Alter My Ego (Victor)

[Laszlo]

Rubbing his cheek, Laszlo watched Victor begin toward the door. Arcing one entertained eyebrow, the Ethaefal smirked and smartly tilted his head in concession as he walked right after him. The human seemed to know better where he was going anyway, and for the moment, Laszlo was content to follow. The city's streets were entirely unfamiliar to him, and in his naivety he believed he'd be happy to observe the scenery and learn the layout of the city as the slightly more experienced Victor Lark mapped their route. Victor's joke rolled off of Laszlo's shoulders, and he laughed along good-naturedly. A good head taller than his acquaintance, Laszlo kept an easy pace beside the energetic brunet, crossing his long arms idly behind his back. "No. Are you?" Laszlo show back a playful smile, training his curious violet eyes on the other man. Victor's own gray eyes were aimed at the rooftops, so Laszlo glanced upward too, studying the Alvadas skyline with passive interest. "My vision is better at night than it is in the day. I can imagine why you'd be frightened, though. Human vision is dull and colorless in dim lights." He spoke as if he knew. And of course he did. It was always nighttime in Kalinor, but Laszlo still had to be Ethaefal for half the time. In that form, his weak golden eyes could barely make out the teardrop structures that hung from the cavern ceiling, dimly illuminated by opalgloams. In his Symenestra phase, the image of the city was vast and as clear as a summer's day. Laszlo paused, his amethyst gaze suddenly locked on a short, stout building. A sideward glance was briefly tossed Victor's way as a new idea was formed in his head. The Ethaefal uncrossed his arms and began to wander toward the side of the street, studying the squat structure before him. "Are you sure you know the way, Victor Lark? Because I'm certain we've already passed this building." Resting one hand against the wall, Laszlo hoisted a foot and began to pull his boot off his heel. After dropping it to the ground, he did the same with the other. "I'm going up for a better view." He added a sly smile. "This is another thing I can do better than humans." Placing both palms flat against the rough brick wall, Laszlo felt his hands tingle as the tiny hooks in his skin adhered to the rough surface. Applying his weight to the flat grip, he carefully lifted his light form, placing the ball of one bare foot on the wall. He pried off one hand to get a higher grip, then placed another foot upon the wall. Unaccustomed to the lithe, spiderlike movements of a Symenestra on vertical surfaces, he had to move slowly and carefully to be sure he wouldn't slip or fall, but he didn’t have far to climb. The building was only roughly twelve feet in height, and in under a minute, he arrived at the overhanging ledge of the rooftop. Using the sticky grip of both of his hands, Laszlo found a steady handhold upon the sandpapery shingles of the roof, then pulled his body up and over. Then, slowly and carefully, Laszlo gathered himself up into a kneeling position, placing the adhesive balls of his feet on the sloped downward rooftop. Cautiously he stood up, careful to keep his balance on the incline. Unable to resist bragging, he cautiously turned to look over his shoulder at Victor. The Symenestra was silent, but in his eyes there was his message, loud and clear. This is what I am. What are you? The smug curl in his gray lips was a challenge.

[Victor Lark]

“I guess you could say I know the way better than you do, Vethis Orthilia,” he responded, staring almost longingly at the low roof even as his voice lighted in a secret joke. His arms had risen to fold over his chest as Vethis’s fell. He knew what the symenestra planned before he removed his shoes; the last time Victor had seen one of their kind do that, she had mustered up the courtesy to bring him along for the ride. Victor had not asked then, and he would not ask now. A chuckle masked the envy that bobbed on his adam’s apple, as Vethis demonstrated the talent granted to him by his degenerate blood.

He watched him carefully, trying to catch some hint or strategy that he might be able to employ, but he did not learn anything he did not already know. The wall’s bricks were akin to Ravokian ones: they gripped a foot better than stone but could not hope to hold it away from gravity for long. There was a pair of windows, and a door with a frame. Shoes slurping, he leaned forward.

Victor looked up and gave that satisfied violet gaze the glance it desired, his raised brow absent of jealousy and full of the game in the challenge. He bent forward, as if bracing himself, then ran noisily at the short façade. When he reached it, his leg lifted; the ball of his foot impacted the rough brick and the other followed upward. Then a hand found the upper sill of the window, another grasped the slope of an overhang, a foot replaced the fingers that rose from the ledge and then both his hands were clutching the edge of the roof. His momentum spent, Victor was left to his own meager strength to turn the sight of his white knuckles into a pair of forearms. His shoes scraped against the face of the building a few times before one swung up and gripped the shingles. A kick later, he rolled onto the rooftop.

He hoisted himself to his feet and dusted his knees as if Vethis had not just witnessed him struggle. While he would not admit the superiority of the entire race, he was apt to learn the extent of this stranger’s pride. Instead of conceding defeat, he issued another challenge.

The adjacent building was also a single floor, but it was four feet taller than the first and probably nicer on the inside. Victor vaulted onto it and proceed towards the next: a wide building that rose two more stories past the first and seemed out of place beside the little shops and single-room houses around it. Tall, uniform windows turned every side into a grid of ceramic and mortar and glass, towards which Victor ran as if he intended to scale to the top. He managed to wrap his hand around the top of the first window, letting the other hang as he turned his head and weighed his options. He looked at Vethis for a moment. The symenestra could climb it, if he liked, but poor Victor would have to make other arrangements. Hopefully he would understand.

Because of its size, the hind end of the giant structure pushed back the row behind it, creating a tiny alley on one side. Suddenly Victor jumped down from the window and darted towards the alley. He took three long strides and leapt; for an instant, he flew. Then his feet found the other side and he pushed the impact into a quick roll. When he rose again, the grin on his lips imitated the one he had seen not a minute previous, concealing the true excitement that bubbled up in his gut. He ducked into an embellished bow, and began to step backward.

[Laszlo]

The smug curl in his gray lips quietly faded. Victor was no amateur at this. Laszlo had picked a climbing contest with some stranger off the street, and he just happened to be a ridiculously agile acrobat. The Ethaefal couldn't pretend to be amused, he was just surprised. And impressed. The human struggled to pull his body up onto the rooftop, but he still managed it much faster than Laszlo had. He could only watch as Victor moved effortlessly past him on the sloped rooftop. He might as well have chewed up Laszlo's issued challenge and spit it back in his face. Stunned but not deterred, Laszlo began to follow after him at a hesitant pace, watching with a sinking heart as Victor leapt onto a higher rooftop and continued without missing a beat. As Laszlo watched the cropped black hair on the back of his head, that name repeated in his mind. Vethis Orthilia. Victor had only used it to mock him in turn for using the human's own full name, but something in the Ethaefal shivered every time it was spoken. It was someone else's name, someone who deep in the corner of Laszlo's mind continued to live on. There was a sense of wrongness about defiling his memory by masquerading as a poor imitation. Using both slender hands, Laszlo hoisted his light form onto the next rooftop, but Victor was already dangling from the window of a three story building up ahead. His gray eyes regarded Laszlo like a songbird perched in a tree teases a hungry cat. Just try and catch me. You never will. "Lark!" Laszlo shouted good-naturedly, a defeated smirk on his pale face as he shook his head. Step by step he made his way across the cool, rough surface of the roof, his bare feet holding well to the stony texture. "This is hardly fair! You weren't supposed good at this." Victor was not discouraged. In another moment he was leaping an alleyway to an adjacent building. Laszlo looked up the height of the two stories in front of him. The climbing surface was a cornucopia of handy ledges and places to grip, and coupled with his nocturnal talent for clinging to walls, reaching the top would be theoretically no problem at all. Whether he had the endurance was the question. "Where did you learn to run rooftops like this?!" he laughed as Victor egged him on by threatening to leave him behind. Growling to himself, Laszlo went to work scaling the wall in front of him. The hooks in his skin made the protrusions from the building easy to grip, particularly for the balls of his feet. His tall Symenestra frame was easy to lift, but about halfway up the building, roughly eight feet from his starting position, waves of fatigue began to sweep through him. The window just above him had been left open, and a stale cobweb was spun between the gap. No one had touched this window for a good while; the building was likely abandoned. Finding this to be a perfect escape from falling to his death in exhaustion, it also doubled as a great trick to play on Victor. If he made it to the rooftop, Laszlo wouldn't be anywhere in sight. Anchoring his elbow over the window's ledge, he painstakingly pulled himself into the third story room of the building, tumbling over the floor in a tangle of limbs. Recovering slowly, Laszlo inched himself toward the wall, sitting upright and leaning back. Content to rest here, he reclined his head against the wooden panels behind him, panting quietly as he waited and listened for the sound of Victor scrambling across the nearby rooftops.

[Victor Lark]

He was tracing the outlines of the rooftops, measuring their heights, their relative distances, waiting for the first hint that Vethis would pursue him. He was itching to run, like he used to, like he knew he still could. These mountains of slate could change as easily as dunes of sand, and he wanted to chase them.

But the symenestra, it seemed, was not up for the challenge. Vethis called out at him from across the river of air, and the stolen smug on Victor’s lips replied with a laugh. It ended abruptly, however, when he recognized where the thin man’s lanky legs were taking him. He would not pursue, only taunt and test a pursuit. A frown flitted over the human’s expression for only a second. Without considering the factor of fatigue in the equation, his probing attention concluded on simple vanity. His eyes rolled atop a submitting smile as the spider escaped through the tall structure’s topmost window, and he traced a backward course to the matching frame beneath it.

There was no trace of him from that vantage, only the lonely rim of an unreachable window. Victor tried to reach the upper story’s entrance with a running start, but the roof beneath him was not at a good angle for it, and he could not hope to climb it without hooks in his fingers or some otherwise unfathomable knowledge of bricks. So he regarded the window he could reach. He noticed his reflection in the grime behind the glass; avoiding the sight of his own eyes, he inspected his hair and pulled a few arbitrary fingers through it. Once satisfied, he proceeded to coil his shoulder and raise his elbow against the window.

A heavy breeze tore at his clothes suddenly, whistling between the buildings and rattling the panes against their frames. Victor’s arm lowered. He peered for a moment, and then he realized.

He bent to the base of the window and, with a small tug, smoothly slid its bottom half upward. From there he crawled through and into the room beyond: a wide hall that hugged a plain wall with many doors. There was a staircase at one end; temporarily dismissing the prospect of exploring so many rooms, he bounded to the upper floor, two and three steps at a time. When he reached Vethis, he was breathing heavily. The enthusiasm in his muscles did not seem daunted.

The adventure was far from over. Victor did not sit. Instead, he stretched out a hand to the sitting symenestra and replied belatedly, “Ravok.”

There was a menace in the name which he so enjoyed, though he never did realize that most could not understand it. He pointed his chin briefly at the stairs in suggestion, but that sly steel quickly returned to the tired amethysts opposite. He added, “Where didn’t you learn?”

If Vethis took his hand then, Victor would seize him by his fragile fingers and pull him away from the window, towards the floor beneath them and maybe even to the world outside again.

[Laszlo]

"Ravok." Laszlo looked up at Victor, and then his offered hand. An uneasy feeling swirled in the pit of his stomach about Victor and his energetic, almost unflappable demeanor. The light in his gray eyes was unmistakably warm, but the tone of his voice was almost chilling. There was something so menacing about that playful smile. Although it made him feel tense, Laszlo found himself fascinated by it, wondering what sort of life had painted that expression on Victor's diamond shaped face. Bristling with apprehension, Laszlo took Victor's hand and pulled himself to his feet, rising about a head taller as he stood up. He flashed the shorter man a spirited look as he passed by and head toward the stairs. Inwardly, he fumbled with Victor's fair question, grasping at his wits to come up with an answer. It took him until he reached the bottom of the staircase. "Looks can be deceiving," he replied at last, shrugging. Shoving his clawed hands in his pockets, Laszlo gazed down the narrow hallway they'd arrived in, his sensitive eyes making use of the blue moonlight that poured in through the far window. Aged oaken boards ran the length of the floor, identical to the walls and ceiling but for their location beneath Laszlo's feet. It was a far cry from the stone fortress of Syliras. The quiet hallway held three doors: two on one side and just one on the other. As Laszlo passed the singular door, he nudged it open with the backs of his fingers. Inside he spied a brass tub, designed for bathing, that shone in the moonlight under its layer of settled dust. "Where are we?" Laszlo asked out loud, knowing full well that Victor probably had very little idea just the same. "Doesn't look like anyone's been here for a while." Good thing, too. Laszlo didn't fancy the idea of being caught. His first night in Alvadas, and he breaks into a building. He turned toward Victor to speak again, but his voice caught in his throat. "Victor, where is the staircase to the third floor?" Laszlo pointed toward the end of the hall from where they'd arrived, but there were only three walls and a tiny window. "Isn't that where we came from?"

[Victor Lark]

Victor’s head turned around before his body did, happily reeling to answer the direction in the pointed end of a long white finger. He scowled at the wall he saw there, where once there had been a staircase. “It was, yes. Well...” If he had thought of a reason, he forgot to explain it. He stepped distractedly towards the new barrier and felt it gingerly, as if it might be made out of anything other than wood. Upon discerning that this was not the case, his eyes swept toward Vethis. He considered him for an instant before he noticed the hall behind him.

Without a word, he passed the symenestra and flitted to the window. Peering out, he could not tell if the rectangle of road below was the same alley over which he had leapt not a minute previous, so he tipped back quickly and glanced around the interior again. He ran a finger over the old dark wood that encased them, regarding the other man curiously. “This is not the same building,” he concluded, presuming he had been the first to realize.

Such was the way of this place of illusion, the home and creation of the god for whom Victor had developed a growing fondness. It was just like Ionu, he thought, to deposit them in some other dark corner of the city without any discernable reason. Victor’s mouth hung as if he meant to continue, but then he was inspired against it. His eyes strayed toward the three doors that stood on the opposite wall. With a dismissing breath, he prowled the short corridor to the furthest of them. It opened with a loud creak, sweeping a smooth dark arc through the blanket of dust at its base. Victor dipped behind the door to find the furnishings of a bedroom, a comfortable arrangement with another window on the far wall. He shuffled to it and, remembering to check if it lifted before he tried to break it, looked out onto the street below.

“I think it’s the same street, though,” he called back. He was almost positive that he was lying, but he could not tell for certain. Leaning out to observe the front face, his sopping feet lifted absently from the ground and his knuckles went white against the window ledge. The building was much smaller than its predecessor. There was a window on the ground floor. Victor wondered if he could glimpse it, if he stretched far enough. Assuming Vethis had found his way behind another closed door or even downstairs, Victor called out into the night, loud enough for him or anyone to hear, “What do you see?”

[Laszlo]

The City of Illusions. Right. Welcome to Alvadas.

What could Laszlo do but shrug and accept it? It almost seemed easier for things to not make sense. Though bewildered, Victor didn't seemed slowed down by this startling shift in reality. Wearing an amused (if slightly frightened) half smile, he watched the Ravokian rush from one window to another. Laszlo turned back toward the stairway that led to the ground floor. If this wasn't the same building, then where were they now, and why? Was there even a reason?

Goddess bless this strange place.

The hard wooden steps were once made of fine, polished wood, but years of age and wear had made them dull and pockmarked each with scuffs and scratches. While Victor explored the second floor, Laszlo began making his way downstairs, each stiff, wooden plank groaning in complaint under the Ethaefal's weight. Victor was shouting something, but Laszlo had become fixated on a dim light (rather bright for his sensitive vision) shining through the crack in the downstairs door.

With an eerie, rasping moan, the door gave way to the clawed pads of Laszlo's fingers. The room behind it was covered in an undisturbed layer of dust; a long counter top, several tables and chairs, old bottles and assorted debris. This was a shop once, or more likely a restaurant or tavern. Yet it was illuminated so unnaturally. The shadows cast on the floor didn't line up with the moonlight pouring in from the windows. Almost against his will, a strange sensation tugged his eyes upward.

Oh… my…

"What do you see?"

Laszlo began to turn back toward the stairway to give his reply, but he couldn't look away. His neck pivoted in a partial twist while his eyes remained locked in place. "The sky," he called, his violet eyes glittering in fascination. "I see the sky."

Thousands of tiles, a full spectrum of color, clung to the ceiling of the large, long room. They came together to form a picture, the likeness of the sky, complete with a moon, stars, and rolling indigo-gray clouds. Yet there was something else about the mosaic. The clouds didn't seem to stay still. Was it a trick of his eyes, or…?

"Victor?" Laszlo finally ripped his eyes away turning back toward the stairway. Was he still upstairs? Or had another building kidnapped him? Feeling suddenly concerned over the city's treachery, the Ethaefal pushed himself to run back upstairs, and search for Victor in one of the three rooms upstairs. Well, good… at least the second floor was still the same.

The cloud-eyed brunet was leaning far out of the window, enough to remind Laszlo of his own brush with gravity not too long ago. "You're going to fall, azo," Laszlo smirked, entering the room and coming up alongside the human.

[Victor Lark]

Victor heard the man’s answer like a thin trickle of air from an empty spout, all noises and no words. He did not care that the worthless description was lost to him. He would see for himself in due time. He craned his neck towards the true sky in a vain attempt to guess at the time, but he saw only clouds. The moon was behind him, or maybe hidden temporarily by the Trickster’s shadow. Victor’s head sagged and his eyes crawled over the building’s black face as if he would somehow find something new there.

He dipped forward, and too far. Before he knew his own danger, adrenaline rushed hot through his arms and cold in the pit of his chest, tightened the muscles in his hands and abdomen. A hastily arced back tipped him back again. Victor frowned at his swift-beating heart. He lifted himself by the arms and threw his legs beneath him so that he crouched within the frame. He was raising his hands to steady himself when the symenestra’s voice suddenly became very clear. He gave a half-hearted glance over his shoulder, then looked back at the ground.

He could make it, from there. There was no ledge to ease the drop, but he had walked down walls before. It was easier than walking up them, and he had done that less than an hour ago.

“No I’m not,” he said with reckless certainty, hopping and squirming in the window until he had turned around to look at his acquaintance. Mischievous steel feinted at the man’s clawed fingers and their invisible hooks; when their eyes met again, his were issuing another petty challenge. Grinning and gripping the window’s base, Victor leaned on his heels and toppled backward.

The shock that pulsed through his shoulders and fingers was familiar enough, but the subsequent struggle for purchase was not. Wood was smoother than brick or weather-worn stone, and his leather shoes slipped once, twice, and again, as his toes squished slickly against still-damp insoles. There was no way to orient, to slow the fall or cushion the impact, should the rest of him fall. Collision with the ground was a painfully plausible option, but not one he preferred. His arms were not accustomed to enduring his weight for long; they fatigued after mere seconds of futile thrashing. One hand lost its grip, so he lurched and slapped it down again it so that it would not slip entirely. The adjustment drove a bolt of black fire down his arms. He winced, and the other hand fell.

His mind could suffer the pain, but the poor strength of his muscles could not. Victor loosed a groan of frustration, then muttered the humblest supplication he knew. “Vethis—”

[Laszlo]

FYINot using my super narrow frames for this post, as I think the {indent} tag would be overkill here. Another man's name was tersely thrown back through the window, when Laszlo surely thought the next sound he'd hear would be the hard impact of feet on the wet gravel below, as the scrabble of hands on some unseen ledge. A failing row of fingers, white with effort, were all that remained of Victor Lark. Laszlo darted forward automatically, compelled by some reactionary protective instinct. The bare pads of his feet jogged along the filthy, debris-laden floor. Something pierced the ball of his left foot, and he stumbled crookedly with a muted yelp, hopping for three steps on his right. The minor injury already forgotten by the time he reached the window, he leaned over the sill without a thought. His spidery thin, overly long arm reached Victor easily under the bulge of his elbow, his clawed digits involuntarily adhering themselves to the man's skin. The miniscule barbs in Laszlo's hands would feel akin to unyielding sandpaper as they clung to only the outer layers of skin while the actual force of his grip carried Victor's weight in unnerving, and definitely unhuman tandem effort. Vethis. The name continued to sit in his ears, as if the real Vethis himself clung to it and the desire to respond. Laszlo blinked away imagined visions as they attempted to flood his eyesight. The voice that repeated his false name kept repeating it, until its pitch began to change. "You're an idiot," Laszlo rumbled at Victor, mostly in an attempt to keep himself sober. Anchoring his other hand against the window sill, and holding onto the floor with his feet to prevent himself from slipping, he grunted as he commanded his body to lift Victor's. Employing excruciating effort, he slowly won a war against gravity, pulling the Ravokian far enough until he could help himself the rest of the way back through the window. The Ethaefal stumbled back in exhaustion, a shock of pain clawing up his leg as his foot remembered its injury. Blood pounding in his head from exertion, purple-black spots invaded his vision, blotting out the room until he was temporarily blind. Laszlo pressed his palm into the side of his face as he closed his eyes, trying to right himself. It wasn't the effort of pulling Victor back to safety that wrought hell on his senses, however. It was that name. "Vethis—" She choked on the name as another wave of agony ripped through her dying body, seizing her lungs and contracting every muscle. Her restraints pulled taut; mercifully soft silken cords were gentle on her skin, but her struggling had rubbed angry red rings around her wrists. Helplessly she writhed in her cushioned prison: an oblong bed fitted with blue sheets, which glistened with her blood and sweat. Taking his time, Vethis turned his head gradually, waiting a few leisurely seconds before his dull violet eyes would turn as well. Icy solemnity met the woman's hazel despair, overflowing with tears that slickened her tan cheeks. A pair of thin, jagged red lines drew trails from either nostril down to her chin, meeting with the crimson that seeped from the corner of her mouth. Vethis remembered that face when it had been healthy and flawless—a reason he had chosen her—instead of creased in mortal suffering and dripping with perspiration. Far from lucid, the ebbing consciousness in her eyes wavered as she stared at him, trying to keep her eyes open, begging her once-lover to not look away. Out of a mix of respect, and what could be passed for guilt, the Symenestra father obliged her, witnessing her final moments of life as a testament to his gratitude. He looked grim. Everyone did, from the physician knelt at the foot of her bed, to the slight and slender white-haired Nassanye standing at Vethis' side. A Symenestra's birth was a powerful occasion, a yin and yang of life and death, beginning and end, innocence and murder. Nassanye was understandably less attached to the mother and her sacrifice, focusing instead on the birth of a son whom she'd unquestionably and unhesitatingly love as her own. Vethis had stilled himself with hypnotic promises in anticipation of his first child, taming a whirlwind of emotion so that he could stomach watching an innocent woman die for him. Her body would be the only gift she could give to her voracious newborn son. "P…hhlease." A captive hand pulled at its rope, five thin fingers stretching themselves toward the tall man, one who had spoken such sweet things to her, once held her so dearly, and whispered through his smiles into the soft, warm crook of her neck. Now he was a monolith of unfeeling. All she wanted was a kind word to clutch onto as she sank into her death, a clawed hand to hold hers to ease her into the darkness. A thin, pale arm wrapped itself around Vethis' willowy waistline. He turned back to Nassanye, who offered him a thin, insistent smile. He leaned down and kissed her hair. "Damn it," the Ethaefal breathed, shaking his head rapidly and struggling to remember his sense of balance. "Sorry. Vertigo." Laszlo wondered if Victor would interpret the ironic remark: vertigo was a joke in Kalinor. "Whatever you're playing at, I think I won after that." Still collecting his wits and quelling the thoughts of Vethis Orthilia in his head, Laszlo looked up at Victor. His strange, gravity-inspired grip would have left minor, rash-like marks where he'd held on. There would be no bleeding, just offended, raised skin. "If you're done tumbling through windows, you should follow me downstairs. You need to see this."

[Macabre]

Thread Complete!
“Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here].”

Laszlo
XP: Impersonation 3, Observation 3, Investigation 3, Climbing 2, Interrogation 1
Lore: Vethis Orthilia’s Mask, Ionu’s Illusory Avenues, Vethis Orthilia’s Surrogate, Location: Abandoned Tavern

Victor Lark
XP: Climbing 3, Investigation 3, Acrobatics 2, Interrogation 2, Persuasion 2, Observation 2, Morphing 1, Running 1
Lore: Location: Abandoned Tavern, Race: Symenestra, Religion: Ionu
Awarded: Puzzle Cube

Notes: Guest grading for Bedlam. This thread was just as enjoyable to read the second time over. Loved the flashback at the end, but you know I’m a sucker for Symenestra births. I re-gave a couple of lores to Victor, to rid them of basic tags as you have at least a moderate level of knowledge on these topics now. Any questions or concerns, PM me.