Completed Three Glass Birds [Meville]

[Lorelle]

Timestamp :: 55th of Summer, 513 AV One. Two. Three. Three little birds sitting in a row. One grew legs and fell off. Two grew hungry and begin to chirp only to starve to death. Three grew wings that were to small and fell to there demise. One. Two. Three. Little glass birds. Ending their lives in shattered shards upon the ground only to reappear fully functional to repeat the process. Lorelle stands, her body still as she watches. She is helpless to the birds, yet they don't seem to be doing to poorly. Aside from the fact that they keep falling and dying. They do keep reviving themselves though, so that seems good. The room is square and made of red glass. When touched the walls shatter before rebuilding themselves back up. Nothing can be seen outside of the walls aside from the frozen wastes of Avanthal. The snow sparkles white and clean only to be stained with the tainted colors of bad memories. The room is suspended in the air. There is no way out as far as can be told by the one inside looking out. Those on the outside looking in can only see the entrance that looks like it could be an exit as well. What the outsiders don't know though is that once in they are trapped and there is no way out. There is no one outside though yet, at least. None that Lorelle can see. The three birds change their habits. Instead of falling off, starving, and trying to fly they all grow wings. They fly over and land on Lorelle's shoulder or what she thinks is her shoulder. She can't actually feel anything. Everything is numb. "Meville," the first bird chants before slipping and falling to the ground off her shoulder. The second bird steps up as though the first never existed, even though it still sits shattered on the ground not coming back into whatever kind of life it once may have held. "Meville," the second bird chirps before repeating the first birds actions. Lorelle looks down slowly at the ground, appalled. The third bird steps forward. "Me..." the third bird is cut short when a hand, not Lorelle's comes and pushes it off. Lorelle hesitantly looks up. She sees a foggy image of a man. She doesn't know who it is though. Her father? A stranger? Meville himself? Could he be here? Trapped in this room with her? She doesn't know. She isn't sure that she wants to know.

[Meville Brightshade]

"We're going on a little journey." Fear. It filled his entire body, keeping him from running in the opposite direction of the swirling darkness that slowly grew in front of him, writhing with a terrible malice, reaching out its tendrils to scratch at his face. He couldn't scream, but it felt as if his entire body were devoted to that silent act. He trashed side to side as the darkness caved in around him, blanketing him in its inky embrace. The fear grew and grew, moving from panic to hysteria. His mouth opened wider and wider until he felt it begin to split at the sides until he was crawling out of his own skin. He shuddered, naked and alone with only the wrinkled coat of skin he exited from. The fear had left him empty. His surroundings were that of the frozen wastes of the Northern Reaches, barren and stark in their pale monotony. Clouds of fog fell from his face as his bare feet dug into the snow, the oppressive silence pushed in from all sides, crushing him smaller and smaller. The world around him seemed to expand and twist around him. Though he continued forward, the sky slowly became the surface of what he was walking on while the snow slowly rose into the sky, dribbling clumps of snow into the sky as it did so. Soon, his feet were just uselessly floating into the sky as the snow began to fall from above him. It pounded down and around him with a relentless force, but it did so without sound. It was an eerie feeling to be buried alive amid the muted avalanche. When he was able to see again, he was once more on the tundra, but his time there was something there: a red box in the sky. Seeing as it was the only point of interest, Meville headed towards it. His feet were no longer bare but booted in his customary choice of foot ware. He didn't bother to check and see if the rest of him was clothed as well. It wasn't important. What was important was the crimson stain against the grey sky that drooped over the snowy landscape like some hopeless frown. He quickened his pace, faster and faster until he stood nearly beneath it. There was a door one of the sides, but it was too far up for him to reach. Meville stood below, biting his lower lip, contemplating how he was supposed to reach it. There wasn't anything around but a ice sculpture of a bird he hadn't noticed before. Meville looked from the bird to the opening and gave the bird a little glare. "What am I supposed to do with you, hm?" The bird returned Meville's gaze with a blank, lifeless stare. He wasn't really sure what he expected the sculpture to do once he'd spoken to it, but the complete lack of any reaction was a little disappointing. Meville adjusted his glare to the door, again chewing onexten his bottom lip. He stood there for what seemed like ages until the silence was broken by a surprisingly squeaky voice. "Just jump." Meville, slightly started by the sudden intrusion of sound, glanced around to see where it had come from. All that met his curious glances was the blasted bird. He moved closer to it, squinting with suspicion at the lifeless figure. "Alright, bird, I know it was you who said that, so why don't you just own up to it, hm?" He extended his hand to tap against the frozen sculpture but was suddenly flung into the air before he could make contact. He heard the bird laughing as his shot up towards the door, but before he could make any sort of comment or exclamation, he found himself inside the red glass box, the exit no longer there. The first thing he noticed was Lorelle. There were these birds too, but they were making terrible screetching noises that didn't seem to bother her at all. She was completely absorbed in the unbearable shrieking of the birds, so Meville figured he might as well put an end to it. As he began to approach, first one then the other toppled to the ground, shattering upon contact. The final one danced around on Lorelle's shoulders, as if it were taunting him. Meville, at the end of his patience, shoved the glass animal off of her, watching it fall and shatter into a million pieces. As if on cue, Lorelle looked up then, directly at him. For some reason, she didn't seem to recognize him at first, so he figured he might as well be the first to speak. "I don't really like birds."

[Lorelle]

That Voice. It was Meville. It could only be Meville. No one else could sound like that. Even in the Vantha's dreams. No one else has that voice that sends chills don't her spine even if she can't feel it. Her eyes look into his, his face becoming clear now that she has heard his voice. "I suppose not?" she speaks as if it is a question even though it really isn't. She bites her lip after that, looking back to the other side of the room. Her teeth sting her lip, sending a sharp pain down it. She doesn't know why though. Her focus isn't on the pain though. Instead it is on the other side of the room. The birds are back. One. Two. Three. The suicide attempts and failures are continuing on in an endless loop. Curious, Lorelle finds her eyes looking back down to where the three birds once shattered against the ground. The glass shards are still there, littering the ground. "The birds are back," Lorelle's voice muses to herself as she stares at the glass. A wind blows through the room, but there are no windows. Lorelle's eyes look up. There is nothing around that would create wind yet it blows. It isn't strong. More of a gentle breeze, but it is still very existent. Lorelle feels confused, but she is unable to stay in figure out what is going on for she finds herself slipping and then falling. She falls and falls, expecting to hit the cold snow but wonders why it is taking so very long. She doesn't notice when her normal, every day clothes turn into a black and red ball gown and her hair is suddenly done up on her head. A mask adorns her face now, but she can't feel or so it. She doesn't even know it is there. She finally lands, hard on her bottom end on a hard floor. She is in a hallway that has three different ways to choose to go. She can understand two things. One, that it is cold. Very cold. Two, there is music playing. Soft music, like her flute. No. It is a different instrument. A stringed instrument. A fiddle? She can't tell. She stands up on shaky legs, not even sure if Meville is still with her or not. Her body starts moving towards the music, like she is being pulled towards it. She finds herself being taken down the middle path of the hallway. It just leads to another hallway. A seemingly endless one. Her mind drifts. She doesn't know what is going on. Only that she can hear music and she can see the suicide glass birds out of the corner of her eye still. Are they following her? She isn't sure.

[Meville Brightshade]

When she spoke, bubbles emerged from between her lips, hovering about the ceiling of the crimson box. As the popped, the sound of her voice tumbled down in garbled tones, making what she said unintelligible. Meville figured whatever she said wasn't all that important as she quickly seemed to shift her focus from him to the empty table behind him. Her teeth dug into her lip, causing a long line of rosy liquid to gently slide its way down the middle of her chin and drip slowly onto the similar hue of the glass floor beneath her. Where there should have been concern for the young woman, Meville was instead transfixed by it. While Lorelle stared at the vacant table behind him, Meville was entirely hypnotized by the rhythm of her falling blood. Plink, plink, plop. There was a slight pause before the next three drops would fall. Three times, ever the same, yet beneath her, the pool of blood began to grow, slowly creeping its way beneath both of their feet.

She spoke again, interrupting the metered rhythm of falling blood with more bubbles. This time, when they popped, each word lit upon Meville's ears with a crystal clarity, much as though she were speaking directly into his mind. "The birds are back." He took a moment then, while the hypnotic spell was broken, to glance back in the direction where her focus had been fully invested from the moment she'd first looked away from him. His eyes found nothing but the same barren table, void of anything, birds especially. What was peculiar, however, were the thousands of tiny shards of glass that littered the floor around the legs of the piece of furniture. He turned back to say something to her about the lack of birds, something along the lines of "There aren't any birds.".

The moment he turned his back upon the table, the sound of cracking ice filled the room. What Meville had mistaken for blood was, in fact, water that had fused with the glass upon the floor, making it weak and brittle. With each creeping snap, the breeze from outside pushed its way in more and more. He shivered slightly looking to Lorelle as if she might have some answer to his confusion. All she had to offer was a look of her own lack of understanding regarding what was happening. For a moment, the creaking ceased, the breeze halted. There was a single breath of sublime peace before the floor shattered with a deafening explosion of fiery shards flying in every-which way. With the floor no longer beneath them to carry their weight, the two fell through the swirling white of the world beneath them. Meville reached out a hand to try to grab onto Lorelle, but she seemed oblivious to his efforts, choosing instead to tumble head over heels faster and faster until she was nothing but a blur in the midst of the snow.

No longer able to see Lorelle, Meville continued his descent into the blinding white of the land below. It took what seemed like ages for him to reach his destination with nothing to gauge his distance but the constancy of white all around him. He couldn't remember ever making contact with solid ground, but eventually he was standing there. Where was there, to be exact? At first, everything was just white as it had been during his plummet from the crimson box. Now, however, Meville was able to make out what seemed to be entrances. The portals were a slightly darker shade of white, setting them apart from the rest of the stark surroundings. There were only two openings, from what Meville could discern, and neither one struck him as very inviting. He stood and pondered which he might take or if he should take any at all. On one hand, he didn't have anywhere else to go but into the mysterious and foreboding arches before him. On the other hand, there wasn't really anything keeping him from staying where he was to enjoy the peace of... Nothing.

His decision was finally made when the gentle sound of laughter crept from one of the doors, dancing about the barren white ground like a single ribbon of color amid the nothingness. Meville eyed the laughter with a critical eye, and it stood there, sticking its tongue out back at him as if to say: "How dare you raise your brow at me, sir!" Once its tongue returned back into its mouth, the laughter froze for a few moments before it was dragged back into the portal by its flowing tail. Immediately, Meville set off after it, abandoning his contemplation in favor of saving the colorful little laughter from whatever it was that drew it back into the recesses of what he soon discovered to be thousands upon thousands of pathways, all leading off in different directions. No, they weren't paths so much as... Hallways.

The majority of the architecture was simple: wood paneling with hardy wooden floors below. Some were stone, others fur. There were a few options that looked very similar to uncooked meat. Meville avoided those. At that point, he realized he'd lost sight of the laughter. Alone with nothing but a myriad of similar looking hallways to choose from, Meville set out along a respectable looking wall made of a soft, fluffy kind of substance that served to bounce him forward by absorbing and reflecting the pressure of his steps against it. He took that hallway for a good distance, not really finding another path that was quite so alluring as his current cushy corridor. He would have walked along his chosen path indefinitely were it not for the familiar figure of a woman passing through one of the many offshoots.

Without giving it much thought, Meville hurried off down a wooden hallway in pursuit. He thought he heard music as he began to run in an attempt to keep up with her, only ever able to see the hem of her dress or the tips of her fingers disappear behind a corner. Faster and faster, Meville drove his legs to their maximum speed until he took a corner to find himself in a large, sparsely decorated ballroom. The only kind of festive adornment was a single table in the middle of the room with three, beautifully carved little doves set apart at even intervals upon it. The music he thought he heard was now playing its happy tune, though what exactly it sounded like, Meville couldn't tell. It had that distant sort of quality that allowed for the classification of it as music, but anything beyond that (what was being played, how loudly, and what style) was too difficult to discern.

Uncertain what to do now that the woman he'd been chasing had disappeared, Meville decided to approach the main object of interest: the table. He made it about halfway before he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Turning quickly, his eyes landed upon Lorelle, decadent in her flowing gown and tumbling tresses. The music grew louder then, almost deafening. The room seemed to warp and shift until the two of them were in each other's arms, gliding about on the twisting wood of the floor beneath them. Meville found he was quite unable to say anything. While they danced together, the unmistakable sound of breaking glass nagged the corner of Meville's mind despite the deafening roar of the music. They whirled around and around and around in an endless flurry as the sound of glass smashing upon glass eventually drowned out the music. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Until... Silence.

Common | Vani

[Lorelle]

Everything is somewhat of a blur. All Lorelle can be sure about is that she is walking down the hallway. Images from her past surround her. Memories she doesn't remember are shown. Are they really memories? She isn't sure. Before she knows it, the hallway has faded into a great big ballroom. It is practically empty though and there is hardly anything in the room besides a table with three birds on it. Upon closer inspection she sees that they aren't the glass birds, but carved birds. Doves, she seems to know even though she doesn't know how she knows. Her attention is soon drawn away from the birds when she hears the music from before begin to play again. It isn't very loud though, not like it should be when one is so close to the instruments playing the music. It is more of a faint melody than anything. Why is it so quiet? Is it because of the never ending sound of those petching birds that won't stop shattering? The music grows louder, Lorelle finds herself drawn to it. In fact she is so drawn to it that her body starts moving towards it as if it needs to find it. She doesn't fight the urge and let's her body circle the room. She keeps moving till she goes through doorway and is taken to another room. The instruments are being played here. Or really, they are playing themselves. Lorelle is confused, looking at the floating objects thinking about how impossible it is for them to do that. She continues to stare and doesn't notice the room moving around her till the instruments fade away and she finds herself suddenly back in the ballroom. She is surprised and confused. A familiar figure it here though, Meville. A cold shiver runs down her spine when she thinks of his name. She is so unhappy about him being here that she doesn't even notice that she can feel her body again. The birds are back. Lorelle had forgotten about them till now. She looks towards them. One. Two. Three. The never ending loop of their deaths and resurrections. The room begins to shift and Lorelle looks back towards Meville. She only sees him a second before she is suddenly in his arms. She is surprised and a bit disgusted. She is glad for the gloves on her arms so she can't feel his skin. She can feel where his hands are and that is quite enough to send a shiver down her back. Her thoughts take control of themselves and she finds herself wondering what it was like that night when she let him touch her. She doesn't even remember. She is glad that she doesn't remember, always has been. In this moment, while she dances with him upon this floor. As she feels her dress moving about her with graceful motions and her body moving in ways that feel unnatural but so natural at the same time. She wishes she could remember. Was his touch soft? Rough? Pleasant? She doesn't know. She doesn't remember. Actually, she doesn't even know if there was ever anything there to remember. She was so intoxicated at the time that she doesn't know where her mind was at the time. That doesn't matter now though. What does, is that in this dream she feels this desire to remember. A feeling that draws her and repels at the same time. Her thoughts begin to drift as she continues to dance with Meville, the sound of the music gradually being drowned out by the sound of the birds. They keep growing louder and louder till the sound of their glass shattering against the floor and other shards of glass from their previous versions drowns out everything else. It pulses in Lorelle's ears, making them ring. She looks over to where she knows the birds are, continuing to dance with Meville as she does so. She notices now something she didn't before. With each version, the birds die from something different. It will be a different flaw in the design each time that will ultimately bring the bird of glass to its death. Perfection. Purity. Beauty. Three words burn themselves in Lorelle's mind. She quickly looks away from the birds as if realizing what their purpose is and feeling guilty because of it. She looks to Meville again. The sound of glass death still rings loudly in her ears. She wants to collapse and cry and scream. She wants to grab the birds and put them somewhere where they either can't die or can't come back. Either fate will work for her. She can't though, she can't stop dancing with the man who most despises. So instead of collapsing or charging at the suicidal birds, she settles for closing her eyes and letting the tears that had been forming in her eyes start rolling down her bare cheeks. The tears aren't normal and clear. They are a dark liquid red, almost black looking. They leave dark trails down her cheeks as they travel down her neck and then down her chest before they land on her dress. They don't stop there though. They continuing traveling down her dress till they drip off the skirt and splat against the stone floor. The tears don't stop till the birds do and by then a puddle of inky looking liquid has been formed at their feet that still dance on the floor. Lorelle opens her eyes as silence echoes through the room. It is a deafening kind of silence. There is no music. No dying glass birds. No dripping of strangely colored tears. Lorelle looks around, avoiding Meville's eyes. She is still in his arms though they have stopped dancing. She can just barely feel his touch through her dress. She is loosing a grip of it though. Her body is beginning to become numb once more. She looks up at Meville, her eyes finding his and locking themselves there. She doesn't see his normal blue eyes but instead deep pools of black. It scares her more than anything has scared her in a long time in her dreams. For her, black means she is excited or feeling mischievous. This is different. She knows he isn't feeling that way. Plus, his eyes don't shift. He isn't a Vantha. "Meville, what happened to your eyes?" Lorelle asks, shattering the silence. As the silence is broken, chaos ensues. The room is suddenly filled with people. They are all talking and eating. Most of them are dancing, but there is still no music. There is just the sound of footsteps being made on the floor. All of them have masks on. Some are better dressed than other but they don't seem to care. Everyone is hanging out with everybody. Lorelle and Meville aren't touched though as they stand still in the puddle of Lorelle's dark red almost black tears. Lorelle sees cracks rippling up the walls. She looks up at the ceiling. It is going to cave in. She knows it. It has to. There is no support for it to stay up. She knows that she should get out of there. She can't move though. She is trapped, standing in her tears in Meville's arms. She can't move or do much other than panic. The birds come back. She can hear them again. Three. Two. One. Three. Two. One. Are they counting down the ticks till death?

[Meville Brightshade]

Blood.

It wasn't so much the inky appearance of the liquid trailing down Lorelle's face so much as the smell. The heady, copper scent hung heavy about her as her sanguine tears continued to fall to their floor in their sluggish descent. His eyes became fixated upon them. All else, save the crushing noise of the music and breaking glass, faded from focus. Only the dark lines upon sunkissed skin remained.

He tried to reach out and stop the flow. Anything to make it stop. Meville raged against his unresponsive body, screaming and shouting against the cage that had become his mind. Smash her! Crush her! Make it stop! Yet, his body remained as it had been, wrapped gently around the body that continued to emit the wretched reminder of life lost. He could feel each drop landing upon the next like an ax driven straight into his skull. All he wanted was for it to stop.

When it did, he felt a wave of relief rush over him. In the deafening silence, Meville found his peace. Though his arms still remained about Lorelle's waist, the tears had stopped. Good gods, was he thankful, yet... Yet there was something more. Something he needed to do. He couldn't have her doing that again. It just wouldn't do.

Lorelle turned her gaze to meet his own, and as she did so he felt an exhilarating rush of madness. She was weak, afraid, confused. He, on the other hand, was strong, determined. The breaking of the silence brought with it laughter and chatter, the sound of feet upon wood and idle gossip. His only response was to smile and stare back at the woman in his arms.

The birds start up again, but this time is different. This time, he could hear them clearly. They weren't counting up towards something, rather down. He could feel it, the strange, tingling sensation in his palms. The seductive aura of Djed seeping from the world around him, into his own being. Here, for whatever reason, he was stronger than he'd ever imagined he could be. There were the distinct sounds of crackling from the walls as they began to deteriorate, and the muffled gasps of the people around him began to increase as Meville drew more and more of the Djed from around him.

And she. She was there, her colorful eyes dancing around the room with panic and distress flashing along with all the other hues. Stop it. He wanted to stop her at all costs. It didn't even matter that she was Lorelle and he Meville. The very fact she was here, in this place, meant he had to get rid of her. His magic drew in more of the life around him as the walls began to crumble and the roof started to fall. Try as he might, he could not drain Lorelle. If he could not, then he would crush the two of them.

The realization of his suicidal decision brought laughter to his lips as the frightened cries of the people around him rose up in raucous harmony with the shattering beauty of the birds. He laughed harder and harder until his entire body shook and it felt as though his mouth were splitting open. He'd crush the two of them and end it all. End everything.

Common | Vani

[Lorelle]

Everything is so confusing. Lorelle has no idea about what is going on. Her fear shows in her eyes as they become deep pools of dark blue. She watches as the walls begin to crumble around them. She can hear the screams and shrieks of the audience in the distance. They scared cries sound so far away though, muffled. She can't make out words if any are even being spoken to hear. Her panicked eyes look to Meville. He laughs and smiles. There is something dark about his laughter though. Something she has never heard before. It just makes her even more afraid. The feeling of needing to get away from here overwhelms the female Vantha. She tries to drop her hands and tug away. Nothing happens. All she can feel is the touch of Meville's body against hers. His hold is as strong as ever. She knows she can't get away, yet that is all she wants to do. His hold, his presence, just his gaze sends wrapping tendrils of fear up her spine. She can feel the fear as it tightens its grip on her body. She is scared of the fear, just making it worse. It seems that everything is making it worse. She looks back to Meville. Her eyes can't even make out his features. She is blinded by the sounds of the birds that continue to count down, the screams in the background, Meville's laughter, and the cracking of the walls, shattering of windows and collapsing of the ceiling. This can't be right. How can a building of stone crumble so easily and quickly? Nothing has happened in the outside world to cause this. Or has it? Lorelle doesn't know and she almost doesn't care. She tugs against Meville, trying to pull away from him so she can turn and run. Her body is unresponsive. Her jaw cletches in her frustration. "Meville, let go of me!" She orders him, able to use no other part of her body aside from her mouth. As she speaks the words she can feel his grip loosen. She gets an idea. A flicker of hope. "Release me! I am of no use," she orders this, feeling relieved as the grip becomes just a little looser. She isn't sure if Meville is doing this or not, but she doesn't care. "Meville, let go," her voice is harsh, demanding and the fear from it is gone for the tick. His grip loosens even more. It is enough now for her to get away. She pulls her body back, nothing happens. Mentally growling with her frustration, she looks at Meville once more. Why can't she get away from him? She just stares at him, unable to understand what is going on around them. Ticks later, by chance, a running child runs into Lorelle. Lorelle's body falls towards Meville instead of away from him. Lorelle lets out a shriek as she falls through Meville's body and into the floor. She passes through the floor, falling upon another as she enters a room of glass. She gasps for air as she looks around her. All the glass is broken. Just like the birds. Speaking of the birds, where did they go? She can't hear them anymore. In fact, she can't hear anything anymore. The silence is deafening. There is only one explanation for this. Lorelle is all alone. "Where did everyone go?" she asks herself, standing up and looking around. A she stands up, she hears the sounds of glass breaking against glass. It is a sharp, harsh sound. She looks down, trying to see what has caused it. All she sees is the skirt of her dress. It is made of clear glass. She gasps. Looking at the rest of her clothes she realizes the whole dress is now glass, but it isn't heavy. Her body is still numb and now she can't feel the weight of the dress. She looks up, staring into the glass around her and using it like a mirror. The dress is transparent. She looks at her body, tracing every detail and curve with her eyes. She doesn't like what she sees. In a sudden burst of frustration, she charges at one of the walls with just her fist. She hits the wall, hard. She had expected it to shatter, to make her hand bloody and create a mess. Instead, all she feels is the cold, hard texture of ice. Her breath comes in quick gasps as she realizes that this room isn't made of glass, its made of ice. Cold, unfeeling ice. No, no, this won't do. She pounds her fist against the ice, feeling trapped and alone. She wishes she could melt it away. Get rid of the wall that separates her from what she thinks is her freedom. Her efforts are fruitless however as the ice does not budge. Tears begin to stream down her face again. The dark crimson color stains her class dress. It taints it, turning it into something it wasn't before. Lorelle doesn't care. She doesn't care that he dress is turning from clear to red. That her cheeks have trailed of dark red liquid pouring down them. She doesn't care that her soft skin has now become rough along her neck and check because of the stains it is suffering. All she cares about is getting out. Becoming free and getting as far away as she can from Meville. Because he still scares her and getting away from him means getting away from her fears and that, that is what she wants. That is the ultimate goal.