[F22-PP] Understanding Brings More Confusion...

[Freya 0]

Freya was forced to her hands and knees and her vision was a slight blur. Any energy she had from lack of sleep and a total drain of stamina, it takes a toll on her. Struggling to catch her breath, she fights through. She was determined more than ever right now not to fade, she was stronger than that. Her mind reverts to something that the boy said before, "You are that boy that I saw at the end of my Gemini quest," she says still on her knees, staring at the ground, her eyes were close tight as she was trying to regain full vision again... When he entered her as Freya's Gemini, she remembers feeling so sad. So much agony and pain consumed her, it was almost overwhelming. It made sense why she passed out at the end and reacted the way she did when she woke up. Getting up slowly, her legs were shaky, she grabs the wall behind her. Putting her back against the wall now trying to keep herself up, Freya's eyes shift to the blond in the mirror, the cloths that were chosen somehow seemed fit. Her chest felt heavy and her breath was still harsh coming out, but Freya gazes at the man commenting to Simmone saying "The after life took something from him, he... " A deep breath to catch it, nothing but pain, so much pain... "Have you ever felt at peace...?" She realized that everything she shared with Tuatha was far more than imaginable. Strength was one of them and it felt amazing, what came after usually, she had always kept to herself. "Do you regret saving that girl?" A question that would be hard for anyone to answer. Freya's gaze never leaves Tuatha's, as she tries to recover herself... 

[Freyd 0]

He’d seen enough.  Simmoné, or Gisellé’s, emotional and physical collapse told him all that he needed.  The anguish was clear upon her face, even as her voice echoed the betrayal of her brother’s memory.  Even as Freya slumped to the floor, Freyd had made up his mind.  With two simple strides he was at her side and risked laying bare his deepest and darkest secret, exposing that tiny withered thing that passed for his heart - the source of all that was still a decent human being inside his frigid shell.

There was a weapon bound around it that should never be allowed to surface.  He’d contended with it since long before falling into this death trap, and nearly been consumed by its endless rage and destructive appetites.  It was a monster, of sorts, adept at hiding in plain sight and fueled by an insatiable, dark fury that could only be countered and contained by the coldest application of reason.  He’d forged armor around that heart, tempered at the expense of feeling and warmth.  The process was akin to a soul cannibalizing itself for its own survival, leaving it broken and diminished, sacrificing everything that it was for the sake of its own continuance.

Here, before them in the mirror, was a thing that existed, but shouldn’t.  Here it was tormenting others from beyond the grave, with powers and reach that it should not possess.  And here it was, exposed for the world to see, in a simple polished bit of metal and glass. No one should glance upon their own soul unprepared, let alone that of another.

"What a rare and terrible opportunity,” Freyd spoke with quiet reverence, the words barely above a whisper under his breath, even as his hollow footfalls echoed through Simmoné’s carefully manicured salon.  The reflection showed his shadowed form emerging from the darkened edges of the room, coming into focus only as it reached Freya’s side.  Montjoy’s silhouetted figure coalesced and then bled away to reveal truth.  Such was the way of heralds, and Freyd’s selection of his casting’s name had not been by chance.  Before them stood a young man, of equal height and rough build as the source of its image.  Tussled black hair and cool, grey-blue eyes gazed back at them beneath thick, arched brows that pierced with their intensity. The wire-framed lenses perched on his nose framed a face with long, angular features that gave him a somewhat predatory appearance. It had been years since Freyd had seen his own, true face.

Spoiler

“Takeshi.”  Both spoke the name in the same voice, echoing one another with reverberation that belied the size of the salon.

In tandem, they reached down to aid Freya back to her feet, grasping her elbow to gently lend her the strength that had been taken by the Tuatha-thing, or whoever it was meant to be, and in the manner that one friend supports another.  It was eerily compelling to believe that the reflection was the one to guide the action, and not wrong. Pained disturbance preoccupied Freyd’s face.  Lips pursed and lids narrowed over red irises as the brow above them furrowed.  This was a difficult moment.  Only the flash of green strands, drawn from memory and coupled with the warm gentle touch of a caring hand, kept him from losing what remained of his mind.

“Say the words, Montjoy, and serve your purpose.”  Freyd spoke slowly, with calm and deliberate intent.  To him, this was like watching his own destiny unfold, but in a manner that he had never considered to be possible.  Who wants to realize that they are but the fragmented dross of a life that might have been?  His request was met by a sympathetic smile and shallow nod that understood the need at hand.  Shakespeare had gotten it right, even as Freyd's eidolon repeated the ancient words.

I come to thee for charitable licence,
That we may wander o'er this bloody field
To look o'er our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men.
For many of our princes—woe the while!—
Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety and dispose
Of their dead bodies!

Henry the Fifth had long been Takeshi’s favorite play.  There was a deep and powerful sense of humility and courage about the tale, not to mention its warnings about the perils of unbound pride. Freyd closed his eyes, acknowledging that harsh but unavoidable truth laid bare before him, before reopening them to confront that which had long plagued him about himself.  The thing in the image was the human that should and could never be, and he was but its empty shade.  The fact that it stung at all gave him some infinitesimal measure of hope and brought the tiniest, saddened smirk to the edges of his lips.

'So,' he thought to himself, staring at the person he'd denied himself the chance to be, 'I am the monster, after all.'

“Be he prince or pauper, show this one the exit from his Agincourt, Montjoy."  Vigor returned, along with resolve and the inevitability of a fate already accepted.  "Let him find rest for his grief.  He's double-parked at death's door, and has tormented my friends and himself, alike, for long enough.”

The cunning beast, within, recognized the play at once: Montjoy was on Tuatha's side of the mirror.

Vanity Tag: @Elora
 

[Simmone 0]

A shift of the tone in the room, as a second manifestation of darkened desire found its way within the platinum mirror to keep the first company. A recitement of words from that other, coined Montjoy by a man who was becoming even more of an enigma to a woman who hardly knew him. Her eyes shift to him, an incitement of something that feigned importance but was lost on her. It sounded like poetry, or an opera. She'd glance through him, and see multiple people stand within that mirror in a grouping, some existent and some not. Kurayama, Freya barely standing, Freyd or Takeshi? and the thing that he held within him? It was like peering into something forbidden, and with eyes engulfed in power that made every sight true. The Black Lotus seen him.

Reading back what she could muster time and time again, as if what it was she saw couldn't be true. Tuatha Dé Danann Corbin Allard Emond Saladin Escheté clear as it could have been with a listing like a player targeted. There was no abbreviation, no mistaking it. Struggling, she found solace in Freyd taking control of the amphitheater and maintaining it. In his words, safety.

"WHAT HORRIFIC BABBLE ARE YOU SPOUTING!?" To beckon in outrage, a scream that twists out from within that mirror. Eyes flared in a sickly yellow in his echo, gleaming like a toxin as black mist begins to ooze out of Freya's back. Anger, or was it fear? Something so easy to mix up. A word from Freya makes him pause, his vision overlooking his new 'partner' in the surface of glass. Kurayama twists his head with a snap, his eyes dialed and almost unblinking. The intensity of that gaze locked on the blonde, before it finds its way to Freyd.

A smirk begins to form on his own mug.

"Never, I've never regretted what I've done." it seemed off, oddly compassionate given the status of where it was stemming. The blackened film would begin to fade, and with outstretched hands it finds its way against the cage. "Peace? Am I a monster? What could I be? Oh what trouble I've... WROUGHT... to the broken little girl." A sharp cackle that still cut like a razor. "You know nothing of torment, of pain or sorrow." Eyes quickly dart to Simmone who he locks eyes with.

The smirk fades.

"There's no rest for the wicked, right? Scorch my soul in hell for what I've passed upon you and yours." A slink of his eyes to Freya would see a spark of memory behind that exchanged glance. In that instant, the girl would remember killing her way out, but her movements were not her own. Many dwindling life bars, all the while her own continued to climb. In that instant, she'd realize that the reason she survived at all was because something didn't allow her to die, as it controlled her very being.

[Freya 0]

Breath still heavy, a touch upon her elbow, vision has yet to come back fully. Listening to each word said carefully, and almost in the same instant, Freya's mind goes blank. She remembers this notion well as it was similar to when she would grasp another memory she had forgotten. Her gaze moves to the mirror as she was taken back to that cave... 

"NO PLEASE, DON'T," as a head falls to the wet floor, a splatter of liquid against her face, as the scythe being wielded slices clear through another. Terrified screams echo the surrounding as some try to run, but are cut in half by a grapple clean through... A shift and she feels herself leaning against the wall in this cave... In this instant she felt as though she was on auto pilot. Like it was her, but her mind was lost, to what was actually being done.

Another shift to the end, who knows how long it had been, waking to move out of the cave as dozens and dozens of bodies litter the ground around her before they bled out and burst into nothing... She remembers feeling safe and secure enough to come to when she did... There where she met Raidou, who was seemingly wondering the cave at the same time... Someone that she didn't think she knew at the time...

Coming to, out of the memory state still looking within the Mirror. Her vision was clear now. Everything she felt within that cave came back to her, overwhelming fear, now that she thought about it, it was likely the reason her body shut down, from pure shock and was unable to move without the help of Tuatha. "It was you..." she manage to choke out. With that small memory, it made her realize that the ONLY reason she was alive right now was because of him...

Placing a hand on Freyd's shoulder now, but keeping her gaze of Tuatha, knowing that they shared the same mind. "Give me more... I want to see it all..." Freya knew that she has become so much more than she was before, it was he who never once let her fall, it was him that protected her... Coming this far... She knew that she could handle it now... With determination in eyes, she held Tuatha's gaze, as the black mist continues to poor from her frame... They were one in the same... She was beginning to understand this in full now...

[Freyd 0]

Watching himself standing by Tuatha felt like some sort of out of body experience, yet also eerily like watching yourself and thinking of himself as a completely different person.  Was it Montjoy?  Was it himself under a better light?  Was it who he thought he could have been, had circumstances worked out differently?  Freyd was taking a chance, rolling the dice on that this situation required precisely the sort of expertise which he so sorely lacked.

Were their places reversed, Freyd would likely have broken the boy's neck by now.  That was precisely the reaction that the little twit seemed to be begging for, and therefore not the course that should be followed.  Freya clearly wanted to follow a different path.  Though he couldn't quite fathom why, Freyd knew that she found strength in the figure before them.  A dependency had formed.  Whereas he saw it as a parasite, she embraced it as a symbiote.  He didn't get it, but he trusted his friend.  Even an eight year-old could read the room, and know what felt right.  And that was what he was, in this scenario.

Meanwhile, through the looking glass, Takeshi-Montjoy did the least Freyd thing that anyone could imagine.  Reaching up with his left hand, he placed it gently on Tuatha's shoulder and gave it a warm and gentle squeeze.

"You've done right by her," he said, nodding towards Freya.  "I'm very sorry if things worked out poorly for you, and you died, but she believes in you.  She has trust in you.  She sees the nobility in your actions that is often so hard for anyone to see in themselves."  The slightest turn of his gaze directed the comment to Freyd, who frowned from beyond their boundless space.  It was not a measure that every governed his sense of self, even if he did occasionally rise to such altruist ideals.

"Your anger has no target left to receive it.  It vanished after you died.  Lend that strength to Freya, instead, and give her the life that was denied to you.  Be the hero that your sister would long to see, Tuatha.  Let that be your legacy."  Sympathy and joy donned Takeshi's face as he spoke the words with heartfelt sincerity.  Freyd watched on, feeling a hollow growing inside him, or realizing for the first time how much he had carved out of himself under the guise of relentless resolve.

Was it worth it?

His lips twitched, but denied himself a response.

[Simmone 0]

"Well now, do you think you can stomach it?" Kurayama contested the tone, the adamancy that Freya was eluding. Another flash of insight, of times torn away, punch back into her skull in a rapid tear. To the others, all they would see is an intense stare exchanged between the two. "At least it's finally obvious." Tuatha speaks in a tired tone, a bit egotistical but sincere slightly. "This world has enough heroes." He scoffed as he twists his head to look at Freyd and the woman still troubled behind him. "I'll stay as I am, thanks. But perhaps my work is finally done." A sharp chuckle, one that was sickening to the eardrums. "I don't care which one of you do it, one of you assholes better take care of her when I'm gone." A single rolling tear that slides down a still sickly grin, he reaches for it and taps an index into it. "This will be handled the same as my own reflection, and I will lift not a finger. Take heed, courier, lest thyne shadows consume. Let thyne wings carry you." It looks at Takeshi in the mirror, before turning and ceasing to exist. But a single white shard of light, and he was gone.

[Freya 0]

Freya's knees collapse beneath her as her back hits the wall, her ass slides down to the floor. Her vision goes blank for just a moment before it flashes back, but she was not in Simmone's shop. Somewhere else, somewhere that seemed familiar. It was like she was in a dream, slightly slowed by mere seconds. A voice heard from behind her... "Rin where are you taking me," the dream fiber Freya says. "Now if I told you it wouldn't be a surprise now would it. We are almost there don't worry." Rin... this version of herself was pure memory content. She watches while Rin stands behind memory Freya with his hands across her eyes, guiding them somewhere... but where... Freyja glances around to see where she was. Trees littered the entire area. A cabin with a hole that was steaming. A hot springs maybe... Rin takes his hands away and Freya's eyes light up as she turns and hugs him with a kiss. "I wanted our first day back to be special," Freyja recaps that this was the day they got back from their honey moon.

They begin to walk into the cabin, hands linked, when she felt Rin's hand get forced away from her grip. Quickly turning as he was being dragged away. Rin was trying to release himself but no luck and gets punched. "RIN" Freya yells out as she starts to run after him. Freya is grabbed seconds later by her arm and pulled into a choke hold. She tried so hard get free but whom ever was holding her, their grip just got tighter. Her eyes turn to Rin as she watched him get the shit kicked out of him. Freya tries to turn her head to look away but a hand grabs her chin a forces it back... Making her see the brutal beating that was happening. Tears swell up in her eyes...

Freyja is absorbing all of this in. What the people look like, what they wore, everything... Glancing at the boy that was no longer her husband, she feels bad... watching his health bar drain into the red as the dream Freya cries. Freyja just sits back and watches... Freya yanks her chin from the hand and bites down as hard as she possibly could on this dude arm that was holding her. The guys screams out in pain, pulling away from her, Freya tries to run but the dud grabs her hair and yanks her body backwards causing her to fall on her ass. Freya crawls to her knees watching as Rin gets punched so hard that he gets knocked out completely. They start to drag him away before Freya yells "WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HIM," as she gets to her feet and starts running to him. Next this she knows there are two other people holding grabbing her arms, holding her back. "YOU WILL NEVER GET AWAY WITH THIS." "See but we already have, you and your friend will not see the light of day again. For we are the laughing coffin, Take them away," Freyja watches Freya get clubbed in the back of the head. Freyja could see her chest start to get heavy from the scene as both Rin and Freya are drug off. Freyja follows behind. 

Into a hidden cave entrance, somewhere recognized from the outside with Raidou. Following the bodies inside, Freya is thrown into a cage as the door slams shut and is locked, and Rin was carried off around the corner. Freyja stands there watching, waiting as Freya didn't seem to wake... Freyja watched her clock on her HUD skip forward, the date was skipping days, weeks, and then suddenly the time stops. Freya whines a bit as she began to wake. A blond appears in from of the cage, a orange cursor above his head. Unlocking the cage and opening the door, "No please leave don't," Freya says as she is grabbed by the arm and pulls up, "Let me go, please..." then nothing... Freya just stands there for a moment with the guy holding her arm, her head was down as her hair covered her face. A sinister chuckle escapes her mouth, as a scythe appears in her other hand. Her head goes up staring directly into the dudes eyes as no words were given just a slice on the weapon that bleeds red data, as the guy drops to the ground in pieces. Freya then starts to walk out of the cage into the cave...

Freyja looks to the body and the horror on their face before it vanishes into data. Quickly following Freya now through the dark cave. -Tuatha- Freyja thinks as she hears foot steps in the distance. "THE CAGE IS OPEN FIND HER," as orange players skitter past her toward Freya. Freya quickly turns and in one swift motion, cuts them all down without a thought... Turning back around she continues to walk forward. Freyja continues to follow behind as every group that tried to approach where sliced into pieces before they could even react. Eventually after a good 5 packs of 4, dead with no remorse. Whenever she did get touched her health drained only a bit before returning to full, from what looked like the scythe. One that she had never seen before now. Curious of where it came from, was it Tuatha's... Freya leans against the wall of an empty room, only one way in and one way out. The time goes to fast forward mode again, the days were skipping into weeks, but time and time again, the moment a group of these horrid orange players came into the room, Freya would lift her head up slowly, kicking herself off the wall and charge at them, killing them in the most gruesomest way imaginable. It looks like while Freyja was watching this happen over and over she saw total fear in Freya's eyes for only a split moment before a shift and Freya was on auto pilot. Every time after striking them down, she would lean back against the wall, rinse and repeat. Weeks turned into months and those months turn into a year and a half.

Time stops speeding again and Freya is laying on a slab of rock. Hands folded against her stomach, Freya's eyes blink open... Freyja looks around for the scythe but it was no where to be seen. Freya gives a yawn and sits up. Taking a glance around seeing the dozens and dozens of bodies laying in the room. Freyja knew now that all those dead players were because of Freya... was because of her. Seeing Freya get up from the slab now she walks over the bodies looking confused of how they got there as one by one they started to burst into nothing. Remembers this part, it was where Raidou had found her, brought her home. Freyja watches Freya walk around the corner now. Freyja leans against the wall now and starts thinking. -It had to be in the upper hundred of which she killed, but they couldn't even touch me. Tuatha really was keeping me safe, doing what I couldn't to survive. It was me though who was killing them, I was just too scared to admit it. This must have also been where he suppressed those memories too... Sneaky...-

Right them Freyja come to, back in Simmone's place... The twins holding a wet cool towel to her head. Freyja sits herself up and looks to the mirror and it was only Takeshi's there now. Where Tuatha went was beyond her but she wasn't going to worry about it. He knew that Freyja could handle what she was missing, why else would he have gave it back... Looking to Freyd down with a smile and she starts to get to her feet, a bit still wobbly. "Takeshi huh," as she pads the twins on the head for thanks. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Freya

[Freyd 0]

Good fortune had it that Freyd still held Freya's arm as her eyes rolled summersaults in their sockets and she collapsed again.  Managing to catch her, albeit barely, he barked a sternly, sympathetic "MOVE" to Simmoné to clear a space upon the couch where he could lay his friend.  She nearly jumped to the far end, re-curling herself into an even tighter ball in the process.

"Water, and towels.  A bucket also..."  A demand made of her twin adjutants who scattered like mice before an approaching cat, his tone broking no tolerance for argument. 

"Please."  He added the word as an aftermath and requirement of a particular etiquette drilled into him by his upbringing.  Rudeness would not be tolerated, even under duress.  The images in the mirror, and words exchanged, were shunted aside for the moment.  He was needed.  There was a crisis to be solved.  In these moment, he excelled.  Here, he was at his best, and some semblance of the self he'd seen in the mirror shone through.  Even now, it watched him from beyond the glass, gauging his progress and wondering what path he would eventually choose.  Montjoy was Freyd, or that part of him that understood what it meant to be what Takeshi could have been.  No illness was at play.  For all the times Freyd had been knocked about the head, this wasn't the result of some semi-comical concussion.  Deep inside, part of him knew that he had suffered a schism and needed to recover what was lost, or else abandon it forever.  If he really didn't want it, he would have cast Montjoy aside or denied his voice any purchase.  Instead, they bantered: the voice inside his heart trying to convince the one that had locked itself inside his head.

All of this raced across some tiny corner of his rattled brain.  An imaginary 'admissions' signs floated overhead, the double-meaning mirroring Freyd's own duality.  The figure in the mirror smirked, rather smugly, knowing it would take time for this to work itself out, but also pleased to see his casting form caring for a friend in need.  It was a step in the right direction, at least from Takeshi's point of view.  Her voice soon repeated the same name.

"Takeshi, huh?"

Freya, by standing, redirected Freyd's attention, who'd taken time to place a wet compress on her brow and barf bucket under her cleared airway.  It was among the more useful things he'd learned in university.  That had allowed him a moment's reprieve to check on Simmoné, or Gisellé, or whoever the hell he was supposed to think of her as.  He'd barely managed more than a reassuring glance and to catch her gaze with his own intense one as a means of bringing her back to the here and now.

"Who?  Oh.  Him...err, me.  Yeah.  It's been a while.  Kinda out of practice at responding to it.  Are you okay?"  He spared a second to give their host a comforting pat on the ankle with his open palm, attempting to ease her out of her own dark memories with a moment's contact.  Apparently, that was a thing that mattered to 'people'.

"Are you both okay?"  Unable to settle his eyes on either of them, he chose one of the twins instead.

"I could really use that coffee now."

[Simmone 0]

Being ushered off to one side, as Freya is peeled onto her sofa. Her place to sit, and it was hers. She looks back with a disapproving glare, curled up in a rather interesting and mixed feeling sphere. The twins salute, having received orders from the general. They whisk off in a network of buzzing bees, peeling up objects requested out of nooks and crannies they had shoved them in. It was as if they were elves, sliding whole bodies into these spaces, akin to mice in a hole.

A tap on her ankle, one that was like static to the system. It startles Simmone, but for a moment as her gaze jumps to where she was touched. "I-I'm fine." The black cat chokes out, eyes still burning hot like fire in gold. She looks in a mirror as if curious if her deceased brother still lingered in its silver reflective surface. The sound she can hear seems muddied and distorted, her mind elsewhere and fixated on that one point. Waiting for something to jump out at her, continuing to haunt her rest. It's not everyday one sees a ghost.

Popping up from a pair of shoulders, a pair of twins lingered sporting chipper grins. They were immune to such horrors and were still devote in their wish to serve. Moments after inquiry, Freyd gets his coffee.

[Freya 0]

Freyja sighs, taking everything in of which was just revealed to her. Glancing around as she edges herself back against the wall. The feeling in her body was starting to come back to her, but she still felt exhausted given everything that had happened. Looking to Simmone, "I am sorry for any Sadness that I brought upon you. I did not expect something like this to happen. I hope someday you can forgive me." Freyja looked a bit distraught, she hated that feeling that someone like Simmone could be mad at her, simply because the way Simmone was and what she could possibly do with the right motion set to act upon. Gesturing toward the chair once more for Simmone to sit, she was sure that the lady needed it more than her at this point...

The girls come back with 3 cups of coffee after some time. She knew that it would taste like shit, but it was well needed right now. She didn't have the strength to make any herself or she would have. It was the thought that counted though... "Freyd, after I sleep, I will be going hunting. You care to tag along..." It was a very vague description of the word hunting, but she would explain when the time came. Those assholes wouldn't know what hit them... She would kill every last one of them.   

Edited September 1, 2021 by Freya

[Freyd 0]

Taking the proffered coffee with a nod of thanks, Freyd paused to take in the room once more.  The mirror beckoned at the edge of sight, but he refused to be baited by it.  Whatever all of this meant between Simmone and Freya was for them to sort out.  He lifted the cup to his lips, interrupted at the last second by a query.

 "Freyd, after I sleep, I will be going hunting. You care to tag along..."

Freyd.  Not Takeshi.  Good.  That's not me anymore. 

His eye twitched, but resisted still.  Montjoy's gaze was likewise burning a frigid hole into the back of his head.  Finishing the process he'd already started, Freyd downed the entire cup in a single draught, gritting his teeth to bear against the heat.

"Yeah."  The clink of cup to saucer followed.  No more time need be wasted.  A little action would clear the air. 

"Name the time and place.  You know I'll be there."

***

Thread Summary:

Wordcounter.net: 11,262 words / 30 = 375 * 5 = 1875 * Tier

Simmone receives:

9375 EXP (T5 * 1875)
1806(400 col [1 page] + 1406 [15% of EXP])

Freya receives:

9375 EXP (T5 * 1875)
1406 (1406 [15% of EXP])

Freyd receives:

18750 EXP (T10 * 1875)
2812 (2812 [15% of EXP])