Dinah had been returning to the pool daily though at least her mutilations had steadied to the necessaries. No more drastic maulings. She had her jewelry box open in front of her, and one of her long, sharp hat pins in her hand. Her ear was already studded from lobe-to-tip and glittering with jewels from the earrings she'd pierced through it, and she had been toying with wearing one in her nose. She had bracelets, baubles and jewels heaped upon herself, looking for all the world like someone had just been shot through a cannon into a jewelry store.
She'd pierced one of her brooches through the skin just below her collarbone and left it there, mildly amused by how it sparkled against her skin. For now, she was entertaining herself with this very minor mutilation, leaving the jewels to heal in her skin.
Drystan tossed open his bedroom door and used his mind to shut it, but was not paying attention to how much force he was putting into things. The double doors slammed shut, and he muttered to himself as he stood at the top of the stairs with his little watercolor set, brush in one hand the mini canvas and paints in the other. “Shit…ugh…Sooorrrryy…” He said it to no one, but just in case someone was trying to rest or had been alarmed, he figured, what the hell. He’d started to take barefooted steps down the stairs towards the kitchen, where there was some food at least, but paused, looking sidelong at Dinah’s door. He felt an odd sense of pride and of being pleased flowing from her room. He stepped back up and decided instead to head towards her door, feeling as he took each step to fine tune what she was feeling.
Dinah had jumped and stabbed the wrong part of her nose with the hatpin as her brother slammed his door, though by the time she withdrew it, it had already healed leaving nothing but a bead of blood she rubbed free. Scrambling from her spot in front of the vanity, she padded towards her door and opened it, peeking out and looking towards the stairs first; until she saw that Drystan was nearer to her door instead.
"Oh!" she rested her hand against the threshold of her room, still glittering in thousands of pounds of jewels. "Drystan. is everything alright? that was....loud." she murmured.
It was easy now seeing her dripping with jewels why such feelings were emanating from her. He stopped moving forward and sort of cocked his head to the side, looking her up and down, a half smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Going somewhere VERY fancy?” he asked teasingly, and then turned and pointed at the doors with the brush. “No..I’m fine I just wasn’t paying attention. Sorry if I disturbed you.” He was already stepping back from her and back to the bannister when he paused, chewing his lip. “It looks sort of nice…though..you’re now a walking target for robbery.”
Dinah smirked at his words and reached to push the diamond bandeau further up her brow. "Maybe the kitchen, if I'm feeling particularly bold I might even go to the study," she turned her fingers over to watch the light catch on her rings. "It wasn't so much of a disturbance, I just poked myself." she rubbed at her nose again but she pulled a face.
"Anyone who tries to steal anything from me ever had better be the most immortal immortal that ever lived. They'd never stop finding pieces of them," she glanced back to her vanity. "I will take them off soon, I suppose. but the ones in my skin might take a little more encouragement to come out, perhaps." She flicked at the brooch hanging beneath her collarbone again with a faint smile.
The faint smile gave him pause. He figured she’d not want to see him, so he’d kept largely to himself since the last he’d seen her in the pool. He’d stayed away from his brother too, most everyone. People were used to him wanting solitude, being in one of his “moods” so while it was true, he was still fighting the urge to run off into the night and pull someone's head off their neck and dance in the blood spray, he had been able to at least push that notion aside longer than before tanks to the young man in the trunk. “Ahh yes, the Kitchen. I hear they are only allowing black tie sorts these days.” He walked over to her after she flopped the brooch and dared to reach out and turn it so that he could see the back, the pin stuck into her. “I’m not going to ask why, cause that part doesn’t matter, but you should be using sterling. This will stain your skin over time, the brass, the quality is in the gem on this side,” he tapped it lightly with one finger, “..not in the pins they used to affix them to clothing, in general, not collar bones.” He reached up and pushed her hair back from one of her highly adorned ears. “I’d like to have earrings and baubles in y skin, but no….this pewter here is far far too soft.” he tapped at one of the earrings higher up in her cartilage. “I do have quite a bit of sterling, should you want your own …barbs. Could easily create crowns for jewels in them.” He spoke softly and low towards her, he knew his jewelry, he made enough of it already. But what he didn't know was how to keep decent holes in his skin. “If only everything did not seal up and stick to the metal. Craft tiny holes..just for the metal somehow.”
Dinah wrinkled her nose again and she looked down at herself "...I'm not sure a black tie would work with my nightdress" she agreed, though she let out a soft noise in her throat as he turned the brooch. It was, after all, stuck into her.
"Brass?" she almost sounded affronted and she shifted it, wiggling it free with a momentary stripe of crimson that followed where the pin had gone. "I wasn't planning on keeping it there for too long" she admitted, turning her head so he could see the jeweled ears.
"If you wanted piercings, I could help you. Most of these aren't just manual stabbing. I help move it... with my needle, and then fleshcrafting to heal it tight before my own healing does and molds myself to the metal" she started pulling the rings from her fingertips, pooling them on the palm of her hands. "Of course, I only use my hatpin... it is sharp enough, but I can't really keep them for too long. I just...wanted to use some of my jewels."
“And why aren't you able to keep them? Says who?” he asked her honestly. “You could wear jewels dangling from the tips of your toes if you wanted, however impractical. You can do whatever you want to do Dinah. Who’s going to stop you from adorning yourself in gems wherever you please?” It was an honest question. Other than the fact that she really would be a walking opportunity for thieves, they’d all be dead as soon as they’d try. He reached a hand up to his own ears and pulled on the lobes. “I’d actually very much like that. I hadn’t even thought about your fleshcrafting ability. Silly me.” He flipped the watercolors cover over the paints and pulled the dreary looking page from the book, a scene of the beach, covered in fog. “Allow me to fetch my kit? And you can poke holes in me all you’d like. Might be therapeutic.” He smiled a little and shrugged and mentally opened the doors to his room again. “I think I also have some unset cut gemstones, hmm…I know I have several loose emeralds.” He pondered and wandered away from her, walking into his room and tossing the paint book aside and opening the trunk full of supplies, grabbing long wires of sterling of varying gauges, and a couple of other small leather satchels that contained the gems and other jewelry making tools.
Dinah tilted her head, pondering his question as she tugged the bandeau from her brow, adding it to the treasure trove in her fingers. "I suppose it's still..a hold out from back when. too much is too much. I think I will add some more to my ears at least. or others that could be hidden but I might not keep the brooch" she rubbed at the little pink pin prick marks that were already fading as he suggested he got his kit.
"I haven't really been cleaning my hat pin but I suppose we won't need to worry about you getting an infection from it. I will put this away." she bobbed her head, stepping back into her room to clatter the stones into her jewelry box, clearing it away for his kit, toying the hatpin in her fingers.
He returned to her room and saw the space she had cleared on her vanity, and he laid his tools and things down. All he really had were some wire cutters, some crowns, the gems, and what looked like a long nail wrapped in leather on one end. “There, all that's needed is a cut of the wire to make a bolt, or a ring, …this,” He held the nail tool, “..can be used to heat the metal a bit to shape it, or affix a crown, and the assortment of loose gems i’ve got on hand.” Inside the small leather bags were all sorts of gems, from rare to common and everything in between. Lots of green dazzled, emeralds. Moonstone glowed a hazy white blue and opals flashed fire. “Seems easy enough. And, should you wish them to be gold, well, you know how to accomplish that. I just rather not keep heaps of gold laying about. Best to transmute it when needed, hm?”
Dinah hummed and she nodded, running her fingers over the collection of gemstones, turning the moonstone in her fingers and rolled an opal until it flickered.
"I've never made jewelry before," she mused, "If I poke you, you could make the jewels? I'd not want you to be stuck with something ugly if I got it wrong" she pierced the hat pin through the silk of her nightdress to keep her hands free.
"I could make them gold, though, it's true. Or something more interesting. Gold is pretty, but can be uninteresting... I could probably make the whole thing out of gemstone if you wanted," she tested the wire against her fingertip.
“It’s not a difficult craft, not in the least. I could easily teach you, but yes, you poke me, and I can create the jewelry to suit it. Plain sterling can work as a placeholder for now though. And why…you could probably make your own gems, depends on how delicate the material is and all of that.” He had his back turned to the corner of her room, having not noticed the skull sitting just behind him. “You don't want a crystal to shard itself into your neck if you fell or some such.” He looked at her pin in her dress. “You’re not going to use me as a voodoo doll are you?” He eased himself down onto the pouf of a chair in front of the vanity and took a pair of wire cutters and snipped a few bits, rolling them between his fingers after, warming them to his body temperature as he did.
Dinah withdrew the pin again and she knelt behind him on the pouf, watching over his shoulder as he manipulated the wire.
"I suppose it never really occurred to me to make things like that. The ritual bands...we'll need more of those by the way, I found the rite to push back the fog..." she brushed his hair back from his ears, curling her fingers in it whilst she watched his reflection. "But nothing is ever really purely decorative." she smiled gently when he suggested he'd be a voodoo doll and she shrugged.
"I suppose it would be a fairly poor doll if I were. Who would I try to inflict pain on from a distance by prodding you?" she turned the needle in her fingers, leaning down to press a kiss on the back of his head.
"..where do you want the first?" she continued combing his hair back and through her fingers, coiling it around her digits.
He pulled the nail shaped tool out and muttered some words under his breath as it began to glow into a red color near the tip, heating it. Holding it he wrapped the clips of sterling around the heated area, not hot enough to glow red into yellow, but surely hot enough to mold the silver to make a ring shape. The other he simply held the end of one side down, creating a flat surface that would at some point be adorned with a crown and gem, an empty post. “You’re right, its much easier to just inflict pain on me at close range.” He smiled at her and tapped his exposed ear. “You’re the one that’s used to wearing earrings. Have at it. I trust your placement.” He looked at her in the reflection of the mirror.
Dinah watched him a little longer and she smiled thinly, reaching up to probe the needle across the skin of his ear, as if trying to decide.
"Why do you think I'd want to inflict pain on you at all?" she asked softly, pinching the cartilage of his upper ear in her fingertips for a moment before pressing the needle there. The push of the needle was firm and it popped a little as it passed through the gristle beneath it, but with her fingers right there, she reworked the blood vessels and skin around the metal, twisting the needle in through so it wouldn't heal. When she withdrew the hatpin, it was already healed, as if it had been pierced for years.
"Ready"
He shrugged his shoulders a bit. “I wronged you, I deserve it, it’s cathartic? How many more answers would you like?” He winced just a little with the pin popped through the cartilage, and he passed her the ring, “Just bend it closed and I can fix them up later.. This really just to hold the space.” He looked down and snipped a bit of the wire off and held it to the glowing tip of the heating element. It melted in his fingertips, burning him slightly and leaving his fingertips red and puffy for only a moment before it healed. He used the other end of the wire to create a backing for the post, though crude and quick, it would work. He reached up and handed her the post, ready for the next hole to be made, while he set about creating more posts and rings, idly crafting them and setting aside gems that might look good together or placed near one another as he planned it in his mind's eye.
Dinah nodded and reached up to pinch the ring closed, curling the wires over themselves so they'd not easily become dislodged. "It should hold without them" she murmured, pondering his words. "I find it more cathartic to hurt myself like this...the needle.. than hurt others. It's different than the drugs. The booze. It feels... tranquil." She lifted the needle again, another in the upper part of his ear. "...well. perhaps not peaceful but... empty. For a moment. I suppose after all this time the novelty has probably worn off the rest." Another press, another pop, and she licked her thumb of the little red streak of blood that this one left behind, holding her hand out for another ring as she turned the needle between her fingers. "I wonder why that is?"
He winced again but it was gone before he had the chance to dwell. “I’m not sure. Perhaps its the chemicals released when inflicting pain upon yourself that gives that tranquility. I find that when I’m …in a mood. And I’m well, no reason not to speak frankly.” He cleared his throat as images flushed through his head of countless kills. “When I inflict pain onto another, I get a …jolt of pleasure from it. Tranquility doesn’t come till the end, till after, when I’m able to paint and revel and speak to my patron.” He’d closed his eyes and was handing her little rings and posts as needed. “Truly if i understood it better, I’d understand myself better, but I’m not sure I’ve allowed myself to dwell too long on such thoughts.”
Dinah removed her thumb from her lips and toyed with his hair again, keeping it away from his ear as she worked.
"Chemicals. Everything is chemicals. There's one thing that I never agreed with was how the old hermeticists used to romanticise alchemy when it is all just...breaking things down into chemicals. That's all it is. That's all everything is." she considered his words, trailing the tip of her hatpin across his skin again, once more trying to find a good spot. "I don't suppose I have ever really had that from inflicting pain. There's a particular kind of amusement from knowing it happens, I suppose" she glanced towards the skull. "...when Niles made me presents. Clipsy, and my wasp. I always thought they were far more special because of what someone must have endured for him to make them. I don't think there's really a term for that though, is there?" she smiled that ghost-smile for a moment and gave another press, this one in the softer flesh of his lobe.
"You should let yourself think though, of the why. It's a part of you, isn't it? Better to know ourselves, even the darker parts."
“They didn’t understand chemicals. It was still magic for them. It's more of a science as we know it. Though we use magic to…play…with those chemicals. They had no way of understanding any of that. Probably why our earlier ancestors never lived that long though they tried. Generation after generation, learning more and more of what was simply nature and science rather than some mystical combination. We’ve benefited greatly for having lived as long as we have to see the advent of the sciences, and to adapt. It’s why we are the strongest generation. We learn. We evolve. Our minds are open.” He tilted his head back some and leaned his head on her and turned his head to the side so she could easily poke away at his ear. “When I let myself think, It drives me to want to do those things. And now since we are on this island, I can’t go around just… murdering because it makes me feel good, you know? I want to understand that part, it was something Niles never judged me for, you know?” He chewed on the inside of his cheek and waved his hand. “For now, I’ll just keep doing what I've done for some time now. Exorcize those needs with a forever willing participant, and the random masochist I may meet. But it works both ways, ..I’m quite enjoying these little snips of pain, however fleeting.” He’d already crossed one leg over the other and when he wasn't messing with the wiring or the gems, he kept his hands in his lap, the heated nail poised to not burn his pants of course.
Dinah clicked her tongue and she shook her head "I think it was the opposite, actually," she murmured as she slid along to his next ear, caressing his hair away. "Science dressed as magic. Alchemy is just...chemistry with extra steps. Honestly I can't imagine that most of the ritualistic elements would be necessary. I just prefer to do them. It helps me focus" she smiled again, examining a curl of his dark hair against her fingertips.
"We learn. We evolve. They could have, if they hadn't been so paralyzed with the fear of god. they stumbled on so many right answers and just put them aside" she skimmed her fingertip over the shell-coil of his ear. "Does it have to be murder?" she asked with interest. "Would it not...work if they regenerated? like that...boy in the box. He recovers, doesn't he?" She scraped the needle to his tragus. "Perhaps it's having the control over life and death that does it. you have control over ours, after all, don't you?" she held his tragus in position with the pad of her thumb, sticking it through him and pricking her with a little hiss. "...where next?"
“That’s really a lot of where our magic comes from I believe, focus - and if ritual brings that, then so be it. Prayer, casting, whatever it might be.” He opened his eyes and made a few more ings and posts and then set the nail down on the leather sack and it started to cool once not in contact with his hand. His skin broke into gooseflesh when she skimmed her fingertip along the shell of his ear and lifted his eyebrows at her questioning. “It always has been in the past. Since Kiernan offered himself to me, when I started seeing him in visions before I’d even met him - I thought he was the solution to all of this. I thought it was the answer I’d been seeking, praying for really. And, he’s served his purpose, still does. But…I fear it’s not really enough. He isn’t ever really dead no matter how much of his drug-like blood I spill from him. The gift was what comes from my back now, I think he might just be a plaything.” He shifted again and let out a long extended breath, as she scraped the needle along his skin. “I suppose you’re right on that front, but the portrait, that's…that's something else entirely. It has nothing to do with the other.” He lifted his hand with a post in his palm but took her hand and looked at her thumb when she hissed. The tiny bead of blood shimmered, and he pulled her hand jut enough so that he could kiss it away. “Careful now.” He licked his lips and turned his head the other way to reveal the other ear.
Dinah made a noise of agreement in her throat, nodding again. "All most magic is...like alchemy... is transformation of one thing into another. Conceptualizing the change we want in the world and bringing it to life with some cost or another, be it focus, or blood, or pretty shiny stones" she considered his words and she nodded.
"Murder is...final. That's the problem, isn't it? That's the trouble. Maybe when the ports are open and we get more stragglers and stowaways again. The unmissed." she gave a quiet laugh.
"You've got used to having him there. Your tolerance has gone up" she said almost playfully. "Maybe you ought to keep the box in here. I will ration you. Then it might help again" she kept the same tease in her voice though as he drew her thumb to kiss away the blood, she tilted her head
"Careful, you'll gain another eye" she whispered. "More ears?" she shifted around to his left, examining him and once more coursing the point of the needle over his skin. "I wondered about different piercings, you know. Do you remember in the victorians when nipple piercings were fashionable? I might try that. Mother always threatened to disown me if I did before."
“And gladly I’d take another eye, or five. Whatever is given.” He turned a bit in the seat to look at her. “Dear heavens, she would have murdered you again and again and again had you done that. I don’t want to think how she’d even find out about such a thing.” He shivered a little and gave himself a shake to get the thought from his head. He considered her proposal. “I don’t know that you’d want to do that, I’m quite fond of him, the toy. He’s used for more than blood letting my dear.” He pursed his lips and then brought them to a thin smile. “Unless you want me sneaking in here to abscond the trunk anytime I need to use him.“ He lifted a brow at her and smirked, licking his eyetooth. “Well It seems, from what I’ve seen myself, that people here are rather fond of adornments, all over their bodies. So much here is less taboo.” He considered a moment and handed her a longer clip of the sterling wire, and shook the hair from his eyes. “Let’s give it a try?” He leaned back as if to offer her his chest. “I’ll do it if you do.”
Dinah clicked her tongue and she shook her head "You say that now, but getting used to seeing out of all of them takes some considerable work." she smiled faintly and she curled her fingers in his hair again away from his ear. "Oh, she'd have found out. They always bled me, and she didn't like me to get blood on my pretty dresses" she rolled her eyes with a weary smile. twisting the hatpin in her fingers, she chuckled softly.
"That might cause a few raised eyebrows, mightn't it? Would you even need to come in here to run away with the trunk? It'd just lift and wander off on its own and I'd not be able to stop the damned thing if you wanted to enough." she giggled again as he handed her the longer wire and she turned it in her fingers.
"....alright" she agreed, shifting from behind him to in front of him, perching herself neatly on the vanity in front of him "...but i'll not be using a wire, though. I have plenty of earrings. One of them shall do for mine." she reached her fingers forward, touching his chest. "..do you have a preference which?"
Drystan laughed despite himself, at the thought of that trunk floating through the house. “WHat if poor Dorian saw it? Somehow he’s shocked by it. I’m not sure how he does that, put his blinders on, as if he doesn’t know who and what I am? Willful ignorance.” He rolled his eyes a bit and shook his head. He watched her as she came round to perch on the vanity in front of him and reach out for his chest. He looked up at her, and lifted his brows. “Both? Perhaps not at the same time, but..why do only one? The asymmetry would be maddening.” He lifted his hand and reached past her, clipping a wire for the other, and settling his hands on her thighs, holding it for her. “Ehm, do you need..” He reached back for the wire cutters and held them up, “to pinch and pull? I fear I haven't the blessings of a woman’s nipples.” The corner of his mouth curled up and he laughed again, shaking his head. “Or can you manage it?”
Dinah smiled wistfully and she laughed "Bunny has always been like that. Sometimes I think in his head I'm still the girl in the meadow with flowers at a picnic. He has that talent, to be able to know us for what we were and never, ever forget it, even when we do something...horrifying." she watched him reach for the wire and she nodded, amusement on her face.
"I suppose there is something for that. Asymmetrical is interesting in it's own way, but then again, I am, when i'm not wearing this" she gestured to herself with the tip of her pin but as he offered her the wire cutters she beamed and shook her head, flexing her pointed claws.
"I can handle it." she said chirpily. With the pointed tips of her nails she reached forward to dig into the end of his nipple and tugged, rolling it between her fingers for a moment. Leaning forward in focus, she gave a playful smile and pressed the hatpin through.
He just shook his head, “The magical ability to live in two realities at once. He says he doesn’t understand magics, I’ve always thought that was just him being stubborn.” He nodded at her. “It has it’s place, but I do think that for this? These? I at least need to have them both done.” She flexed her fingers at him and he grinned, and took a breath. Then she was digging and pulling and twisting and his hands clenched on her legs tightly as a rolling sensation fired up his back and he made a deep groan, eyes rolling into the back of his head. He let his mouth hang open for a moment, while he slowly released his fingers from digging into her. Thankfully, he was glamoured, and he hadn't just ruined her nightdress. “Oh…hmm.” He closed his mouth and opened his eyes and looked down at his chest. “That was something.”
Dinah watched with some distinct interest at his reaction to the piercing. Carefully turning the pin as she slid the wire through, she cocked her head to one side, an impish smile on her face. She sat back up again, resting her free hand against the part of the vanity she wasn't sat on, twirling the hatpin in her fingers. She reached towards her jewelry box, picking out some of her earrings, playing them against her fingertips before setting them in the dip of her nightdress
"One more" she whispered in obvious amusement, fascination gleaming in her golden eyes, lifting the needle to boop the blunt end against his nose "And then it's my turn. Right?"
FTB...for now.