Morana Laice

MORANA LAICE THE LIGHTNING LICH 'sometimes the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.' frankenstein's monster turned frankenstein.

[fateofgrace]

mikey madison by rena.calhoun on instagram

[harinscourge]

Once more, Harin's response takes time, but after some moments of silence and his mouth moving with no sound producing, he says in his quiet and halting way, "Harin likes Morana," misunderstanding her question and instead of responding on what he would like to do, responds with what he likes in general. There is not much which he knows right now but he knows enough to recognize that she has been kind to him.

One of things Harin remembers is pain. He woke screaming in agony and fear, pain and anger. Since being with her, he hasn't felt that way again. Occasionally still afraid, mostly due to not understanding anything, but she's always been so patient with him. He does not know how to express his gratitude. He does not know it is gratitude he feels. He only knows that he feels it but can not name it.

"Morana teach... Harin... learn. Harin like... learn." He feels like there's something about it, learning things, like he used to be good at it. Sometimes he can feel it in his body, the way his muscles want to move, like they're half a step away from remembering, if only he could remember the final step. There's more there in him just waiting to be rediscovered.

[moranalaice]

Whatever version of a heart existed inside her felt as though it began to pump electrified warmth through her veins, caressing her muscles like crackling happiness fired through her and she couldn't prevent the broad smile that pulled into her cheeks, leaving deep lines around the edges of her mouth, nor the way her body seemed to rise into him, positioning herself as close as possible. All of her wanted more, and it felt like she was actively having to fight the compulsions of whatever was inside her to not sit herself on him and kiss him. She'd gotten better over the years at controlling whatever emotion reactions seemed to trigger in her since her death, some harder than others, but she had practiced mentally for Harin, so she might not do anything that could hurt his recovery. That didn't made it hard, her fingers playing with her hair and her dress so they did not play with him.

"I like you too, Harin," she answered, tip of her tongue quivering to say more, sitting behind her teeth and vibrating against the enamel.

She could still feel this vibration as he answered her again. It didn't make whatever emotion had shot through her go away, flecks of lightning feeling like they were on the tips of her fingers that wished to touch him rather than the blue fabric they played with instead, but it did give her something else to focus herself on so that the feeling might fall away.

"You do," she agreed of his assertion that he liked to learn. "It is why I knew I could bring you back, we're the same." The notion unfortunately was not as much of a distraction, however, as it was a lightning rod, keeping the emotion sizzling in her muscles. "We shall practice," Morana assured him, her twitching hand that had been toying with her skirt finally touching his arm. One touch. It was fine, her fingers trembling on muscles she had moved while deceased and felt as though the whole universe had swayed to allow her things.

"We shall practice moving away from illeism," she informed him. Harin had been doing this since he had risen, and when Morana had taken to some books regarding the notion of why, it seemed it could be to do with him needing to ground himself in his form - that or narcissism but she doubted it was this. For him to practice refering to himself as 'I' or 'me,' for this reason would need to retain an element of grounding. "Repeat after me," she instructed, her fingers absentmindedly caressing him as she spoke keeping her lips visible and her words slow, a harder task now that it felt olike there was lightning on her tongue. "'I,'" she paused, and would continue to do so between each word, "am Harin, I like Morana.'"

[harinscourge]

Harin breathes and even this takes effort, reminding himself to do it every once in a while when it feels like it’s been too long since he’s taken a breath and an ache in his chest reminds him. Nothing is autonomous anymore. Not even blinking. He could stare endlessly for hours and not remember to blink until he realizes how dry his eyes are. After being a corpse for so long, this body barely remembers how to live.

When Harin first woke, his mouth would not move properly. His limbs were heavy. Nothing behaved the way it was meant to, the way it used to, his thoughts didn’t align with the muscles in his body and so every action was an exaggeration of what he wanted it to be. Even thoughts failed him when he first woke. It was such a strange sensation to be a large, living, physical being capable of cognitive thoughts. So when she poses a question to him, he can not answer. Not yet. It takes time for his ears to process the words she speaks, it takes time for his brain to make sense of them, it takes time for his brain to formulate a response, it takes time to twitch his muscles in his face to make his mouth move, it takes time for the vibrations in his throat to react. When he speaks, it is sluggish and halting but the sound is firm enough. Clear and solid. “Stay,” a single word, but this is an achievement all the same.

There’s something he needs but he can’t vocalize it. It feels familiar and foreign at the same time, like a language he once knew and can no longer remember and only catches fragments of it from time to time, the sound of a vowel, the taste of a consonant. There, resting on the tip of his tongue just waiting to be rediscovered. Only no matter how much he tries to make sense of it, nothing comes up. He’s tried so many times now, mouthing at nothing, vocal chords vibrating with the sensation of sound trying to escape, like if he sounds it out the rest might fill in naturally but he only ends up harmonizing with himself in frustration.

[moranalaice]

There's quiet for a moment. She's spoken too quickly and keeps forgetting to pace herself. There was no one for her to talk to when sense started to return, no one but herself, watching her own mouth in dusty mirrors make vowels that sounded better in her mind than they did passing her lips. It took her longer, much longer, weeks to utter a word, months to make a full sentences. So she stays quiet, waiting for him.

'Stay.'

He's exhausted. One word is better than the first day but he's said more before. It worries her, Morana's eyes scanning him for signs of decay, trying to be subtle as large brown eyes wander but she's not half so soft with it as she imagines she is. Her only saving grace is that maybe he is too focused on himself to see her observing him. No decay. Not any that is evident at least.

"We will stay," she agrees, her words slower now, taking pauses between her sentences so he could process them, and adjusting the fabric of her dress once more to idle herself closer to him.

She did explain herself when he rose, once she injected him with a potion she had learnt to make to calm the beasts she rose. She'd explained again a few days later, in case he forgot. He had died, she brought him back, but it would take time to relearn everything, she wouldn't let him go home until she was sure he was ready for his family, until then she would take care of him. Morana didn't know if he felt like a prisoner or not but he hadn't tried to run - perhaps only because he couldn't - but she hadn't told him why she'd picked him yet, hard to hide as she seemed to look at him with stars in her eyes, and eventually he would get to see his brother and perhaps Dracoth would tell him.

It was not worth worrying about now. She was more worried he was afraid. That he didn't understand what was happening at all. She had not. Maybe she could have if someone told her, but her mind had been a mess of jumping thoughts then, often it felt as though she was just screaming in her mind, no words or thoughts just wails. She hoped his mind was just not so afraid, that her efforts did bring him some comfort.

Based on how exhausted he seemed comfort was what he needed, so the notion of mathematics was one she decide to forgo, in favour of allowing him some reprieve from the effort of it all. "What would you like?" Morana asked, keeping her sentence short, devoid of suggestions, aware he might only give her one word back.

[moranalaice]

[Flashback] Preparations || Dracoth&Morana

A dark cat seemed to slither against Dracoth's pant leg as Morana crawled up onto one of the counters in the laboratory's pantry, drawing up the layers of her soft cotton skirt so her bare feet might help her stand. It had not been made for her. Her own maker had been almost eight feet tall and while the majority of the home seemed to exist as it had been made for others, his lab had evidently been catered to his size. It was, through Morana's own inability to care for such a vast estate, one of the few rooms in the residence that was entirely clean and cared for.

"I need more kraken hatchling embryo," she informed Dracoth as she grabbed the last jar she had. It had been dehydrated and crushed into a bright blue powder and was the main ingredient for the stasis liquid she had his brother in, as well as that of her own parents and her maker. She always went through it quickly, and it was not cheap, Morana often stealing it when she could not sell some ornate object from within the home to get the funds required. Dracoth, of course, had no issue with funds and Morana was not unashamed in her request. Why deny helpfulness for the sake of shame?

The cat meowed, looking up at the man with the one good eye it still had. Unlike Harin, many of the animals Morana had brought back had not had the option of the stasis liquid and so their bodies had come back to life partially rotted. Harin she had protected from such a fake, fortunate as well that his mother had the wealth to restore a lot of him, and to pay a witch to maintain him through the funeral. It gave Morana the time needed to dig him up and get him into the liquid before the magic wore off.

Jumping down with the jar in hand she looked to Dracoth, her wide eyes should have been doe lie but instead they seemed alien, aligned with the patchwork stars on the stays she wore, lightning running up her chest to her throat and down her arms. "Just enough to last the month and then I can wake him up," she smiled, long lips pulling into wide cheeks.

Every time she actually spoke about Harin it made her smile. She didn't know him, not in person, but she hadn't told Dracoth too much about how close she and his brother actually were, just that she was wildly in love with him. Not strange, his brother was charming and many had likely taken his flirtations the wrong way, Dracoth could have likely related, but most had actually spoken to him, Morana just had never explained to Dracoth she had not. Maybe it was mildly suspicious she was not close to his type, her bohemian ways were not like the affluent beauties he had seduced, with their satin corsets he enjoyed feeling against his scales compared to the cotton and wool she seemed to don, but even with her strange features she was pretty, and his brother did like pretty people, so there was some logic to the concept she could have been an exception.

Both hands on the large jar - made for her makers massive hands - she drew it against her core. "Let's hope he doesn't kill either of us," she laughed, as though the macabre notion was entirely a jest to her. The potential so likely it had to be a little funny.

@dracothscourge

[moranalaice]

Still Stiff || Harin&Morana

He was so handsome. Morana could have stared at him for weeks. And had been. But he looked better laying in the bed covered in various woven fabrics and mismatched pillows than he did in the liquid she had replicated of her own makers design. The blue ooze had hidden away the warmth of his skin, and had hidden the curls that surrounded his elegant sort of face. It had been necessary though, to perserve all of his beauty. A beauty she was begining to worry would start to evidently decay because he still wasn't hung

Harin did not seem hungry for anything she had tried to feed him. It was understandable he hadn't wanted the mush she had initially offered, when his jaw was still tense, but stranger when she'd bought curry from town and he hadn't wanted that. By now she had offered him steak, chicken, just pure blood in case he was vampiric in nature, the night before she had killed a rabbit and presented it to him not a few minutes later and still no hunger rose in him.

Morana wished she could set aside her worries on this but everyone needed something to sustain them. Life wasn't a free bargain, you didn't get to sustain it with nothing. She ate, though in truth it didn't ever taste as good as it once had, sure that the poison that had killed her or maybe the lightning that had resurrected her had fried her taste buds.

"I consulted with the cards," she informed him, leaning her temple against the wooden headboard draped with a warm burgundy tapestry covered in depictions of predatory birds. Though she had made herself comfortable in his presence, more so than maybe was appropriate as he still likely was confused by who she was, she only touched him to help him with his movements and never for her own desires. Even if she wanted to. "They insist that your lack of appetite shouldn't last much longer, which means I find something soon," she said, as though such information would be of comfort to the still healing man.

"Until I work it out though we should keep practicing other things," she persevered in her intentions. No one had helped her reform herself, but he had her and she was not going to allow him to return home potentially capable of hurting his mother, or, worse, unable to speak to her. It had already seemed to overwhelming watching him trying to communicate in the first few days and observing him being incapable. She remembered that frustration, how it had almost felt like her mouth was numb and her jaws wired in place, she had wanted to cry but only seemed to wail.

Hands shifting the material of her bright blue dress as her knee folded over the other, whole body poised towards him, dirt at the base of the hem and chemical stains around the wrists from her work she continued to offer him the warmest of her smiles. "We could try walking outside to the caravans while we practice enunciating our words? Or if you are feeling worn and wish to stay in bed we could practice numbers again?" It was always 'we' when it came to his recovery never 'you.' It was never all on him.

@harinscourge