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“Shake enough flour into your bowl, to where it’s about three inches deep.” Leana said, fixedly glaring into her bowl.  Alessio wasn’t sure what three inches was exactly but at this point he was too scared to ask so he peeked over her work and just imitated as best he could.

She’s irritated with them.

Which wasn’t the end of the world, he tried to remind himself, it didn’t mean she was going to lash out or anything bad.

Right…

Alessio glanced at her trying to figure out if there was a way to make her feel better or if he’d just mess it up more trying. What were you supposed to do when someone’s upset? Nevermind, what was he going to do? What’d he want someone to do when he’s upset? Devils, that wasn’t helpful either, different people needed different things…

…Maybe he should just stay quiet and give her time and space? That sounded like the cowards’ way out. He was gonna go with that.

 

@kimlikesart @ragnarok

 

 

All of the sudden the world shifted into a black, morphing haze. It shifted to gray, then to black and white squares sifting the air. It shifted to total darkness and then it all came back like he was back in that moment all over again.

 

Clit-clatter

Somehow that sound of clinking dice was always there like it was the blood in his veins. He could hear it, before he saw anything. He could hear riotous voices and the sweet-sick smell of alcohol and tobacco, blood and sweat all coagulated together. It’s all grey all…lost in the background to the numb hazy state of mind – drug-induced – to sedate the…natural urges of a ghoul.

Oh, but they didn’t even trust that.

Nathair smirked slightly through the haggard tangle of dirty, silver hair. Those sedatives they used to control the blinding rage, they didn’t always work. Not that…the boy didn’t have control, no, he usually did. But they didn’t seem to really understand he had no reason to show restraint when he had every reason to want them dead.

And it scared them, didn’t it?

It made them leave him alone, stop trying to get any progress.

If he waited, if he scared them enough they might just get careless and release him. After all, you can’t kill a ghoul. If he waited…

Clit-clatter

The other weapons – (Kids, not weapons. He didn’t want to think like them.) – they were a couple paces away betting on a game of Consequence. Chattering incoherently. All of them somewhere around ten or twelve. About his age, about the same. And they were all something like little monsters.

No, he was just pretending to be, until he could finally escape. He didn’t want…

Somebody was shouting now – something about cheating. All the noises just echo a little, they’re always garbled. Whatever senses could get through to Nathair were all dim.

With a quiet clanking of chains, the boy shifted position, gnawing at his irritated wrist. It was bleeding now, tasted metallic and thick. He didn’t like the taste, he…didn’t like how easy it was to slip out of it, to just exist, to just forget to be human. If he was in fact human still.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his power, trying to capture memories of warmth and memories of what it felt like to be human. He was trying to imagine the memories like a tingling heat in his fingers, flowing from his heart, like he’d been taught. Slow his breathing.

It shouldn’t be this hard because he’d used his power on other people before by accident and that’s how he’d learned he could project memories. But the thing was, it was a useless power. Nobody cared if they could understand how he felt, understanding wasn’t going to protect him. And for some reason he couldn’t even use that ability on himself…so it was useless.

The shouts behind him were getting louder and it was breaking into a fight he could hear it. Nathair glared at the racket, almost impressed that it could be so noxious even with his smothered senses.

Slash!

Nathair went rigid as droplets of blood splattered his back, every sense suddenly exploding into crystalline clarity and with that a feral hunger. His eyes darted to the scene, red highlighting the floor, sparkling on the walls, sharpening every sensation like a target on the back of a scruffy-haired girl. She staggered back, stiff like a doll with snapping strings and he didn’t even recognize why for several seconds. But a thin sliver of steel bleed through the small of her back.

Without a gasp she collapsed dead on the floor, an elongated needle pinioned her chest.

Behind her, her killer stood, smiling back at the crowd of kids, spinning a needle across his finger.

“Anyone else wanna join your friend?” The boy said, but his eyes were on anything but the body. Smoothly he bent over to sweep up the coins scattered on the floor, even the ones dyed red. He still never looked at his handiwork.

“I didn’t cheat,” he said “I just know how to play the game.”

Nathair bit his lower lip until it bleed as if that would appease the animalistic urge shaking his insides. His eyes traced the dark-eyed, intent boy watching them all with an impishly smug smile like he was daring them to come at him. The room was silent, even now when every nerve in him felt sharper and more vivid than it ever did anymore.

A soft cough in the group of kids.

“Is it allowed to kill outside of training?” Somebody whispered.

“I’ll tell the alpha!”

The boy just turned and started to leave. That’s when it got worse, the other kids – to them it was like permission to do everything they were accustomed to.

With a yell another boy swung a sword at his back, but with a flick of his wrist something small impaled the attacker and then there was a squelching snap and a needle shot through him.

The boy – the murderer – laughed, a sound like some mix of confident and crazed. He spun around, a set of needles posed in his hand. Three or four kids attacked – the time-halt girl nearly did him in but she’d never learned to hold steadily and he took two seconds to flick his wrist and cause her to fall.

Nathair lost track of who was fighting all too quick as the whole scene became a mess of blood painting the walls. He hissed through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut with all the concentration to ignore every instinct he had. He didn’t want to have to die again but he guessed that was inevitable so he steeled himself.

There weren’t really screams it all happened too fast, or maybe he just blocked it all out.

But then there was silence. A grey blanket of eerie silence that made him wonder if the sharpened senses had dimmed out again. No, because then he could here the solitary clop of footsteps coming closer.

He sucked on his lower lip, mechanically twisting the cold chains between his fingers. Nathair was debating whether or not kill the survivor before the survivor killed him when something lightly brushed his head. With a startled snarl, he lashed out at the space behind him…and was cut off by the tangled chains along his wrists.

“Was your hair always silver or was that just part of the, uh, ghoul thing?” The boy-murderer patted his hair with his sticky fingers like an awkward, curious twelve-year-old like nothing – none of…any of that…was unusual. And maybe it wasn’t. Nathair jerked his head away and glared up at him.

The boy was wiry, dark-haired smiling with a sort of confidence Nathair had always envied. And his inquisitive eyes sparkled with an odd, almost unnatural childish light. It was unnerving how easily he shrugged off the deaths of all his companions at his own hands, it was more unnerving how genuinely friendly he sounded now.

“You, uh, you wanna eat that?” The boy said with half a fake smirk, sort’ve kicking at the body of the girl closest. He rubbed his nose, his hand was still spinning a needle.

“No.” Nathair growled.

“Huh, ok.” The boy persisted, and patted his hair again obnoxiously. “My name’s Yasha.”

Great. He wanted to be ‘friends’.

“Hey I’m just trying to be nice! You won’t ever escape if you don’t at least pretend to what all the adults say.” Yasha said adults like he was so mature for not calling them grownups, it made Nathair even more annoyed because he still called everyone a grownup.

“You don’t know how to play the game,” he continued with a smirk “like if you just went along with it they wouldn’t chain you up all day. Devils they might even let you out sometimes!”

Nathair glared at him, even as he fought the urge to look hopeful. He huffed.

“And what do you get out of it!?”

The boy kept spinning the needle in his hand.

“Well, you know, that’s my ability, I see potential in small things and make ‘em bigger.” The needle elongated in his hand.

 

@hannahrenner @ragnarok @rusted-knight

Trial of Betrayal backstories…? *insert puppy eyes*