LACHESISM — N. THE DESIRE TO BE STRUCK BY DISASTER.
Date: October 7th
Time: 3:06 AM
Location: Lucy’s Manor ( Slice ‘Em And Dice ‘Em Fitness Center AKA the Basement )
Closed: @thesaintofsin
Sleep was a fanciful concept -- a fool’s dream at this point.
She had been able to catch snippets of it when she wasn’t making sure that Alastair didn’t get into another row with some demon that managed to rub him the wrong way. Hopefully her obvious concern for his health and well-being would cool any hot-blooded encounters that occurred in the few hours she wasn’t at his side. There were moments where she fell asleep for a couple of minutes, only to be shaken awake by Daniel who would tell her that her attention was needed elsewhere. The best reprieves she was able to obtain were the few hours she could spend tucked against Cain, trading in lustful pleasures for restless naps that always had her waking up with the feeling of her falling. In Tartarus there was the character of Tantalus who always had the prospect of food taunted in front of his face, the image of drink right there before his thirsting lips. He was never able to indulge or slate his hunger and thirst, but the idea of it was tortuously dangled right in front of him. Rowan was the earthly equivalent except the one thing that she seemed to never be able to obtain was sleep.
There was no reason for her to analyze why, she knew exactly why she wasn’t sleeping but she was not going to address it. The lack of sleep she was getting was going to recede at some point or another, just like the multiple lacerations that were ribboning along her body. It was going to become a thing of the past -- there was a salve she could put on this wound and it was just a matter of finding it. So instead of tossing and turning in her bed ( which she had not visited for numerous, easily believable reasons ) she had sought to become more productive in the ungodly hours of the morning. Rowan had spent hours staring up at the ceiling, fixating on the errors that she had made when engaging with her adversaries. There was the moment where she had gotten too confident and traded in power for accuracy. The time when she had exchanged precision for speed. It was these intricacies that she began to obsess over in the late hours of the night, when other much more painful thoughts threatened the chasms of her mind. Fighting was a careful dance that could only be perfected through practice -- and what better time to practice than the Witching Hour?
He was guaranteed to not be there anyway ( it had been 6 days since their last encounter and she was hoping that the number would continue to grow ). She knew he wasn’t going to be asleep unless he had taken up the bed of another -- but she knew that he wasn’t going to be there. No one was there at this time of the night and with that promise of solitude she found herself coaxed into the gym. With her hair tied up and a towel around her neck, the little redhead made her way down into the basement. While she made her way to the room, she thought about who else she might find to help her blow off the steam that had been boiling under her skin since the beginning of the month. Lilith would probably be willing, albeit there was the promise of grumbling and snappishness to follow. Daniel was likely asleep ( and she hoped he was ), as were the rest of her companions save for Cain. But Cain wouldn’t be too keen about the prospect of having Rowan’s fist fly his way. By the time she reached the basement it was too late for her to go back up and knock on someone’s door -- while the wrath might be worth it, the promise of solitude was too enticing in this moment. There was something to savor about the quiet of the room as she flicked on the lights.
The music was so loud that it caused the air around her to shift and vibrate, moving her before she was completely aware she was moving at all. Pushing herself to her physical limit allowed her mind to become a blissfully blank piece of canvas on which she could paint images of red, auburn, and burgundy. The sweat that pulled at her collar bone and the base of her neck were signs of the physical exertion, badges that she wore proudly despite the fact that no one else was there to witness it. They shined against the red lacerations and the mottled bruises that bedecked her fair skin like jewels on a gown. Although she was in a state of perpetual physical exhaustion, she was determined to push herself further until she had no choice but to make whatever god of sleep there was carry her into his kingdom. Until that moment occurred, however, she was going to make sure that every minute she spent awake was going to be productive. Productiveness came in the form of the vessel of war decimating a dummy punch after punch, kick after kick. It was a freeing experience as she watched its body curve under her fist -- and if she imagined, she could imagine feeling the skin break under her knuckles, the blood give way and prepare itself for being unleashed, bones breaking --
“Damnú air.” Shit. She muttered under her breath as she felt her face harden into stone.
He literally had her backed into a corner. How she had not noticed the music turn off was a mystery -- it was when she felt him standing behind her that she whirled around, her gaze meeting his with a cold fury that had been straining in her since the first of the month. Did he not see that he was only going to make this more difficult for himself? Was he really so keen as to have utter disaster rain down on him in the form of her wrath? Perhaps this was the type of ruin that had been promised to Paris before he made the foolish decision of begging for Helen at his side. What had become of that except the fall of Troy. Her eyebrows drew together as she stared at him in silence, grabbing the towel on the floor and laying it across her neck as she examined him. Now she could compare him to others who had obviously gone through a more trying time after the event had played out. There was Lilith who had weariness etched into her features, Cain whose pain could be found in his eyes, and Alastair who wore his scars like the sun in the clear morning blue sky. And what had Gale worn? The guilt of a man who had left her his companions to fight alone for the Devil-knows-what.
And to make it clear that she had taken the brunt of his choices, she did not throw a shirt on to cover the array of bruises that painted the skin of her ribs and did nothing to hide the scratches that ran along her neck and chest. It wasn’t as if she could anyway. But when looking at him became too painful ( for that is the only word accurate enough to describe it ), she went to move around him, seeking a means of escape. If he stood in her way then he was only asking for ruin.
“You can have the place to yourself. I was going to bed anyway.”