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CLOSED: MAVIS

CW: VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE

( the journey into the shadowlands passes quickly, not least because aristaeus is still so seethingly furious at the implication — no, the blatant accusation — mavis had levelled at him over her post that it's frankly surprising that the rise in body temperature hasn't managed to kill whatever's colonizing his ribcage.

a better man might thank her for the assist, but a better man would never have agreed to meet her in the first place. )

No audience yet. ( commented idly, although there's a brittleness to his voice that wasn't there before.

he waves a hand at their surrounding, at the graveyard of ruptured shrouds, and the absence of any harvesters or restless. whether or not this will continue to be the case remains to be seen. )

Edited 2022-11-26 20:33 (UTC)

[ it feels a little like walking to her death. when her anger has left her and she is no longer shaking, she had sat only with the awareness that in a fair fight, head-on, she stands little chance against aristaeus. this is unimportant. the stranger had been correct: she was cowardly not to take action, not to demand a challenge to redress aristaeus' many offenses.

her hands are balled into fists, and nervous sweat has already gathered on the back of her neck, in her palms, under her arms. it makes her shirt stick to her, made colder by the wet. ]

Do you understand the terms? [ she raises her voice a little, as if to leave no room for his idle, bitter commentary. ] The fight continues until one of us either dies or yields. The loser surrenders all right to their grievance. The winner gets what they wanted.

[ even as she says it, something in her chest feels hollow. what she wanted and what she'd asked for hardly seem to align. but that is aristaeus' fault, his thoughts and feelings ebbing into the tide of her own. when she thinks with idle longing for the clarity he had brought her in mirth, before he had entrapped her, that feeling does not belong to her. she knows this. it is what kossians are best at: eroding the individual. ]

You have a death wish. ( it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

there's the kind of recklessness that comes from thinking you're immortal and the kind that comes from thinking you have nothing to live for. mavis has always fallen closer to the latter than the former.

if anything, the netherworld seems to be acerbating it. a concern, but one that will have to wait for the moment. ) What a waste.

I won't lose.

[ it's not an option, now.

she thinks of the challenges she'd seen, scant memories from well before she'd suffered the awkwardness of menarche in the desert alone. before she'd understood what they were for, what they really meant. how she'd laughed at those who'd yielded, scoffed at their weakness, unable to imagine that they'd never wanted to put up a fight against it even when cardeena had said, teeth bloody, you can have me the year she'd been united with quetzal.

the thoughts are scattered impressions. nothing she can pick through. nothing she wants to pick through, and certainly not now. she shakes them away. from her boot, she draws a long, wooden knife. when she spreads her heels into a fighter's stance, preparing for him, she opens her mind as well, feels outward at the impressions of him that are always just there, opens the gates that she tries so hard in stygia to hold shut. ]

No cat to save you this time.

( he's been nursing a not-insignificant grudge about that, as it happens. whatever admiration he might have had for the kuruko lynxes tempered forever by their terrible sense of timing.

when mavis goes for her weapon, he's already reaching for his — a hunting knife, traded for a frankly exorbitant amount of talking gems, fixed horizontally to his belt — and steps forward to meet her. )

[ a small favor, she thinks. miztli still lives, or her soul has not made it here as mavis' had. maybe it is with the rest of the clan, in whatever piece of the underworld they have carved out. would mitzli go back to whoever had first tamed her? had her spirit ever belonged with mavis' in the first place, or had they only been temporary fixtures, staving off loneliness until this end put their positions in the universe back to rights?

she is, as she always was, alone. and her shadow is here, nestled in the back of her skull to remind her of this.

the unfairness of it drives her to fury, drives her to charge him instead of doing the smarter thing and waiting. she can sense him as close as her shadow in her mind, feel his intention and the way that he means to dodge, and when she lashes out with the knife, she also drives her heel between his feet to trip him up as he evades. ]

( instinct pushes him to dodge the attack. of course, it does; nobody wants to get cut. not even him.

but the thing about instinct is that it can bite you on the ass as often as it saves you. at the last second, he decides to block instead — the blade catches him across his arm, sliding deep and parting the flesh and fabric.

d̶̡̲̗̼̮̤̤̳̲͖͓͍͔͓̓̎̽́̽̏̐͂̆͆͘͘͘i̶̡̹͈͎̳̞͙͖̾̂̀͑̀͆̑̓̽̉͐͘͘ͅs̴̹̀̎̇͗̍͗̾̋̏̈͐͒̕͠͠ͅǎ̴̯̀͠p̴̩͙̺̩͓̣͈͖̎ͅp̴̩͙̺̩͓̣͈͖̎ͅŏ̸̡̼̺̫̥̻͈̞̍͆̏̓́͜͝ͅi̶̡̹͈͎̳̞͙͖̾̂̀͑̀͆̑̓̽̉͐͘͘ͅǹ̷̨͍̮̥̹̘͙̗̻̬̬̜̥̮̃̒̈́̽͗̿̍̄̂̏͆͠͝t̸̫̫̤͕̳̻̰̣̭́̌̉͝ͅi̶̡̹͈͎̳̞͙͖̾̂̀͑̀͆̑̓̽̉͐͘͘ͅǹ̷̨͍̮̥̹̘͙̗̻̬̬̜̥̮̃̒̈́̽͗̿̍̄̂̏͆͠͝ǧ̷̡̟̲̹̩̱͉̮̭͇͚̮̖̟̽̓͊̔̓̕.

pallas' voice in his ear, all silk and slow poison. the disapproval of a parent watching their child embarrassing themselves in public. it doesn't matter that she's not here, that she can't possibly be here; he feels the burn of shame at the back of his neck.

there are a few blissful seconds before the pain hits. it burns like a bitch. sharp and vicious, just like her.

except that it continues burning. )

Fuck.

[ the knife is carved wood. something she'd made, not something she'd bought. it will crumble to dust soon and she will make another. a good chisel is cheaper than a good blade, and she can make her own blades just fine. it cleaves flesh and muscle as it gouges him, stops only when it reaches bone. he has no kossian armor to protect him this time, as she has no kuruko lynx to protect her.

the knife leaves behind a wound that burns with the oils of the tree she'd made it from. much like his training. she can hear pallas too, as if in her own mind. she knows the name for the voice, even though she has never heard it before.

she hadn't expected the hit to land. now she is close, too close, close enough that he will be able to overpower her, so she seizes on his disorientation to headbutt him. cracks the front of her skull at his nose. ]

( fuck, he misses his armor. he misses his helmet specifically because nobody was going to pull that kind of stunt on him, then.

again, instinct saves him — he abandons his knife, hands snapping up to block a blow that would have destroyed his nose. throws a hard elbow strike across her face. )

[ the thing about foreseeing his reactions in his intention, in his mind, is that she still doesn't have the physical ability to adjust to them. not always.

his elbow cleaves her face, cracks right against her cheekbone, leaves it bruised and furious as her head snaps aside. she staggers back from him, disoriented.

the next blow she takes when she steps back into proximity to use the knife is for his shoulder. disable first, she decides. remove the threat, then finish the job.

something unfurling in her chest purrs at this movement, at the rush of her blood, at the hunger. it feels good, doesn't it? you are a warrior. you were made for this. ]

( this is bringing back memories. )

Will you be going for my ankles next? ( it's about what he expects at this point. and, frankly, it wouldn't be the worst move to make if she didn't have to get through all that boot leather.

she charges, and he sidesteps, turning and striking at her chest with his fist. ) Maybe my groin?

[ he knocks the air from her when his fist connects with her sternum. her fragile lungs take the worst of it, and she loses her balance in a fit of coughing, collapsing to her knees as it doesn't stop, as blood and petals spill from her lips.

no. no, shit, it's getting worse. not now, not now.

weak, she scolds herself. no wonder you died. no wonder your people discarded you. no wonder you could not save them.

ankles are starting to look like a pretty good idea. she tries to keep an eye out for his approach, tries to keep one hand on her knife even as her coughing fit prolongs. ]

( the attack, when it comes, is swift and brutal. for all that they had spoken of terms, he knows that niceties are something with no place outside of the training yard.

more than that, mavis is too stubborn to concede. too caught up in her spiral of self-loathing. )

Why do you cling to them? ( aiming a kick to her ribs. anger is beginning to leak in at the edges. less at mavis than at these people, these hypocrites, that could command such loyalty when they were clearly so undeserving of it. ) When they threw you away like garbage? You're better than this.

Edited 2022-12-01 18:25 (UTC)

[ the kick comes. then another. as if by the power of his boot he could beat this truth into her, that she was abandoned, that she was worthless. that the people she would die for were gone and had never wanted her in the first place. that kuruko had not belonged to her in years, if it ever had.

maybe it is suicidal and stupid to be doing this, she realizes, eyes closed against the pain as she waits for it to build and build and burst out of her as it had when that efra clansman had attacked her in her camp, while she was sleeping. recalls how his viscera had smeared on her face and ruined her salvaged bedding. she would not need to do it if her power rose out of her to protect her.

but it doesn't come. all that comes is the coughing, the blood from her own mouth, and the heat in her ears of aristaeus' rage. the furor won't rise.

if she doesn't want to die here, she has to fight for herself. the boot is, as it turns out, too solid to stab through. there's no hope there. but when he next kicks her, she grabs it and holds his foot there, curled in her bruised abdomen. she raises the knife to stab right through the soft hollow back of his knee, up into his thigh, at the spot that she knows will bleed and bleed and bleed. ]

( he goes down hard.

going to the ground is a terrible thing. but he's on top of her now. his weight pinning her.

he strikes at her face, open-palmed. trying to stun her before she can dig her knife into anything else. )

[ he's heavy. mavis grunts, already bruised and aching and possibly bleeding internally by the time he pins her. but she keeps her knife in her hand, draws it out of his knee as he sprawls over her.

holding onto the knife keeps her from protecting her face. black spots explode in her vision, then yellow and red, and for a moment, she wonders if he's blinded her somehow. she scrambles with her free hand, grabs for his face, gets her thumb hooked in his lip on its way up his face, palming him away from her.

her hand slips over the sweat on his forehead, and she seizes the opportunity to grab a fist of his hair as she brings her knife between her body and his neck. ]

Yield. [ she rasps it out. barely audible. ] Yield and I won't kill you.

( the blade's prick is enough to keep him still. mavis makes her demand, and aristaeus' response is a soft, amused noise that's caught between a laugh and a scoff.

she can't be serious? yielding was never an option. )

Kill me, then.

( challenge hangs on the words like lace. he leans into the threat, skin dimpling beneath the knife tip. it's not enough to draw blood, not yet, but that could change. )

Because it's the only way I'll ever stop.

Edited 2022-12-01 23:59 (UTC)

[ her hand shakes. she could do it. she could draw the blade across his neck and be rid of him in a rain of blood. her mouth already tastes like iron. what difference would it make?

she presses it deeper into his neck. red blooms against the knife, water tension suspending the blood on the blade.

but without him, she really would be alone. if he hadn't been at the harvest, what could anyone have done for her? even kaito could not calm her. he could barely calm himself. her expression contorts with the effort — not of restraint, but of trying to press it deeper into his neck.

he was stopping her. he had to be. he had to be. she had every reason to kill him. ] Bastard. [ her lips curl to bare blood-stained teeth. ] Murderer.

Then do it.

( he won't stop her. can't stop her. even before, recovery from a neck wound would be challenging. all those veins and arteries. he'd bleed out in minutes, if not seconds.

but she isn't going to do it. for whatever reason, she's hesitating despite the clear and easy shot. despite how much they both know he deserves it. )

End it.

[ she wants him dead. empty-eyed like every kuruko he had ever come across. but her hand won't move.

it has to be him. like he'd done at the harvest festival, he is holding her back, insinuating himself into her very veins, into her muscles, keeping them from moving.

the illness her light-headed, her limbs weak, but she is not so disoriented that she can't muster a workaround. the element of surprise is on her side. if she can just strike with such suddenness that whatever is blocking her has no chance to raise its defense ...

as if in surrender, she drops her arm, lets the blade pull away from his neck. blood blooms at the line across his throat. she turns the knife in her hand. a choked, frustrated sob slips out of her, and in its wake, a slew of coughs right into his face because he is close, so close.

close enough that she can feel his breath, and it is impossible not to think of the challenges she had seen and how they'd ended, with bodies pressed together. one, even before anyone had yielded, until tau-ren had cried yield, yield between gasps of pleasure. if her own body feels hotter, it is surely just the fever.

she drives the knife down into the slope of his neck where it joins his shoulder. one sudden move. the wood blade stays lodged there. there's no blood. her hand leaves the hilt and she rolls onto her stomach to claw her way out from under him. she cannot look at him. she cannot look at what she's done. ]

Edited (clarity) 2022-12-03 16:48 (UTC)

( mavis coughs and he jerks back, reflexive, disgust twisting his features ㅡ it doesn't save him, ultimately, the knife still burying into the meat of his shoulder.

a noise tears from him that's all animal. low and violent. body lifting away from her in a surprised jerk. it buys her a few seconds, his focus on the knife ㅡ get it out get it out get it out.

a shoulder wound is better than an arterial wound, sure, but it still hurts. it hurts and a red haze falls across his thoughts, fingers slick with sweat and blood.

he throws out his other hand, fingers curled. funnels all that fear and pain and anger into the gesture. reaches down deep and pulls. )

[ she goes still. or rather, her body stops moving, even though she doesn't tell it to, even though she howls for it to keep pulling her away from him so she can get her bearings and find some way to come out of this without dying or yielding. but her fingers just curl in grave dirt and no matter how much she wills it, the muscles of her thighs won't flex.

she coughs into the dirt, sweat-slicked hair tangled across her gaze and across her mouth. it is longer and shaggier than it has ever been, nearly long enough to touch her shoulders, long enough to graze the dirt even as her forearms are poised to lift her out of it — always poised, never lifting.

slowly, she turns her head, gazes over her shoulder. the one movement she can muster while he's the one in control of her body. ]

( fingers curled around the hilt of the knife, he pushes to his feet. the world shifts, tilts ㅡ it's the blood loss, clearly. how long until that becomes a problem? minutes, maybe seconds.

fuck.

he advances. )

You're a coward. ( wraps her hair around his fist, yanking her head back. ) And a liar. ( sets the point of the blade against her throat, ) Because we both know I'm not the only one that wants this.

[ the pain in her scalp draws a feral sound out of her throat. not a cry, not a shout. more akin to a growl.

she can see him clearly now, even through her matted hair. enough of it is shifted by the forced tip of her head — he hadn't needed to do that, had he? he could have just used his power, but no, he'd grabbed and yanked, and it's not hard to see why. the fury in the set of his teeth, the wildness of his eyes, the sweat and paleness of blood loss and injury.

for a moment, he does look almost beautiful, even with the strangeness of his kossian features.

it's gone in a blink. she shakes her head, but it doesn't do much except wiggle her chin and hurt her scalp more because the grip he has on her hair isn't loosening up. she notices the knife, then. the pressure, the chill of the steel against her skin.

there has to be something she can do, still. she isn't going to die like this, is she? but her limbs won't answer her and he is just furious enough to be made to feel, she realizes, that he just might not give her the chance for anything else. ]

You're going to bleed out. [ she tells him, teeth showing red with her own blood. ] Even you — [ she coughs ] — aren't eternal.

[ better than admitting that dream had said the same, better than fighting the idea that she's a coward and a liar. it's not her. it's just the bleedover from his mind. it has to be. what kind of monster would want something like him? what kind of pathetic creature would fail to take revenge on the man who'd slaughtered her people?

but she can hear him now, again, echoing in her thoughts: they threw you away like garbage. ]

Then we'll be dying together.

( simply put.

perhaps in another life, one where they were different people, this would have sounded romantic. poetic, even. but as it stands, he means this quite literally.

the blade digs into her skin — a reminder of this. ) Although my money would be on you bleeding out first. Neck wounds are nasty like that.

[ maybe she would. maybe she would rather die than belong to him. for all that she had fought in life to preserve her own survival at all costs, that sense had dwindled since waking up here. what's the point in resisting? what does she have left to live for? there are no kuruko. there is no revenge. the people who had destroyed her clan are dead.

yet she isn't ready for it. if she, suddenly, finds herself attached again to the idea of a life, is that her feeling or his? ]

You won't. You don't want to kill me either.

[ she gropes up for his face, tries to press her fingers into the little cavities, the soft spots. anything to force him to loosen his grip. but the reality is that she's weakened already, dazed by her illness, and the uncomfortable angle of her arm means she cannot find anything of use. only the curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose.

another slew of coughs. this time, it presses her throat into the blade, jostles her so that it cuts through flesh, just enough for her skin to feel cold and blood to come forth. enough to make his point.

would it be so bad? to belong to someone? ]

I didn't want to fight you, either.

( yet he'd come. he'd met her challenge; had bled for her. doesn't that count for anything? )

But what I want doesn't seem to matter.

Edited 2022-12-04 18:57 (UTC)

[ she doesn't want to die. fear claws its way up her throat, alongside the tickle of flower petals. he has her frozen. she can't fight. she will either yield or die. ]

Do it, then. [ her expression contorts, full of anguish. another flutter of coughs, but this time, she persists in talking through them. ] If I yielded to you, then my people's deaths would be dust — meaningless, forgotten.

[ she cannot value her life above theirs. she can't. even as tears burn at the corners of her eyes. she had left herself with no other choice when she had made this challenge. a self-flagellation from top to bottom then, punishment for that desire for companionship that she'd dared to feel, even if it was only a result of some kind of telepathic bleed. ]

( ah, there it is — the realization that this is the end. that he's serious. and it's unfortunate, really, that it would come to this.

what a waste, indeed. )

Their deaths already are. ( and he draws the blade across her skin. )

[ the pain is surprisingly little.

what a strange thing to think when she can feel her own blood spilling down her chest from the open wound in her throat. she gasps for breath, but all that does is start to draw blood down into her lungs. instead, she sputters, more coughing, spilling more iron into her mouth as she turns her head.

she can't even feel how he pulls at her hair now. it is distant beside the cold prickle rolling down her body — bizarre, really, when the blood outside of her is so hot and so much.

no. no, no, she doesn't want to die, she doesn't want this to be the end. ]

Y— [ it's a harsh, guttural sound. a hack. ] Help. [ each syllable a strained gasp, punctuated with sputters as her own blood threatens to drown her with each inhale. ] Yield. I yield.

[ he isn't holding her still anymore — why would he? what need is there? her fist closes around his collar as she tries to pull herself up on him, tries to cling to — to anything.

she tries to get something else out. it's mumbled, this slur of the soft consonants of his full name. ]

( he moves quickly — away goes the blade, cast aside; a hand wraps around her neck, staunching the blood, while another keeps her steady.

sealing an arterial wound always comes down to timing. panic sets in, and it's the only thing that keeps him from succumbing to the exhaustion that sets in as he inevitably overextends himself.

stupidly, he wonders if there'll be a scar. ) You owe me dinner after this. ( although the thought of eating anything right now makes his stomach churn. )

[ his hand is warm, so warm — is it because she's freezing? is it because of her blood slicking his palm, still flowing? there is nothing to say to his demand, nothing she can say at all.

it slows, though. the warmth and the blood loss and the relief of her heart still beating as the moments stretch out soothes her, and she stops flailing, stops clinging. relaxes into his grip, head tipped willingly back into him, her body leaned against his.

idly, it occurs to her that she has never seen this much blood in a challenge before. but then, she has never seen a challenge between two people so acutely capable of destroying one another, either.

the grief is a distant thing. set aside for later. she is light-headed with illness and blood loss and exhaustion, but she is alive. because of him.

reaching up shakily, she touches her hand to the one wrapped still around her throat. not to stop him, just to rest is there, palm flat. as if conceding its place there, conceding his hold. there is a peace in that, however temporary.

finally, she nods. food is a fair trade, she thinks, for a life. ]

( good.

that's good. he's gotten so used to fighting her on everything that the easy capitulation is welcome.

he's not in any shape to press for more right now. sweat beads at his hairline, and the colour leeching from his complexion. it's like what life he has is flowing into her.

but her breathing is steady now. her heartbeat settling as the wound seals. she's going to survive this. )

[ she goes quiet and still in his arms. in his arms, as if he were embracing her, not holding her life in his hands. for a stuttering, fearful moment, she thinks that she'll have to confront this. that they'll sit here in the silence of the moment until it overextends itself and they have to speak to one another.

instead, she feels his breath slow where his ribcage is snug against hers. and when he collapses, it's a slow, lethargic thing, slumping over and pulling the foundation out from under her. she spills onto the ground with him, and for a moment, she can only stare at him, wide-eyed.

reaching up, she pushes matted hair out of her face. she is still weak, still ill, still exhausted, but she is conscious. and he is not.

when they'd been in opposite positions, he'd been prepared to drag her back to the empire. to his home.

that's where she takes him. it is a slow process, especially when she has to determine which limbs are safe to pull on after she had stabbed him in so many ways, when she has to strip off the bottom of her shirt to bandage the wound at his knee so that it stops spilling blood on the dirt.

she remembers the way to the basement he'd brought her to, the night of the harvest festival. she brings him there, lays him out on the same rotted cot. when he doesn't wake up after some time, she limps back over and lies down at his side, back pressed to his arm, to rest. ]

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