sharpe shears

ORIGINALY POSTED by Caen in Consciousness, Winter 1195 EoW

Following Caen’s encounter with @enara in [MQ+] how the world works

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[ CW: gore, murder, self harm ]

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She was mad. She was Big Mad. It was so cute!!

She was so mad she nearly threw herself out of a window! Now, that’s what I call commitment. Really, you don’t see that type of commitment to anything these days, so I’m glad she wasn’t successful. Would be such a waste of a perfectly good girlie pop.

Feeling that vase smash against my back…

My eyes roll shut, and I shudder.

“Hold still,” comes the quiet voice from behind me. And just like that, my eyes snap open, locking with hers in the mirror in front of us. She’s a head shorter than I am, but I see her over my shoulder where I’m sitting. Her face pales slightly, avoiding my gaze now. “...sir,” she adds timidly.

Good girl.

I drop my eyes again to the floor. Just as clearly as I can feel the shards being pulled free of my flesh, I can feel it shatter against my back, against my shoulder. I hadn’t been wearing my jacket because of the ‘borrowed’ robes, so there were no layers to protect me. I don’t even care, though. I haven’t felt that alive in too long. Someone had the nerve, had the chutzpah, had the FUCKING BALLS to not only stand up to me, but assault me?

Oh my Loom, I could smooch her right on her thoughtless little forehead, the precious babydoll.

I stopped when the vase hit me. I shouldn’t have stopped, but I had to. I turned around and gave her my best smile, a sign of respect and a challenge. She’s a new challenger, and I can’t wait to see what comes from her games in the future.

“Any scars broken?”

“Sir?”

I roll my eyes. “Are. Any. Scars. Broken?”

She looks down where she works and bites her lip. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“It’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, Anna.”

Her dark eyes meet mine in the mirror again, confusion there. “My-my name’s Maren, sir.”

I frown suddenly, brows knitting. “Are you sure?” More confusion. Maybe she isn’t sure. “What happened to Anna?”

“She died,” comes a masculine voice by the door. “Twenty-three years ago next season.”

Looking over my shoulder, I see an older man leaning against the wall as he observes the girl stitching up my shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Huffing, I face the mirror again. Maren shakes her bouncy curls out of her face, shoving them back without smearing my blood in them. I watch, almost hypnotized, narrowing my eyes slightly before returning my focus to the pad in my lap.

Charcoal smudges under my finger, as I darken the shadows around her eyes, bringing out the utter fury with which she glared at me. Beautiful. I only wish I had some color on hand to add. Oh wait…

“Can I borrow these?” I ask, taking the surgical scissors from her hand right after she cuts the thread.

“Oh, sir, I—”

I turn around and stab them into Anna’s jugular. Maren. Goodness! What’s wrong with me?! I stab the blades into Maren’s jugular. I’ll get it right eventually, I swear. Although…

She gurgles and chokes, arterial red spurting and splattering the floor and nearby wall. Terror consumes her wide eyes as she collapses. I don’t get up from my stool, watching with what could almost resemble boredom as her life finally leaves her. It’s fine! I’ll see her later and make sure there are no hard feelings. At least now I don’t have to remember her name.

Maybe I’ll say hi to Anna too, since I apparently missed her funeral by almost twenty-three years.

“She was a new addition from this last Determination Day,” the grumpy wall guy mutters. “Now we need a new physician.”

I scrunch my nose and look at the puddle of blood and body on the floor. “She’s a physician? But she’s like ten!”

“She was thirty-seven.”

“Oh, well, excuuuse me, Mr. Technical. I’m over seven fucking centuries old! All of you creatures might as well be children. Go get someone to clean up this mess. Unless you have something else you want to correct me on?”

There’s a pause as he looks at me. “You’re over eight centuries old, Caen.”

I stare at him for a moment. Two moments. “Go get me my gun, please, for absolutely no reason.” He finally cracks a smirk, then leaves the room.

I like that guy. He’s such a jokester.

I look at the charcoal portrait of Enara in my lap, leaning down and pressing my palm flat into the pool of hot blood, then I slowly drag my thumb to draw a crimson smile across the portrait’s neck. Perfect.

Walking over to the wardrobe, I open one of the doors to reveal the artworks that might as well be wallpapering the interior. A man with dark hair, blindfold over his eyes, chains on his wrists, varying expressions on each one. My favorite toy. I miss him sometimes. I drag a bloody finger down the side of his face, staining it red with sentimentality.

Enara’s portrait is added to my shrine a la Wulfric. Oh, how I love making new friends!

I shut the door and catch sight of the mirror. My heart in my throat, I whip around, seeing the brown curls in the pool of blood. “Fuck fuck—” I choke, shoving off of the door and dropping to my knees beside her. “You stupid bitch. You fucking lied to me. You’re not her.” The words leave me in more of a snarl than I expect. “You’re not fucking her!”

ooc note: slight gore spoiler

Yanking the scissors out of her neck, I straddle her corpse and stab the shears into her open eye. Into her cheek. Into her forehead. I stab and stab and stab, slashing when the small scissors won’t pierce the bones of her skull. Blood splatters across my bare torso, on my arms, my face, my hand, making it difficult to keep a hold on the scissors.

Nothing exists outside of that moment, and by the time I’m done, I’m out of breath and the face of the girl beneath me is unrecognizable. My hand is shaking, but I can’t release the scissors. It feels like my hand has cramped shut.

Various tissue types are everywhere, and I lean forward, silent tears streaking through the blood on my face. My forehead touches what once was hers, and I can see my wife in the mess I’ve created, her curly hair matted with blood with a wave of agonizingly painful familiarity.

ooc note: self harm spoiler

“You keep leaving me,” I whisper, dragging the scissors down my own forearm before finally dropping them.

I’m absolutely breathless, feeling heat flood my body in a tingly rush.

Hm… Dead Spinner in my bedroom—dead and maimed, to be specific. Potentially fatal wound to myself. Brand new playmate in my wardrobe. Admittedly, not my finest moments…

I push myself off of the corpse and flop on my back in the puddle of blood. The black stone of the floor has golden veins threading through it—quite similar to the threads used to pray to the Loom—and I pull a golden thread as if from nowhere, straight from the vein in the floor, wrapping it around my bleeding arm. A powerful glow pulses through the thread, and I feel warm as my flesh knits itself back together well enough that I won’t bleed out.

“I know, I know,” I chuckle to no one in particular, tucking my other arm under my head and crossing my ankles. “Listen, sometimes, you just gotta be a little dramatic for a minute.”