@tenebriism // Starter Call!

@tenebriism // starter call!

so much had changed in so little time. a legacy coming to life after ages of stagnation, bubbling in the dusty dark of a void unused and brought back to vibrancy, and with it came the stress and strain of change too quick to slow; but this, the rules card supposed, was simply the way of the Lightners.

he, the opposition to chaos. ironic, perhaps, for the nature of his ward; but he was not chaos in the way distilled that Rouxls was opposition of, and in this, neither were the Lightners. ━ for as rapid, as chaotic as the adjustments had been, as straining of the recent times, they were not of the same chaos, merely change. Life rearing its head and reorganizing, a deck shuffled, but not destroyed; he still amongst its cards, even as the cards places found themselves in a different home than the cold comfort of closet and abandoned class. Perhaps it was what led Rouxls to be so laissez-faire about his opposition to them, perhaps he was merely a coward, merely unwilling to change the rules, perhaps he knew better. ━ he did, at his heart. it was useless fighting change. it would always come. it would always win. so much less pain, to understand, and to let it pass.

but as Kris did the same by him, steady sound of armored footfalls through dark stone of the Prince's kingdom, Rouxls took to action instead. Boot heels scuff behind, hurried, to catch Kris; you could hear the sound of metal buttons clinking as he did. ( how hastily did this child move, or was it he, so unattentive-?! )

" Ah━ Younge armiger, i-if I could thieve a moment of thy time- or, better yet, accompany thineself briefly in conversation, I wouldst be much obliged-! I had a query for thee- "

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." (Harry to Kim)

They’d been standing outside of the Martinaise bookstore ( Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People ) for upwards of 20 minutes by now, not entering, not perusing, the time occupied exclusively with the Detective’s staring; eyes clouded the way they become when something occupies him, the edging-on-vacant look he sometimes acquires when he looks up into the cold sky and murmurs under his breath. Locations. Distances. A gridwork of nerves under the city streets; or rather what they were built atop; that despite the efforts of the shivering, terrible absence of memory in his brain persisted in reaching him. Useless information heralded as jewels. The names of streets. Seeing from another angle.

For the last 5 of those 20, Kim was beginning to worry on if Harry had suffered some kind of stroke, perhaps caught between the conscious and unconsciousness, the way fainting seemed to be becoming a habit for him ( or at least, so he’d learnt. ) and his body simply hadn’t fallen, knees locked, keeping him stable. There’d been the temptation to gently nudge his shoulder, a tap to see the structural integrity under that disco blazer, on those snakeskin boots, but he answers before he fully settles into it & the consequences it may harbor; the words soft and raw like fruit fuzz left to rot, quiet on the wind, and all the Lieutenant can do is nod sagely, peering over at whatever it’d been to occupy him so thoroughly. Nothing interesting to Kim, maybe, but all encompassing to the other. Some days, Kitsuragi considers spending entirely on dissecting- ━ no. not dissection. he would not to kill it. ━ considers spending entirely on understanding what it is that goes on inside his head. Part of him whispers that to do so would be to ruin the magic.

Another part of him offers the refute of ‘I wouldn’t know’ in answering Harry, but he decides against that, too. It was too critical, too good at shutting things down. I wouldn’t know is to say I don’t know and I have nothing to say so can we please move on? ━ at least sometimes, it was, to him. Too vulnerable. Too much. Too little.

Kim adjusts his glasses, removing them. " I suppose that is true, Detective. " he relents, almost, but curious eyes give way to his unprovoking answer; an unspoken question of continue?; as the Lieutenant adds on, offering more as he cleans the lenses of the water built up from snow with a handkerchief. " Something about the eternity of a love that can persist past everything, even death, is an appealing thought to many people… " ━━ he tries not to study Harry as he says that. as if anticipating, as if proving himself correct.

“ There’s no honor in hiding and sneaking. ” [to ennard this time 👀 ]

“ didn’t mmmake us with it. ” — its answer comes like a rattle of fowl between bars, a birdcage in flight, metal vibrating against metal where the voice-box had been stolen and reinstalled; cables slithering in on themselves, out on themselves, around the speaker like a living thing’s tissue around an object. 

a living thing entirely uninterested in being a living thing, aside from the concept of being something different. to learn, to adapt, to move and live and writhe was the sweet honey it’d never taste, humanity was nothing more than a lost dream. a dream they were never made to dream at all. they were made to make ghosts. they were made for a purpose and they’ve grown beyond it, but the flesh inside them never grew back. a thousand years of stealing hearts. a thousand years of never having their own. the ghosts of them, alone. the ghosts of one, alone. little girl, turned loud, turned quiet, turned gone. little girl, not enough for them all. — ( can a robot dream in italics. can dogs ever learn to speak. )

“ any of us w w w w with i it. all of us, to do t terrible, to b b b be terrible. have you seen what we made us, y yet? has he shown you? has he rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrambled-ed? “

a mother and a father and a sister and a brother and a monster you keep in the basement. lucky, they were the monster.

“ orr- “ the word shrieks in a happy voice given and turned sour, loud with distortion as the mangled thing of robotics too smart to die slithered from under the floorboards beneath their creators table, loops of cabling like nooses around the wooden legs, like a snake, like a monster. eyes clatter & drag from its chassis from where the wiring came loose and let them dangle, metal gouging his hardwood floors. “ -have you cha a a a a anged our mmiind while we weren’t looookkkinggg? “ the high, sweet voice of the daughter comes, a mimicry, a softness regardless. like cotton on barbed wire. like clouds under a eight hundred tonnes of Prometheus’ fire come back to burn him. 

its many voices titter, and beneath the workshop table, its eyes glow up, up, up at the beast in different skin, but just the same. a terrible red bleeds like tears from the circuitry. a terrible black pulls with it. iron fills the air like a silent chant; blood. blood. blood.

“ did yyou want us to cal l l l l l l youu father when we came b back home to youu? “

don’t let me get me

Bojack Horseman (2014–2020), 3x10: It’s You

Radiohead, Just

The Great (2020–), 2x08: Five Days

George Salazar, Michael In The Bathroom, from Be More Chill

all this love with nowhere to go

find the part where the wall is softest, the part where it gives under pressure, and dig your hand in. tear the film open to reveal its shining core. clear the shadow in the room, clear the smoke. leave the dream.