Orchid Espere (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petal_storm) wrote2017-09-19 09:15 pm
petal_storm) wrote2017-09-19 09:15 pm
Entry tags:
Tell me shadow...
Who: Orchid, Jaeger?
When: After Jaeger manages to start time stalking Orchid but before he manages to take her away.
What: A flicker, a blur...
She couldn't remember when she first started noticing...flickers. Flashes of color at the edges of her vision, halos, brief glimpses. She'd assumed, as most in her position would, that she'd finally taken damage she couldn't heal. Eyes were delicate after all, as were nerves...
...it was inevitable that it would be the beginning of the end really.
It was something she could accept, as she accepted most things, a point out of her control and to be accepted or ignored with grace so as to live a little longer. Flashes and flickers were hardly worth fearing after all.
No, that was for later when the lights and lines she sometimes glimpsed started forming shapes. Lines, curves, and arm...a hand reaching for her as she carefully cleaned blood from her hair...
Hallucinations now, that was a sign of a far deeper problem and that made her freeze as soon as the realization hit. She was...seeing things. Properly and truly seeing things. Either she'd suffered enough damage over the years that there was no hiding the fact now or her mind was just that desperate for something, anything, else in her life that it was playing fantasy tales for her now.
That second was a far more frightening aspect honestly. Her mind was the beautiful tool she used to stay ahead of her master; to reshape the world around them slowly even as he tried to build a dark little kingdom dedicated to his ego. She needed it intact. So she did what she always did when faced with terror...
...she shifted, painting a smile across her lips as she turned to face those glimpsed colors. And for a moment...a brief moment, there was more than the hint of fingers. A slim, clean line of arm that led to a shoulder, and upward to a pale neck and the brief hint of a face she didn't know. He...
...seemed so sad.
Hard to be afraid when that brief fantasy seemed so lost and frustrated. She...had to be able to judge people quickly and this one, well, instinct said this wasn't madness. And it wasn't a threat. "Don't be so sad..." she noted softly to...thin air. It was gone. Always gone when she looked too close.
So how did one...learn to talk to something, no, someone who wasn't there?
Well, the first rule seemed to be not looking? Not looking as she attended parties with her Master. Not looking as she wandered to speak to people on her free days, not turning to laugh when she could swear someone else would understand the joke of humanity she was seeing from an empty balcony...
...it was a somewhat haunting way to live. Perhaps there was something to that term, haunting. Certainly enough deaths in this world to inspire a thousand ghost tales and more. But...why her? Her people were relatively healthy, no one close to her had died and certainly she'd recognize the face at least so why the obsession?
She could see him in mirrors. That was an odd realization, to look up and see him standing behind her shoulder in the polished glass. Startling but...it was nice to see him properly. Long limbed, half shaved hair, and such feverishly sad eyes. She touched the mirror, tracing fingers along the line of that reflected cheek, "still so sad my young ghost," she chuckled softly. "It breaks my heart to see you always so sad."
Odd to realize that was true, it tugged at her painfully whenever she caught glimpses from the corner of her eye. If he was dead, and seemingly trapped, he had died with a heavy weight upon him and she wanted...to fix that.
Somehow.
Gods what madness was this then? "Such a heart wrenching distraction you. Shall I name you ghost then? My personal haunt? Spectre...ah, that sounds cliche hmmm?" But if he was staying, as he seemed intent to do, he needed a name. If only she could see him it would be cruel to leave him as a blank unknown. She might not be able to fix what kept him here, but she could ensure he knew he was...a person.
Everyone needed that in their lives didn't they?
Or...after lives. Dear gods that would have been terrible to say out loud. Hmmm. "Can you write on glass?" she mused softly, leaning forward to mist the surface with her breath. "I'd rather...call you who you are, as opposed to renaming you hmmm?" It was...worth a shot?
When: After Jaeger manages to start time stalking Orchid but before he manages to take her away.
What: A flicker, a blur...
She couldn't remember when she first started noticing...flickers. Flashes of color at the edges of her vision, halos, brief glimpses. She'd assumed, as most in her position would, that she'd finally taken damage she couldn't heal. Eyes were delicate after all, as were nerves...
...it was inevitable that it would be the beginning of the end really.
It was something she could accept, as she accepted most things, a point out of her control and to be accepted or ignored with grace so as to live a little longer. Flashes and flickers were hardly worth fearing after all.
No, that was for later when the lights and lines she sometimes glimpsed started forming shapes. Lines, curves, and arm...a hand reaching for her as she carefully cleaned blood from her hair...
Hallucinations now, that was a sign of a far deeper problem and that made her freeze as soon as the realization hit. She was...seeing things. Properly and truly seeing things. Either she'd suffered enough damage over the years that there was no hiding the fact now or her mind was just that desperate for something, anything, else in her life that it was playing fantasy tales for her now.
That second was a far more frightening aspect honestly. Her mind was the beautiful tool she used to stay ahead of her master; to reshape the world around them slowly even as he tried to build a dark little kingdom dedicated to his ego. She needed it intact. So she did what she always did when faced with terror...
...she shifted, painting a smile across her lips as she turned to face those glimpsed colors. And for a moment...a brief moment, there was more than the hint of fingers. A slim, clean line of arm that led to a shoulder, and upward to a pale neck and the brief hint of a face she didn't know. He...
...seemed so sad.
Hard to be afraid when that brief fantasy seemed so lost and frustrated. She...had to be able to judge people quickly and this one, well, instinct said this wasn't madness. And it wasn't a threat. "Don't be so sad..." she noted softly to...thin air. It was gone. Always gone when she looked too close.
So how did one...learn to talk to something, no, someone who wasn't there?
Well, the first rule seemed to be not looking? Not looking as she attended parties with her Master. Not looking as she wandered to speak to people on her free days, not turning to laugh when she could swear someone else would understand the joke of humanity she was seeing from an empty balcony...
...it was a somewhat haunting way to live. Perhaps there was something to that term, haunting. Certainly enough deaths in this world to inspire a thousand ghost tales and more. But...why her? Her people were relatively healthy, no one close to her had died and certainly she'd recognize the face at least so why the obsession?
She could see him in mirrors. That was an odd realization, to look up and see him standing behind her shoulder in the polished glass. Startling but...it was nice to see him properly. Long limbed, half shaved hair, and such feverishly sad eyes. She touched the mirror, tracing fingers along the line of that reflected cheek, "still so sad my young ghost," she chuckled softly. "It breaks my heart to see you always so sad."
Odd to realize that was true, it tugged at her painfully whenever she caught glimpses from the corner of her eye. If he was dead, and seemingly trapped, he had died with a heavy weight upon him and she wanted...to fix that.
Somehow.
Gods what madness was this then? "Such a heart wrenching distraction you. Shall I name you ghost then? My personal haunt? Spectre...ah, that sounds cliche hmmm?" But if he was staying, as he seemed intent to do, he needed a name. If only she could see him it would be cruel to leave him as a blank unknown. She might not be able to fix what kept him here, but she could ensure he knew he was...a person.
Everyone needed that in their lives didn't they?
Or...after lives. Dear gods that would have been terrible to say out loud. Hmmm. "Can you write on glass?" she mused softly, leaning forward to mist the surface with her breath. "I'd rather...call you who you are, as opposed to renaming you hmmm?" It was...worth a shot?