Shifting Outside The Word [IC Inbox]

[wormintheglass]

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This is Bianca. Leave a message.

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[action]

[circumitus]

[Not long after her last text, she approaches the front door to House 1301. Rey doesn't have to go very far, seeing that it's just across the street from where she lives, but she still drags her feet along the way, feeling oddly heavier than she usually does. She's tired. Eyes darkened, skin paler than usual. The truth takes a lot out of you.

[Rather than knocking, she goes to open the door. She has been here enough that asking permission for entry doesn't seem necessary anymore.]

[action]

[wormintheglass]

It's the hyenas that greet Rey first, preceding Bianca like the devoted courtiers they are. But she is up, too, and behind them. Her eyes are wide and dark in her pale face, and she carries two filled glasses.

"My darling."

She comes close, tilts her face up to kiss Rey's cheek, and hands her one of the glasses.

"Tell Bianca all about it. Let me make it better."

[action]

[circumitus]

One hand hangs at her side, allowing a hyena to briefly brush against her palm before Bianca follows. Rey barely blinks all the while, from the animals' greeting to Bianca's kiss.

She holds still for a moment, before accepting the glass handed to her and goes to sit down.

"It... isn't something I really know how to tell," Rey admits, sinking into a seat.

Reluctance holds her tongue, as she struggles to even make the suggestion that's lingering on her mind.

Taking a quick drink, she swallows hard, unable to look the other woman in the eye when Rey speaks. "Can you... you know...?" She gestures to her own head, trying to indicate Bianca's ability to influence and invade one's thoughts -- even projected feelings onto her once.

Much as she hates to even think it, words just fail her.

[action]

[wormintheglass]

"I can. Rey, my darling, it's the easiest thing in the world."

She takes a big swallow of her own drink, partly because it's there and partly because it lowers the telepathic barriers; it's always been a good way to find someone alien's mental wavelength.

"It's ...I believe it was my people's natural way to interact. I am certain we only evolved spoken language to make political intrigue more sporting. And yes, I am chattering because I'm nervous."

She doesn't, of course, look nervous; Bianca never allows that. But Rey - not unlike Jack before her - makes Bianca feel as though she's been handed something excruciatingly rare and precious, and she doesn't entirely trust herself not to ruin it.

"Sit with me. Breathe with me. I will be very, very careful."

[circumitus]

At Bianca's admission, Rey just shakes her head. "No, it's... That sounds nice. Convenient."

If Rey was capable of communicating through similar means, that would have made things easier. Simple. She can't help but feel a little envious of such a gift.

But then, that is an option now. Might as well take advantage of it.

Words failing her for the moment, Rey just nods. She takes another long drink, nearly emptying her glass before moving towards a place to sit. She finds the edge of a couch, where she reluctantly places the glass of remaining liquor over a low table.

"Okay... Okay." She closes her eyes, trying to focus on relaxing, despite all the tension in her muscles. "I trust you."

Which some might think to be unwise -- but Rey has never believed herself to be exactly the most trustworthy, either. So it's fitting.

[wormintheglass]

Bianca finishes her own drink, and before she sits down, finds the bottle and refills both glasses. When she coils herself down beside Rey, it's careful, deliberate; almost ceremonial. She knows herself to be deeply untrustworthy, as a rule, and she holds her good intentions in the front of her mind like a talisman.

She takes Rey's hand, and holds her own against it lightly, palm to palm, enjoying the visual contrast of her own pale, cool skin against Rey's calluses.

"I'm going to think of something specific, and then very gradually reach out. I need you to tell me when you see it. I especially need you to tell me if you feel any pressure - if you start to feel overwhelmed."

The picture is ready in her mind already: it's the two of them, only instead of Bianca's magpie-baroque living room, they're sprawled on a forest floor, soft with generations of fragrant leaves. Sunlight dapples their skin, and the forest floor is carpeted in bluebells. The air is full of huge, purple butterflies. She makes one sit on Rey's hand, imagines the almost weightless tickle: and then she reaches out, as gradually and inexorably as a dripping tap.

[circumitus]

While the tension still lingers, the most nerve-wracking corner in her mind is almost immediately dispelled upon the shift in scenery. From the cold damp walls of the cave, or the unreal illusions forced into their minds by the gods, a forest is something of a peaceful place to Rey. Green. Vibrant. The smell of earth and life. Something both familiar and alien.

A part of her starts to wonder why she hadn't thought to do this sooner. If not for the sickness in her own mind. The ever-present dread that she would darken something so bright such as this.

But it doesn't. Her hand twitches at the sensation of the insect on her skin. Eases at the feeling of Bianca's touch, both mental and physical.

"It's beautiful," she says, and her throat tightens.

I don't want to poison it. I don't want to break it.

[wormintheglass]

This forest is partly invented, and partly a timeworn scrap of memory. Most of Bianca's recollections of childhood are of being alone in an abrasive place full of strangers, desperately bored, trapped and frightened and yearning for escape: all of this flits through their shared awareness without words before Bianca puts it out of her consciousness in order to concentrate on Rey.

But before all that, before the grey desert and the inexplicable strangers, there was a forest. Whether it genuinely was infinite in dimension or merely seemed so to a small child, Bianca has no idea. Still, after all these centuries, forest landscapes speak to her of peace and belonging.

Rey reminds her a little of a tree - scarred and infinite and with tender, green shoots - and she has always loved trees. She can see Rey's fears, which in this place take the shape of misformed shadows, creeping around them. Bianca rests her head on Rey's shoulder, and while the fingers of her body do not move, in her thoughts they twitch with the suppressed urge to root out and destroy every shadow.

She could do it. She does not. Bianca tends to feel that anyone would be better off if she had the pruning of their mental landscapes, but an older, wiser part of her - oddly, one that speaks in her thoughts with a raucous, accented voice quite unlike her usual liquid purr - knows it to be wrong.

"You are beautiful," she whispers, both with her physical voice and with her mind, so that Rey can see its plain truth.

[circumitus]

Scarce that her fears are, what few that lingers in the back of her mind take such oppressive forms. Twisted. Dark. Insidious.

Even after Bianca's loving words, the shadows remain rather than dispel. Somehow, they darken. Become more jagged, sharper, inhuman. They writhe at the sound of the voice in her head, increasingly despaired the longer Rey holds her silence.

And the quiet is so deafening.

Despite her best efforts to stay in this brief paradise, to feel Bianca's head pressed against her with her black hair tickling the crook of Rey's neck, her eyes squeeze shut. This heavenly place has gotten even darker and her insides go cold.

A sharp pain meets her face. Warm rivers trickle down her cheeks. She realizes immediately that they aren't tears, though.

It's blood.

Somewhere in that void, an echo of a man cries out from a distant memory--

I CAN'T STAND YOU. I CAN'T BEAR THE SIGHT OF YOU. I HATE YOU. I HATE THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE. STOP STARING AT ME LIKE THAT. YOU'RE NOT BETTER THAN ME. STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT! YOU ARE NOT BETTER THAN ME!

No, it is not a man. Not a human in the slightest. He is like her, something else, artificial and yet suffering the loss of a very special sort of love. But she cannot feel his pain. Only the slashes that will eventually leave scars, and the agony searing into her brain.

Beautiful? This? Blood is beautiful? Hurt is beautiful? In Rey's mind, she can't discern the difference of Bianca's meaning. It's all the same in that instant. Searing. Constant. Tightening her insides as she goes to throw her hands to blanket her bloody face. She can't tell if she is standing or lying on her back. What is up or where is down.

Does it really even matter anymore?

[wormintheglass]

This is not what Bianca expected. She's always known Rey to be conflicted, but to find it running so deep, so violently divided?

She does know what that's like. She just didn't expect to find it here, and so different. Bianca has loathed her other selves as long as she can recall, and Rey's internal conflict makes that look like a nursery squabble.

She has forgotten to be delicate. She holds on to Rey like someone trying to haul a drowning victim ashore, and without her really meaning to, the others are here.

Iris is here.

One of her - the little old one, the one she met in Berlin - stands in front of them, fists raised, ready to defend Rey against the monsters of her past, whether or not the monsters are her. One, young and slim and blonde and longlegged, rests her chin on Rey's shoulder and whispers. Her breath smells of honey.

It's all right. It doesn't need to be like this.

They're all here. The dark one with her wide smile, the tall ancient one with her rope of white hair, the little fat one with birds on her hat, the little girl in her mismatched stockings. They gather around, a protective cluster of feathers or petals or perfume. Bianca, tears streaming down her own cheeks, kisses Rey's face as if to wash the blood away.

"Rey. Stay with me."

[circumitus]

It's all right. It doesn't need to be like this.

It doesn't need to be like this.

Yet it is. It is and she's doing it. The hurt is present and that hurt lingers. Reminding her constantly -- she did this. It's her fault. She did this to them and she did this to herself. She is not the victim. She doesn't get to be the victim. Monsters can't be victims.

Regardless of her shattered state, delicate isn't what she needs right now. Not what she wants. She shivers and chokes, trying to focus on the presence around her and the woman kissing her face, not to fall into back when. No, no.

No.

"I should have died," Rey mutters with a shattering voice, breaking more as her head hangs and teeth gnash. Just as Bianca holds her like she's drowning in all this madness, Rey instinctively brings her hands up behind Bianca, grip tightening over her shoulders as if that's the only thing keeping her head above water. "I was a mistake, a... a defect. Shouldn't have been born. Everything was... Everything... went wrong, because of love."

Blood continues to trickle when tears begin to join them. Her jaw locks. Throat hitches. Stomach tightens. Love is the only reason why she's still alive, and for that it couldn't be a more terrifying force.

[wormintheglass]

Bianca grits her teeth and takes hold tighter. Rey's grip is going to leave bruises, but if anything, that's a plus. Perhaps Bianca, small but strong, can leave some of her own in return.

She hisses in Rey's ear, and this time her voice is crisp and imperious.

"Stop that. Since when do you get to decide who should have died? Who are you to dismiss your own worth? To imply that I'm wasting my time and energy on a mistake?"

The manifestations of her other selves can no longer be seen, and yet they're palpably still present: in Bianca's own breath, in the grip of her hands and the way she holds her head.

"Shouldn't have is irrelevant. You're here. You are. You are loved."

Her words are not tender, and her fingers dig into Rey's flesh; but the tenderness is there. It's in the unspoken thought behind the admission she hadn't intended to make, in the way she tries to understand Rey's thoughts rather than override them.

"Deal with it."

[circumitus]

What Bianca says isn't a new perspective by any means. Just one that Rey has blocked out repeatedly. Avoided the harsh reality that might not be so harsh anymore, and yet makes her gut churn and chest heavy all the same.

She is loved.

Whether she wants to be or not, she is.

The pain, she needs. Bianca's nails digging in, the sharpness of her words, and the love that's also in them... Nice, warm, deep, dark, and terrifying.

Eyes squeezed shut, she presses her chin to Bianca's shoulder, hiding the blood and the tears pouring down her face. She sucks in a breath that might as well have been molten air and ash in her mouth. "I--" she starts, shaky, before she is interrupted by another voice.

"--feel nothing."

A murmur.

Behind her, absent from Rey's view but visible to Bianca, stands a figure with its back turned. Long hair flows to its waist, like blond drapes hanging with its head bowed low. It is alien. Nothing like Rey at all.

Yet, when it speaks, it shares her voice: "Feel nothing."

Whether conscious of it or not, Rey's hold of Bianca weakens as she hears that familiar voice, repeating those two words in a hollow echo: Feel nothing, feel nothing, feel nothing.

"Only for her," it finally says, breaking the cycle. The blond figure's head just hangs, as its robotic monotone wavers this time. "Only for her...

"'Yet each man kills the thing he loves'--"

"--and I killed her," Rey finishes this time, voice barely above a whisper, feeling weaker in so many ways. "I killed the first person I loved... because of someone who said he loved me... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I'm sorry."

Who she's apologizing to -- Bianca, that thing standing nearby that hasn't even looked their way, or the thing it loves -- is on the vague side. Not like Bianca's message, which had reached her ears loud and clear, and continues to hurt all the same. It's agony, because it's also truth.

[wormintheglass]

Love is a dangerous game, Bianca once told someone she - no. His ghost flickers in the corner of her awareness, a big curly-headed man in a coat like an explosion in a patchwork factory. Even now, he's attractive to her, but love?

"No," she whispers. "I never loved him. I only hated the self that did. I used him to hurt her, and they defeated me. Because love is also a strength, Rey."

In the physical world, she's gripping Rey's shoulders, bruisingly hard, as if she's the only thing holding her up.

"Is that one of you, my darling?"

[circumitus]

Strength. It's funny -- love is strength. Because nothing has ever made her despair more than an act of love. And the worst part is that she can't say it's always all bad. There's her brother, who she feels something very close to love. Nick. Muscovy.

Bianca.

How can something to strong make you feel so weak?

Numb to the pain of Bianca's grip, Rey just ducks her head, her brows furrowing.

"No," she says immediately, and then-- "Yes. No and yes." Her eyes tear from Bianca to the old mirror image...

Blonde. Devoid of the visible scars on flesh and face. Her clothes, a white gown, are torn; barely hanging off her seemingly perfect skin. She is beautiful in the conventional way. Such beauty and frailty was what drew that researcher to her old self. Why he kept her incapacitated, reliant on him. That helplessness bleeds through a horrible memory.

Her stomach churns, and she looks away. "Sometimes, I can still feel his breath. Both of us c..." She bites down. Don't do this. Not anymore.

"Love, is a burning thing..." Her other, beautiful self hums as the white, torn fabric of her dress catches fire, setting flame to her skin.

[wormintheglass]

Bianca hisses. Keeping someone helpless to keep them with you is a thing she understands, a thing she's done - there is a great black hole full of shameful recollection that she is keeping at arm's length right now, all Bianca's stories of her years on the barge. She has been that person.

And thinking of it in connection with Rey makes her rage blaze up, black flames adding fuel to the red.

"That's not love. That's fear. As though you were a possession someone could steal."

Contempt rings in her mind and her voice, and she looses her grip on Rey's shoulders.

"Let it burn. I don't need to possess you. Let us be phoenixes, Rey. Let us make each other brave."

[circumitus]

In Rey's mind, fear and love are one and the same. Always have been. The closer anyone has gotten to her, the more terrified she is of what that means for them. For her, even.

Back then, she was a possession by all counts. Something that was to be destroyed for being too volatile, and they weren't wrong. She still is something of a wildcard. Possibly why her father wouldn't let her stay dead, even when she had so wished it that she oftentimes took her rage out on him over the following years.

Her head just hangs as she feels Bianca's hands where they are, eyes staring at nothing. All the while she sees through the eyes of her other self, with perfect skin and burning hair, spreading fire across a bed that's now manifested as though it's always been there. It's a destruction of a symbol that almost made her a victim of something far more shameful. Something not out of love but anger.

The blood stops flowing down her scars by the time she lifts her head to look Bianca in the eye. Arms hanging at her sides, her expression heavy, but no longer standing like something that's about to crumble to pieces. Rather, the opposite...

Bringing a couple fingers under Bianca's chin, Rey stoops to meet the other woman's lips with her own. Gentle, but resolute, her breath carrying a smell and taste of smoke and sulfur, just as the fire around them continues to burn, spread, glow in the shadows of this space.

Her other self continues to hum.

And it burns, burns, burns...

[wormintheglass]

Bianca, who would probably still burn all her own other selves if she thought she could get away with it, watches the flames rise and crackle with fierce satisfaction. She is aware, here in this virtual space, of the depth, the conflicted complexity of Rey's feelings, but her own are clear and straightforward: The only Rey that counts is this one, here and now. Her scars are no more flaws than a tree's rings are.

"Burn everything that doesn't make you strong or give you joy, my love."

And then their lips meet, and she arches her back, so that her body presses against Rey's heat. The tang of sulphur shivers her to the nerve-endings, and her eyes blaze in the reflected fire.

[circumitus]

Though she can't say one way or another whether it made her strong, pain has been a source of guidance for Rey. Helped her crawl through trials and fight through tribulations. In the end, she's realized one thing.

"Burning is what I do," Rey murmurs, barely pulling back from Bianca's lips, her eyes still closed. "What I'm best at."

On the back of her lids, she watches in her mind the charred remains of flesh and bones, lying amid that fire that renders the mattress to ash and rust.

The flames rage, consuming all. She hears screaming, but they don't belong to her own this time. Not herself or her 'self' standing close, now bald and gazing empty at the black and red fire.