APOCRYPHIS' ROVER / NEMO TELLS THE DEMONESS WROUGHT OF SHADOW & BLOOD : ā you don't have to keep apologizing. just be here. day in and day out and prove that you're gonna keep showing up. that's all you have to do. ā (from nemo/rover!) ( A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE... ACCEPTING ! )
His words come not from a place of malice, this she knows. Beneath their feet, the landscape is composed of lush greenery. But, by now, she has gotten familiar with the plains around these parts. Some are a beautiful sight to witness, while others paint a picture of horror unspoken. It is within the shroud of the darkness that she has sought a make-believe of a home and shelter. In the thickest and coldest of shadows in Huanglong has the she-demon sought to lead her existence.
As ever, light pierces through the darkness, exposing all that lies there to the naked eye. Her hideousness is no exception to this, and it was a swift weapon granting her pain or a swift end that she expected. Her interlocutor is, for all she knows, one of the humans seeking to hunt down the monsters tormenting their existences and their lives. She cannot claim to be any different, considering the copious amounts of blood that stain her claws.
Instead, his offer is sinister. Is this understanding? Is it gentleness? But, why? What sort of madness would drive a human to show me this mercy? Isn't she the creature mothers warn their children about? Isn't she the vicious beast warriors passionately, yet with fear, perpetually hunt down? Wouldn't her head constitute quite the fine trophy to don, given the terror she is plenty able to create in her wake? // What a pathetic thing I have become, to wander in the shadows of a foreign land, hiding as if both in shame and in regret. I let my rage burn me and it has burnt me out, all underneath "Father's" attentive gaze. But, would I have chosen any differently? Would I not have followed the same path, regardless of how it would have happened?
"Your offer is generous." When she speaks, her voice carries something that resembles a soft sound. And is that the shadow of a smile dancing upon her visage? "Yet, should the humans find me, how long do you think it will be until they try to kill me? Or, worse, put me back into those glass cages they call pods?" I cannot go back to the light, is what she does not say, but senses he can more than just understand.
It should be this simple: I cannot go back to the light. What lies beneath is, I yearn for it nonetheless. I yearn for home, I yearn for my blood father, I yearn for the backyard that had red flowers, I yearn to feel whole again. I yearn and my yearning is killing me. Does he perceive this internal war she continues to wage with herself? Is a singular gaze into her eyes enough to tear open the gates of her heart and offer a glimpse upon the girl she was once?
"I meant not to turn the spirits so sour," offered in earnest, alongside the weak attempt of a laugh, "Your presence offers quite the peculiar sense of tranquility. I would almost be as reckless as to wish to trust you, fellow wanderer. Yet, some things cannot changed. Some truths, no matter how much we wrestle against them, linger. As far as the people of this country are concerned, I am a possible threat. A beast that shouldn't exist, an abomination created through methods not a single inhabitant of this world should ever possess knowledge of."
By the time she is done speaking, one of her hands has gotten to be clenched into a wrathful fist. Her teeth are clenched, nostrils flaring. She wasn't alone in those terrible days, yet she survived. What solace ought this offer? To survive the hands of a madman who makes you into a monster...
"Will you walk with me?" given instead, "The sunset is beautiful this evening, wouldn't you say? And, come to think of it, I cannot recollect the last time I admired its gentle, wondrous light." Perhaps, for a few precious hours, the tumult within can be silenced. This fragile shred of trust, should it prove deadly... well, it would be a peaceful, serene sort of deadly. The sort of deadly she can learn to wish to embrace. // @apocryphis
