording]

And then there's this one: ascetically thin, a tangle of grey-streaked hair half-hiding his scarred face. The sudden command from the man catches him off guard: he jerks his head, like a horse flinching from the bit feeling that yank on his thoughts. Not knowing anything about himself at all he knows he doesn't like that; he sets his jaw and draws himself up to his full height (not very high).

"Explain what?" He snarls in return, his voice sharp enough to draw blood - or truth, in this case.

1/2

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It's ruthlessly powerful, slicing through inhibitions and pushing along a truth-

(A confession of ignorance, of fishing, of trying to find roots to dig in and understand)

-that he swallows just before it bursts from his throat.

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In a way, everything he had experienced since his eyelids had opened had been new, unfamiliar, even as his mind supplied words for the names of things, processes and order for his thought.

But this... Why did this man's voice feel so different than the other?

"Do that again." His own tone laden with silk and steel.

[end_recording]

His eyes narrow,; his head tips lightly, as if shifting to better regard this man with one of his senses. Which one isn't clear. Irritation yields to interest, so Jon's tone is only imperious, dipped in acid.

"Why." And it feels like a lighter touch, this time - but it pulls as naturally as a needle pulls a thread.

Editted because IDEA

[contractuallybinding]

"Because your voice is..." How would he describe it? This freeing tug, this urge to pour out himself in a violation of any hope or want of privacy.

And to say... no. "Pleasant." Yes, that's the word.

The feral blank's sight remains as it always has, happily interpreting visible spectrum radiation in overlaps of colors. Painting pictures of data. But something in the way he turns his head gives a depth that it hadn't had before.

The smug man seems to ... blur about the edges, as if there was something a bit.. plural about him. A bit distant. But before he can make out anything, an Eye opens on his skin. The skin surrounding the man's adam apple widens like a smile and then splits, revealing a terrible green iris and pupil bulging out, turned to regard him.

Then the cheekbone, the knuckle, the forehead.. every patch of exposed skin seems to watch him back in that other, deeper sight.

[end_recording]

He makes a face as if this other man has said something moderately vulgar. He's about to go for another question, cutting himself off to better focus on... on....?

At that first unfurling of lids, Jon freezes in a flinch - and then, takes a step forward, not even seeming to know he's doing it. Eyes wide and lips slightly parted.

"What..."

What does this other, watching eye see? Hunger.

[contractuallybinding]

One at a time, the eyes slowly slide closed, like a contented cat, until only the image of perfectly normal human giving him a rather professionally paternal look of concern is left.

"Are you all right? Maybe you should have a sit."

[end_recording]

"Y-you, you - d-don't pretend you didn't notice that!"

[contractuallybinding]

The call had come while they were out exploring. Sometime, as they were walking through the caves, each one seeming the same as the last, shadows jumping in their single torch, a sound like trumpets had bounded through the air.

It settled into each of their minds, stirred them to simply stop, and as one, they each turned and walked directly back to an enormous double door. Other people - most much younger than the three men, and all wearing other colors - were also gathered, and as the double doors opened, they were let into an enormous arena.

It was then, and only then, that they realize they had been controlled and how little choice they'd had in coming there. They'd no more held control of their feet than they had of the air they breathed or the ground they walked on.

The arena had been massive, a beautiful, sunlit sky in it, and soft grass on the ground...and in the center was a throne that housed a statue at least ten men tall. The marble figure in it sat still, though when they blinked, the expression changed. The figure was a man in a twisted clown mask. It was fashioned into laugh, but his giggles held nothing but rage and madness.

The first round required them to come up with lymmerics. The dirtier and sillier the better. Many teams had laughed and chatted amidst the bawdy rhymes and deadpan revelry.

The next had asked them to dance, and dance many did, though there was no music or beat. No two danced the same, though many danced with each other, exchanging makeshift names, and sometimes a smile and a wink.



And finally, the last round, they were told that this was the only round that mattered. This was the important one, that would determine who would win.

Kill someone. Anyone. Anyone who killed, their team would win.





Between Bastard and Wisp, Fawn is covered in blood.

All three of them hold a single piece of paper as they stand at the door of their dorms, with little idea of how they had gotten there.



They were the one of three teams to win.

[curriculum_fictae]

Wisp is really not having a good time. Starting with the part where they'd been compelled into the arena (with a feeling uncomfortably like Bastard naming him), continuing with the first two rounds (which he'd been terrible at). The other teams had barely seemed to notice him? Well, they were all busy, so that was fine, but - it had seemed so odd, it was like their gaze passed over him on the way to Fawn and Bastard. Like he only existed for the moments he got their attention and then promptly disappeared afterwards. And then.

And then that last one. Wisp had frozen, hesitated - argued too, in trembling tones. He didn't want to do this. No one should do this, this wasn't right, what had gotten into anyone. (Fallen on deaf ears, or drowned out by others shouting.) And while he'd hesitated ...

Well. He clings to the piece of paper in his hand, fingers trembling. Trying to make himself look at Fawn's bloodstained everything.

"We - we need to get some sort of bath figured out," he says, as if washing the blood out will make everything better. "Is there a bucket or - or something? I thought I saw some sort of underground river..."

[end_recording]

Fawn had - unwillingly - been good at the limericks. Markedly less good at the dancing. And then.

He wasn't very good at murder; he keeps reviewing the chain of events in his mind, trying to figure out how so much blood had gotten on him. Someone moved suddenly; Jon reacted, wound too tight with the knowledge that Wisp's dithering was going to get them killed for nothing. There was no calculation behind wildly slashing for the neck - though he had unconsciously been touching the scar at the base of his own neck ever since.

Fawn has no sarcasm to offer for Wisp's fussing. He nods mutely; he would rather prefer not to be covered in blood. He stares down at then paper in his hand for several more moments before he actually tries to read it.

[curriculum_fictae]

Wisp leaves his own paper on the table for a moment, moving to find the aforementioned bucket. It's a rickety thing, but it looks like it ought to be good enough to fetch water. "I'm going to come right back, okay? Just - just don't go too far." And with that Wisp is back out the door as quick as he can, water fetching in progress.

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Bastard... is satisfied. Wholly and completely satisfied. So full of ... energy that he hardly knows what to do with. The first two rounds. Well, they'd be silly, hadn't they? He'd spent them wondering why they were even there.

Ah, but the third. There was a flavor to it. An exquisite richness in the air, something that filled him almost to breaking, like a symphony that evoked tears. It was magnificent.

So he's in ... a particularly good mood as they walk in, but it's not as those those two have any other expectations for him. He hadn't killed anyone, though. No, but Fawn, oh, Fawn was beyond what he could have hoped. That desperation, the blind willingness to... well. Get his hands dirty when Wisp simply... couldn't.

He lets Wisp slip past him without a protest or a jibe, instead the Bastard drifts towards the table, the paper left behind.



And in the mean time... Fawn... really doesn't hear or see Wisp go, does he? The paper draws him, calls to him, begs to be read from start to finish. The Statement of an Unknown Man extracted directly from subject, recorded ??????, committed to memory by the Blank named Fawn, Day 1 of Cycle ?????, North Block. Regarding...

[end_recording]

It's a statement about Jared Hopworth, beginning with Jared's introduction. The Bastard will get to hear Fawn's pleasant voice for the full length of the rest of the statement. His voice is lush in detail, even mimicking his own breathy whines with precision.

When it's over, Fawn sets the statement down like a man in a dream, leaving behind perfect, bloody impressions of his fingers. There's a pleasant ache in his throat, like... like he's just finished a cigarette. He touches his throat and then his hand drifts to his ribcage to press his fingers into the soft, yielding space where his rib isn't.

That's when he notices That Bastard is still here, and jumps half out of his own skin. "- You!"

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"Was it?" That Bastard takes a step back out of Fawn's space, not looking the slightest bit put out by Fawn's remarkable surprise. Why WOULDN'T he stay? Really now. "If it was, I think you did quite a horrible impression of me. And really, what would I do with your ribs?"

But no, there are more important bits to extract from this. He turns his own statement over in his hands, unread. "Does it still hurt, Fawn?"

[end_recording]

"Ha. Ha." Fawn enunciates each syllable sharply. "I'm sure you'd find a use for them."

"No. Not anymore." His arm stays curled around his rib cage as he gives That bastard a narrow-eyed stare. "You got one too."