[August Open] God Has Permitted Me To Survive

Who: Agent Jean and YOU

What: August open as I claw my way back into regular participation

When: Take a wild fucking guess buddy

Where: Watchtowers, beach/docks, public library, the gazebo, the woods, and wherever you like

Warning(s): Struggles with mental health, cosmic & demonic horror, possession, violence if you want some

Self-Care | Various

Jean is still working on relaxing. The paradox is not lost on them, but they do understand that relaxation is, you know, a skill, like speaking or reading or swordplay or training their stupid cat-dog-rabbit-thing, so they're going at it with the same kind of regular dedication they give to their otherwise busy schedule. Once a week you can find them at Oak & Iron expanding their knowledge of alcohol firsthand, and if they're not busy chatting with a local you are very welcome to join them.

They've also continued to sketch, something they didn't think of as a hobby they enjoyed before but which is, on reflection, one of the thin pillars of their fragile mental health. Jean can be spotted all around town simply working on their drawings, but especially at the beach, under the gazebo, in town square, and sometimes just hanging out in the lobby of Town Hall. Just about anything or anyone could be a subject of their art; odds are good that you're on the list.

Vade Retro Satana | Library, Ocularum | OTA but Neil Encouraged

With autumn and the ascension of Mendel approaching, Jean is trying to research more humane methods of resisting mental influences than the ones they themself went through. It is not really going all that well. A lot of books get checked out just before Mipha's Grace sets sail, and when the ship comes back into port Jean can be found staying late at the library desperately peeling through tomes for advice, or over at Neil's using the good doctor's library for much the same reason. Their notebook on the subject is uncharacteristically chaotic, full of scratched-out ideas with sketches in the margins that have a distinctly...

...stressed...

Style.

Outreach | Closed to Dahlia

Deep into the above, Jean gets dressed up in the Page of Kora's Avatar and ambles across town to the Leeds Estate. They settle in just outside the gate, pondering for entirely too long to themself if this is an appropriate reason to approach Comrade Leeds, and ultimately settles on the thought that Dahlia herself really is the one to make this decision. So they slip their sending stone from their pocket, and...

"Comrade Leeds? My apologies for the intrusion, I had hoped to speak briefly on training for the local levy and other volunteers. To be, hahaha, AHAHAHA, to be perfectly honest I expect my request may be a longshot regardless of any other factors, but just in case it isn't it would be remiss of me not to ask! If you're amenable I am currently outside."

Play With The Devil's Toys | The Woods

This moment was probably meant to be private. Deep in the woods, where only the mighty, the stupid, or both go, one might stumble upon Jean dressed in Cobalt Scar and contemplating a truly godawful weapon, thrust point-down into the soil. Their expression is grave. Their hand flexes, tentatively, once, twice. They seize the handle with gritted teeth, and the sound they make is pained, and it is full of furious hatred.

"No," they growl, and there is another growl, lupine and massive, rich and layered and inhuman, behind it. "No, you obey me. If you expect to be permitted to survive you obey me."

The sword doesn't seem to say anything out loud, but Jean's grip is white-knuckled, and it's not clear that they're winning whatever fight they're having with it.

Wildcard

Fuck me up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That I can do."

It might seem unfair, cruel. But what Jean is offering is immense and fearsome, and without a war at her back to goad her onwards, in this fragile net of relationships and the mask of being a person, without death or maiming being a permanent thing, she needs some security.

"Let's call that the contract. Should you betray my trust and ill use the information you gain, I will destroy your reputation utterly, to the point where your relief will come in the barrier breaking so you may escape into the world an unknown."

How, she doesn't know. But she'll figure something out.

"You will find an ally in this in Comrade Leeds, who has reasons to distrust me already. We have each other's respect, I think, but she will not be disposed against you." Jean takes a deep breath. "Your next question?"

"What sort of information does it give you? Memories? Or more a state of being? And...does it stop me having it, when I am revived?"

Ah, this is much easier. Something in the realm of known facts, with which Jean is far more comfortable, even if those facts have become increasingly distasteful. They relax, visibly. "The information is given in a...readable format. Not unlike a biography or a...what is the word...a bestiary! Which may be the more apt comparison in that there will be a greater slant towards practical knowledge." How to express this next part...

"...While it is not inconceivable that elements of your history, perhaps elements no longer consciously known to you, will be included, the lion's share of the information will concern practicalities. Your present form and nature, the factors that influence that form, the strengths and weaknesses of your body and mind, and your combat techniques. Many of these would become available to me for my use, though only if you choose to let me keep the Page, comrade."

"If?"

The concept of choice is still sometimes a strange one to her.

"Thought you just...harvested it or something. A corpse doesn't really get a say in matters."

Zoom in even further on Jean's eyes.

"It's a Page, not psychic surgery. I can hand it to you when you revive."

"But if you keep it, do I still have Light? Or is it just...in your pocket then?"

She does her best to hide it, but sometimes her INT is just going to be 8.

...

......

.........

............

"I would need a team of researchers, Madam Binah, some answers from Manager Mortanne, and a functional understanding of ontological selfhood to correctly answer that question. The shorter version is simply that I have no evidence that you lose anything significant, but also that the power I am displaying is changed from its more consuming and total form. If you are alive, you should remain...yourself."

"If I feel any weirder, can I just take it back?"

If she feels diminished, or altered beyond the death. Some things will be changed - she knows she'll lose that strange power that the psychopomp gave, no longer able to freely climb as she would, but that was always temporary.

"And...have you died here before? Does dying take away any scars you might have gained beforehand, in this place?"

If she needs to have River burn her again, she will. She doesn't want to, but she will.

"I can, at the very least, relinquish the Page to you. I'm not certain that I can put it back but I've also never tried! Hahaha...that might be interesting actually...return what I had no right to take..."

Wait shit there was another question: "I have in fact been slain, and my prior bodily state was seemingly resilient. Surgeries remained done, for example."

"So only the most recent and fatal wounds last. That is actually some reassurance."

A longer pause, her hand fiddling with the pendant of her necklace almost compulsively. Fretfully.

"...How would you kill me? I must confess, I may innately try to resist. Everything in me screams that I cannot die. I cannot let it end. Even knowing the truth that it is not an end, so my body and mind wish to survive by any means possible."

"...In some ways that is ideal. Better, higher-quality Pages are extracted during moments of extreme emotional stress, whether positive or negative. In my...prior...employment, we would draw battles out to cut down out opponents at the height of their terror and pain. That is not my wish, but you needn't concern yourself with making peace with what would happen."

"As for how, I was intending on using Cobalt Scar. They're sharp enough to rend flesh and disable nerves, and could provide a relatively painless death if I can strike true. If not...bleeding out numbs the pain."

"I have to make peace, Jean, or you're not going to be in a condition to get out of these woods. This is as you said: not a threat, but a diagnosis."

Her agitation isn't lowered, though her voice is serene.

"The last time someone killed me, the only reason she got off easy was that someone was draining all my vitality, my magic, my very soul. In the full bloom of my power, you may not succeed at all. If you do, it will be at a great cost."

"Answer a single question for me, Comrade Fever: is it your will that we find a solution to this difficulty, such that you may read your own Page?"

Her hand stills. Her breathing stills. Everything in her goes quiet, and she feels her heartbeat in the healing wound on her shoulder. The one point that anchors her to her physical form, it feels like.

"..."

Her eyes close, and she forces a deep, shuddering breath.

"...every time I seek anything that promises that I might know myself, I am shown atrocity and misery. I am reminded that by all accounts in this world and others, I am an abhorrent being. Something wearing a person's face."

Her eyes open again, but they do not connect with Jean's.

"It is...distasteful to go back to this territory. But it is the only territory there is. I cannot lie to myself and say otherwise."

"I understand. The more I learn of what it is to be a person anywhere else, the more I understand that I was culpable in something...blasphemous," Jean admits. It is not a proud admission; it is not even a frank one. Something deep inside of Jean has been cored, something rotten that had to die, but which was nonetheless holding the rest of them up. They offer Fever a wan smile. "But the violence in me is still something useful in better work."

They're gone, and only the rustle of the grass provides evidence that they were ever standing there.

Just as suddenly they are at Fever's left, claws already swinging, something hideously red and wretchedly blue extending from them in a bladed wave.

It needs to be one strike. This can be brutal, must be brutal, but Jean does not want it to be cruel.

She can't evade it. Distracted as she's been, she can't evade it, can only try and block the worst of the strike, and even that's not swift enough. As she casts a shield, the wave connects, and the sharp edge tears through her throat, crimson welling up in a streak. And perhaps this was how it was always going to happen, but she hadn't said yes, do it. She hadn't said no, don't.

It feels like heat, and automatically, one of her hands goes up, tries to stem the flow. She's choking, can barely speak, trying to cast something, anything. Pressure on the wound, keep it down, keep the blood in her body even though it wants to keep pouring out. Fire. It can cauterize, it'll hurt, but she can live through it. If only she can form a single word.

No. No. This isn't how she dies. No. Everything in her screams that this isn't enough. This isn't what's going to be what takes her down. But she can't take a breath, and if she can't breathe, she can't do what must be done to stop it. Lunging at them, blindly, trying to sink her hand into fabric or fur or anything, struggling, anything for one more second, one more movement. Eyes full of a rage that refuses to give up. Don't let her go. She's supposed to be able to hold onto anything. Never conquered. Everything is red, and foggy, and red.

She thinks she grasps their face, blood on her hands as the ragged choking sounds show her fight for breath. Like any beast in their death throes, moving on instinct. Hands swiping, grasping, sodden with her own blood, trying to reach, to reach, even as she stumbles to her knees, twitching in futile attempts to keep moving. No, no, no, no, no, no. Get up, you wretched thing, get up, useless, weak, shameful fucking excuse for a being, get back up and fight, claim their life, pathetic and revolting, get the fuck back up-

Fever dies with her eyes open.

It's a hard, bad death. Jean had hoped otherwise, but Fever was true to her word; a true survivor, hardened as any Rat from the Backstreets. They hold her at bay with a single fist, careful not to drive the claws into her dying body, and their eyes are all pity and sorrow. It had to be this way. No one should have to die this way...

They are all too aware of red blood matting the fur of Cobalt Scar.

Fever's body is lowered gently, her hands crossed over her chest, when the life leaves her eyes. Having died here themself, Jean is quite aware that Fever's ghost will be hanging around, or at least, they hope she is. "My apologies, comrade," Jean murmurs. "I hope you understand. I will not read the Page until you can come and claim it; if you can read it for yourself, there is no need for me to do so."

One palm, over Fever's face. Jean draws it back, and a golden Light follows, trailing from Fever's open eyes and mouth, weaving itself into a sheet of something like, but not enough like, paper. Jean shakes it out, folds it up, and tucks it into a pocket.

And then they walk away from their shame.

It is perhaps expected that soon, there will be a knock on the door of their house. Not immediately, twenty four hours later, but two days pass. Enough time for things to settle. Enough time for a ghost to scream herself hoarse, and then a woman to revive, to come back to life and pretend nothing at all happened. So when she comes, it seems on the surface merely like a friend's visit.

Yet, there's only a note, addressed to them.

Same place, same time. Come alone.

This time, she's the one working. Magic leaping around her hands, lightning sparks wrapped around her fingers, illuminating a face deep in concentration. Her lips move, her words murmured below obvious hearing, and she's absorbed in this. Waiting, so patiently, for her demands to be obeyed.

Jean is nothing if not obedient. This is something about them that will probably never change. It is their turn to watch, quietly, from the woods, to witness Fever playing with forces that could destroy them in an instant. But they cannot wait forever; in a brief lull between movements, Fever's hair in a cloud of static, Jean steps forth with a low whistle.

Their head is bowed, their hands folded in front of themself. Something in their pocket glows with a golden radiance.

She looks over, hands still full of electricity, and inclines her head. They may approach.

"Did you acquire what you were after?"

It feels better to her, to be holding power and force cradled in her hands. Something that loves her, and asks for nothing in return.

"Yes, Comrade. I have not read it, nor attempted to. I'm not certain if you will be able to, but..." One hand touches their pocket as they take a few cautious steps forward. "...I thought it best to let you try first, before I resorted to learning whatever secrets you want to keep close."

"I'm sorry, Fever. I didn't want it to be a bad death."

"Tell me why you did that."

The sentence is a command flung at their feet. The lightning remains in her hands, flickering, sparking, tightly leashed to her. It will not fly without its own commands, but Jean doesn't know that.

"I did not give you my consent to kill me. Tell me why you did it anyway."

One nod, pinprick pupils locked on Fever's face. Still, it is a long moment before Jean says anything, and the woods are full only of the sound of crackling electricity.

The wildlife knows better than to intrude on this meeting of two predators.

Their voice is low, and soft: "Would I have survived to extract your Page if it had been anything less than a surprise attack? The power you're holding in your hands right now can easily kill me...or worse, ha ha...ha." They sigh. "...My spine is mostly delicate metal components. One touch and you paralyze me for life, or until someone kills me."

Now that changes a few things.

Slowly, almost leisurely, she walks toward them. Something dark and bloodstained swims behind her eyes, in her presence, until she's close enough that if she let the spell go, it would find its mark unerringly.

"I like that look in someone's eyes, when they realize they can't run away." Soft, calm. Almost dreamy. "When they can try all they like, but it won't save them. Tears, threats, promises, love - none of it will change their state. None of them are enough."

A pause.

"Should I open you up and disassemble you? Find which of your organs would be the best to keep for my own? Your spleen, maybe? The tongue's a bit too pedestrian to be a suitable souvenir of this collaboration." Her hands absently shift over themselves, letting the lightning play, keeping a firm grip in her mind. "Or I collect nothing. Just make a few cuts. Oh, nowhere vital, don't worry about that. But..the right substance just stops blood from clotting, did you know? It just....keeps flowing. On, and on, and on. You'd be surprised how much blood you can lose and still stay conscious. If the scent doesn't make you become prey for what's out here. You'd still be drawing breath, yes, but they don't really mind."

And Fever smiles, and it's a genuinely content thing. Beatific.

"Or perhaps not. Perhaps there are no cuts at all. I simply walk away. You might get lucky, be ignored by the beasts. Then, what would happen would be a slower, mind numbing agony. Thirst you could not move to quench. Hunger you could not do a thing to sate. Just withering, left and utterly forgotten. I'd have to watch from a distance, see how long it took for you to finally fade away."

The spell winks out of existence.

"...Why didn't you read the Page? You went to such trouble to get it."

And it should be worth it, if the injury to her pride is ever to heal. Even without the spell in hand, she's furious, and if she hadn't already nearly lost control but a short while ago, it would be very dangerous for Jean indeed. But Fever can manage, for the moment.

Edited 2024-08-14 21:59 (UTC)

[August Open] God Has Permitted Me To Survive

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By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

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death.

Timeskip or wrap?

timeskip.

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cw: torture and murder discussion

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I leave the ball in your court as to if Fever can comprehend the Page

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Wrap?