[ percy feels the memory hit him and even if he's braced for it, it still fills him with a chord of disbelief at all of this. he stares at the memory as the bubble does indeed color, but does not let them go just yet. he furrows his brow. he doesn't want to share. really. so he stalls. ]
That... that's not something so easily believed... [ the impact of it feels like a mental sucker punch. there's a lot to take in here, the painful stretching of time. someone telling you that you will bear witness to it all. ] I don't blame you.
[ he lets him do what he needs to do in terms of gathering himself up. memories suddenly flashing here and there are not exactly what they need right now. especially ones that are so jarring. ]
If you can see the color of a soul... then I'd say that's quite the proof, but...
[ his lips thin a moment. ] I think I understand... even if only a little.
[ percy knows well enough that he does not know the world entire, though he'd like to think it. here and now, he finds humility in the monumental sensation left behind the memory itself.
he gives pause and glances at the bubble before giving his hand a shake and... pressing his palm to it and conjuring a stab of red light. it's russian roulette, really— ]
the thing inside of you grins, with its teeth dug into the back of your neck, its crooked beak pinching. it whispers: shall i take over?
standing before you are the horrified faces of your friends and all you can do is grab your head, try to wrench the thing from your mind as they shout your name, shout your name like a rope in the dark for you to grab. you sob, shake your head. stop stop stop don't let it. don't allow it—
i'm afraid i must.
the smoke curls around you, liquid almost, twisting around your limbs, smothering you, crawling down your throat as everything turns to black, all of it—
-
when you awake, the twin suns of something's eyes loom over the smoke. all you can do is fumble forward. walk. you've nowhere else to go.
and then there is a door.
and a light.
your way out—
-
suddenly
you blink.
you're at dinner—you fall with an unceremonious thunk into your usual seat at the table and across from you is your dour-looking sister, cassandra, in her finery.
"what's the matter, son? not hungry?" says a familiar voice, and as you look, you see them—your mother, asking if you're alright, your siblings all alive and well as if nothing has happened. they're laughing and when you turn again, your father addresses you.
"you look pale, boy," he chuckles as whitney is trying to incite oliver across the table. "like you've seen a ghost."
he lifts his glass of wine, and in it, you can see your own horrified reflection, white as a sheet. it begins to fill and soon enough, his cup is running over, not with wine, but with thick, hot blood that spills over his knuckles, onto the crisp, white linens of the dinner table. you look down quickly, and see it. your face in a shining dinner plate, and a river of blood cutting around it, framing you in gore. for a moment, it flashes, you see yourself young again—brown hair, large glasses, the panic that spread as you hear the words:
"death to the de rolos!"
look upwards. a man with an enormous hammer approaches, the guards on his tail. it's happening all over again.
except you're you again, this you, bitter and hair as white as snow. you fire.
again and again and again and again not again, you think.
"i won't let you take them from me!" you scream, your voice raw enough that you can taste the blood, the gun smoke that tries to choke you.
(the hate. embrace it. or else.)
but they've already been taken from you, in the blink of an eye, they are gone. you realize it as your gun clicks and you see the scene of their demise all over again, a feast gone bloody as if you were all meant for the slaughter instead of the meal set decadently on the table. mother and father are slouched in their seats at the head of the table as if nothing were wrong save for the blood trickling down their throats, knives driven in to pin them back to the chain. meanwhile, your siblings are pinned to the walls like wretched pieces of art, slouching and dangling. death rattles fill the air. whitney, oliver, julius, vesper...
mother suddenly grabs your arm from her slumped over position in the chair, her grip is cold, icy, nails digging into you—"you've failed us son!" she shrieks into your ear. a fresh gush of blood spurts onto you from her throat as she cries.
father grabs your other arm, he growls in your ear, "a family slaughtered. a legacy lost—you must avenge us!"
they crow and caw for vengeance, climb your body with the weight of irons, dragging you downwards and begging for vengeance, begging to be appeased so that perhaps they can rest in peace. our legacy, they keep saying. legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy.
a voice, crumbling and small leaves you.
"i'm sorry... mother..." you whimper. she disappears. like smoke. to the wind.
-
a hand places itself on your shoulder, and as you turn to look, you see it. smoke curling off of claws, squeezing, digging. "one well-placed shot," it whispers. "and all the pain will go away..."
"what are you doing to me?" you whisper in horror, feeling the sinews of your body twist in unnatural ways. your trigger finger isn't your own.
it laughs.
"you know exactly who i am. you summoned me. your torment and thirst for revenge called me to your side. an unspoken partnership. deep down, you remember, welcoming my help, welcoming the rage that fueled you to create it... the weapon. forged in iron and smoke, we struck a bargain—i gave you the means for revenge.. and you? gave me souls to feast upon."
-
it all happens so quickly.
one moment you have your gun trained on delilah briarwood. she's dragging her broken body across the floor, sobbing out her husband's name. she's the one orthax wants, the one orthax needs. he's drooling out of his great bird's maw, teeth dripping with smoke and ichor and bellows fire. it slavers for her soul and your hand shakes as you train your sights on her.
"you know who to trust, percival..." it says, curling a claw around your jaw, steadying your arm... "you know... you have me..."
you feel it, the control, the way it tries to wrest it from you as it traps you in this fantasy of its own making, bloodshed and grit and smoke and as you pull the trigger, you bring your left hand to cover the end of the barrel.
you fire into your own hand. bone. gristle. blood. revenge.
you see the horrified look of delilah, covered in your own blood as you fall to your knees. orthax is screeching in your ears, angered that you would destroy such a valuable tool, my hand, percival!it shrieks in the calamitous mire of your head, full of visions of your family, of betrayal, of the vengeance you once sought. my hand!
as you stare at the bloody hole off your left hand, you laugh.
did you even want vengeance at all before you met this beast?
[stars, but that's-- it's a lot. especially for someone whose home does not know this sort of violence, who has never experienced it, these scenes are stomach-turning; emet-selch looks a little ill, actually, by the time it ends, reeling with the force of how terrible it seems. at the gruesomeness of that vision.
he doesn't know what it's like, to struggle for control like that, but it feels awful. it's just as awful as the blood, the death-- moreso, even, because he knows what it is to reach desperately for what control you can find in a situation. in what you can hold on to while trying to reject what's happening.
and in the end... well.
he thinks that action says more about percy than anything else he may have learned, here, and he approves.
he's still nearly too staggered to speak, though, just-- quickly finding somewhere to sit.]
[ he stands there for a moment as emet-selch finds a place to sit and he hesitates, thinks about whether he should just sit right there on the floor or find a proper seat. he errs towards the latter, wobbling a bit and sitting down, his hands clasped tightly together. ]
A demon of vengeance. It... found me at my weakest hour, starving and alone, and it became my only friend for many years.
[ "friend" is spat out, like he loathes thinking about it now in this moment. he looks down at his left hand. ]
It fueled my rage, my vengeance, twisted everything I wanted to accomplish into nothing but death... So I took away what I could...
[ he closes his fist. ] The gun it had tethered itself to went into an acid bath, but the thing still left its mark on me regardless of how that act severed our bond.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
That... that's not something so easily believed... [ the impact of it feels like a mental sucker punch. there's a lot to take in here, the painful stretching of time. someone telling you that you will bear witness to it all. ] I don't blame you.
[ he glances downwards briefly. ]
Do you know if it is true?
no subject
[he's quiet, for several moments, brow furrowed.]
But his soul-- I know it. It is much reduced, in its current state, but Hythlodaeus and I knew its color the moment we saw it.
[it's why, he thinks, hythlodaeus believes it all so readily. venat recognized her mark upon him. hythlodaeus trusts that soul.
emet-selch... he can't. he can't just accept this will be so.]
1/2
If you can see the color of a soul... then I'd say that's quite the proof, but...
[ his lips thin a moment. ] I think I understand... even if only a little.
[ percy knows well enough that he does not know the world entire, though he'd like to think it. here and now, he finds humility in the monumental sensation left behind the memory itself.
he gives pause and glances at the bubble before giving his hand a shake and... pressing his palm to it and conjuring a stab of red light. it's russian roulette, really— ]
2/2
no subject
he doesn't know what it's like, to struggle for control like that, but it feels awful. it's just as awful as the blood, the death-- moreso, even, because he knows what it is to reach desperately for what control you can find in a situation. in what you can hold on to while trying to reject what's happening.
and in the end... well.
he thinks that action says more about percy than anything else he may have learned, here, and he approves.
he's still nearly too staggered to speak, though, just-- quickly finding somewhere to sit.]
...That-- what in the world was that thing?
no subject
A demon of vengeance. It... found me at my weakest hour, starving and alone, and it became my only friend for many years.
[ "friend" is spat out, like he loathes thinking about it now in this moment. he looks down at his left hand. ]
It fueled my rage, my vengeance, twisted everything I wanted to accomplish into nothing but death... So I took away what I could...
[ he closes his fist. ] The gun it had tethered itself to went into an acid bath, but the thing still left its mark on me regardless of how that act severed our bond.