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Apr 3, 2018

Two to Tango

(( In which Saness tries to be sneaky about helping her friend-not-friend and it backfires spectacularly when An0n gets directly involved, resulting in the death of Eri. ))

Eri: You lean on the railing, looking out over the night. The ocean is dark, and relatively calm. Over in the other direction, the city is more properly lit up. You guess it looks nice. It doesn't really help your mood, though. The Angel moves up from where it was resting, curls around your body, head up into your hand. You gently pet it, while it whispers to you, and you just keep looking out into the night.

Your phone buzzes, and you look to it. Oh, god. You text with one hand. While you're dealing with Sol, another notification pops up. Saness. She... Oh fuck.

Saness: Nothing better than a little breaking-and-entering to make someone forgive your earlier transgressions, right? You're kinda scared to appear on the cliff though, because he might try to shoot you... Even appearing here in the ground level of the lighthouse, you've got a thick barrier of protective unseen psi around your person, and you've used your disguise amulet to look like a cat. There's nothing weird about a cat using a transportalizer, surely. An0n told you that they're the one who gave Eri the angel, and that they fed from his sanity... Eri will heal, supposedly, but you can't just abandon your friends, even if he doesn't see you as one.

Eri: You put your phone away angrily. It's fine, it's fine. She stopped responding, so she got the message, Sol and Kar are fine as well, you can help them out soon. Why did this go this way, god dammit. The Angel rubs against your hand, and it reassures you. It's alright, you're fine, you're a prince, these issues will be far below you soon enough.

You've had enough sightseeing. You tell the Angel that you're going back inside, and it stays curled around you just a moment longer before slinking off to give you space. It'll be alright, always waiting for its Prince. You smile, then head on down. You'll get something to eat, maybe.

Saness: It takes you a moment to work up the nerve to ascend, listening for Eri or sounds of outrage. Upon hearing nothing, you go, though it takes effort to keep your footfalls quiet in a lighthouse stairwell; you only look like a cat to others and are actually a normal troll walking in an upright position.

Eri: Down here, and it's time to look through your fridge. What garbage can you get out of here tonight.

Okay, fine, you'll go with that, that doesn't look too old. Pizza out, a few slices put onto a plate, shoved into a microwave. You lean against your counter, and just wait, listening to the hum of the machine.

Saness: Up the stairs, all the way to the kitchen, and you know he's there. The sound of shuffling and the ping of a microwave promises such. What should you do? You peer around carefully to watch him, heart a wild thing in your chest. You have the flower anon gave you to cure him. Wait. Why are you a cat? Cats can't talk, or do things like convince people to put flowers in their mouths. ..... You have a picture of An0n. You could just as easily look like him.

Eri: Ding! It's done. Open it up, get out your now heated meal, and walk over to sit down and get on that. It's quiet. It's far too quiet. You should do something, like put some music on, or something. ... Are you alone? You think you're alone.

Saness: And then An0n in troll form walks boldly into the kitchen, leaning cockily against the doorframe and wearing a fiendish grin. Holy fuck, you're sweating.

The Magic An0n: > Seduce Eri. Do it.

Eri: You're not alone. "Wasn't expectin' you to come around so soon."

Saness: Your grin widens as though the two of you were sharing a joke, and you oh-so-slowly lift a finger in front of your sharp maw in a shushing motion.

Eri: You give a little head tilt, but remain silent. What's going on with him?

Saness: Oh god, don't be suspicious. You stand upright off the wall and take a step forward, using your bracer to blink out of reality and back into it only a few feet away from Eri. You're guessing; you've never met An0n, but if you were a spooky chaos-and-mischief entity, you would totally pop in an out of existence to startle people. In your palm is the four-petaled flower, though you have yet to present it to Eri. When you do, it is with a flourish.

Eri: A gift, it seems. Or a trick. Almost certainly a trick. He really thinks you're going to fall for that? You laugh, and stand, having a final bite of pizza before you walk to lean on the counter again. "Are we going to, uh.. talk about what happened last time?"

Saness: You roll your borrowed cyan eyes, incorporating a tilt of your head into the motion so that when your gaze comes to rest on Eri again, you can disappear and dramatically port comfortably in front of him, using your psi to sit with one leg hooked over the other in the air, just slightly overhead. Your arms are crossed like you are bored.

Eri: God, he's trying to get to you by not saying shit. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. "Look, I'm- I'm sorry about doin' that to you, it was sudden, an' you clearly weren't comfortable. But I, uh. Still think what I did back then, I guess."

Saness: Oh god no, he's talking to you about something An0n would know and you would not. Which is a lot of things, come to think of it. Your eyes narrow over your smile as though you were considering his words, though in fact you are fumbling.

Eri: "So, uh, I hope maybe we can work somethin' out for that, if you're comfortable."

Saness: You grin wider, slowly, as though your actions is in response to his question (to which you have no context), and you present the blue flower once more, uncurling your fingers around it for him to take from your palm, head tilted forward juuuust slightly.

Eri: You look down at the flower, and... something about this seems off. He was offering this before you brought it up, so is he just ignoring you? Why is it blue, when everything involving An0n has been monochrome before now? "What is this, An0n?"

The Magic An0n: > Technically, An0n's eyes are blue, and everything he accents with is blue.

Eri: >That's true, but the rat wasn't.

The Magic An0n: > At least on his blog, the rat wasn't.

Karkat: > Rats don’t come in blue Eri.

The Magic An0n: > Also that.

Saness: Not that it matters, really. You feel the walls of the trap closing around you and decide that now is probably a good time to call this all off. One last gambit. You close your hand around the flower before floating down to stand on the ground. What would a chaos god do when scorned? You have no idea. "You won't accept my gift, then?" You definitely don't sound like An0n, but you're banking on ~chaos magic~ being a thing. For your part, you don't sound like yourself, at least. Or, you're trying not to.

Karkat: > Roll for deception.

The Magic An0n: > From the corner of the kitchen, a black rat lounges. It appears to be watching. It's eyes glow blue.

Eri: That is absolutely not his voice. Alarm bells start properly going off in your head. Didn't talk before now, when he's always so wordy and wanting to get in a few words to rib at you. Coming by without warning, when he would either allude to doing it first, or asking. Disappearing and reappearing, when normally he wisps around like he's made of darkness. What's going on? You do a roll for perception.

Saness: > Time to die.

Eri: Your roll is low. You tell yourself it's fine. It's him, things are just weird at the moment. You're on edge because of Saness, and Sol, and Kar, and even though he's acting so weird, it must be him. Maybe something was going on you didn't know about. You deflate a bit, look away. "I'm... fuck, I'm sorry, An0n. I'm just on edge at the moment."

Saness: You don't know what to say. You can't properly impersonate someone you don't know, and you know Eri will not be so forgiving if he finds out that it's you here. Not that he's intent to forgive you anyway. You're just going to have to accept this as mission failure, flower hidden by your hand returned to your 'dex, cyan eyes watchful on Eri. You just need to make an appropriate escape.

The Magic An0n: The rat sits on the counter's edge like a person, feet dangling, ankles crossed, staring eerily at the pair with burning cyan eyes. He's behind Eri, but Saness could easily spot him.

Eri: "...Yeah, I get it. I should have just accepted it. But I know you. That would obviously do something weird. Yes, yes, not bad, just weird."

Saness: Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Though you notice An0n (whose appearance in the room sends a panicked chill down your spine), you keep your attention rather fixed on Eri. Wouldn't want him turning around right now! An0n could give you away any number of ways, and you are forced to trust that they won't just... ruin you. The game must go on. "Not everything I do is bad, or weird. Maybe I'll come around again later to give you my gift, when you're feeling more... interesting." There. A jab. Just a teeny insult to assert yourself.

Eri: "Oh come the fuck on, I'm plenty interesting. You've made me plenty interesting." Just to prove what you mean, you let your horns spark a little with violet psi. "You're not even going to tell me what the gift is?"

Saness: "Now where's the fun in that?"

The Magic An0n: The rat hops down from the counter, and it's a cat before its paws hit the floor. A soft, quiet landing. Casual, graceful padding towards Eri's legs, sitting on his haunches just out of sight behind the seadweller's legs. He's absolutely riling Saness up intentionally. That cheshire grin sure looks at place and surreal on a cat's face, all at once.

Eri: "You want fun? We could go to the arena again, that was a lot of fun."

Saness: Sweating intensifies beneath the veneer of An0n, for you could not possibly provide this arena and you know An0n is being a fuck to mess with you. Maybe they're going to toss you under the bus anyway; you are at once the obstacle in the road and the driver of the bus poised to run yourself over, of which you are very well aware. "Not the curious sort, are you. How disappointing." Can you goad him into anything? You doubt it. You doubt everything. You stick your hands in your pockets, unblinking, intent in your gaze.

Eri: "I was already askin', you can't call me curious for shit." He's trying to fuck with you, you get that now, you won't let him. Instead, you move, turning to head towards the cage where that rat he gave you is.

The Magic An0n: An0n also looks towards the cage. While Saness cannot provide, he can.

Saness: You are completely clueless toward the significance of the rat in the cage, turning your attention coolly and calmly toward Eri as he heads that way even as you remain certain that maintaining such an elevated pulse for such an extended period of time is bad for your health. "You don't even want to try it? Clinging to the tested, when what I'm offering you could be so much better."

Eri: "I know you'll come up with something different. And combat chaos is always good, right?" Of course, you need to go up to the bedroom, since that's where the cage is, since that's where you last put it down.

The Magic An0n: Oh boy. The cat rises to pad along after him.

Saness: You're going to follow him with a sinking sense of dread, because the jig is almost up and you have yet to convince him to put this darn plant in his mouth. What can you even say? Nothing.

Eri: You arrive up here, heading over to the cage immediately, looking into it at the little rat fella. From the other set of stairs, the one you didn't just use, the head of an Angel peers.

Saness: Oh fuck, what is that? Luckily Eri didn't just see the incredibly surprised expression on your borrowed face when you glance over the angel.

The Magic An0n: Soft padding of a cat. He waits for Saness to arrive, then moves to her, climbing up her illusion to rest blended into the shoulder, as if it were solid. Cyan eyes close to mere slits, watching in silence, closed-mouth still curved up wide.

Eri: The Angel looks back at Saness. It says nothing, and does not move. You reach into the cage, retrieving the rat, watching it for a while as it scurries around your hand. "Ready to fight again, An0n?"

The Magic An0n: "Quite," he says, right up by the head of the illusion so it sounds natural, regardless of Saness's feelings or response.

Saness: !!!!! This is very bad. Your expression is one of natural alarm, eyebrows lifted slightly on a face too shocked for any real expression. You probably look very neutral, beyond An0n's smoky-dark eyebrows.

Eri: You nod to yourself, take a deep breath, and squeeze.

The Magic An0n The rat squeals its pain, then white blood coats Eri's fingers as usual. Likely gruesome to Saness. Of course, after that, no one is here at all. All three bodies, where they stand, are now suspended in a void of black.

----------

Sollux: You arrive at the ground level of the lighthouse with your matesprit filled with dread and foreboding just moments afterward. You're practically dragging him to go up the stairs with you. Unfortunately, you will find nothing.

----------

The Magic An0n: World of black where they can only see each other. Feel free to respond to that sudden change before I start the reveal of location.

Eri: For you, this is expected. You turn back towards An0n.

Saness: You are stunned, frightened, and very much rigid with that same neutral expression of shock. This is not what you'd intended at all. Arena? Arena? You're no fighter. Your cyan stare looks over Eri impassively from head to toe. Good job, Saness. Really nailed it this time.

The Magic An0n: The floating "trolls" fund themselves landing in a soft thump on their feet on the ground. It feels hard and only mildly forgiving, and moments afterward, the light radiates outward. The ground is dark earth, with scattered sprouts of grass. In front of them, trees, trees so tall they block out the sun with their combined branches even in this clearing. It's a forest. Animals gather at the perimeter, pastel-pale with white eyes.

An0n stands up on Saness's illusion's shoulder and stretches in a curl, revealing himself.

"You should have listened to her~" he teases, almond-shaped cyan eyes locked on Eri. "She was trying to save you."

A kick backwards with the cat foot, and the entire illusion's head dissolves into black smoke. He jumps onto the ground with sinking impact for the distance, straightening himself on four paws. Saness's entire illusion melts away in that smoke, revealing the limeblood for what she is. A giggle, and An0n starts bounding off between them, behind them. When they turn around, they'll find themselves faced with a triangular opening in a mossy cliff face, thirty feet tall at its peak and fifteen wide at the base. Clawmarks around the edges and the ground indicate that something very large lives here, and the small black cat bounds in. Nothing about this situation implies that he should be followed.

Eri: You don't think to follow him anyway, considering you don't watch which way he goes. No, you're too busy staring at An0n-- Saness-- first with wide eyes, then, for just a fraction of a second, a feeling of deep hurt and betrayal, before it's washed away with pure anger, and you sneer. "YOU!"

Saness: It seems that you are having a technical malfunction, too utterly wrecked to really react when An0n leaps away and dissolves your disguise. You racked up the cost with your gambling, and now you have to foot the bill. Betrayal, again. This time though, you knew what you were doing. "Me."

The Magic An0n: A loud noise comes from the cavern. There's bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Eri: "You-- You fuckin'--" You look over, just for a moment, at the noise.

Saness: You turn to see that claw-scraped cavern, distracted from Eri in that instant.

The Magic An0n: Heavy footsteps from within start making their way out, not loud but easily felt by the trolls at the mouth.

Eri: Again, for a moment, you turn back to her. "I'll deal with you in a moment. Stay out of my damn way." And so, you turn and start storming towards the cave.

Saness: Gulp. Those tremors belong to something big, but it's Eri's motion that makes you snap to reality, following him immediately. "Wait!! You want to fight it in an enclosed space??"

The Magic An0n: Giant cyan eyes burn out from the darkness, and a roar sounds to warn Eri to stay back. The arena is the clearing. Stepping halfway out of the opening is a massive dragon, cyan eyes and ebony black scales. The wings are folded, but by it's movements, it's easy to see that this beast is specifically a wyvern. Large claws connected to heavy wings step forward and curve into the dirt, just the right size for the clawmarks in the stone. Its mouth opens, white-blue flames in its throat. It's wearing glasses, clearly, it's An0n.

"Perhaps the two of you together can try this beast on for size, hmm?"

When the black smoke dissolves away, a white dragon is left behind with the blue flames, and it roars.

Eri: Your steps stop once the beast comes into view, and you instinctively retrieve your cutlass from your Sylladex, entering a fighting stance. You're not afraid. You can do this. A fight's chaos, but you're a tactician. You can do this.

Saness: Together? Is An0n mad?? You're all about teamwork, but Eri... He won't work with you. Not before, and not now. You're not a fighter, you're not, but you trot up to be parallel with Eri, a few feet away for maneuverability, and change your specibus to Make-Believe-Kind. Your other weapons are useless here, but you can't sit back and do nothing.

The Magic An0n: A distance away, An0n manifests as his typical Chu form, floating pleasantly on his tail to watch the hell that's about to go down. Hope Saness has good reaction time with those barriers, because they're both about to get bathed in flames.

Eri: You don't have enough time to dodge out of the way. You still do, of course, but things get very hot for you. Yeah you're burning.

Saness: It would be over pretty quickly for you if you weren't quick with your barriers, because you are not agile and not a trained combatant. Eri can't burn when you're building walls for the both of you though. You'll stay closer next time to keep the heat off, so to speak, since he seems a little singed. "Sorry!"

Eri: You're too busy crying out in pain to respond to Saness, but you eventually get back onto your feet, and just try and charge this thing with your sword in hand.

The Magic An0n: It comes forward and tries to swipe at Eri with a large claw from its forelimb. It sees and recognizes the Sharp thing as a shiny. Its scales are too sturdy for the sword to have any effect, Eri will soon find. At best, he'll be able to damage the wing membrane or some delicate facial features.

Saness: Fuck, okay. It's going to be an on-off game with your barriers with an attack strategy like that; they have to come up to block things and go down to allow him to strike. You take to the sky so as to split up the target range and (sorry dragon) play interference by yanking viciously on its claws to derail the swipe into the soil. There is no barrier on Eri presently.

Eri: You hit scale, and it does pretty much nothing, and you end up hit by a claw. It doesn't cut you too bad, but it does pierce, and send you flying back, hitting the ground hard, and losing your sword.

Saness: Wow, he still managed to be hit by the claw even as you'd moved it off course. Maybe you moved it into his dodge, who knows. What you do know is that apparently Eri is shit at fighting, because he looks like a damned mess. The barrier goes back over him while he recovers and you focus on bodily shoving the dragon around. "Hey!"

The Magic An0n: The dragon is distracted successfully! It tries to reach out and snap at Saness with its teeth. Nom!

Eri: Okay, you're injured, and mad, and god dammit. You get to your feet again, shakily, and clutching your chest.

Saness: You yelp when jaws snap against your barrier, reshaping it to have sharp spikes of force protruding from it. Bleed, fool. Biting is rude!

The Magic An0n: Exactly one spike gets inside its mouth, and pearly white blood flows from that new wound between its teeth. The scales are tougher, and this just makes it mad. It rears back and spreads its wings, looks like it's about to fly after her. Right now, she's the bigger threat.

Eri: You need to do something, here. You equip a much better weapon, and with Ahab's Crosshairs in your hands, you open fire on the beast.

Saness: > RIP Saness The Magic An0n: The force of the weapon sends the beast toppling into the cliff face. It's not injured, but it's clear that Ahab's force is enough to send it reeling. Target changed. Eri is now the bigger threat. It lunges forward, throwing its tail like a scorpion's sting to hit the weapon.

Saness: > Oh wait, there was a barrier on Eri. Wouldn't it have blasted him too before breaking through? > Saness, two for two.

Eri: You essentially just fired at a wall right in front of you. You're blown back, whole front hurt from the explosion, and you're on the ground injured when the tail comes. It hits you dead on. Something inside you cracks.

Saness: The familiar sound of Ahab’s firing and the sharp mental ache of your barrier being destroyed stuns you for a moment, makes you lose altitude and prevents you from acting when the dragon lashes out at Eri. You can see the strike hit home, see him laying there bleeding. That could be a corpse. Right now. He might be a corpse. He could be dead, right now, and it would be your fault. You panic. No no no! What are you doing?? You slam into the dragon with your psi, using sharp edges to shred at its wings. "Come on!!"

The Magic An0n: The dragon is distracted by the pain of its wings shredding. It flaps them, spraying white-hot pearly blood at her, then turns away from the prey to screech, grounded from the damage. Successful interference of body eating, it is now standing over Eri's body.

Eri: You are currently not in a position to get up, what with all the pain you're in. Honestly, everything is a blur. Did your glasses get knocked off?

Saness: Okay, not enough to really do anything, but at least the dragon isn't- isn't attacking Eri.

But Eri isn't moving. Maybe the dragon doesn't need to attack him anymore.

"Come on!!" you repeat, scared and teary. Tears don't help, coward. You slice at the dragon's face with your psi, aiming for that maw opened in a screech, prying at the jaws to keep that mouth open. If Eri would only get up, and fire into that mouth... You don't want to believe that he could be dead.

The Magic An0n: It snarls and shakes its head viciously, drool splattering. How strong is Saness's barrier? Because the soft peeps coming from inside the cave seem to refuel the dragon's rage, and it's lunging after her, trying to crush the barrier holding its jaws open with impressive power.

Eri: You try to get up, find out that's really painful, and proceed to K.O.

Saness: !! Eri moved! Even if you were strong enough to hold the dragon's jaw open (probably not for any extended period of time), that movement is enough to distract you, and the barrier shatters in that sharp mouth. Another yelp as you lose several feet of altitude, again, dizzy with the effect of that blow.

The Magic An0n: Teeth click together loudly and it cries at her, trying to fly but failing thanks to tattered membranes, it does not lift. Instead, it tries to slap Saness out of the air with long fingerbones.

Saness: You manage to throw up a barrier in time to prevent yourself from taking damage, but the swipe brings you down to the soil, grounding you. You need to get to Eri, so you grab those fingerbones in your barrier and attempt to engage a crocodile death roll with the dragon.

Eri: Zzzz.

The Magic An0n: The dragon does not roll with her psi, and instead those fingerbones break. Instantly, it tries to bite. Animal that it is, it's not afraid of trying to bite the limbs off to survive, even if that would mean death later.

Saness: Oh god, you feel immediately sickened, releasing the dragon and darting farther away from Eri, hoping to lure the dragon and distract it while you lift Eri in your psi. You just have to grab him and then you can both leave, that's all you have to do. Come on, surely An0n sees that you've both lost! Do they seriously intend to kill you??

The Magic An0n: An0n is watching in delight the whole time. The blood though, the scent of burning blood attracts it. With broken fingers and an injured mouth, it decides that Saness isn't worth chasing. It turns back to Eri instead. Throwing a heavy claw down on the troll's chest with enough strength to shatter his ribcage, it curves its head around to get its teeth under his head, lifts its claw, then sucks his whole torso in before picking him up. Gonna do the bird thing to swallow him whole by lifting him up in the air. This is a good time for Saness to try pulling him out, cause he'll get bitten in half in an attempt to keep the prey.

Eri: Welp. You don't got much more to contribute here.

Saness: To have smashed Eri in that manner was to smash your psi that held him as well, and you fumble helplessly as the dragon consumes your friend-not-friend, staggering in place. You are now momentarily frozen in horror.

The Magic An0n: Swallow! Down the troll goes effortlessly. If he wasn't dead from the chest smash, he will be momentarily. The dragon turns to Saness now. It looks ready to go eat her, too.

Saness: You can't just leave Eri.

But he's dead.

But you can't just leave him-

But he's dead!

But-

You watched the dragon eat him.

You turn your gaze away from the dragon and up to An0n where he floats, defeated and weary, too stunned for tears. Is this what they wanted? This isn't just chaos, it's so much worse.

The Magic An0n: In her defeat, the dragon closes in, about to clamp its jaws around her torso sideways. Right before the teeth make impact, the dragon freezes like stone. Three baby peepers make concerned noises at the mouth of the cave.

Saness: You stagger backwards out of the stony mouth, part of your mind screaming about how you almost let yourself die, but the rest of you is sad and wretched and awful. You deserve it, if Eri remains dead. Will he remain dead? You don't know. Would An0n really kill him? You don't know. A glance at the frozen dragon, then up to An0n, and then you're sullenly making your way around the rigid reptile in order to better see the source of the peeping concern. Babies? Baby dragons?

The Magic An0n: They are indeed baby dragons. They run out to their frozen mother, before they too freeze. An0n comes to a drop on top of the dragon's head, the mother, who begins to disintegrate slowly into the air like magic from her highest point.

"I think it's about time I sent you back."

Saness: "What? Wait, what about Eri?"

An0n has your undivided attention, some modicum of clarity returning to you for being addressed, and for the promise of going back, hope and dread warring across your features.

The Magic An0n: An answer is not provided. Instead. He floats again once the head beneath him disintegrates, and the baby dragons turn to dust too. Eri's body crumples to the ground where the dragon's stomach was, clear damages to his clothes and flesh from the highly acidic environment in combination with the burns and lacerations he'd already received. Before Saness can even go to him though, An0n's voice echoes through her very soul.

"Go back."

She doesn't get a choice, for when she blinks next, she'll find herself standing in the middle of the hive she'd built for herself and Ringleader.

#ooc eyes only #seemsfishee #themagican0n #allcatsaregreyt #crimsongarrote #saness does a thing #//death #//violence #//long post #discord rp log #ask to tag

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