I feel it in my bones [.plot.vier.]

For weeks, she hadn't been herself. Just a puppet chasing a boy through the dark underworld. He disappeared often, but she could track him when he came to the surface like a breaching whale. Right now, that mandate lingered in the back of her head, needling her to follow to make Mistress happy.

Mistress was almost always displeased with Nova these days, for her inability to catch the unauthorized boy. Nova healed, but marks made in the same places over and over again were more difficult. Even with her current diet.

Nova was still covered in a great deal of blood, but she'd been washed at some point. It was mostly on her limbs and face, and she'd tried to wipe the latter off before making an appearance.

Now that the fog was slightly lifted, all she'd done was eating away at her. All she wanted to do was go back to the Mistress and get relief. Physical need beset her too, causin her limbs to shake and a sheen to appear on her skin. Regardless, she had to make sure of something. It was so imperative she was willing to risk her Mistress's wrath.

Her garments were made of materials she'd rather not think too hard about- the animals she had fought... were not always animals.

Nova's breath came out in puffs of steam. No HVAC in the crypts.

Her eyes cut through the darkness, aided by the light her person gave off. Of course, she could not be sure of it, so she called out in a voice unused to forming normal speech, "D-Daniel?"

Having spent so long without being able to have a normal conversation with someone, Daniel felt as if the voice in his head was the only thing really worth talking too. As his logic demanded otherwise though, the young man found that killing seemed to be the only way to sate the voice which allowed Daniel just a few hours of peace and quiet. Then the voice would start talking to him all over again and the process would do nothing but continue.

Spending so much time alone though, Daniel couldn't help but realize it had it's benefits as well. The young man found himself thinking up things that he would have never even considered before, ways to torture the woman doing this and what he would do once he was able to leave this place - that is if he was ever able to leave. Staring at his hands as he leaned against the cold wall in his cell, Daniel had found himself snapping his fingers in attempt to keeps his fires alive. Every single time he would do so a spark would occur - which would in turn brighten up his whole cell if only for a few seconds and warm his hands and arms. The spark would then disappear and as such routine continued.

Suddenly a female voice spoke his name and Daniel stopped snapping his fingers and slowly started to get up, feeling joints aching from the effort. Finally grabbing a hold of the bars in front of him, Daniel noticed a glow that seemed familiar. "What is it?" he spoke to Nova, acting as if the girl was a stranger.

Relief flashed across her face. Genuine, palpable relief. "Gracias a dios," she intoned before moving closer to the bars. She stayed outside of arm's reach, though. Was it because she didn't trust herself... or Daniel?

"I... I was w-worried." Even now, it sounded stupid. Worried? About the guy who'd attacked her? Who she had attacked? What could possibly exist between them but enmity? Her shoulders were pulled forward in an attempt to control their shivering. "It happens to everybody here. I was worried that you-" she couldn't bring herself to say it. She'd dealt so much death. It was only a matter of time before she succumbed to it too. She knew the reality of it- they had been there longer than she could remember.

And they would die under the earth in this mass grave. Nobody would find them.

She swallowed and asked, "Has the Mistress been t-taking care of you?" Her back prickled uneasily, but she added, "I... I might be able to help if there i-is something you n-need."

It had taken him a moment to fully comprehend that Nova was indeed the girl talking to him. Despite the familiar glow, it had been difficult to fully recognize the girl that he dreamed about. Since the last time they had seen each other felt more like a dream than anything else. "Really? Worried about me?" Daniel asked her with a harsh tone of inflection in his voice.

She had after all run away from him, but wasn't that because he had practically attack her? It was hard for him to tell who was in the right and who was in the wrong the longer he spent in these cells. "If you think I'm going to die then I'm a bit insulted, Nova," Daniel then said to the girl - wanting nothing more to return to their normal lives.

As she spoke about the woman who kept them down here, Daniel shook his head at Nova feeling flames starting at his fingertips. "Being kept in a dingy, dark cell all alone in freezing temperatures with strange clothing and even stranger food. I suppose that's what you could call being taken care of." Unlike most people who would have lost all sense of self now, the only thing that kept Daniel holding on was his anger. It was a cruel sort of reality, but as long as he felt angry Daniel still felt human. "You've really lost the will to even try?" Daniel then asked Nova with a softer, yet still bitter tone. "She messes up your mind and suddenly you're not you anymore."

Nova took a step back, distancing herself from the things he was saying. The cut worse than the knives, hit her deeper than the needles, and left more lasting marks than the scars. Her mouth fell open and for a minute, she was at a loss for words.

Her eyes closed and she turned her back on him. "Daniel, we are all going to die. We are rats in a cage. Dogs chained up to fight. I'd rather die comfortable, numb, whatever, than scrambling around denying what I really am. The Mistress provides. It is by her will alone that I am still breathing." The last sentence was very mechanical, as though she had said it often. It was a hollow phrase, said with a resignation that only further demonstrated her sense of futility.

The shivers were getting harder to ignore, but she gritted her teeth against the growing tides of pain and nausea. She straightened "I can get you kindling. Something to burn to keep warm. I might even be able to get you something decent to eat. I can't do anything about the light or the filth." She looked down at her hands. When she was this lucid, there was a pervasive feeling of unclean. The blood would never wash off, nor would the metal taste ever leave her mouth. "Is there anything else you want? While I am still..." Nova trailed off. She'd have to go back to the Mistress before too long- just to stop the physiological symptoms of withdrawal. And the memories.

Daniel turned away from Nova as the young girl spoke some more, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth as he did so. "You act as if she's your god. Can't you understand she's just like us? Using a power she has to use us, that is all that's going on I can't believe you're even blind to that." It was difficult for Daniel to point these things out to Nova, after all he had been thinking about this for quite awhile. The people that seemed to be in reliant state that Nova was in were only the ones who had been touched by her. Of course, Daniel couldn't be too sure about this observation since he had only seen this happen to a few other people.

"You're being brainwashed by her power, I don't even know who you are anymore." The words seemed strange coming out of Daniel's mouth as they did, after all yes Nova still appeared to be the girl that he fell in love with back at school. The way she was acting now though, Daniel could tell that Nova had lost touch with her personality. At least the personality that he had shown to her from before. "I don't need any of that, I can start fires on my own." Daniel said to her, almost as if attempting to remind her of who he was. At her last request, suddenly a silence fell upon him and Daniel turned back to Nova - a deadly serious expression on his face.

"Please find out where you went," Daniel then said to the girl - his words thick and heavy with meaning. Any outsider though would assume that the young man was crazy himself - seeing as how they were both standing right in front of each other.

Nova shook her head. "I was never the person you knew. The monster's finally come out of the human suit. Makes sense that you wouldn't like what you see." She felt her stomach turn somersaults and knew that this conversation was coming to a close.

"I know she's using me, Daniel, but only for some things. The rest she just... unleashes." Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke, revealing a grief and panic that threatened to overwhelm her. "I am driven back to her because I know what I am and she makes it okay and it hurts too much to be so aware of everything. I could try to run, but my legs take me to the same place. I tried to wait it out, but I walk in my sleep to get rid of the nightmares and I've found her even before I wake up. I don't want to die underground! I don't want to kill any more people! The taste of them- they scream and it is like... like sharpie in my brain! I never was and I will never be again- I deserve to be here! I belong here."

She looked down at her hands again, stress making them into claws, the blood already drying and chipping off. Suddenly, she dropped them and hung her head. "I have to get back to the Mistress. By now, she will be wondering why I haven't shown up. I offered to help. Don't forget that. If we meet in the arena again, just get it done."

Daniel shook his head at Nova as she spoke, a sense of desperation growing in his voice. "No one deserves to be here, Nova." He said to the girl - gripping the bars in front of him in frustration. "How could I do that to you? Do you really think I've sunk so low?" Daniel called out to Nova, his tone a mixture of anger and sadness. "Do you remember that time you kissed me in the Aquarium? You're the first girl that's ever done that," Daniel then said - his grip on the bars only tightening more. "All you ever do is run away and that was the first time I felt like I had something precious." As he said this, the young man felt his chest aching - the memory surprisingly more painful then anything else he was feeling.

"Why can't you understand why I keep trying to reach out to you?" Daniel then asked her with force, slamming his open palms against his cage - the action causing a momentary vibration. "I've been trying to forget about you like you wanted, but how can I do that if you keep coming back?" at this point, everything Daniel was saying felt like gibberish to the young man. The conflicting thoughts caused his muscles to tense and Daniel knew it would be soon that the voice in his head would start talking once more.

Nova turned at him, his frustration mirrored in her overwhelmingly dark eyes. "Don't you get it? That girl never existed! I never existed! You see the binding spell, the mask so incompletely placed- it's not me. I only come out to kill and to eat. I don't understand it- you never seemed to get it." She refused to let tears spring to her eyes as she tried to convince him.

"I. EAT. PEOPLE." The words hung uncomfortably in the air for a moment. "People like you! If your parents were placed in the arena with me, I would tear them apart! I thought-" She made a disgusted noise with her teeth- a noise that one might expect from somebody quite inhuman. She continued, her anger with herself smouldering beneath her low words. "I thought that I had it. Controlled. Contained. It would happen just once in my lifetime and I could learn from my mistake. Once is a mistake. This many times..."

She looked back at the boy who was the most frequent denizen of her thoughts. With deliberation, shetook a step back towards the cage, still out of reach. "I don't think you've sunk, Daniel. I just know that I can trust you to make the right decision. The only decision. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for the person you remember. She might not be real, but maybe that's the memory you can take with you if you escape."

At no point was she surprised by Daniel's outburst. A slow, sad smile crept into her features and froze there. Mechanically, as though drawn by a force well outside her control, Nova stepped closer to the cage. "You won't to wait for long." She could not bear to touch him with her disgusting hands. Instead, she swayed on her feet, color having fled her face in the past minute or so as withdrawal tore into her core.

As his anger started to flare more, Daniel felt a sudden fit of laughter coming over him. "Haven't I already proved that I can't be killed that easily?" he said to her - his voice seeming to take on less than reasonable tone. "You obviously don't get it, have you never once considered that you and this monster you speak of are two separate entities?" From the way she spoke, Daniel only assumed that Nova thought of herself as strictly the monster and nothing else. At her hopeless expression, Daniel felt the fires starting on his hands and creeping up on his arms. "You're coming with me when I leave this place," he all but yelled at her - her loss of of fighting power only fueling Daniel more. What? Come with you really? She's just been using you, Daniel shook his head as the unwelcome voice started to talk once again.

Nova closed her eyes. "I won't stop until I've devoured you. The Mistress is going to tire of us sooner or later. Get what she needs of our blood and fight. Have the crowds cheered as hard for you lately as they did the first time?" Nova made another unhuman sound and wrenched herself away from being so close to Daniel.

Finally she was angry, or as close to angry as she could get these days. "Have you never once considered that I am just one person? If you get drunk and you get angry, is that angry you somebody else?! If you lose all control, is it anybody else's fault but your own? You keep trying to say this one thing, as though that could save me! No, it never occurred to you that Nova is just a fake identity set up by a church and two overwhelmed parents! Nova is an illusion of normalcy. She's broken away and I can never go back to that life." She gestured to where her human heart would be and said, through gritted teeth. "Your denial does not make me human. Your willful blindness is not a cure for something that is not a disease."

She was tired. Too tired to keep up with the semi-anger. So she subsided with a sigh and a muttered, "You could never understand. You're only human." She noticed his fires and added softly, "Yes. Get mad. You'll need it. I'll be coming for you in the arena. You can survive the others, but can you do what you need to do to survive me? I am hungrier each time I go in. Burn me now, kill me in the ring, do whatever you need to do to live."

Azcalxochizin Ortiz suddenly doubled over in dry heaves. They racked her body and stretched the scars beneath the garment covering her back. She fell against the nearest wall and struggled to remain on her feet. "The Mistress..." she said, longing tingeing her words and confusion casting a pall on her expression. "I need to get back."

At some point while Nova had been talking, Daniel's logical mind started to leave him. The argument they were having got to the point that Daniel knew no matter what he said would not change what Nova was thinking or make an significant impact. It was a harsh reality for the young man to accept and as Nova started to making mention of having to go back to the woman that Daniel refused to even think about. One part of him just couldn't help but always ask why, but another desperately needed to know. It was a conflicting state that he knew he would have to confront completely on his own when he could achieve the right state of mind. "Go back then," he muttered as he turned away from Nova walking to the back of his cell - slowly inching his body down to the wall to sit.

During the time of his fighting in the ring, Daniel had developed a significant amount of muscle that he hadn't had before. The scar on his side that Nova had left during their last fight was still quite obvious due to the fact that Daniel only wore shredded up pants. As the young man started to snap sparks once more, the brief seconds of light also revealed new scars that were forming all over his body - some just a bit deeper than others but all making it quite obvious that despite his confidence Daniel had been indeed having a harder and harder time when the fights kept coming and coming.

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms


Nova's eyes lingered on Daniel, and his scars. She could feel his disappointment hanging in the air. Equally palpable was the miasma clinging to her. She might not have an illness, but this sense of filth and moral decay was more sickening than anything she'd ever felt before.

Her eyes went flat when another wave of physical nausea washed over her. She turned her back on Daniel, already yearning for the void of her Mistress's power. Nova didn't look back once- she just rounded a corner.

And stopped.

Her Mistress was standing there, along with Alejandro.

"Nova, you're late for our appointment. And you haven't caught the intruder yet. This is disappointing."

Nova burst into tears and reached for Renata. The older woman tsked and took a step backwards. "No, I want you to hear what I have to say. For your disobedience, and for the fact that you were attempting to help one of the prisoners, you will get double the arena fights this week. Alexander will take care of your wounds again, so you won't forget that your actions have consequences." Renata's eyes narrowed. "And don't think that your friend will get off so easily. Double the arena fights for him too. Maybe this will finally be his last week in the ring."

Nova's eyes flew open wide and she managed, "P-Please, Mistress. I didn't m-mean-"

"Mija, you've displeased me. Prove that you can be trusted. I don't want to hurt you, but you force my hand when you go and do things like this." Renata held her stern demeanor for another minute while the girl sobbed silently, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

Finally, Renata opened her arms and Nova ran into them. The minute her skin touched Renata's, she subsided. Her eyes went flat and her expression turned blank.

"Good. Now, go and find the intruder. I will send Alejandro for you when it's your turn in the arena."


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[OOC; Thread end ]