thecircus | Age Meme

One thousand sweeps of memories is a lot of memory to behold. A simple half sweep is non-existent, comparatively. It is a strangled beast, claws flailing to cut or find purchase, but ultimately, it is doomed creature. Not all unlike those in the room.

Never in centuries past, has he entered or been in a room what those within didn't prostrate themselves before him immediate. Where knees don't crackcrunch and whine plaintive on the strident canvas of colored floor. This floor is grey toned motherfucking sadness. It plays no music for him.

He can tell those peacekeepers, those soon to be dead things, are nerveless. He ain't even got his power and fear hangs off him still, like the lingering scent of an inferno's smoke. The thing what keeps them standing is the sad threads what their business's have tied.

What holds her up is something different. It brings his brows to raising like hands in the air, hail mirth, hail mirth. The preacher lifts his great head, lifts the hard lines of his jaw.

He notes with the red--and red!her brushed up cartilage, her banged knees, he sees the color there with eyes sharp-- and red, her eyes are green as growth.

"What is this one you've delivered, my snivelling swines? MY TENDING TREACHEROUS TIGHTTHROAT FUCKERS? Punchline red as a joke. A GRUB'S WIRE WRAPPINGS AS A JOKE THEY ARE NEAR IN MOTHERFUCKING BRIGHTNESS," He says to his keepers, as his eyes travel over her, lackadaisical. Laughter breaches his aged flap. The old troll's laughter is made up of knives in a blender set on desecrate.

This time, with barely any noticeable shift, he speaks to her, "A new hatched motherfucking grub of an alien girl. WHIMSY BLESS. A girl seems familiar. ALL LIKE TO GET A MOTHERFUCKING FAMILIARITY UP AND ON SHE HAS. Has he slain you girl, the ghosts come the fuck out early? OR, MOTHERFUCKING OR AND AWEs. Is a girl like to be but a sideshow feast?" He speaks with too many teeth. He apparently expects nor wants no answer, for he carries on. He gestures with a slow movement of hands before him, that would make any person twitch.

"COME CLOSER. Seat your goddamn glutes before your Highblood holy."

Edited 2014-06-03 18:53 (UTC)

"Like hell, you can fuck right off if you think I'm goin' over there."

Fear is healthy, fear is sane, fear is the wisdom that lets you know when you are about to die a terrible, painful death. That one should not approach toothsome giants could be called common sense as well. One need not be terrified to recognize that an invitation to become one's snack is not the sign of a safe haven. Besides, it isn't only fear she's feeling. It's a certain symbiosis that has her baring her little omnivore's teeth back at him, like a snarling kitten for all her ferocity.

But, just the same, and despite her own words, she inches out into the light, all red hair and fire-fed glaring, tense to run or fight, for what good either might do her. Fuck you, old man.

He smiles like not an insult was lain upon him. Only a flattery most genuine. Sweet girl, entertaining girl. Behold her teeth flat as planes, behold, be of motherfucking holding as a prophet does the tales. He chuckles.

Up closer, in the shadows of his face, in the paint so perfect and precise it could be tattoo'd the fuck on, the trace of lines are visible. Just beginning to form after so long, finally his face has given way to the crevices and cracks. Little signs of the body finally, finally breaking the fuck down to the sweet void of rot. But even still, he is so very alive, unmistakeably. Like he swallowed the soul of each one what dared to think otherwise.

She approaches the light, and how strange it is to observe, not only a child, so long ago banned, but any face untouched by starlight of the space stretched outside inevitably, as it has been for so long until now. She is full of pride, full up with some small motherfucking bravery and foolishness at what would be seen portentous. Good of her. There were the times when he cared for the fearfeeble and there were times he did not. Her stature is small. He could crush her with his fist. What a delight.

"GOT A NAME, GIRL? Got a sign given unto you for your hatching or are the aliens to be just as motherfucking barbic as the taught, told, touched of what has already been motherfucking known?" He asks, eyes watching for any silver shine of resentment flashing. Any little piece of anything to shine.

"Called Red," not much of a name, but it's hers, set firm in the stubborn angle of her chin, "An' you're the alien, not me."

As for a sign, she can't imagine what he means. She doesn't even know her own birthday, and why should she? The foreign concept of a birthday is something to mock, or be mocked by. It's for those who can be taken note of, who have a history to ground themselves in, the roots of a tree.

"Ain't hatched either."

"RED," He repeats. He rolls it over his tongue. He rolls it over his pan and the inside of his ribcage. He chews it up and crushes it in his teeth. "Knew a troll with red in his hair. KNEW A TROLL WITH RED IN HER TITLE." Knew a joke, with red in his veins, just like a young sister. He says what he says like idle observation, and not like it gets him pondering turning throatstems and veintrails inside the fuck out.

He ignores her last protest. He swats it wayside like a pest what he ain't truly noticed.

"Child come to fucking learn. GIRL, GET GODDAMN SCHOOLFED," He says. His voice booms, like there should be some explosion behind it, but there's not. The echo is natural echo, done off the walls real, not the spiritual. But he gets damn close. "Display what all it is you know. TELL HIM, WHAT IS A MOTHERFUCKING ALIEN?"

"Some creepyass freak of nature like you," she's backed a step away again, boldness made courage by time. She is still afraid, but it's not stopping her mouth from running, "Something from another place. Not human. A fucking monster, like them Turians. Why they put me in here with you if you just gonna talk me to death, huh? I told you mine, what's your name?"

He laughs. From deep in his chest cage he laughs. Crackling like static, like a caving building. There are screams sounding in there that he ain't give two fucking brow flicks for. "Oh sister sweet," He says, in a way that tries for sweet and misses by a couple thousand leagues. "SHOULD YOU LIKE HIM TO CULL YOU SOME OTHER MOTHERFUCKING WAY? He can get very creative, he does so assure. AND IT HAS BEEN LONG ASS TIME SINCE HE'S SEEN YOUR COLOR PAINTED PARTICULAR, RED. You should consider it pleasure. YOU SHOULD CONSIDER IT GRACE. He does not deign to speak to just any. WHAT THEY WANT YOU IN HERE FOR HE GIVES NOT A LOWBLOOD'S PUSTULANT ASS AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU, WHEN ALL IT HIS PRESENCE IS WHAT YOU OUGHT CONCERN YOURSELF THE FUCK WITH."

He's gotten a lean going as he spoke, getting his face closer to her and the ground, but still too far to even think of it. It's all intimidation tactic, but all automatic now. He straightens his back and his face is smooth and as unbothered as ever.

"You will call him 'sir', Your levity, Your Grandness, Your Grand motherfucking Highblood. YOU WILL CALL HIM PREACHER," He says with that same farce of calm. "ALIEN IS THAT WHAT IS FOREIGN. Which means if he calls her an alien. SHE IS A MOTHERFUCKING ALIEN. Just as if he calls a corpse 'dead'. IT WILL BECAUSE HE HAS TAKEN THE MOTHERFUCKING TICKET. A lesson learned for you, Girl. YOU'RE MOTHERFUCKING WELCOME."

"I ain't callin' you none of that shit," back against the door again, but still snarling because if she's going to die here, it'll be with at least the same dignity afforded a cornered rat, hissing defiance unto the last, "You ain't my nothing."

Respect is earned, an older Shepard had said to him, once; but that was long ago-- or, depending on which of them you asked, it would be many years from now.

"...and you ain't earned shit from me."

He looks at her, some cross of unimpressed and bored.

"Then he will be your nothing, sinnerblooded Sickvein," He says, low.

She thinks there is dignity in a squeakbeast? She thinks there is some trace of pride to be had, or worth, in a cornered thing? He snorts.

"BUT YOU ARE WRONG. He has earned much from you. JUST IN THE BEING OF HIS PRESENCE HE HAS EARNED MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT AS THE HOLY TO DO THE WICKED WORK. And you are boring him, girl. HE'D BET YOU TO BE BORING OUR LOVING MOTHERFUCKING AUDIENCE AS WELL." Because of course it would be filmed. Of course it would. It just seems logical somehow, for some distant reason.

"Who gives a shit what they want anyways? I ain't nothin' but a street kid, I know what I stand for. The biotics don't work and the reds ain't comin' for me here. I was dead when they picked me up."

Fatalistic if not for the teeth she puts in it. Die the way a volcano dies, in fire and fierceness, though at the end you're dead just the same.

"Ain't nobody the boss of me."

Ain't nobody the boss of me. The words ring. A solid song in his ears that sounds like the end of the world. You ain't my motherfucking commander. It pierces and splits his skull, splits his casing, like gods decided they thought he should be two.

He growls at the words, a guttural, dangerous noise.

"Wrong. WRONG THE FUCK AGAIN!" His mind says it's to her thinking he can't tear her apart, says it's the poison red of her making her to be a defiant, unworthy wretch. Treacherous, backstabbing, heathens to be punished by the Messiahs above. Something... something else says it's... it's...

His hand reaches forward, his claws clicking on the ground. A swearing of 'enough', he is coming for the hunt.

Edited 2014-06-04 02:34 (UTC)

She's wary and she's quick, skinny as a rake, and slippery as a snake, but there's no escaping him. He's like a Krogan, like a bear, like a hundred other things that Red's never seen, may never see.

He's like the big men standing outside the alley-door with a party behind him and a hatred in his eyes. He looks so big and slow and impossible, like a mountain, but when he moves...

Red dodges like the rat she resembles, skittering away as much as fleeing, but he takes up the whole room and it's a spider running from the boot. There's just not enough floor to get outside of his reach, and the peacekeepers don't seem to care one little bit. When he catches hold of her, she screamed, not in fear, but in rage, and bites with her little omnivore's teeth, until she tastes his weird, alien blood in her mouth.

The chains on him try to restrict his movements. They try to hold him back, desperate little things. But he is the sort of monster such chains are not made for. They jangle, one hundred little church bells chiming for the life of little Red.

He notices not the bite nor blood. It drips down unheeded. So too does it flow from his wrists, the needles hidden inside each cuff whining under the force of his movements. But they don't inject.

"Made a motherfucking mistake most grievous, you up and have," He hisses at her. "GAVE YOUR KIND CHANCES. And each one put to waste. PUT TO MOTHERFUCKING WASTE WAS EACH CHANCE BY YOUR DISEASED PANFRACTURED KIND. You know what happened to them all, all that motherfucking red? THE LAST ONE OF RED DIED A BROKEN TROLL. Pieces scattered. WINGS TORN THE FUCK OFF HIS BACK. The second hung by her own naivete, her own damn noose. AND THE FIRST, SISTER, DO YOU KNOW WHAT BECAME OF THE MOTHERFUCKING FIRST? Burned, publicly, shackles bright as the sin done. SO TELL HIM, WHAT THE MOTHERFUCK SHALL COME OF YOU? You can choose. HE'S FEELING GENEROUS!"

He slams her back against the wall, holding her down with an oversized hand. There's a fever behind his eyes. But he doesn't crush her. Something keeps him from doing so. He's getting real tired of somethings what can't be explained. Something shaped like ghosts, the color of yellow, the sound of bones breaking, the feeling of gratitude and barely hanging turned to sudden despair and slipping. A ghost he shakes off. She's pinned, he's growling, he's waiting for some sort of response, as if he had a single shred of patience in his body. As if he needs her permission.

His mind slips like a cracked dam. She could throw anything there in the ravine and the water would take it.

Air is the rattle of stones in her lungs, harsh and crackling, lost in a cloud of grey spots and an aching skull. He's got her. well and truly. She is going to die.

This is so fucked up.

"Get th'fuuhh..." It's a wheeze, and she tries again, teeth bared, ugly with purple-blue blood in her mouth, "Get off. Of me."

He's elsewhere. Another time. He's smaller, younger, she's older but not bigger than him. There's blood in both their teeth and there's a burn in him like a swallowed sun. But it's not brighter than her, her skin bright, her eyes red, her blood. His head aches and everything is perfect, everything is the worst it could possibly be, and he hates, he hates, it consumes him whole, he...

The Highblood drops her. So sudden, it's like he's teleported to the opposite side of the room.

He shouts, the louder words nearly a scream, rage in every breath. "GET HER OUT! Out from my motherfucking countenance! TAKE HER NOW BEFORE HE SPLITS YOU MALEFACTORING MOTHERFUCKERS FROM FLAP TO SAC AND FILLS YOU WHOLE WITH BEANBUGS WHAT FOR THE HIGH LAUGHSASSINS TO USE AS MOTHERFUCKING GLUTE RESTING STATIONS! You have to count of five and he can cull you faster!" He doesn't shout at her.

He pounds his fist on the wall. The wall dents. The wall up and quakes.

"ONE!" He hollars.

There is nothing.

"Three...!"

The door opens, sharp and quick. Barely a crack, and the peacekeepers fighting about it can be heard. He ignores them, turning to her with eyes ablaze.

"GET OUT! Get the fuck out. NOW!"

Edited 2014-06-04 19:45 (UTC)

Red falls, panting and pained, when he lets her go. Her groan is swallowed up in his howling, and the pain in her midsection means she staggers and falls against the wall when she tries to stand. Ow. Please don't be a broken rib she prays, int he privacy of her own mind, where no one can make fun of her. Those are so hard to heal right.

GET OUT! Get the fuck out. NOW!

Don't have to tell her twice. She's scrambling for the door as quick as a mouse, it opens as she enters and the peacekeeper with his hand on the handle wasn't quite ready for that. The door swings wide, giving the Highblood a good view of her escape, between the legs of one, barreling through another, caught by the third, struggling and spitting and biting until one clever soul raises his club across the back of her head and she falls senseless between them. There was never any safety behind the door, after all; only safety of a sort.

The peacekeeper that hit her brings their head to rising. They turn, looking in on the thing they're here guarding. They shouldn't be. This thing is too dangerous, too much of a variable to let live, they should just put the beast down.

And now, as the peacekeeper gets an eyeful of the beast, its anger pushing well past the tipping point, well past reason and sanity, they know they're right.

The faster thinking peacekeeper leaps to close the door, slamming it two seconds before the Highblood crashes into it. The room is dark again, the world closed off, but the Highblood doesn't pay it mind, he's been living in a Messiah forsaken ship for sweeps on sweeps. He rears back and slams up against the door again, putting a dent in, making the metal screech and whine and sings songs of doom to those outside.

The word mine rings in his head, and he doesn't even know what he means by it. There was a moment, when she was out, the Initiate deep within sighed in relief. But that moment is gone and both parts are united for the sake of tearing through those miserable welps. For the cull. For the saving.

But a new feeling surges, poison spreading through his veins. To kill? To knock out? If they were even a little motherfucking smart up at all, it'd be the former. If thay were smart at all, he wouldn't be here like this, right now.

He keeps smashing up against the metal, ignore when bone threatens to give. He wants to twist and pop their heads off their throat stems like dandelions. He wants to make a wish on the corpses.

He doesn't need to. He'll get what he wants.

After.

The Messiahs are in his head, calling his name. kurloz. KURLOZ. Strange. They sound different than usual. Volcanic, like...

He can't ignore their call either way.

His claws screech on the metal as he stops. And finally his roar silences.

It is weeks before she sees the monster again. This time, there is no cursing. They don't even bother to uncuff her, just throw her in the room, unceremonious to the floor, and the key to her cuffs after.

It skitters alarmingly across the cement coming to rest mere inches from the beast. She watches it from under her hair and only levers herself to her elbows when the door shuts, when the bolt clicks. Her lip is cut and swollen, there are sickly bruises fading from her face, but she is alive.

And she is looking at him, wary and expectant, defiance unchanged for all that it is quieter.

The door opens. The door closes. Heavy clangs of metal against metal. They do it every damn day. The food is decent for aliens. But he's getting tired. And he can only write scripture and curse over the walls so many times. He can only entertain so many ghosts. He gets so bored with ghosts, they're never any fun, ain't one of them even a little funny.

They should've killed him by now. Not even an inquisition, no torture, no withholding of necessities, nothing. This was just motherfucking insulting. He doesn't know what he's waiting for but the Messiahs whisper in his ears; stay, stay, wait, the miracle is coming, stay, the wicked work must be done this way. THEY MUST PAY IN FULL AND IN BLOOD, WAIT NOW. And so he waits, with 'yes of course's and 'as it is willed's. But them terror tricked bitches don't slide food and shitty ass drink in this time. There's the jangle of keys, the thump of a body. The keys slide so pleasantly to him, right where he can see, just where his eyes had been settled. A gracious gift.

His breath is sand. It's a slow trickle down the turned side of the hour glass. Without a change in his face, his eyes move to find her across the block. His head tilts, pulling his gross shaggy mane with it. There could be dead things in there. He probably doesn't care. He looks at her, impassive, no more amusement, his rage quiet-- but there, always motherfucking there. There is dried blood coating his hands and if she looks, she can see that it is his own, dark and indigo, as he reaches slow for keys on the floor. By some miracle, there's still dexterity to those colossal meat hooks.

"Thought he said he didn't want this gift." He speaks with a flat rasp, and yet his voice is clear still. "TO PUT NEW WRAPPINGS. To paint in different hues. BUT UNDERSTAND, MOTHERFUCKERS, THAT IT DOES NOT CHANGE WHAT THINE EYES BEHOLD. And what thine eyes have behold would not be motherfucking changed by the rowdy whisperings of those without god."

Somewhere he slipped into parable and preach. He speaks like he's speaking to many, thousands, all paint faced, all indigo, all eyes orange with the bitter glow. But he looks at her like he's well aware it's just her. It's just a reciting. "I LOOK DOWN UPON AND BEHOLD. Let it be known, my sisters and brothers, he is motherfucking aware of the rabble. I BEHOLD, MY DEAREST MOTHERFUCKING FAMILY... Color. IT IS COLOR WHAT THINE LOOKSTUBS DRINK UP FOR ELIXIR REACHED. Bluest of blues will tell you this matters. MOST MAROON OF MOTHERFUCKING MAROON WILL THINK IT MEANS REEKING SHIT. I tell you what it is. THIS I WILL MOTHERFUCKING TELL YOU, IT IS THE DAWNING OF THE FUCKING DAY. For all blood is sacred and it is sacred on our walls. IT IS SACRED IN ITS SPILL. It is sacred in the showing to us that we are blessed, my children, for see they cannot, no rust, no fish, they cannot fucking touch us, and they cannot see the kingdom of carnival to come, the Messiahs' motherfucking paradise. THEIR BLOOD IS OURS AS DUE TO PAINT THE MOTHERFUCKING WAY. All those brighter than us. THE DARKEST OF US FOR THE DARK CARNIVAL. My ninjas, my family, I preach to you that it is our hatched duty to bring on the raucous, and so then, shall we not motherfucking bring it?"

The crowd would call. Long Live the Mirthful, Love To The Motherfucking Family, Hail, hail. They'd sing praise, offer cheer. Spill soda into the air and color and light and sound and beauty. He's just got a piss-poor prisonblock and a red haired wiggler girl with a face like a valkyrie fell into his old paintings, leaving her yellow, green, blue, red, brown. The black is new.

"GIRL," He greets at last, speaking for real this time. "He is brimful with justs and unjusts. HE IS SICK WITH THE ILL FUCKING SOUNDS. There is a silence calling. THERE IS A WANT FOR HAPPENSTANCE. So what all shall it be? WHAT DANCE SHALL BE DEIGNED TO DOING THIS TIME? Of things wished and wanted, things to what one shall motherfucking return. TELL. Impart to he." Is it a bribe? A deal? If it is, it's a strange one, but sure enough at the ending of his words, he holds up her keys with thumb and forefinger.

Edited 2014-06-05 09:22 (UTC)

Age Meme

I'M SO EXCITED

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject