The tunnels beneath Windgrace manor, The night of 'Her Keeper'
[2023/10/03 12:52] Dinah should have died at least three times tonight.
The pool room was a massacre site, splashes of gore painting the stone around the pool, all from a singular source. the rest had been cleaned by Hunter, after all, and so she had come to replace it.
When she'd first come down, she had stood in the waters up to her knees and pressed the tip of her ritual blade against the underside of her ribs and carved, spilling her insides and viscera into the pool until she had passed out with the pain.
when she had healed enough to come to once more she had been more discerning. Her tongue. her right hand. great chunks of flesh from her thighs, shakily carved out and tossed casually into the waters until she was too weak to lift the blade.
The third time, she had returned to her torso.
Feeling her eyes regrowing was a familiar discomfort at this point, but feeling her tongue muscles knotting into her mouth again was unpleasant. She had taken her womb this time, holding the tiny, useless organ in her palm until that
too toppled beneath the surface without any further hesitation, and she had brought the knife to slice her own throat.
For now, she rested. Waiting for the latest self-inflicted horrors to seal themselves on her skin and leave no trace. Just as they always did. The pain was helping ease her focus away from the ache in her heart, a gratefully received distraction. The knife was limply dangling from her fingers, golden eyes watching the musculature regrowing in her injuries.
[2023/10/03 13:04] Drystan Windgrace (jacksonn.shepherd): | After following the river of blood he had stopped at the entryway of the pool room, all glowing in a radiant blue thanks to not only the Aetherite that hung from the ceiling by chain, but from the Elder sign broadcasting itself in that blaring mechanical glow. It made Dinah's blood, all the blood look black, made her skin that much more pale. In one hand he held the bottle of whiskey he'd just used to wash his mouth out, and in the other was the satchel he'd brought with him. He had a blood smeared mouth and fresh globular tears dotted his chest where they'd fallen. He stood in the entry way, staring quietly at his sister, feeling her painful escapism as if it were his own, it so filled this space. Her emotions made the room swim like the air above a fire, He stood and watched silently as her image blended with those of the memory he'd just experienced. A long while passed before he found his voice. "I saw it. I saw what happened." His tone was dull, low, muddy like his hand.
[2023/10/03 13:09] Dinah didn't look up from staring at the mess of one of her inner thighs, her skin slithering back together back into smoothness and the scar-less void of skin. She sighed when he spoke, though whether she was sighing at him or because her injuries had healed, and she lifted the knife enough to touch the tip to her skin again, turning it so the blade bored down into the freshly healed spot that was still sticky with blood.
"I told you what happened" she murmured, her voice weak and shaky though this time at least it seemed from the exhaustion of her mutilations rather than the emotional breaking point from the surface. Here was quieter. Here was physical pain, but at least for a purpose. Here was solitude; at least until drystan had arrived.
"don't see why seeing it would have changed much" she added, voice near deadpan.
[2023/10/03 13:18] Drystan Windgrace stared at the ground rather than her slicing and dicing. "I was told small fragments starting with that this was like Paris, when it is not at ALL like Paris. I was angry, and hurt. I lashed out wrongly. Seeing what happened, ...from him, ...changes everything." He shifted the bag to the hand with the bottle and stepped forward far enough to place the bag on the first step into the pool. "I brought what I have left of my stash. Things I didn't think you'd want or need, but times have changed." He opened the bag and let it sit, contents mostly on display. The other bottle of whiskey, tins with syringes and bottles of morpha. Hand rolled cannibis smokes he always made now, a couple of jars with corked tops in various colors and shimmering in the light, potions of some kind or another. He stepped back, silently.
[2023/10/03 13:24] Dinah sighed again and she reached for the water with her freshly regenerated hand, swirling the blood from her fingertips into the glowing pool.
"Like paris in that I ended up killing someone that I cared about. The only person outside of the family that cared for me. it sounds to me quite accurately like paris" she said miserably, reaching up to wipe her wet hand across her bloodstreaked face. She didn't turn her face towards the bag, dipping her palm again and returning to smear the holy water over her face again.
"you will probably want to keep that" she said after a few beats of silence. "we don't know when the fog will lift." she added as she shifted, lying on her side against the cold stone, eyes still on the water
[2023/10/03 13:33] Drystan Windgrace muttered. "Fuck the fog and Grace Sullivan. Besides, you didn't kill Niles. You were used as an instrument. You had no intention of it happening. You were right to think you two would be enough to handle it." He looked down at his hands and then stepped forward. "May I?" He held his hands out towards her, motioning to the water. He didn't expect to be forgiven for how he'd acted. And he'd known for hundreds of years that even if she ever found out about how he felt for her, it wouldn't matter much, he was just her brother. Not even her other half. All he wanted to do was understand what had happened more clearly, and now he had that. The rest was just an offering to her since Dorian seemed concerned that she no go sober. "I'll leave you to your ...mutilation then. I'll disturb you no further."
[2023/10/03 13:38] Dinah finally lifted her eyes towards him, wet but surprisingly not crying. "I told you that too" she said quietly. "I told you it wasn't me. it wasn't even me that contacted it. but.. if i hadn't had it with me. if i'd not told him, or if i'd been more careful.." she draped her hand across her face in a streak of drying, clotting blood. When he asked to step forward she didnt speak but her head bobbed just the once, he could come closer if he wanted to.
This time, the knife hand came up, pressing the point of the blade to her cheekbone and scoring it around down towards her mouth.
"...why would you think... i would have lied to you about what happened?" she asked between little hisses of pain, bringing the blade away. "...i was going to tell you. when i could."
[2023/10/03 13:43] Drystan Windgrace (jacksonn.shepherd): As he stepped forward he sunk his hands into the water, letting the blood and mud slip away. He looked up at her, close now, and frowned. "I didn't think you lied to me...I never said that. I needed to understand what happened...in a way I can't ..i don't know how to explain it to you." He leaned his head down closer to the water to bring some of it to his face, the cold stinging his lips as he cupped around his mouth. "I was told, I didn't ask. Dorian ...well he said what he said." he leaned down further and cupped more of the water to scrub the blood from around his mouth.
[2023/10/03 13:48] Dinah watched him as he approached, the blood from the slice to her cheek already sat atop healed skin and she curled her arm beneath herself, propping herself up enough to use the blade, as if doodling on her arm with it.
"he said that i should wait until i was ready." she murmured "And then told you himself." she let her cheek drop down to her arm. it seemed there was more blood than skin visible on her now.
"...not that it changes much really, does it?" she added miserably. "he's gone. i... I really thought that.. it might have been different this time" She burrowed her face into the crook of her arm. "...so fucking stupid. Father was right. I shouldn't even bother. This is all i'm here for" she flexed her sticky crimson hand, sighing and letting it drape into the water again.
[2023/10/03 13:56] Drystan Windgrace pulled his face up from the water, it dripping into the pool and reached out and grabbed that hand she draped into the water. "No. Don't you EVER say that. That man was not a father, doesn't deserve the name. He was a monster than used his children to better himself, and we were all forced to suffer it. NEVER forget that. He was wrong. and I cracked his neck in half to prove we are more than he will ever amount to." There was fire in his eyes now where they had been dull and sunken before. "I had no Idea you wanted a child so badly. You keep that to yourself, or share with others, but you've never spoken to me at any length over all these years that you wanted that. If anything I thought you disliked children." His words were clipped, sharp, annunciated to a point. "You're not going to send that negative bullshit to the shard, you can throw you whole self in there and it would spit you back for having said such filth of yourself." His mouth quaked and quivered and his grip on her hand only got tighter as
he spoke.
[2023/10/03 14:04] Dinah flinched as he grabbed at her hand, still sensitive even though the skin had healed. her eyes opened and she watched him over the top of her crooked arms.
"he was." she murmured. it wasn't as if she didn't believe it. if anything else, it stuck harder in her knowing full well that he was a monster, and a user, but he had still been right about her.
"why wouldn't I keep it to myself? it's been unattainable forever. likely will be unattainable forever. They even told me never to bother because the children would be married into some other family, and that's a waste of energy that i could be using to further us. what would be the point in publicly wishing for something that can't happen? that's just...more depressing than keeping it quiet" she huffed out a sigh.
"i don't like most children. but.." she trailed off again and shook her head, giving her hand a tug to try and free it from his grip.
[2023/10/03 14:14] Drystan Windgrace would not relent and let free of her hand. "Look at me. REALLY look at me Dinah. Why would I tell you what I told you? Am I more depressed now? I'm not sure. But the relief I felt in finally saying something was better than the alternative given the moment. You can keep wallowing in falsehoods. That's your choice, but he was not right. He wasn't right about the rituals, he wasn't right about any single one of us and what we are capable of. Face it. He feared us and he used that to keep us alone. to keep us from the world we fucking deserved." He tossed her hand back towards her with a splash and leaned his head over the pool. His voice bounced off the surface of the water as he shouted at it. "He tried to keep us like rats, he lied and tortured us, mother let it happen! DO NOT FALL INTO HIS TRAP DINAH WINDGRACE!" He peered up at her. "He might be dead but his ideas live on in our brains. You... would let him live there, rent free because something beyond our immediate control happened. Because someone
you cared for and that cared for you died. Would Niles want to see you dumping your body parts to the shard because Papah got you down? Highly doubtful."
[2023/10/03 14:22] Dinah pulled her hand back as soon as he'd released it, curling it to her chest. She winced, pulling herself up to a seated position again. her lower lip trembled a little, and she swallowed, passing her hand over her face again. Each of his words hit her and she crossed her arms over her chest, still clutching her dagger like a comfort blanket.
"....niles won't care because he's dead, drystan. Father didn't get me down" she slithered to her feet again, limbs shaking with bloodloss and not eating since...how long it had been?
"the fact that i was forced to kill somebody I cared about...I was aware the whole time, did you know that? did you see that? I could see it, and feel it and taste it. I was aware for every last second of it and the only other person in this fucking city that might mourn him screamed at me and threw me out when I was in pieces" she shot back sharply, her voice quavering.
[2023/10/03 14:38] Drystan Windgrace (jacksonn.shepherd): He stood upright and watched her as she stood and walked unstable on her feet. "Yes. I saw that. Yes I saw how you were violated. I saw it all through his blood. And I was wrong to have shouted at you upon finding out in such a fucking clown show of a way, with Dorian tripping over himself and that FUCKING voiiceee...." HE leaned over and grasped both sides of his head. "It SCREAMING at me the whole time," He winced and curled up and then stood upright again his eyes wild, hands still pressed against each side of his face. ",,and now I see things! Flashes of images I don't understand, all i saw was darkness and blood. And then it comes to pass? Do you think I want these awful things in my head to escape? No! Never!" he dropped his hands and shook them pleadingly towards her. "I was just told someone i cared likely too much for had been murdered by my sister. All the fine details? i got lumps of facts i had to swallow immediately, and not react? Am I to be stoic at all times? Am I not allowed to feel anything
either?" He reached down and picked up the sack and pulled it over his head and pucked up the errant bottle and slid it in with the others. "I don't expect you to ever forgive me, but give me fucking credit where it's due. I came down here to experience something horrifying so that I could understand you better, to understand all those fine details that actually mean something. I came down here to offer you what little I have to share to escape some of that pain. And now I'm leaving you to your solitude, because I am not allowed to feel. You want me to be a King, do you also expect me to be a statue? I'm made of the same starshards you are my dearest." He turned to walk out of the pool room, to do who knows what. But he paused and looked at her. "There are bigger things coming for us than me shouting at you because I was in pain over the loss. I can never say I'm sorry enough. So for the sake of our futures, the ones we know are not guided by some fate Charles believed in, eat something while there is
still something to eat that isn't human, and get your strength up. We have Free Will. Something Charles didn't understand. Despite what happened, we are going to break this world free of its chains." He huffed, exhausted and at a loss.
[2023/10/03 14:50] Dinah wound her arms around herself at his words, shaking her head, eyes sorrowful.
"I have always seen things. always. it never stops. it never ends. it's always something. it just becomes...numb in time" she whispered, though she flinched when he said that he likely cared 'too much' for Niles and she wilted again.
"...there was every other person in this city that could have been chosen" she murmured, mostly to herself. "you could walk into any place in this city and find anyone you fancied, you have always had that way, people adore you. and...and you cared too much for the one man who spoke to me. the only one since 1919. isnt that just my luck?" a ghost of a smile touched her lips only to fade again just as quickly.
"there is a difference drystan between not reacting and what you did. we could have helped each other. mourned together... i have never claimed you could not feel. i... i don't know why you would send me away" she trailed off again. "I am not made of starshards, beloved. I'm just flesh.
just blood. And with Niles gone, I am making certain that the shard does not weaken. I.. I couldn't...we cannot be sure if he perishes that we do not go with him" she brought the blade to her sternum again. "s-so.. I do what I can. to prevent that."
[2023/10/03 15:01] Drystan Windgrace chewed his lip and thought for a long moment. "The truth of it? I went to him because part of your very heart was eating away inside my throat. I was afraid to tell you, lest it hurt your feelings, or i somehow upset you at that fact. That what was leftover from that toothy black thing you pulled out was left behind, boring its way into my body. I made an anonymous appointment with the doctor because you trusted him. And I trust you. I saw him and he opened me up with his flesh crafting, gave me gills, took apart my throat and neck. and he pulled it from me. It bit him even. His manner of anesthetic was, that of overwhelming pleasure. I didn't choose him Dinah. I went to him for help, and his method grew into something more. I didn't go out of my way to try and take him from you. He cared for you differently than he did for me. So...there's the bare bones of it. " He shrugged and lowered his head. "You aren't the only one to feed the shard. Hunter can take us to him...inside. He took me there to meet him
before.." he trailed off. "Do as you will. but I know you can see the truth of my words to you. I am sorry. I could have been a better man and I was not, I was more the monster i've become." He shook his head some and turned and started to walk from the pool cave's entrance, avoiding the invisible river of blood as he stepped.
[2023/10/03 15:07] Dinah seemed to deflate the more he spoke and once more she sagged to sit back on the side of the pool. A sniffle.
"take him from me?...i..don't even think he were mine. more yours than mine. Even... til the end. never more than kissed me." she folded forward, staring into the water, her words faint and miserable. "if...if there were seven days left, and the world were ending...i'm a fool." she trailed off again, eyes stinging. The hurt was coming back, inching it's way back in behind the physical pain that had faded to a dull ebb. Once more the knife came down, once more she would break herself apart. preserve the family. Feed the shard. stop feeling.