bury all we have; nc vs as vs mg [day 2]

a e s o n ;

Still sweating from the rush
His body tense
His hands, they shake
Oh this, this is a mad boy

When Vesper Daisy's cannon split the sky, its echo only rings hollow. Any future impression she should've made is only a figment, for she is a remnant of the present and a thing of the past. Her wild strikes manage to beak skeleton and dent metal, but any attempt at something that goes deeper than skin level is quickly buried beneath the torrent of blood that sprays from her chest at your heavy-handed strike.

You stare at her for a brief moment, arm outstretched and spear in hand, and her blood spattered across your cheek. You'd made your cut clean and you had struck true; let it never be said that your actions were driven by hatred. No, you moved to shrug the banner of fragile humanity from your shoulders that you could never claim to be yours, not since you swore allegiance to violence and gave yourself to a life of soul crushing and body breaking. You've stripped sons from mothers and fathers from daughters; there's no fucking difference.

Yet you still stop and stare at the young canvas you've marred in shades of red; dismembered by insanity and taken by apathy. Had it not been for the detached limb that sits feet from her own body and her wide eyes glazed over, you might have mistaken her for resting. Here she lays, in a bed of red snow and a voice long since silenced by the pressure of your cruelty. You hope they are focusing on you right now, you hope they can see your eyes, and see a soul taken by nihilism. You want them to see past the gore smeared across their pristine creation and to see you.

You hope Teddy Ursa's lip trembles, you hope he trembles in his peg leg and you hope he's one of many that are breaking for the sake of your bloodied story. If you are to be remembered by yellowed pages, you want them to be spattered in shades of red. She said it herself, your heart was never in Six, it's in murder.

("There's a special place in hell waiting for you, boy.")

Why give your heart to a home when a kingdom waits for you?

A smile flickers across your features for a moment, just for a moment, and you look to see Finley's broken expression and listen to the distress that carries Stella's words. "Come find me, Aeson. I’ll be waiting," she says as her blue eyes meet with yours.

A ten branded on her clockwork, you wonder if her heart is in Twelve.

"Careful what you wish for," you call out as she flees with the poisoned romance you gifted her, drunk on the bittersweet nectar of victory and heart quickening with excitement. Stella may be a pretty girl, you wouldn't give flowers to someone who looks like they've run headfirst into a fist after all, but you enjoy the prospect of taking something beautiful and crushing it. You never particularly relished in challenges. Whenever you were sent to deal with a hurricane, ones on a similar caliber to Vesper here, you would be met with a fist to a jaw or a flash of steel into your forearm. They all ended up the same way, they always did.

They all looked better that way too.

Yet there's something purer to stealing lives under a banner that isn't for pure profit or satisfaction of a man who's never so much as looked you in the eye before he sends you off to die. There's a warm elation hammering against your rib cage at the red milky way dripping from the point of your spear and the lack of air that fills Vesper Daisy's lungs. Back in Six, you snuffed out dying stars and doused weak flames because you were simply told to. In here, you extinguished a supernova because you wanted to -- this blood on your hands is a sweet nectar you willingly drink from, not a bittersweet apple you bite into because you're told to.

You see Stella and Finley's fleeing forms and your cogs turn and gears grind. There's a sudden urge to move, your grip tightens around your spear and you want nothing more than to chase. Become the hunter to chase the hunted, was it not Stella who issued the challenge after all? You want to see their grief transform to terror as their safety turns to ashes in their mouths because no one's safe from you. You could see yourself doing it to, taking your spear and drawing a diagonal gash across their backs so they stumble and weep. You've been free from yellow scripture for twelve years; you'll give yourself to greed, you'll give yourself to envy and you'll certainly give yourself to lust.

"Enjoy the flowers," you mutter as her form fades from view, you decide you would rather not.

Your eyes are ripped away from Stella's fleeing form by the harsh crash that sounds beside you. You look to find Isaac, covered in flesh blood that isn't his or Vesper's, and standing over the cold corpse of the goat. "Holy fucking shit, Isaac," you say, letting a slight grin make itself known across your lips despite the blood staining your cheeks. You give a nod of approval, he's a fuckwit but the good kind. With grudging respect in your chest, you decide he can stay. He'll need patching up, of course, but that'll come at the fading of the adrenaline that keeps you all entangled.

You spot Euley's eyes fall across your figure but you turn your back to her, ignoring her with a steely cold shoulder. An eight foot goat blindsides you and not a single word of warning. After all, it only makes sense that she'd be able to see you fall before you get the chance to turn your sights to her, it would be a signature career move. You should fucking gut her for that, pull her entrails from wounds you make and see if you can find any sort of substance beneath the wounds. After all, beauty was made to whither.

Of course, you won't do that. Not now, ever? Too soon, and truth be told you don't really want to. Right now. It's surprising.

She hums, striking a tune that rings a harmonic deeper than skin level and there's a moment of confusion for a second. Just a second. You think nothing of it and let her get lost within your thoughts and out of your attention.

Your attention from her and let it wander onto Violet for a second. A weak storm cloud with a golden name, hours ago, you were considering running your spear through her before she could find her voice but the thought's buried beneath a sweeter treat now. You didn't see much of what she did, you don't know if she even did anything other than tear Stella's torso armor open with a desperate strike to prove her validity. It was good of course, stripping away any future protection she may have from you, so you can only assume she managed to replicate it with her previous strikes.

She's a fleeting thought, for you quickly let your attention fall back onto Vesper Daisy's cold corpse. So small and dismembered, a weaker man's stomach might've churned at the snatching of innocent future but you're not a weaker man. You never knew her, not before you both gave yourself to this hellhole and you knew nothing past a conversation on the train. This is nothing like gutting a man who tries to take more than his fair share, or sending a debt drowned drug dealer to an early grave. You're not killing stars on their last legs. This is the smothering of a supernova that was burning bright.

Half a moment later and her hair is curled and dark, you see a piece of yourself for a moment; Aeryn's dead eyes stare up at you for a split second. Something flickers in your chest for a second. Just a second.

"See where giving your heart to home gets you?" You scoff as you kneel down to rummage through her belongings and take what you decide is valuable, water and crampons in particular, and throw them into your bag before standing up and staring at the sky. A white canvas free from gore and clean of blood. You smile to yourself.

You hope they see you; something hollow, something beautifully twisted.

Don't you ever leave me alone
Be my shelter from the storm
My war is over
I am a sad boy