Participants: Fiske, Marceline (Both with and without moustache)
@Force and Fury
The sun hung low in the sky, the melon derby complete and her team's victory assured. Marceline sat upon a rooftop, shoes off, rubbing some feeling back into her toes. They were slipping past the pins and needles point now, into persistent outright numbness, and that would need to be rectified soon with a grey aberration. Of course, the city had been bombarded with them earlier in the day, forcing a very fortunate early end to the Melon Derby. Of course, she hadn't gotten any. Instead, she'd been busy running from monsters. Instead, Dory had almost died at the hands one of those: the yasoi Juulet.
Fiske jumped from one rooftop to another until he reached the one he needed to.
"Relaxing a bit now that it's over?" The boy took a seat next to the Kerreman.
"Did not do too much myself, especially when chaos erupted everywhere." He kept quiet for a moment, not wanting to speak too much about the encounter with Juulet. A hand was placed on the girl's shoulder.
"How 'bout you? How did it go for you?""Just lookin' after some toe cheese," she teased. She paired the gesture with a shrug, giving up on any further massaging. They were tipping over into being a lost cause. She'd go for a grey later. After today, and all of the running, leaping, and sneaking, her declining mobility of a year ago seemed a world away. What had once seemed an inevitable grim fate seemed, now, like something she could manage, something she could
beat!
Fiske needed reassurance as well, though. She knew him.
"Went well enough," she replied with a shrug, swinging her feet idly back and forth,
"'til those monsters Ariadne and Juulet came to play." She furrowed her brow in annoyance.
"Like, seriously, you're telling me, Dami as my witness, that are actual students!?" Marceline rose to her feet.
"Well then my name is Hildr the Fucking Red!" she rolled her eyes, reaching down to pull him up.
Fiske grabbed her hand to be pulled up.
"Well you might be, 'O great warrior of old." He bowed before her greatness.
"Don't think they're students, really... Not after seeing what one of them could do." He tried to look away.
"The last time I was that fearful was when those big hulking things showed up and Salvatore Moli turned out to be a weird... squid... thing..."Marceline went from jovial to serious quite quickly.
"You're... not joking?" she asked tentatively. Generally, they were on the same wavelength, but there was the odd time when she couldn't tell. Fiske was fond of his tall tales.
Fiske's look turned to one of confusion.
"About that one-legged Yasoi?" He looked around to see if anyone else might be close by to overhear, once the coast was clear he sighed.
"Let me ask you this. Do you consider your friends strong? Zarina, who is strong enough to fight in that bulky armor, or even Yuli and Ayla who have shown to be quite impressive." His tone was a lot more monotone than most people were used to.
"Well, I meant the entire Moli incident, to be honest," she replied, cracking a faint, rueful grin.
"but I'll take this as confirmation." She shook her head.
"I consider them just about as strong as any real 'student' could get," she continued, eventually answering him.
"Course, I'm starting to learn that, if there's a power scale, people like us might not even register on it.""Oh, the Moli thing? Yeah, that was the truth." He waved his hands around as if he tried to mimic an octopus for a second.
However, hearing her say that made his intrusive thoughts about his own strength resurface.
"Might? I do not think that for me it's a might." The boy frowned, memories about certain encounters flowing into his head.
"Remember old man Jascuan? I thought of him as my better. Someone I could potentially reach if I keep on trying." Fiske wanted to hit something, frustration about that night building up within him. He kicked one of the roof tiles.
"Juulet is so not like that... That monster was so much beyond my reach that I could not even run away even if I wished.... my high RAS meant nothing... my illusions meant nothing... Nothing that is my whole meant anything when it came to her."Marceline stood there under the moonlight, the wind lightly stirring her hair.
"Fiske..." She looked him in the eyes, all of her usual puckishness absent.
"She's the Mad Avatar." Marci swallowed.
"The one who killed Manfred." She shook her head.
"She - along with a good few others - is a thing that should not exist." A particularly brisk breeze set a series of slightly oily locks rippling across her face. She took a moment to brush them away.
"What did she do to you?""She's the one who killed Manfred?..." His eyes widened
Poor man did not even have a chance... He knew this question would come up.
"They forced me into a game of cat and mouse... Only thing I was ordered to do was run... but every time there was hope of losing them... I was back into the start, made to do it over and over again." Fiske shook as he remembered the fear for his life that he felt.
"After twenty or so times.. she revealed an aberration and made me draw from it... " He clicked his tongue
"This shit is bad enough that even my control over my senses can't fully numb me from it."Wordlessly, Marceline reached in and hugged him. She lingered like that for a good while, chest pressed against his, heart beating. She took a couple of deep breaths and, for a moment, squeezed him a little tighter.
"Repeat after me, Fiskel," she advised, clearing her throat.
"Fuck." She pushed back a little.
"That." They parted to arms' length.
"Bitch." She blinked in the breeze, but it was a surprisingly muggy evening and the brief break of cool was very welcome.
"We're gonna deal with her." She shook her head.
"And not by being stronger; by being smarter."A warmth in his chest beckoned him to repeat her words... although not as powerful.
"Fuck." He tried to put up a fake smile.
"That." The boy both wanted to say it but scared to do.
"...Bitch..."As she declared a blood feud of sorts the boy pointed at himself.
"We are?" He sighed.
"I love that enthusiasm of yours... but I can only see us beating her if she has no magic..""Say it again, Fiskel," Marci demanded,
"And like you mean it, this time." She suited words to action and let loose herself.
"And yes: she's so strong it's made her dumb. She's walked into so many traps and made so many stupid moves, and she only gets away because she's strong." Marci shook her head.
"We need one of those disruptors." She furrowed her brow.
"You wouldn't know anyone who has access to one, would you?""Fuck. That. Bitch!" He proclaimed with his chest puffed up.
"Distuptors?.. Don't know anyone but I could ask around. Maybe my Zeno would know where I could get one." He shrugged.
"Besides, you're friends with all the strong folk."Marceline put her finger to her lips.
"Well... don't you know anyone with resources?" she inquired proddingly for, in truth, he did. Did she know!? In any event, she shook her head.
"It'd be better if you weren't noticed looking around too much." A sonic bubble dropped around the pair.
"She can't be allowed to suspect a thing." Fiske tried to think if he knew someone that wasn't the person in front of him. A cold droplet of sweat traveled down his face. She didn't know about it... did she?
"Well... Maybe Desmond might know.."He nodded.
"I know. The plan stays between us."Marceline considered Desmond for a moment. He didn't like the powerful sorts who went around squishing people very much either, and he'd been a friend of her brother's. She nodded.
"I think he can be trusted," she agreed.
"I'll..." She trailed off, considering.
"I'll check with Zarina and..." She pursed her lips.
"I'd say Jocasta, but she and Juulet have already had a few run-ins. It might be too obvious a place to look.""Then shall we ask him to help us? Maybe he will even help us with the 'not being on the scale' issue we have with all the thingies he has and has started making." He nodded.
"I think getting your strong friend in would help.... Cause I doubt asking your team for help after what happened would be too obvious as well...""Well yeah. We can't make it that obvious," Marceline agreed.
"If we get caught," she decided,
"that means we get squished like a rat in the pantry." She made a little pinching gesture and let out a mirthless laugh. She looked away from Fiske then, and up at the stars,
"And I think that'd be the greatest shame. You and me, and our friends... we deserve a long happy life way more than that nasty bitch does." She shrugged.
"I know you've got your dark stuff too. I know you don't like to talk about it." She was talking to the night sky as much as to Fiske.
"So I'd never pressure you to do it. You'll tell me when you feel it's right." Her eyes flicked his way, sparkling, and she smiled before settling back onto the rooftop, cross-legged, and gazing up at the darkened heavens once more.
"But me, I dunno... I was never supposed to live past thirty, never supposed to leave that gods-forsaken place." She folded her arms back behind her head and rested it on her hands.
"I watched my mum waste away and I knew the same would happen to me: first my legs, then my body, then my arms, and then..." She took and released a deep breath as a shooting star streaked across their field of vision.
"Well, then I'd be gone, before ever really having the chance to live. When I got here, my legs were already starting to go, until those aberrations became my miracle - well, my mom's too - all tethered, really." She paused and glanced his way.
"Fuck, sorry, schnookie-bear, this is kinda heavy stuff, I know." She shook her head.
"I just... needed to tell someone and, aside from, you know, shouting expletives at that one-legged bitch, tonight has kind of a pensive vibe, you know?" "Don't think I deserve a long happy life if I can be real honest." Fiske leaned back against the roof tiles.
"Now I'm not saying I deserve the same fate as that bitch deserves." He sighed. His gaze desperately tried to avoid the other.
"My cowardice has been a sin, I'll probably end up in the deepest parts of Eschiran's hell for what I did not dare to do." "See, that's exactly why I admire you." He tried to hide his own blush with a very basic illusion.
"In terms of how we got here we're opposites. You, rising from what seemed like a lost situation... And me who lived with a silver spoon for most of his life and now has nothing." The boy's eyes travelled back to the other before quickly moving away again.
"Well, until I met you."He shrugged, trying to lift the heavy air.
"But i won't bore you too much with my boring ass stories" Fiske tried to smile through the somewhat sombre expression.
"I don't mind listening if you ever need someone to lend an ear to you." "I have delivered unto thee a compelling hook for the soul-rending story of my tortured fall from grace, yet it is 'boring-ass' and I shan't trouble you any further with it, madam." Marceline rolled her eyes grandly.
"We should talk about the things that matter to us, Fiskel." She shook her head.
"I won't suddenly stop loving you." She was sitting up now, trying to massage some feeling back into her toes again. The aberration from a couple of months ago had worn off a bit quicker than expected.
"But I'm also not gonna force you." She changed the subject.
"Ya think there are people living on those other places up in the sky? I mean... we saw some weird shit in the Groove the other day...""Well, if you can guess some things about me.... I'll reveal a little thing each time you get something correct... though, three questions max." Fiske poked the other's cheek after the rather grand display of eyes rolling.
"And besides, me telling you my entire life's story... I'll lose all the mystique that I have gathered." His gaze became worried after noticing the second time they massaged.
"Got it acting up again?"He shrugged.
"Who knows, we might have some scary moon-men." Just imagining it caused a small chuckle.
"And speaking of the Groove, we might have to visit there soon..""Oh, we definitely will," Marceline agreed, leaving her toes be.
"Stupid toes are toasted." She chuckled with no great hint of nervousness.
"Someone must've slipped something into my last Gray's drink. Only lasted a few months before starting to wear off." She shook her head.
"Oh well. Gives us an excuse to visit again, at least. Hopefully I won't get such a dud."She let him think that she'd let his little offer slip by for a moment. Then she grinned: positively Cheshire.
"You weren't actually that... Leander guy, hmm?" she guessed teasingly.
"Oh, same offer's open to you, by the by.""Well, I was... and wasn't. It was a name I took on when I arrived here, Seems like he never showed up, so I took his place. Becoming Leander, the Thunderchild from Thalakos.... Though it was rather annoying to pretend to be a thunderchild. My magic felt much weaker by keeping that charade up constantly, you know?" A small magnetic charge surrounded his form as he smirked.
Then as the charge faded away he lifted his finger.
"Oh, I know. You mostly talked about your brother Manfred, how's your relation with the rest of the family?" He pulled a groove coin out of his pocket.
"I'll help pay for the next gray, need some myself as well. This headache is kiiiilleeer!""And... where's the secret fact, Leander?" Marceline teased.
"You really are a con artist." She shook her head, pulling some of the charge away from him and creating a little dancing arc that wavered in the air above them, drawing moths, mosquitoes, and crane flies to be zapped.
Then, he spoke, and the magic disappeared. Marci sat there, stalk still, and stared out across the rooftops.
"I have my mother," she replied,
"and we love each other very much." Her jaw clenched and she let out a breath.
"Spending your lives in a tethered refuge will do that."Fiske clenched his head, ruffled his hair and mumbled to himself for a short while.
"I'm sorry, I should not have asked." Visibly distraught from his own question. He tried to find a way to change the subject.
"Then for the secret fact." He held his collar and sighed.
"You know how I talked about being born with a silver spoon in my mouth?" He leaned down to look at his legs dangling.
"I'll tell you the secret fact, my sin." His eyes began to get slightly watery.
"I did not give up on said silver spoon. It was taken out of my mouth by force.... A rival noble family planned it... and blamed it on revolting workers." Fiske doubted that his gibberish would come out as a consistent story.
And soon enough tears began to flow.
"Do you know how it feels to never be you again? To the world, the me that I was... is dead."Marceline had started to sense that there was something deeply traumatic in Fiske's past. Maybe, beneath the affable trickster that he played, it loomed larger than even he knew. Maybe she'd just had a gut feeling. Most likely, however, was that she recognized the pain he spoke of all too well herself. Nina Hohenfelter was alive, but she was effectively dead. Marceline had begun life at age nine, with no identity, no history, and no loved ones save a beautiful woman in a wheelchair with long black hair that fell like curtains to either side of her face. Only Manfred, to some degree, had ever become family again. Yet, on some level, he was still Nina's brother and not Marci's. They'd started again in his mind. They'd started -
period - in hers.
So it was that she scooted a bit closer to Fiske and took him into her arms and he was warm and real and soft and strong. His hair lay against her, tickling her neck, and she took in the scent of him. She held him close and tight and kissed him on the side of the head, tasting the subtle salt of his sweat and tears.
"The you that you are - the only 'you' I know - is alive, and I'm glad he is." It sounded profound, and she was pleased with the words for a moment before worrying if they weren't a bit hollow - weren't a bit of a platitude. She didn't know what else to say, but she meant them. So, the girl who had been Nina and was now Marceline embraced the boy who was Fiske and had once been someone else and rested her chin on his head and her hand on his back, patting, wishing, stroking the pain away as best she could. Yet, whose pain it was remained anybody's guess.
Someday, she thought,
we will be too strong for them to hurt. She kissed the top of his head, gently.
Someday, she promised,
this will all be but a distant, painful, memory. We are meant for more."I guess you're right about that." Fiske took a deep breath in, then breathed out mayhaps even heavier. In one swift movement he embraced the girl and clinged rather tightly.
"I promise to you." His voice was still quavering.
"Some day, I will be so strong that... that... even Hugo would blush at my greatness!" He obviously knew that he would never get that far.
A little cough escaped him to try and hide what he said.
"Well, seeing as that might take a while." His voice became as dry as the Torragonese deserts.
"I hope you'll be there... to see me become strong... and stuff." Then a small panic hit him as he realised he forgot something.
"I will do the same with you, of course."Marci half-sniffled and half-laughed.
"Well, I suppose, if you're Hugo, then I'm Enna Lantisca," she decided, blinking away a couple of tears and smiling bravely.
"Even tethered and all that." She swept some hair from her face and shook her head.
"Though, I think you're right: we'll both have to be very old."Marceline's smile faded gradually, and she held him like that for a little bit longer, before backing partway out of the embrace. She turned her attention back to the sky. It was a meteor shower tonight, she supposed, as another one streaked across her field of view.
"You wanna know something, Fiskel?" She didn't actually wait for the response.
"I wanna live forever." In and out she breathed, gradually separating from him, leaning back with her hands on the roof.
"And I don't just mean that in some figurative way either." The girl's eyes turned his way.
"Bad as some of it is, the world is too... interesting, too big and exciting and full of wonder for just seventy years or whatever we get." She picked up a pebble and rolled it about pensively between her fingers.
"Screw that. I want more." She glanced at him hopefully.
"With you, of course.""Live forever, eh?" Fiske thought to himself.
Would living forever be such a bad thing as he was always told? He began to mentally find ways to even make such a thing possible.
"But how would we even get that? As good of an illusionist I am, I doubt I can trick you age into thinking you stay the same age forever." To help with said statement he used a small illusion to put wrinkles on his face and greyed out his hair.
Fiske placed his face onto his fist with a smirk on his face.
"Hearing that wish reminds me of when those butterflies first showed up in my stomach." His expression was as starstruck as it could get.
"Then miss 'Enna'." The boy jested.
"Let's find us a way to live forever so that we can see every little corner the world has to offer.""Aaaah! Fiske! Noooo!" she squealed at seeing an old version of him, but then a grin blossomed.
"Aw fuck it. Do me!" She shook her head.
"I would, but I'm not nearly good enough with Arcane."When he was done, she had another idea.
"If you were a girl... what would you look like?" She was holding back epic levels of mirth.
"Or would it be pretty much the same?" She teased. In fact, she was so excited that she rose and started pacing within the small area next to him, forcing Fiske to do the same or at least
stand.
"And if I was dude... oh Ipte! Would I just end up looking like Manfred?" She hammered him excitedly on the shoulder.
"Oh muh gawds, do it, Fiske, do it! I wanna have a mustache!"And then, when all the fun was over, Marci was laughing and lying back on the roof and Fiske was once again sitting beside her.
"Thanks," she said, with a certain sort of reverence as she faded back into pensiveness. Fiske had more to say, and she furrowed her brow and listened carefully. She smiled enigmatically and, quietly, Marceline rose.
"Come with me," she entreated,
"Back to my room."Fiske envisioned himself as a woman, in truth he has worn dresses when his mother wished to dress someone up when his sister did not wear them.
"Oh, I'd look absolutely fucking fabulous!" Following those words Fiske stood up and did a... rather perfect twirl, changing his image with each time he went round. His vest opened up and became longer, turning into coattails, his short bottoms turned into a skirt of kinds and his collar extended towards his neck. The chest filled up modestly as his face became softer and soon after his... or rather her twirl ended.
"Told you I'd look incredible!" His voice sounded somewhat higher than it did before, perhaps he really was made for the stage.
"Though, talking like this is hard on my voice." He posed a couple timed.
"Though I guess it's your time." He casted an illusionary curtain over himself and when it opened up he was back to normal.
"Hold still." Soon enough an exterior layer over Marci was cast, becoming taller. In truth he based the frame on Manfred but he would never reveal the secrets of his craft. As the final touches were made the boy sighed.
"Fine, fine, you'll get your mustache." With that he tried a couple different options, a Revidian styled one, a Kerreman styled one and one that was a bit more rough like the Eskandish. Eventually he settled on the Kerreman styled one, casting a reflecting surface.
"Take a look, I think I did a pretty decent job for my first time on someone else.." He proclaimed proudly.
After the fun and games were over his face flushed up upon hearing the request.
"What?" in the sheer confusion he could not even hide his blush with an illusion. He would softly slap himself a couple of times.
"Lead the way."Marci pretended to check him out, naturally, and then, when it was her turn, she engaged in mustache-twirling antics and deepened her voice using sonic magic. It was as if, in those brief moments, the heaviness of what had come before evaporated and they were, once again, just two young people who had take a shine to each other.
The girl's grip was gentle but firm, and she never let go of Fiske's hand as she led him back towards the house she shared with a few of her friends.
"In through the back door," she whispered as they crept up to it. Inside, the lanterns and candles were out and a silence and stillness prevailed. She placed a finger to her lips.
"Up," Marci entreated, finally releasing him as they ascended the stairs.
"I... wanna show you something."Fiske gulped, he knew there were a couple people that did not particularly like him in this house. So he kept as quiet as he could, having been sneaky coward does have it's perks at times.
"Show me something?" he whispered. His mind raced with whatever it could be, some more influenced by his interest in 'shinies' and the other by his interest in the other.
Calm down Fiske. It might just be a really cool keepsake, or some plushie she got from her deceased brother that she is too embarrassed to show others.They snuck into her room, with only the moonlight pouring in through the window to light their way. The door opened with a creak and Marceline was already unbuttoning her bodice as Fiske crept in after her. She seemed to be lingering by one of the chests.
"Close the door," she prodded, peeling out of the restrictive garment.
"This," she could be heard saying as the door closed,
"This is what I wanted to show you." That was the last that anybody saw of either until early the next morning, when a rumpled-looking Fiske slipped out of a window and landed gently on the ground below. Marci was a bit behind on her Zenobucks rounds that day but, by all accounts, she was unusually chipper.
Fiske stretched as he landed onto the ground. The brightest smile ever plastered on his face.
"To think it would feel that nice." He walked back through the gates, all proud of himself.
You have really found it, Fiske. Love
Suicharte,
YummyYummy,
Kaithe Dame,
Ti,
Lildear18,
Soldat Elf,
WhiteAngel25,
dragonpiece,
Zygfryt,
Play Misty
