towerofanimus | [open] so come and face me now, here on the stage tonight

Entry tags:

[open] so come and face me now, here on the stage tonight

Characters: Empress Feferi Peixes and all her subjects (OPEN)
Setting: Dorm floors, Floor 10, Floor 73, and around the tower - name your place!
Format: Prose to start, but I'll match you in comments.
Summary: The rumor carved in tiny print on the back of Feferi's neck is well-hidden, and she honestly meant well. She wanted to protect everyone. But a wish like that is never so simple in the Tower.
Warnings: LOTS OF THEM. Coddling and meddling in business that isn't hers, in the interest of 'helping' people. Trying to control others' behavior, in the name of 'not letting others suffer' - and this means pushing them towards believing in other Tower rumors, pointing your character towards death traps, stopping anything that will hurt it* or saying 'let me put you out of your suffering'. Also, a quick temper, and the writing is on the wall - if she thinks your character is in the wrong, there will be no card-game challenge**, only death.

But it's all for the best, really. She doesn't want you to hurt anymore, or to fight.

Character death is especially likely on Floor 73 - Feferi is angry and will justify any murder as one against her. If you only want her to mess with your character, don't tag into that prompt.

* except the resistance. she didn't mention it in the original rumor, and it's safe.
** but you will get a gold star for trying to challenge her to a card game.

Dorms:

Feferi Peixes isn't one to patrol the dorm floors. Going from place to place, greeting her friends? That's normal. But this is a patrol, nothing more and nothing less. That's unusual.

What's even more unusual is that her normal clothing is gone. She isn't normally so skilled with a needle and thread, but she's managed well enough, upstairs in the sewing room: the tyrian symbol on her clothing has been carefully removed and sewed onto a simple long, white dress, with a few accents: the long tails of her skirt have become a sash at her waist, trailing downwards, and there are tyrian accents just at the hem of the dress. She wears a bit of coral in her hair, and her jewelry and her tiara seem to shine with a bit more pride than normal. Perhaps it's because Feferi is standing straighter, and it seems to add a few inches to her normally diminutive height, heels clicking against the floor as she moves. Is it just a shadow, or is her hair even longer than it normally is? It trails down her back and past her hips on a normal day, but now it seems to reach the floor.

...is that blood dripping off the edges of her trident? Well, it doesn't matter if it is or it isn't. The Empress only kills when it's merited, after all.

Floor 10:

It should surprise no one that Feferi is here, in the aquarium. It's normally one of her favorite places, and as usual, she's laughing with the cuttlefish. Her fingers trail through the water, leaving little swirls and eddies for them to follow. The sound of her laughter isn't normally as - it isn't cold. It's hardly that; the problem is that it's too saccharine. Feferi has always had a sweet nature, but she's never let it go over the top.

Or is it that she's always been like this? Of course it is. She's always sweet, always kind. The Empress loves all of her subjects just the same way, even the smallest ones. Isn't that obvious?

Floor 73:

"This should have been mine."

Feferi's voice is a quiet, angry hiss. Every now and then, she comes up here, to allow herself to feel a moment of anger. It's always been a thorn in the Empress' side that when her control over the entirety of the Tower was taken, so was her castle. It was taken, and left a wreck, as a constant reminder that nothing here can be entirely hers, that her control only goes so far. It's all right, really; in the end, it just meant that she could keep a closer eye on her people. That's what she tells herself, in order to quell the anger. It works, most of the time, but not when she's here. Not when she's facing it.

Here, she can let her mask crumble, just a little, for a short while. When she leaves, she will be the benevolent Empress once more, but even the most kind person has their flaws. Her tendency to come here and remind herself of how her control was broken is one of hers.

Elsewhere:

Feferi can be found throughout the tower, checking on the residents. She's accompanied by a retrieval unit sometimes, and sometimes her trident is bloodstained, indicating that it's angered her and has had to be dispatched. But that's all right. She means so much good.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Chloe was in an explorative mood. She blew into her hands to keep them warm while she slunk through the castle. The rumor that some had caught about how much Feferi was trying to 'help' wasn't something she'd caught onto just yet, though it was extremely likely that she was going to find out about it sooner, rather than later.

Crouching on top of one of the second floors of the broken castle, she surveyed the ruins curiously, catching sight of just a hint of purple. A thin crack came from the rock below and she scowled as it broke and a small piece clattered off of the stones. She swiftly moved into the shadows, hoping nobody had heard.

But to an Empress? It would probably sound like there was an intruder in her sanctum.]

[The crack of the stone and the clatter of the piece that fell immediately caught Feferi's attention. Her head shot upwards and in the direction of the noise.

Who. Who would even dare.

Wasn't it clear to everyone? This was where it had all gone wrong. The counterattack, the gates sealed away, her own power not being enough. The single largest sign of failure. She didn't allow anyone to follow her here, because she couldn't let them see it.

And now there was someone there. No, she couldn't have that. Everyone would understand.

Her footsteps were almost silent as she moved in the direction of the sound, and she knelt for a moment, picking up the broken stone.]

Show yourself, and I may show leniency.

[She moved back into the shadows. Chloe remembered trolls, what they were capable of. She'd dealt with Gamzee, how he stole into her mind and grabbed the worst nightmares and most horrific memories. If Feferi was half that, she didn't want to confront her, and definitely didn't want to risk the possibility that 'leniency' meant a swift death as opposed to a slow one.

One hand sliding behind her back, she pulled out one of her knives. She'd been practicing long enough that her creations were no longer crude, even if the metal wasn't as good as the ones she'd had when she came here. Holding it in her hand, she kept a defensive posture and breathed shallowly, seeing thin wisps of steam curling in front of her face.

For the moment, Feferi was being responded to with absolute silence. Whatever churl had snuck into her home didn't deign to obey her magnificent orders. Would she stand for it, even if it was some pigeon?

Of course, the rock that had dropped wasn't small enough to have just been from a pigeon.]

[Normally? Feferi was balanced enough to keep her violence contained. It was directed to monsters - and they only died to keep her 'mother' fed. When it was directed at a person? They were a threat, or they had pushed her too far.

Gamzee aside, of course; the indigo blood was a bad influence on her mental state.

But this wasn't anything close to normal. Highblooded trolls were never perfectly stable; that had been bred and broken out of them through the ages. The violent side was under the surface of even the most good-natured highblood, just waiting for the right catalyst to bring it out.

It's particularly true for seadwelling trolls. The ocean doesn't teach its children to be kind. It teaches them to survive, and cruelly.

The silence is all too telling for Feferi. She scans the bottom floor first; if it's a monster that's refusing to answer, it will be dispatched quickly. How dare they intrude on what is her territory, by sending one?

She doesn't see anything, and then, it's to the stairs. Her eyes trace the perimeter, finally landing on the steam in the distance.]

This is your last chance. I am Her Imperial Consideration, and I demand that you show yourself.

[Increasingly, Chloe was coming to understand that violent side of the trolls. In a perverse sort of way, it was enthralling, that nature of theirs that was so cruel and dangerous. The assassin had such a bad habit of finding herself fascinated by things that were as dangerous or more than her, drawn to creatures with violent natures.

It made times like these, where those yellow eyes were gazing straight at the steam released from her hot breath, that it was that much clearer. Chloe closed her lips, holding her breath and letting it out only in very thin motions. The steam was harder to see, though in the darkness of broken masonry and low overhangs, it was obvious that something lurked. That something was trying to keep just at the edge of an outcrop, out of sight. If she had to, she would leap away and try to reach the third floor, across the broken parapet just in sight. She was certain she could make the jump.

But, for the troll, something lurking like that must surely have meant harm to the Empress.]

[No answer, at least not in words. That's all the answer that the Empress needs. It's someone, not something, and they aren't answering. That means a threat. She hisses, face fins flaring as she bares her teeth - all present, all perfectly aligned, and all sharp, just like a shark's.

And then she plants her trident into the floor, giving herself only the slightest running start before using the tines to launch herself upward. Is that her hair that she uses to pick up her weapon as she moves? It's not entirely clear whether it's her hair or whether she's just contorted in midair, but either way, the trident is in her hand when she lands.

She points the tines directly at Chloe's face, not saying a single word.]

[Fast.

Chloe didn't even react with shock. Her eyes narrowed for a faction and, seeing the tines leveled, she lunged backwards a step and hurled herself skyward towards the tower's remnants just across the way. Her hands turned while she put her blade between her teeth and grabbed at the floor, flipping once before using the momentum of the up-swing to acrobatically swing over and onto the floor up.

She hurled one knife in the direction of the Empress while gripping her other again in her hand to position it defensively. Even with that speed, in the open like this, she expected to have some ability to lash out when Feferi made to close with her. Of course, she wasn't sure that she could do enough damage to matter even if she managed to turn the tines away when her hand pulled out another knife for close-combat.

[Running away, was it? That sealed the matter. The attacker would have to die.

Especially after that knife is thrown at her. It's all too clear what this was: an assassination attempt. It would be a just death, in this case. Anyone would do the same, for someone trying to kill them.

She knocks the knife away with one end of her trident, making no move to catch it; if it's out of reach, that suits her purposes just fine. It clatters to the first floor, and that ensures that it won't be a problem anymore. Then, she moves to give chase, and she doesn't use the same trick twice.

The Empress tucks her weapon under one arm - she's trained with it all her life and knows how to run with it with no danger to herself. She has a swimmer's physique, and that includes the strength in her legs that allows her to run towards the wall and jump off, using that to propel herself up and onto the next floor. Now that she's close enough, she'll stab forward, aiming to pin Chloe's knife hand down.]

[Chloe didn't look particularly surprised to see the creature lunging up. There was a brief, momentary flush in her cheeks as she saw her charging and leaping up to meet her. One of these days, she reflected, she needed to stop getting a fascination for femme fatales. It was going to cost her.

Her blade twisted, moving to turn the blow of the trident with quick reflexes. However, the disparity in their strength would find her arm pinned between the tines, slammed to the wall as the stone partially crumbled under the force of a far more powerful weapon. Gritting her teeth, she tried once to wrench her arm free and gave up, her other hand pulling another knife from behind her back into her hand.

Just how many of these things did she have? She made a slash at Fef's midriff, the blow as wide in arc as she could manage while her leg lashed out and attempted to trip her and keep her off balance.]

[Was that a blush? Flattering, really, but it was far too late for flattery. It still earned Chloe a smile, unstable and clearly twisted as it was. If she'd been in the market for a black romance, perhaps, but now wasn't the time or the place.

As it stood, now? Only death awaited. Slowly, if the troll had her way. She twisted her trident, intent on fully disabling the hand that held that knife. Cutting it off wasn't an option with her weapon, but she could damage muscles and nerves and blood vessels, cutting them off, making it hurt.

Oh, and wasn't that so cute? A counterattack? Feferi kicked out at that hand slashing forward with the knife. The blade caught her leg, sending tyrian blood running down and pooling at her feet, but it was a flesh wound. No big loss.

As for that kick, she still had a grip on her trident. Keeping her off-balance would be a lot harder when she still had that in hand; she pulled it out and slashed forward with it, attempting to skewer it.]

[It was. True, she could control herself and when she fought it was with the skill that she possessed, but there was little denying that something this deadly had a certain... allure to her. Admittedly, she had no idea what a black romance was in the first place, though her relationship with Kirika had all the similarities.

That didn't matter right now.

She hissed at the pain in her arm, hearing stone crumble behind the wall. The muscles twisted and torqued, though the bone hadn't quite snapped. She kept her teeth clenched, seeing the spray of purple Tyrian blood run down her hands, flecking her cheek. Had the twist not occurred afterwards, Chloe might just have pulled free before the stab. As it stood, the tine rammed between the ulna and tibia, pinning her arm to the wall.

To her credit, she didn't scream. After as many times as she'd fought superhuman foes, she knew the meaning of pain. Her knife twisted and she stabbed, aiming it at the arm holding the trident. She didn't have the leverage she wanted, but she was still going to make Feferi bleed as much as she could.]

I... will be stronger... one day.

[Those eyes said she meant it.]

[The Tower would make the ideal setting for a black romance, given that even the restriction on killing your kismesis wouldn't really come into play. But that day? Feferi's interests were elsewhere, and while the flattery might have been attractive at another time, right now, she had an assassin to kill.

She hadn't entirely broken the one arm, and she knew it, but with the muscle damage she'd done, she suspected it was disabled. Still, best not to leave any doubt, and when she stepped forward, she planted one foot hard right on top of the bones in Chloe's wrist. As the metacarpals snapped with that satisfying crunch, the Empress grinned, all too sharklike.

It wasn't before that knife sliced at her arm, though. It was a downward cut, and it would bleed out quite a lot, but all she did was laugh.]

But you aren't, today.

[Another laugh, and that trident is pulled from Chloe's arm to just ghost over her skin before skewering her through the right shoulder.]

[Not screaming was taking an effort. When the tines stabbed into her good shoulder and her other wrist was broken, she felt the blade slipping from her fingers. She reached up, struggling to grip the weapon for the moment as she felt her body convulse once from the pain of it. As it stood, she wasn't going anywhere, left to stare upwards at rows of sharp, shark-like teeth.

Her breathing was ragged but steady. She tried to lash with her feet, but there was no traction. No words slipped from her mouth in response to that statement as she bared her teeth up at Feferi. She didn't need to confirm it after all. It was a known truth.]

[That convulsion tells her that it hurts, that what she's doing is indeed a punishment, but the lack of a scream bothers her. Her strength has been acknowledged, and her dominance in this situation is clear - even if tyrian blood stains her white dress and flows down the length of her trident to mix with the blood bubbling up from the wound in Chloe's shoulder - but she wants acclaim.

The Empress will have a scream.

She slowly pulls the trident from the wound, inch by inch, and then stabs it straight through Chloe's abdomen. Nothing will be fatal yet, but it will hurt, and it will bleed.]

[She would get it, but the Empress was going to have to work for it. When the weapon pulled, it was obvious from the set of Chloe's jaw that she had no intention of easily giving up more than a thin, reedy hiss. Her eyes fluttered at feeling the thing tugged, the tines dragging at her flesh and pulling out with a bit of blood.

And then it jabbed into her gut. There was a burble and a cough, the spear having missed her spine narrowly. The blood that leaked out was, at first, the sinful, scandalous red of humans, but it soon stained a dark black on one of the tines. Chloe gripped hard, letting out a low chuckle.]

You... mean to make me suffer...

I mean to make you scream.

[She twists that trident in Chloe's gut, watching the red change to black. Interesting, interesting, interesting.

The Empress wants more. She twists again, harder this time, faster. She will have her scream.]

Force... it from... my lips.

[Her body twisted a little at the feeling of the barbs moving around inside of her. She started managing to keep herself in check. The pair of twists weren't quite enough. But, the more that they twisted, the more that the blood changed its color and the inky bile mixed in with her red blood, creating a fetid sensation.

And then, it pushed a little too far, tearing coming along in her gut. She coughed again and then her lips parted into a scream. Tinny, light and almost airy, her whole body convulsed, back arched up into the grip of the creature while she swallowed, eyes clenched shut.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] so come and face me now, here on the stage tonight

Floor 73

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject