[House of Broken Mirrors] Dreaming Your Dreams

[Siofra]

I can love you like Leth loves you, he had said, softly as though still frightened. She was reclined on the ground, thrown off balance and currently without the strength to rise and return to the fight. Fear caused her heartbeat to flutter like the wings of a hummingbird, caused her eyes to sting. Would it really hurt so much if she believed him again, if for one night, and allowed him to convince her this was all real and she couldn't go home? A trembling breath was pulled past her pale lips as she slanted her eyes away, unable to look at him. "I told you once that we are nothing alike, Laszlo," she said, looking to the flecks of her own blood upon the floor. "I hold by that. You can't help me when I can't even help myself, and your words are meaningless to me. Leth doesn't love me, not here. If this were real, then he hates me and he has Forsaken me to be here as punishment for something I did." Her fingers twitched on the ground. A tickling thought wondered when someone else would come along and what they'd think when they see the blood splattering the floor. Perhaps they'd feel her fear and her anger and run as they sensed her despair. Still, she sighed. She felt something dark again grow in her mind, and a new plan formed. She had to hide the malicious expression in her indigo eyes as she looked up to him and held out one hand, palm upwards as though to ask him to lift her. The furrows he cut into her wrist with his claws, the bruises from his iron grip, marred her pale flesh. It contrasted their ashy tones as he stepped forward and helped her up. Gently, she disengaged from his hold and looked down at herself, seemingly tallying up the damage she had wrought with her own self-destructive need. Suddenly, from the face of calm she acted, moving at Laszlo for the knife without a word of warning, slapping at his wrist and either hitting herself without knowing it, or hitting him, as she tried to wrench at that helpless little blade without maiming her hand on its sharp edge. She was pressed against the Symenestra, whom once she had thought to call her own when she had spent an ill-fated getaway to his abode, fighting with his strong grip for something that would end her pain and bring her fear to it's denouement. For a few chimes they struggled, yet she never relinquished the blade. She was desperate for the end, she needed it. She didn't care if she was wrong and her death would be imminent once she plunged that dagger into her chest. She just needed out, and it was her only way. She couldn't bear it anymore, and if they were alike she wanted to believe he could understand this one thing about her. Feet scuffed against hard wood, growls of frustration puffed from between two sets of pale lips, and once or twice the woman stumbled, still weak from expending herself against him so fiercely before. She got close to the blade, close to his arm, and pulled at his fingers, squeezed at his hand, paying no heed to its twin and his fight. She hoped he feared she would try and kill him, in a way. She couldn't hope to wake up alone anymore.

[Laszlo]

"Nnf—Siofra!" Laszlo stumbled back as Siofra suddenly tried to make a quick grab for the knife, growling in outrage at her feint and severely frustrated that she was still afflicted with a destructive insanity. He yanked his knife arm away, grabbing at the back of her shirt with his free hand and trying to keep her off of him, but she twisted and shoved the flat of her palm into his face. Grunting, Laszlo pivoted on his heel, turning away from her to keep the blade out of reach, and though he was strong enough overpower her even in his Symenestra state, she was wily and desperate, possessing an agile advantage. He grabbed for her wrists, her shoulders, her neck, her chest, but she found a way to get loose either by striking him or unscrewing out of his grip. She had two flailing arms and he only had one. And he was losing his patience with her. Fearing he'd harm her with the cutting edges of his tapered black nails, Laszlo refrained from squeezing her too tightly, or grabbing at her too quickly. Holding back was proving its lack of effectiveness, but even as he applied more effort to regain physical control of her, she only redoubled her own endeavor to remain free. The pair scuffled across the floor, a flurry of lashing arms, hard breaths and hushed curses. Twice he attempted to simply toss the knife to a safer corner of the room, but she prevented the full arc of his arm. He feared that if he simply dropped it on the floor that she'd be able to retrieve it before him. Laszlo wasn't sure what Siofra would do if she got a hold of the knife. Either attack him again or kill herself, he assumed, and he absolutely couldn't let any of that happen. Yet, he couldn't help but think that this was building to a crescendo, that something was about to happen. Either he'd end up pinning Siofra down, or that knife would end up in his ribs. He had to take the initiative. This had to stop now. "Stop!" Siofra kicked at him again, but this time he was able to narrowly avoid it. He fell backward, one shoulder colliding into the flat, smooth surface of a mirror. In an instant, Siofra was against him, clawing at his arms to reach the knife. Laszlo hissed at her past his sharp, lengthened fangs. "Siofra, stop!" he roared, his free hand finding purchase around the soft flesh of her upper arm. He pulled her around, twisting on the ball of his foot and throwing her weight into the mirror. In that same moment, her hand found his wrist and began to pry the dagger loose from his hand. He jerked his arm at an awkward angle, trying to shake her off. The mirror split into an explosion of spidery, outward cracks. A halted, dry sound of breaking glass echoed through the room. A thin set of round, narrow shoulders pressed against its broken reflection, held fast by a clawed white hand just beside the base of her neck. Laszlo had succeeded in pinning Siofra, the impact of her body splitting the fragile sheet of glass behind her. The false Symenestra stood over her, panting heavily through his open mouth and bared teeth, his violet eyes hot and victorious as they glared down into hers. Only… her eyes looked… wrong, somehow. Before, they'd been hazed over with her madness, dark and frightening. Now the silver seemed more visible, beholding the light of a revelation. Something was wrong. He could still feel Siofra's hand his, but her grip had relaxed. She had given up. Laszlo looked down. To his horror, he saw the hilt of Siofra's knife, still clutched firmly in his own fist—but he couldn't see the blade. A soft, red patch began to grow in Siofra's tunic, outward and outward at an alarming rate. Startled, Laszlo let go of the knife. It didn't clatter to the ground as it had before, because now that silver tongue was buried warmly just beneath the left half of her ribs. A shaking breath left Laszlo's slackened lips as he turned up his palm. His normally pale skin was now slick with a scarlet hue. Violet eyes found hers again, every trace of anger gone from him and replaced with bitter, fearful astonishment. "…Siofra…" he whispered pleadingly, as if she could do something to turn this around, to make this not real, to make everything okay. This couldn't be right. That blade couldn't be inside her. He must have been looking at it wrong. He wished so badly that he was mistaken, that Siofra would turn to show that he'd missed.

[Siofra]

At first, she couldn't move. Her white fingers still clutched at his, her chest still heaved, her breath fluttering quick and hot past her lips. Yet, she couldn't move. Her shock was so great. She couldn't feel. It didn't even register that they had broken the Mirror. It didn't matter anymore. The only thing that supported her was his hand around the base of her neck, pressing her shoulders into the broken mirror. He looked down, and the look in his eyes showed her all she needed to see. It had been done. She could start to feel it now, the edges pressed into her. It didn't hurt at first, but slowly the pain began to blossom, growing as blood seeped from the wound. She trembled, abruptly cold despite the previous heat, and her left hand fluttered weakly, moving to pull that offending prick from her hide and alleviate the pain. Her hand shook as she pried it from herself, her dark, shattered eyes fluctuating in the emotions they shared. Pain choked her breath, her hand slipped in blood, and the blade finally clattered to the floor. That bloodied hand reached for Laszlo now. She still couldn't speak, her words had escaped her, but she could still move. If in a poor replication of what she had before. Her fingers curled around the back of his neck, blood rubbing off between their skin and his thin hair. She didn't expect it to hurt like this. She had expected waking up to be effortless and quick, all but a blink of her eyes. A mirror behind Laszlo winked and then died, gone empty. The House had seen what it wanted to. It had what it wanted. The revelation that she may have actually ended her life chilled her and frightened her, causing her fingers to tighten as her free hand curled around to cover the wound, applying painful pressure. "I... I'm afraid now, Laszlo..." She said, her voice was garbled, blood welling in the back of her throat. She swallowed, frowning, and started to sag as she lost the will to stand. She didn't release him though. She pulled him down until she was kneeling and he was leaned over her. Blood seeped past her fingers and the pain, the overwhelming roar, began to die. It was just them now. No house, no ghastly reflections to mock them. It frightened her terribly, the silence. It was as though the knife had stolen the angry part of her and left only the fear and despair and hopelessness. Her thoughts strayed to her father, whom she had promised to show her last phase, and to that un-named little creature waiting on the sill of a window in a room to which no one would return. Would it die, starved and neglected? Her heart throbbed and the pain renewed itself before dimming again as her hand released the wound and groped for that key, that little sliver of silver, before she reached for the hand he had kept on her body, holding the key between her red palm and his white one. "...don't ..leave yet," she said quietly, in case he sought to abandon her in the house, as she felt she now deserved. She couldn't change the past now. The least she could do was find some comfort here.

[Laszlo]

The glass of the mirror hissed and crackled as Siofra's back slid down a now uneven surface, dislodging tiny slivers of glass that fell from their surprisingly dull wooden backing. They fell around her, glittering like jagged shards of rain, and littered the floor at their feet. Soon, the horned woman was there on top of them, her legs having lost their ability to remain rigid, as thick blood gushed from her side. Laszlo was there beside her kneeling in the broken glass, the hand that once held her shoulder now cradling the underside of her back, keeping her upright. He wasn't sure what purpose that served, but he didn't know what else to do. You shouldn't have pulled the knife out, Laszlo reasoned uselessly to himself, one of a million new thoughts budding and racing inside his head. It was stopping the bleeding. Siofra… what's happening to you? His voice was far away from him, leaving him speechless as Siofra's hand left a bloody trail on his neck and traced dark red through his silver hair. As her arm dropped away, Laszlo desperately reached forward clasped a hand over her wound, trying futilely to somehow keep her blood inside her, even as it flowed between his fingers. "Ah—" He tried to speak, sitting there on his knees next to a dying woman. Carrying a heart filling with panic, he pulled Siofra closer to him, until her head nestled against his chest. Laszlo leaned over her, pushing his mouth into her hair and squeezing his eyes shut. What did you do? What did you do?! "I—I didn't mean… S-Siofra, just… breathe. Gods, I wasn't trying to…" Wasn't he? Laszlo had yanked his hand from her grip, trying to keep her from taking the knife. In doing so, he'd stabbed the woman… had it really been an accident? A dry sob coughed itself into Siofra's hair. I would never have… Laszlo swallowed, lifting his face away from the top of Siofra's head. He just held her as her body slowly lost is strength. It seemed impossible that she could die. She was too perfect to contain this shade of red in her veins, to pour it so carelessly onto the floor of the House. Her eyes were deep and blue to ever become lifeless. Those pale, plush lips and her soft tongue were too sweet to ever stop tasting breath. This couldn't be happening. She was too perfect to die. "I won't leave," he whispered, his rational mind starting to take root underneath all his panic, fear, and amazement. Almost against his will, Laszlo's mind began thinking of the consequences to follow, how he'd face tomorrow, what he'd do with his bloody clothing, what he'd say to Seven and Victor, what he would do with the body… "On my goddess, I won't leave you. Siofra I… please don't die. I'm sorry, sorry for everything. I never… never thought anything like this would…" Keen violet eyes settled on the flash of silver—a key? An utterly unusual object to enter this moment. How profound: a key, not a bandage or a bloody knife or a treasured locket, just a plain, silver key. No… whatever it was, it must have been important to her. Ahead him, in a nearby mirror, Laszlo couldn't help but catch their reflection. It wasn't them, of course (why would it be?), but two utter strangers lying in the same pose that he was holding her in now. A woman, young and beautiful with long, flowing white hair knelt upon the floor, her hands smeared with blood and her cheeks slick with tears. In her arms was Laszlo himself in his Symenestra form, or rather it was Vethis Orthilia, roughly fifty years before now, breathing his last. This was how he died, in the arms of someone he loved, bleeding his life onto her lap. "Vethis…" he murmured, then tore his eyes away to look back down at Siofra. "I'm sorry…"

[Siofra]

Some people spoke of a heavy darkness that clouded the vision of the dying, as though Dira had come to drape her cloak over them and veil from their souls the misery of their death. Siofra, in some corner of her mind that still functioned, still fought to hope, to live kicked away that black shroud. It fought, alone and neglected, losing its battle as quickly as it had begun. It was for that small instance of lucidity before the closing of her mind to the world that Siofra heard Laszlo, registered dimly that something was wrong. She knew what was wrong, the feelings in her physical body still existed, albeit fuzzily. She couldn't feel her fingers, and she saw them clutched in the fold of his soiled cloak, her grip that of the dead. She couldn't think of how to release him even if she possessed in her the consciousness to do so. Red painted the bottom half of her tunic, continuing to pulse out of her with each fading pump of her most vital organ. It was such a beautiful colour against their pale skin... That small part of her that still fought suddenly woke the fading embers of Siofra's mind, inflicting pain by awakening again the nerves around the wound. It wasn't that much of an awareness that surfaced, but it was enough to cause her to stiffen and sharp tears to finally flow down her face. She wasn't aware of where she was, only knowing enough to feel that she finally wasn't alone. She had finally found someone to stay with her, someone who hadn't laughed at her and who cared enough to hold her as her life slipped away into her shirt. She found her tongue, the thick organ moving clumsily as she sought the way to form words. She didn't feel sad anymore, she wanted to tell him. She didn't want to die. She only wanted to have someone who wouldn't leave, and in finding that person she believed she had to wake up... She wanted to say she was sorry. That black haze began to obscure her vision, dimming her awareness again. Her eyelids drooped, her tears stopped flowing, her words died just as she found her own voice. Briefly, her fingers tightened even further in his shirt, one last admittance to her fear, before she fell still in his arms. Her breath died with the slow rasp of her heart. Her eyes remained half-open, but dim and unfeeling, beyond thought and instinct. The proud horns upon her head, black as the star-strewn sky, dimmed and faded in a terrible reversal of the light that took an Ethaefal as they shifted. She didn't even get to say goodbye.

KeyThe key Siofra just gave Laszlo is to her bedroom.

[Laszlo]

Little by little, Siofra's life slipped away. He dark, indigo pools were growing ever shallower, but they no longer showed pain or suffering or confusion. It was as if, as she began to realize her own death was impending, the madness that had gripped her heart and mind was letting her go. Her life force drained out of her, staining the dark wooden floor of the House of Broken mirrors, and she seemed to realize the gravity of her own situation, her narrowing vision tinged with a new sort of wisdom. Regret, perhaps, more than anything else remained in her perfect, porcelain face as she stared into the air more lucid than she ever had been. "Siofra… don't…" Laszlo could only watch her die in his arms, his violet eyes locked on hers, vainly trying to watch for the moment that they would no longer see anything. This had all happened so fast. How could she be dying this quickly? This quietly? Didn't Laszlo deserve parting words from her? A moment of reprieve as she groaned and asked to be taken to an infirmary? An apology? A curse? Anything? Please, don't die yet. Just stay alive, keep breathing, keep talking. Don't let go yet. "Don't leave…" The thin fingers that she had dug tightly into Laszlo's woolen cloak slowly slackened. Her thin breathing lessened until it became nothing, and her chest no longer moved. The light in her eyes seem to dull and then burn out, her lids not even bothering to shut. Her lips were left parted in the desire to speak her last words, but Laszlo couldn't know that her lung was filling with blood. He watched her intensely, his teeth pressed together and his eyes widened, praying to Syna or Leth or Lhex or someone that she would kick back to life, that this wasn't really happening. Her body went limp as the last of her muscles slowly relaxed. Both horns disintegrated before his eyes, inspiring mild alarm in the still living Ethaefal. Was that what happened when one of his kind died...? The question slipped from his mind as if it had been greased. All he could think about now was her. She was gone. Desperately Laszlo dug deep into his own views, trying to tell himself that she wasn't truly gone, that her soul would live on, find a new life. Or maybe Leth would even be able to reclaim it. No matter what happened to her physical body, her soul was safe and it would go to a better place than this nightmare that had ensnared her for the better part of a year. She was safe now, she could be happier, sane, wherever she was going. Funny thing was, believing that brought him no relief. What about him? Laszlo had been left here with this dead body, a woman he had killed. Siofra's weight became so heavy in his thin arms, the back of her head nestle in the crook of his elbow. Self-defense or not, his hands had done this. If he had never followed her into this stupid House, if he'd never ran after her the first night they met, if he had never insisted on inserting himself into her life and trying to help her. This had all been HIS fault! He brought all of this on himself, with this arrogant belief that he could change her, that he could make her happier, that he owed her his companionship as a fellow Ethaefal. Glancing up at one of the mirrors, Laszlo saw their warped reflections – Siofra reflecting as Vethis and Laszlo as the beautiful, white haired Nassanye. Vethis was dead now, and Nassanye looked frightened and angry. Shadows shuffled all around them in hulking, unnatural shapes. "No…" Laszlo jerked backward, dropping the body heavily on the floor as he suddenly found her existence to be vile and repulsive. She was a corpse now. A moment ago she had been talking, screaming, crying, showing so much emotion, and now she was just… still. Laszlo stumbled backward, trying to stand up but tripped on the tail of his cloak and fell onto his ass on the hard, cold floor. His hands shaking, Laszlo desperately tried to stand up a little more carefully. "No, I tried! I never meant for this… I only wanted you to be happy!" Finally succeeding, Laszlo backed into a mirror, which felt intensely cold on his wet sleeve. Laszlo jumped and glanced at it, noting the smear of red he left behind. Laszlo's snapped his head back to the heap on the floor that had once been Siofra. "This isn't my fault! It's yours. You… you used me. You were suicidal, and you just wanted a way out. You wanted someone to live your nightmare with you. This was your plan all along, wasn't it?!" An odd sound began to drift through the door of the House, like the soft sound of wind or… waves of water breaching the rocks? Laszlo turned to stare at the door, somehow within his view (if only through a mirror), latched shut but pregnant with promise lying just beyond. The Suvan Sea, where Laszlo had been born, which had watched him kiss Abalia just yesterday. It shouldn't have been this close to the city, but it was close again. Laszlo turned to Siofra. His shoulders heaved with an invisible burden. Lifting his palm, his eyes moved over the silver key that Siofra had placed in his palm, adhered to his skin with her thickening blood. It glittered halfheartedly as he slipped it into the wet pocket of his trousers. He was so frightened, angry, confused, but it seemed clear what he should do. The woman's frail body was easy to lift, though she hung in his arms like a limp bundle of linen. It was harder to keep his grip on her than he expected, but tightening his arms and hoisting her weight against him, he somehow managed. It irritated the shallow slash at his side, pushing more of blood into his shirt, but the pain didn't seem to matter to him. Trying not to stare in the mirrors all around him, Laszlo kept his faith on the door. "I'll give you back," Laszlo whispered, his claws digging into Siofra's skin in his attempt to keep a hold of her. She couldn't mind now. Her skin felt nothing, and it would never feel again. "You weren't born in the Suvan like I was, but its water is as cold as any ocean. This is all the dignity I can give you. May your soul find peace."

[Macabre]

Thread Complete!
“Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here].”

Laszlo
XP: Brawling 4, Persuasion 3, Investigation 3, Interrogation 2, Observation 2, Subterfuge 2, Weapon: Knife 1
Lore: Misplacing Trust, Death’s Face Mirrored, Accidental Murder, Ethaefal Death, The Ethaefal’s Inner Struggle
Awarded: Siofra’s Bedroom Key
Looting the corpse: If you wish, since you have her room key, you may take the following as your own. Bear in mind you do not get her room, as it’s rented from the Cubacious Inn and will go back up for vacancy once Siofra’s things are removed.

A spun glass bauble in the shape of a thirteen-rayed sun
Ferret
Disguise Kit
Tuning Fork
Harp
Thieves’ Tools
Climber’s Quiver
Longbow
Longbow Arrows (40)
Crescent Sword

300.80 GRM

Notes: I enjoyed this thread thoroughly! Laszlo will have a fun time dealing with all of this, I’m sure.