silverking | ✖ IC CONTACT #2

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✖ IC CONTACT #2

If you have managed to find your way here, then you must have exhausted all other methods of contact by now. My sincerest apologies, but I am a very busy man these days.

You have my attention now, so please speak your mind.

Of course, there are several ways to interpret the words we use day-to-day. I would advise you to choose yours carefully should you opt to leave a message.

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[The response comes almost instantly, as though he was expecting her to call on him.]

Go ahead, Priscilla.

[There is footsteps. His. They echo softly down what can only be a deeply burried and long corridor.]

...I had this. Talk with Rigaldo. Which... knowing him, you probably already know about. And he--

[She goes quiet, trying VERY HARD to choose her words carefully.]

--if I think about it from where you are, I think I would have been upset, too. But I guess I didn't... understand. I'm not going to claim I completely understand now either, but. A little more. And I am trying.

Rigaldo and I spoke briefly regarding his mediation of our conflict. I gave him permission to uninvolve himself.

[But she is trying, and cold as he can be, Isley sees that. He acknowledges the fact.]

Strange that he persisted. I think perhaps you are rubbing off on him.

[He continues walking, speaking softly into his Forge.]

I wanted to kill him. Senji, I mean. The promise I made you was the only thing holding me back from doing so.

Whole armies fall before me, but my word given to you brings me to my knees.

[Despite what he says, he does not sound bitter. Maybe it is a pleasant change from the norm? Or maybe it is something to be wary of.]

You love him. He might even love you in a way that I never can. It was not something I expected to be confronted with, much less publicly.

[She closes her eyes at the mention of killing Senji, and manages to keep her breath from sticking. That promise, ill-considered and insensitively requested as it was, has worked out very well... for her. And for Senji most of all. But for Isley...]

[She takes a deep breath.]

...I know. It wasn't something I meant to happen, I just wanted to talk about the book.

But Senji and I, and you and I... aren't really the same thing.

Is that really so bad?

[A genuine question - an attempt to see things from his perspective. Even if it is... difficult sometimes.]

[He comes to a stop and silence falls. Changes direction, walking now down a shallower tunnel.]

What you are to him, what he is to you, those things are indeed irrelevant. The titles mean nothing. What disconcerted me was how different you seemed with him, Priscilla.

[Another pause. Another change in direction, the space seeming tighter around him before giving way to a much more open area, one where his voice resonates gently, coolly off the walls.]

It reminded me of how very unalike we are, with or without your memories.

Of course, I am willing to let it go if you answer one question truthfully for me.

...we're not that different.

[But she's not sure if she wants to go into that. And he does have a question, so.]

But I'll answer anything you want.

Are you truly happy with me, Priscilla?

Answer carefully.

...most of the time. [Another deep breath.] Sometimes you hurt me. And... I worry sometimes. That I'll say the wrong thing and you'll run away from me again. Which is a little ironic, really. You were the one who came after me, first.

So. Sometimes I'm not. But usually I am.

And I'm unhappy without you.

Priscilla.

[Would it be so if you knew of the things he had done since arriving in Anatole? You forgave one or two slips, but what of the continuous others that followed that you were unaware of? Could you also forgive those too? What if you saw the blank stares of the people he killed? If enough was left of the faces he had destroyed.]

I—

[A soft gurgle interrupts him. It is distant, and only gives Isley momentary pause.]

—I am going to make an effort to make things less difficult on you from now on. [At least for now.] I will put my trust in you. [No he won't.] Will these things suffice as a first step to amending the situation?

[Something else sounds off in the distance. Movement that doesn't match Isley's. He stops to consider it.]

[Then shrugs it off and dismisses it.]

Edited 2011-08-12 01:57 (UTC)

...yes. Just the offer makes things easier for me.

Did you think I wasn't? Happy, I mean. I--

--is there something with you?

[Something, not someone. There was nothing really... human in that noise.]

It's nothing.

[The offer. The noise. Both things. However...]

Were your happiness not a concern I would not have brought it to light, Priscilla.

Well. I wouldn't stay if you made me miserable. Really.

I stopped talking to for a few days and it made me... restless and unhappy. So. I'm glad to be done with it.

[...]

...where are you, anyway?

That woman, Teresa, would probably like nothing more than to separate us. I don't doubt the rest of those women share similar sentiments. They view us as a threat and—

[A crash of stones followed by more gurgling comes from behind. This time it is closer than the other noises were. Heavy breaths linger in the air. Not Isley's breathing. Close to the Forge you can't even hear him. He remains calm. His voice is still even. But something about whatever is following him is beginning to unsettle him. Perhaps the persistence?]

[Perhaps.]

Of all times, honestly...

[He rests his free hand on the hilt of his sword. Not that he suspects he'll need it. Not yet.]

It appears we might need to continue this conversation another time. I have a pest following me that I cannot shake.

I don't really care what they think, anymore. I just--

[She goes quiet, listening to that... noise.]

--that's fine. Are you--

[And then she notices consciously, for the first time, the absence of his yoki in the city. Which means the ruins, or Dismas. Which means...]

Isley. Where are you?

[This time silence does not fill the gap between replies—hers or his, or the sounds pursuing Isley. They grow closer, even louder than before, and the Abyssal One can be heard shifting so that he can turn to face whatever is coming.]

I am not too far from home, you don't need to—

[How can one describe the sound a warped and lumbering creature makes as it skulks out of the shadows? Its guttural moans, the loud sniffing of the air that first turns its head upward, then toward you. The way its head jerks in your direction—his direction. The snap of the neck, the discernible shift in its form as it crouches. As it gets ready.]

—worry...

[He unsheathes his sword and the sound screams over the Forge's speakers.]

Of course. I should have annihilated—

[The connection cuts out there.]

...Isley?

Isley.

[She makes a sound somewhere between a scream of frustration and a shriek of fear just before the sound of her bed squeaking as she stands to follow him.]

[The Forge clatters to the ground before it turns off.]

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✖ IC CONTACT #2

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