imatreenow | thirteen [voice/action/just terrible]

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thirteen [voice/action/just terrible]

[Mid-morning is drawing near, and the house is too quiet. Martel should have been awake already. Despite the uncertainty that has settled heavily between him and his sister, there are plenty of things Mithos does still know about her, and this is definitely out of the ordinary. Softly, he knocks at her door. No reply. With a knot of worry tightening in his stomach, he carefully pushes the door open to look inside and...

He's greeted by an empty room. No sister, none of her personal possessions. No sign that anyone had ever occupied this space. Only one conclusion sits at the end of this equation. Numbness overtakes his body and heart. Desperate, his mind fights against the truth; he runs for his journal and hastily, shakily, flips it open.]

[VOICE - filtered to Martel | filter VOIDED]

Martel? Martel! Where are--

[--He stops. The filter isn't working. She can't hear this. His journal falls from his hands and the feed ends. The chilling realization that she's gone pierces him as suddenly as the first time she was taken from him. Classic vertigo. He doesn't know how to breathe properly. He forgets how to stand on two feet and slowly crumples to the floor. He doesn't fall to pieces; that would imply that there's something left to break. Whatever remains is quickly grinding to dust. He lets it out, the pain that's rapidly smothering him from the inside. But no matter how much he diffuses, there's still more to take its place.]

[ACTION - AFTERNOON]

[He's scraped himself up off the floor (for now) and run out of tears (for now), and he needs someone to blame. Anyone. He doesn't care. The only truth of the world: Martel is gone, and he deserves compensation for his loss. Everyone owes him something, and he owes them retribution. Mithos prowls the village, looking for any and all opportunities to inflict some of his own pain on a scapegoat.

Later, when he's exhausted his body but his hurt and rage continue to burn, when he's hit the point where he can't feel any emptier, he reaches for the journal again. It's all he can think to do.]

[VOICE - filtered to Kaori| 100%]

...Can I come see you?

[ooc: For my own sake, chronologically the threads flow as follows: Frey, Nephry/Dist, Jeb, Silver, Grune/Dhaos, Kratos, Kaori.]

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[He's too blinded by maddening despair to care about how strange her calm reaction is. It just gives another reason to hate her, even though he's never seen her before. She deserves death simply because she is not Martel.]

Nothing is 'all right'! [He swings his sword. A little sad. A little sad. In the same sense an ocean is a shallow puddle.]

[Presumably, due to grief, Mithos isn't on top of his game, sword-wise--meaning Grune is able to step out of the way of the strike.]

Oh, my, you should be careful. You might hurt someone.

Why don't we go for a little walk to make you feel better?

[Grief and rage have boosted his stamina beyond its limits, but his precision has dulled somewhere in this equation. When he misses, he twists to swing again.]

Shut up! [He won't feel better. This can't be fixed. Too many pieces are missing.]

[Grune takes a few more steps back, still completely unafraid, but growing more concerned by the moment.]

If you're very sad, you should talk about what's wrong. Did something bad happen?

[Failure won't deter him. He has to do something about the dark mess of emotions welling up inside. So he swings the sword again, a different angle.]

My sister is gone! She's gone! [Why talk when no one listens? A blade accomplishes so much more.]

[Dhaos has spent entirely too much time out and about today, and is actually sitting at the window in his apartment when he sees the two of them talking.

Or, not talking, as it seemed. The moment Mithos swings at Grune, Dhaos' mind is already made up: after everything Mithos has done to Derris-Kharlan, Dhaos will not forgive him for attacking someone like Grune.

The window is open and Dhaos is leaping out of it before Mithos' next swing connects, but Dhaos is unlikely to get there in time; regardless of the result, Dhaos hits the ground in the space between Mithos and Grune, pushing her back and narrowing his eyes at the half-elf.

What have you to say for yourself?]

[Grune stumbles back and nearly loses her footing. When she regains it, she blinks in some surprise--Dhaos had arrived so suddenly, she hadn't had time to register it.]

Dhaos?

[What was he doing?]

[What the--? He leaps back, reflexively shifting into a defensive stance. That massive presence of mana...how could he have missed that? His despair has absorbed him so completely that he didn't even realize the seraph was anywhere nearby.]

Edited 2011-09-26 04:05 (UTC)

[He glares right back. He knows that, like this, he's heavily outmatched. There's a flaw in this plan, but he can't turn and run, exposing his back to the opponent.]

[This pathetic being... Derris-Kharlan...

...No. Dhaos won't let the words of humans and half-elves color his judgment-- yet. If he was going to hate Mithos at this moment, he would do so for this-- something he had witnessed for himself. Oh, Derris-Kharlan's revenge would come, wrought by his own hands, but this would have to be dealt with first.]

...Go home, Grune.

[He'll give you one chance, Mithos. One chance to drop this pointless assault and walk away unscathed.

If Grune agrees to leave.]

[Dhaos, do you really expect Grune to leave? Really?

In fact, she does the opposite of leaving so much that she steps forward with the intent to stand between them. Whether Dhaos will let her get that far, however, is up in the air.]

Oh, my, is everything all right?

[He doesn't walk away. That would be the smart thing to do, but he has way too much pain festering inside, and too much suffering to dole out. One will undo the other eventually, won't it? Maybe. Maybe he doesn't care anyway.

He won't attack the seraph directly -- Grune stepping in between them creates the perfect window to direct his rage at her once more. He swings as she ends her sentence.]

[Somehow, Dhaos knew it wouldn't be that easy. There was no way Grune would have left without some form of persuasion or explanation. But he didn't expect Mithos to act again so quickly.

Madman.

Dhaos lunges, trying to push Grune away with one hand and break Mithos' nose with the other. It may not save her from the blow, and would probably leave him open whether or not it hit, but at least it would give her a chance to escape.]

[This time, Grune does fall when Dhaos pushes her, and that is all that saves her from Mithos' sword.

When she stands, she moves back a few paces until she's out of range, and she watches Mithos. What he does next will determine whether she'll try to calm him one last time--or defend Dhaos with all her strength.]

[He shields his face with one arm just in time -- but that punch still hurts. A lot. He's probably lucky his arm didn't break. In the next instant, he turns his blade on Dhaos and swings again.]

Disappear! [she disappeared so you should too even if it won't bring her back even if it won't make anything better disappear]

[Dhaos jumps back, but not quite far or fast enough, and the sword streaks across his arm. Blood begins to trickle from it, but thankfully his resistance to physical attack ensures that it is mostly superficial.]

I give you one more chance. Vent your anger elsewhere, and I will punish your foolishness another day.

[It's no use being friendly with him, and at this point Dhaos is losing the desire to even try.]

[Grune continues to watch, ready to protect Dhaos the moment he needs it. Even if this boy is very sad, she won't let him hurt one of her precious friends.

But she also won't abandon someone in need.] Maybe we can help you. Why don't we all talk about what's wrong?

Shut up! Just shut up! [directed at both of them. He doesn't want to listen, he doesn't want to talk, he just wants to destroy. Dashing forward, he aims his sword at Dhaos once more.]

[How typical of his kind. Dhaos darts to the side, dodging the blade and aiming another punch at Mithos' stomach.]

Listen to yourself. Nothing but an impulsive, selfish child.

[At the sight of Mithos once again attacking Dhaos, Grune begins to cast. Her goal isn't to seriously hurt him--only to stop him from hurting someone she loves.]

[Mithos grunts and staggers to the side, doubled over in pain.]

I don't care. [He's selfish, but so what? He needs his sister so badly, more than anything else in the world, and without her...nothing matters. Even if he's outmatched, and he knows continuing is incredibly foolish, he can't bring himself to stop. Recovering, he swings heavily toward Dhaos, hardly noticing what Grune is doing.]

[Mithos' behavior and reasoning is so deplorable that Dhaos can't even bring himself to feel truly angry-- this is exactly what he should have expected from the half-elf, exactly the kind of reasoning Reisen gave that fateful day in Midgard. He's filled instead with a grim abhorrence, the reason he continues to fight even when he knows he should just grab GRune and leave.]

...Just like the rest of your kind.

[Dhaos moves backwards once more to avoid the slash, but instead of going in for another blow, he slams his fist into the ground.]

Dhaos Collider!

[Hardly noticing Grune may be a mistake, because, unfortunately for Mithos, the weakest spell Grune knows is the mid-tier eres known as….] Bloody Howling.

[Darkness briefly surrounds Grune, and then a multi-coloured dark orb writhes around Mithos and Dhaos. Having already placed friend-or-foe marking on Dhaos, the worst that will happen to him is a temporary obstruction of vision. That isn't the case for Mithos.]

[He quickly braces himself against the impact, but the explosive mana strikes his body, simultaneously raising up a spray of shrapnel from the ground and he’s forced to stagger back. There’s no time for recovery before Grune’s spell leaves its mark too. As darkness settles in around him, the manifestation of magic pierces through him and he cries out in pain. His legs give out and he collapses to his hands and knees. The previous skirmishes of the afternoon had already left him with an array of injuries, but now they’ve all been exacerbated and joined by a slew of fresh ones.]

[Mithos' cry of pain and subsequent collapse send a familiar rush of satisfaction through Dhaos, glad to see the older-yet-not half-elf suffering the consequences of his actions. He deserves all of it for attacking someone as harmless as Grune, and more.

Mithos isn't the only one affected by the departure of Martel. Though previously placated by Grune's visit, the shapeless anger at having his best chance to save Derris-Kharlan swiped from his fingers rears its head in a different form-- kneeling before Dhaos is the pathetic half-elven brother of the Lady Martel, one who would bring Derris-Kharlan to ruin long before he agreed to save it.]

You intended to turn all of Derris-Kharlan into a world of Lifeless Beings. Do you deny it?

[For all his anger, Dhaos knows the treachery and dishonesty of humans. This is your final chance.]

[Action] what's your name again? rationality? ....sorry, you don't appear to be on the list

[Action] Try Raine's party, two streets over.

[Action] your kind is more than welcome there

[Action] Just not here.

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[Action] Sup guys

[Action] Sup!

[Action] what a fabulous and dramatic entrance 1/2

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[Action] lol sorry I couldn't think of a way to do it without attacking Mithos at the time XD;

[Action] No, it's awesome. Dhaos used DYNAMIC ENTRY!! /Naruto

[Action] it was indeed majestic

[Action] And attention-grabbing, got to give him that.

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[Action] not the face!

[Action] You young'uns practically bounce, stop complaining XD

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