A Gift from Six and Eight (Seven, Victor)

[Victor Lark]

Victor tried to repeat the last two words of the Lhatvian phrase, but it came out sounding more like gibberish, or maybe “Muddy pumpkins!” Nonetheless, he seemed genuinely interested in saying it correctly, in making his own lips form the smooth and beautiful words that had fallen so effortlessly from Seven’s. Hoping to distract from any mistakes as soon as he had made them, he laughed at the cheerful evasion and said with plain old Common on his tongue, “No, really, what do you mean by worlds? Tell me what you said. Are high worlds on mountains?”

He followed Seven’s eyes upward. For a moment Victor wondered exactly how far up the stars were. Alas, as he could not see the shapes in the stars or predict their progress, his eyes easily parted from any view of them to glance at Seven, who was speaking and looking beyond him at the Symenestra woman. He regarded her with a quick, blithe flip of his head. Then he heard the end of a story he did not know, an explanation like a hidden secret. Whether it was jealousy or selfishness that inspired him to speak up then, he would never know, but his jaw suddenly felt stiff for one of the other.

Answering her tease, he pushed the subject to himself. Smiling contempt frothed on his voice as he replied with no more concern for its volume, “I could stand, but I had the weight of a water bison fall on my spine, didn’t I!” He exhaled audibly. Perhaps he should not have spoken even that vague admission of discomfort. He might have been able to stand, but it was rising and moving that pained him. Lying down was easiest. It gave him time to recover. “How in the world did you manage to pull up such a weight?”

Then he took the opportunity in the question to grasp her peculiarly powerful hand, which had lain limp beside his empty one. At first he was cautious and gentle as he turned over her palm, the one at the end of an arm which he could not have known was injured, and examined it. “I mean, how could you climb so well?”

To his wandering fingers, her hand seemed as smooth as Seven’s, but under his urging he noticed a few tiny hair-like protrusions rise up and catch on the infinitesimal folds on his fingertips. Intrigued, he slipped from the warm grasp opposite in order to scrutinize the appendage in both hands. In his rising curiosity, he was forgetting to be kind; he pressed his fingers on and between the long bones of her hand which seemed so impossibly fragile and yet were apparently so strong...

And suddenly one of the tiny, invisible bars gave beneath his careless strength with an audible crack.

“Oh, petch!” He exclaimed, laughing apologetically as he instantly released her hand. It had grown suddenly warm with the panicked rush of blood beneath her skin, and within seconds he thought he could see a black blemish begin to grow. He did not seem to realize that he had committed a worse offense than breaking a toy, but still he had the courtesy to ask through his grin, “Are you alright?”

[Asara Willow]

"What language is that?" Asara's simple, bruised mind didn't recognize the lovely sounds as either Symenos nor Common. He sounded even better speaking this language than he did speaking Common, and Asara wanted to go to the land where it was spoken and learn every secret of the tongue for herself. "Are high worlds secret places?" She asked after Victor, narrowing her gold eyes, interested.

"Oh yes... Dhalvasha." The name slipped off her tongue in a cadence alike to how she had said her own. "I met him as well. He has taken interest in me. Medical interest. He finds me a puzzle or something of the sort." She remembered why she interested Dhalvasha, and that she hadn't told Seven the last time they spoke.

She was oblivious to Victor's contempt, perhaps because she'd dealt with enough during her stay that she felt it unimportant. Instead, she bestowed upon him the faintest of smiles. "Well, the only way a person could lift you is with the strength of a hippopotamus, right?" Her smile faded as she pondered a much more serious answer to his question. "I was told my kind carry up visitors to Kalinor, so I figured I must be able to as well, despite my physical disadvantage."

She was too shocked when he took her hand to pull away, although she tensed and felt a flash of pain in reply. In her mind, Sitana hissed angrily, but Asara kept her cool. "Any allusion to spiders made about my race is usually correct." Her reply was bitten, stress showing through with her words as she felt helpless in his stronger grasp. With the sound of the crack and the rush of pain that followed, Asara hissed and wrenched away, swiping with the sharper, short nails of her free hand, and immediately moving as far as she could from the human and showing her fangs in a display meant to intimidate and frighten. Victor's laugh, although apologetic, and his grin, coaxed an even more threatening hiss past her fangs.

She had been right not to trust the human, even with the company he kept. He was there to hurt her, and therefore he was an enemy! Even after she had so kindly helped him up, and had tried to make nice with him, he had hurt her like that stupid human woman! She should have bitten him instead of clawing.

Through angry, darker gold eyes she watched both males, her extended fangs still exposed as she considered her avenues of escape and/or attack. At this point, she didn't consider not attacking the human, or both of them. Seven had brought the enemy, and that made him the accomplice, despite how much that absolutely hurt her.

[Seven Xu]

“Mountains? What? No, they’re in the sky.” Seven’s brows knitted together as the trio leered up at the dome of black above them, littered with white speckles of twinkling stars. His educated mind floundered in exasperation, but he held his tongue and squeezed the warmth of the hand that held his before it slipped away to no doubt prod at something it deemed more interesting than its previous display of affection. “They aren’t secret places, either – don’t you two know what stars are?” For his company’s sake, they had already ignored him in favor of playful banter regarding Victor’s weight – the wrinkles on Seven’s face smoothed and he propped himself up on his elbows to watch the pair.

Beneath a mat of black bangs Seven watched those curious grey eyes turn a new hand over within their own, inspecting it like some foreign vase or intricate puzzle. It was obvious to Seven now how Victor could not possibly know of high and low worlds: he couldn’t touch them. The thought brought a fledgling smile to the halfblood’s lips but was short-lived after a sickening snap brought a hiss and a swipe from the Symenestra girl. Within a second she was glaring at them from across the roof as if they were foreign intruders rather than the familial pair they were a moment before.

A flash of venomous white caught Seven’s eye and the unapologetic cackling grew distant as he sprung to his knees and crawled easily over the offending body to put himself between Victor and Asara. “No.” Seven’s voice rose to a commanding tone. His dark eyes searched wildly through the ink the night afforded them for the source of her sudden change in mood before settling on the hand she was cradling – the hand Victor was toying with not a chime earlier.

“It was an accident,” the voice lowered again, almost crooning as Seven made his best attempts at diffusing the situation. He knew that Asara was already injured and sore from her earlier ascent, and any escalation would not end well for the girl he called ‘friend’. A shot at Victor however, was unforgivable, and the feral gold that plunged through the moonlit darkness at him – at Seven, her friend – told a story of betrayal and an unwillingness to let accidents be accidents. “You’re already hurt,” Seven advised, “step down, he does not deserve your venom.”

Precautions were already being taken. Seven’s hand had slid behind his back, betraying his wobbling balance to push perhaps a bit too harshly against Victor’s shoulder. Neither of them heard what he mumbled if they were even to notice his lips move at all. In fact, if they were to notice anything it would have been the likes of a faint violet shimmer as djed passed his fingertips and nothing more. Shields were invisible to those of lesser or no skill; and though Seven’s defenses were uneven and brittle, so was Asara.

“I said step down,” Seven bared his own fangs – adorable, she’d called them: they could not extend and the venom did little more than sting lips and kill apples, but it was appearances that mattered more in their tiny rooftop world. Seven’s voice grew shaky as his glare faltered and his leather-wrapped feet shuffled to maintain his balance.

Gods, she was little more than an animal. “Please.”

[Victor Lark]

Suddenly a fierce pain, beyond any of the fading sensations he had felt all evening, raked across Victor’s knuckles. He did not hear himself cry out as he clutched his hand reflexively, stunned by surprise. A burst of movement surrounded him and he was left to search the dim air for his own bearing. Seven gave it to him: a flash of white hair and a firm touch on his uninjured shoulder. His confused body was so consumed in the reddening lines on his fingers that it ignored his back’s protests to Seven’s grasp. His ears whirled in bestial hisses and hasty words like bitter chocolate.

One of those words woke him from fleeting bewilderment. “Venom?” He repeated with unhealthy enthusiasm. He barely managed to swap his eager smile for a pitiful grimace in order to speak. “I’m sorry,” he said, even though he was not. While the impracticality of approaching her did not wholly escape him, Victor could not resist the desire to continue his investigation. His wide eyes shined like silver when they discovered the long ivory points that had been exposed by her anger. Seven’s half-venom had turned from a sour burn to something nearly pleasant over the course of their relationship, and Victor found himself contemplating the taste of something stronger.

Only when he tried to rise did he realize that he was already sitting. Carefully, awkwardly, he moved beneath the hand that hoped to protect him. The fingers that reached out for her were painted with the blood of mistakes which he dared to repeat. “I’m sorry,” he said again, trying to mimic the supplication in Seven’s voice. “Let me see it. Maybe I can make it better.”

Victor hardly hoped to heal her, but he wanted to convince her to come back, if not allow him to learn more of her. Crouching on three limbs, he took one more step toward her. But a combination of his injuries and careless distraction diverted his foot and left him lurching suddenly forward, reflexes spasming in his limbs. The movement that saved him threatened to startle the perturbed woman and endanger both Victor’s safety and Seven’s friendship.

[Asara Willow]

The crooning lilt to Seven's words were dampened by the angry roaring in her head and the pain that threatened to burst her skull. That angry hissing in her mind tried to coax her to attack Seven, to ignore all insistent words that tried to calm her, while Seven's voice tried to coax her to understand that the breaking of her finger was merely an accident. Victor's tone, however, threatened to mock Seven and make her even angrier. As if the human cared for what he did to her. His laugh earlier had proven that breaking brittle bones was unimportant in his forceful acquisition of knowledge.

When Seven bared his own fangs at her, she could have smiled if there wasn't so much tension preventing the expression. His fangs were truly adorable and endearing, like the fangs of an infant should be, but replicated and enlarged to suit the maw of a grown man. Hers, she knew, were freakishly large when she bared them in return. She kept her eyes on his, and his final word caused her to calm when no others would. He had said "please" and shown weakness as his glare faltered.

"Keep him away from me." She spat at Seven, her gold eyes watching Victor as he began the unwitting approach he made to her, reaching out a bloody hand with lies of wanting to help make it better.

The sudden movement caused the barest hint of calm to flutter feebly and give way to another feral hiss, a warning of the venom she'd put in his blood if he so much as moved to touch her again. She couldn't trust a human whom had hurt her, and was so careless to keep her out of harm's way, even if that meant dimming his own curiousity until he learned the benefit of careful, patient touches. Seven may not have been breakable to whatever this human did with him, but someone should have told this poor, dark man that she was not so lucky as the half-blood.

The reflex that saved him from more harm put his body in even more peril. The one thing that saved him would have been Seven. Asara believed this human to be of great importance to the other Symenestra, much more than a pet or a passing fancy. Or else why would he have stepped between them when she had shown her fangs the first time?

Asara kept her jaw locked, her fangs bared and her venom glittering on their ivory sheaths as she edged away from Victor, keeping her eyes on his like a serpent to a mouse. She crept back a few more feet and hissed out numerous expletives in Symenos about the donkey Victor must have had for a mother to be so stupid and careless. The hand with the injured finger was still cradled close to her form, and she had no desire to examine the injury until she knew, without a doubt, that Seven's Lark would not touch her again with such abandon.

[Seven Xu]

If Seven’s reflexes were quicker, he could have stopped the dark-haired man from jerking forward and past him towards the defensive Symenestra. Instead, all he could manage was a frightful yelp before a belated pair of hands reached out for Victor’s shirttail before ultimately hooking around a leather belt. The violet shield glimmered across one uninjured shoulder, mocking in its futility and unknown to its wearer. If only he had been more skilled in shielding magic, he could have provided suitable protection.

Asara’s Symenos was acid on his ears and he shot back in deliberate Common, “Don’t you think I’m trying?” All passive grace had melted from his voice, wearing to an abrasive core interested in little more than protecting that which he cared for. Wide eyes bore the unnerving blood-red that made him as harrowing at first glance, as he was endearing on the second take. “You need to go. If you want to be left alone, you go.”

With a shuffle of leather and kneecap on stone, Seven found himself between them again. He bent forward, bearing down on Asara before Victor could get a chance for a probing second look. “If you lay one hand – one fang, on Victor I will make sure you leave with more than a broken finger.” Seven’s heart was thumping against his chest, so loud he was sure it was broadcasting his growing fear to the others on the rooftop like that of an approaching drum of war. A pale hand had gripped onto Victor’s supporting arm; the tremors that ran down his fingertips were obvious only to the man drawn so close behind him. His voice rose, throwing caution to the void. “Do you understand me?”

A row of expletives sat ready to pounce from his venomous tongue and his skin prickled under the swell of unadulterated rage. Asara had been an acquaintance – one could go as far as to say that she was a friend, but he knew so little about her. They hardly shared anything in common, other than thin blood Seven had been all but entirely weaned off of: he was, for all intents and purposes, too human. Victor on the other hand, had charmed and fashioned himself a special place in Seven’s heart. The relationship bordered along carnal obsession and the pursuit of insatiable curiosities. If pressed to explain it, it was likely neither would come to a mutual conclusion - it was just as likely that neither cared to. If Victor pressed to close the distance between them, Seven would do his best to push him back again, or tempt his eager mind with prospects of far more interesting encounters; purposeful fabrications, but Victor wouldn’t be in a place to question him.

[Victor Lark]

OOCThis is what you get when I lose the original post. /sadface

If Victor had not been busy reorienting himself, he might have frowned at the hateful words that hissed unintelligibly from between Asara’s teeth. But all he heard was Seven’s Common, somewhere between desperation and reason.

“Or you could come closer—” He began to suggest, his eyes full of real solicitation through the joke in his tone. But the novelty of a trembling grip interrupted him. Seven had seemed so collected, like the sensible wall between dangerous anxieties and reckless curiosities. Ignorant to the true danger that lurked inside her teeth, Victor tore his eyes from the Symenestra to wander up the arm that clutched his. The half-blood’s words rose to something like fury, but the human still smiled, blissfully unafraid. As he reached up to gently stroke Seven’s chin, to catch that vermillion gaze, he hoped to inspire the same in his companion.

He did not know any secret language and could not risk a whisper in case of some heightened sense which had not yet been elucidated to him, so he was silent as he tugged gently from Seven’s hand. Even after so many falls and accumulating weaknesses, his feet felt strong as he pushed towards Asara. The fool beamed an invitation, reached out his bloody hand, and mumbled, “Just... let me see it... and I’ll—”

With a flourish, his body darted and careened to her side, leaving ample view of the scene for Seven’s apprehensions. He snatched at her fragile wrist and, if he could, wrenched the fingers behind it to his eyes. One was rightfully swollen; he knew enough not to touch it, at least not yet. But he dared to try and inspire those hooks to rise again, and in the process discovered the peculiar texture of her nails. In seconds he was pressing on the little black squares, trying to measure their strength.

[Asara Willow]

Asara felt even greater anger build at Seven's tone and words. Was he really threatening her? Was he truly blaming her for what his stupid little human had done? Her gold eyes narrowed at him as he came between her and her most obvious enemy.

"Oh, but I can't go, Seven... I just found you." Her golden glare melted into something bordering on misery. How was it that she, and only she, could lose everything? She had very little now, in terms of identity and friends. Seven was the only one she could claim friendship to, and even he knew nothing of her. It was enough to rip her to shreds, especially since he had turned at her due to this human.

And why did he turn on her? Was it really her fault for the breaking of her finger, accident or not? She was beginning to think it was. She'd trusted the human, had not pulled away and warned him with a hiss. She had given him a chance, and he had inflicted a wound upon her. He had broken the small bone of a finger in an arm already savaged by red fruit wielded by another human. How sick, irony was. How very sick indeed.

"Is this my fault then, Seven?" Asara couldn't resist dropping back to Symenos, the words venomous even on her tongue. Would he blame her? She lived in a human's world, in a human's life. Of course she was at fault. Like the woman whom had slapped her once, and the one who had blamed her for a fall in the Bazaar, the spider was at fault. There was a pattern here, in Syliras. If a human hurt a human, the aggressor would be found and would not be the victim. Because she was involved, she was to blame, and no one would doubt the accuser. She was glared at and sneered at... and ignored. And here, one of her own race was blaming her for what a human did to her while he was witness to it. There was no relief from it, from the accusations. None. Not in secret on a rooftop, nor in the heart of the citadel. "You will break my body, but I will break your heart, Seven." Her tone was nearly sad now. "My head is already broken, Seven. Hit me there if I break your heart." She hissed this angrily before forcing herself into Common when she next spoke.

When Victor moved forward again, too suddenly for her and wrenched her hand from the safety of her own hold, she blanched even further from fear. She was afraid of this human and his half-blood. While she may have spoken her own threat to Seven, she was terrified of what he'd do to her. She was weak, a little spider hunched in her web while a wasp attacked. But she wasn't without her fangs, and as Victor focused on her hand she ducked forward and pressed her fangs into the flesh of his wrist.

To anyone with an impressive aural sense, Victor's skin could be heard breaking with a lush sound as Asara's fangs slid through the epidermis to the untainted blood below. Her venom slid from her fangs into his blood, and while it was not dangerous enough to kill due to the fact that she felt no hunger, just anger and fear, it would still burn. A Symenestra's venom was always painful. Excruciatingly so.

As soon as she dug her fangs in, she wrenched her hand out of Victor's grasp and went to work on evading Seven should he come and attack her, ready to bite for fear and the haze of blood on her tongue had clouded her reasoning. Seven was distinguished as one of them too, now. He was one with the humans for his betrayal.

And Asara had learned very well that a human couldn't be trusted.

[Seven Xu]

“You fucking idiot,” Seven hissed between clenched teeth, reaching out for Victor—but once again, far too late to make any difference. He’d been forced between a beast and a fool; given more time to think, he may have been able to better deal with the situation. Seven had made a haphazard choice the moment he snapped at Asara for the scratch; the flutter of Victor on the move again made his blood run cold. It was too late to coerce him to retreat; too late, to throw water on the fire Victor had lit with the sickening crack of a pale finger.

Seven did little to indicate he’d heard the deriding Symenos threats that leaked like venom from Asara’s lips. Again, fingers groped at a worn leather belt in an attempt to yank his companion backward, to safety— perhaps knock him off of his feet and buy time while he floundered to get upright. Unfortunately, it seemed curiosity had bestowed strength. Seven’s palm knocked against something hard and leathery giving way to a smooth, cold handle. He seized the object with enough force to rip the belt clean off had its buckle failed. And then, Victor was out of his grip.

The object was body-warm and pleasantly weighted. Where it had come from Seven didn’t know; he’d never witnessed Victor actually use the thing, but he’d rarely seen him without it. An iron blade, carefully sharpened, glimmered in the opalescent light of the moon. Seven had one of his own—a simple dagger wrapped carefully within the folds of a dirty shirt, shoved somewhere in his small apartment. The pendant that had been dropped into his possession on the same night had long since been removed, but he had never gotten a proper sheath for the weapon, nor felt reason to carry it around.

“Shit.” Seven swore as his eyes caught a glimpse of extended fangs ravishing the perfect unscarred olive skin. “Fuck!” In one fluid motion, he bore down on Victor. Asara had already wisely made her retreat; he had a mind to flay her from cheek to cheek for her offense. His heart was pounding, his chest heaved, and he dropped to his knees. A glance was exchanged as apologetic garnet captured stormy grey; the dagger’s blade slid easily across the bite at his wrist. The cut was superficial but the blood that streamed from it made Seven’s stomach turn and his vision blur.

“I’m so sorry.” The compromised wrist met and stained his lips. If Victor protested, his grip would remain firm as he began to suck blood and venom together from the wound. A heaving chest gave in to pathetic sobbing and blood mingled with tears from eyes just as brilliant-red and adamant on removing Asara’s venom. He’d failed to protect Victor—that fact weighed heavy on his heart and abolished the last shreds of guilt and apprehension he may have been placed on his mind by those cruel Symenos whispers. Finally, after what seemed to him like ample time for the woman to escape, Seven removed himself from the wound, still oozing with blood, and spat.

She was still there; glaring at him, placing blame. His blood-stained teeth grit beneath equally darkened lips. Seven wanted Asara gone. Not dead and not hurt, just gone. Pale, trembling fingers tightened around the hilt of his borrowed blade and he lunged at her, blade flashing wildly in the dim light of night. “Go!” his voice cracked, ragged with emotion, “Just go! Get out of here! I don’t want you here!” A breath, then, spitting tainted blood from between his teeth, he bellowed fervently into the night. “LEAVE!”

[Victor Lark]

For an instant, Victor relished the pain in his breaking skin, which filled his adrenaline-soaked body like a somatic manifestation of thrilling danger. But then the venom came, a sensation stronger than he had ever felt before, and he could find no pleasure in it. Every confusion and injury that he had encountered in this perilous night seemed a drop in the ocean compared to this white fire in his arm, which ate furiously down to his bones and crawled through his veins even as her fangs retreated. He thought he could feel his throat scream, but did not hear it; not even the pain of falling to his knees was acknowledged by his overwhelmed brain. Only a blur of white and red through the shards of hot tears in his eyes reminded him where he was.

It had become too much for him to handle, and he knew it. But he did not regret anything; Seven’s bravery and wits were there to save him. Victor would not remember how he convulsed beneath those hasty, unrecognized efforts, but he did realize how miraculously quickly the pain faded. The burning throb that remained might have distracted him if he did not have other agonies to compare it to; finally, his mind found words in the chaos.

There he saw Seven, strong and angry. Victor was captivated by the raw emotion in that face, which more often than not settled somewhere closer to contentment. He saw only beautiful disdain, hot fury, and the shine of a scarlet-tipped blade through the moonlit darkness. Asara, on the other hand, reflected such desperate, pitiful melancholy... both could be exacerbated; both could be investigated. Through his confusion, his lips splintered into their old smile.

“Shhh. Seven, shh...” His voice cracked and shuddered as he reached for Seven’s face with both hands, the open wound on his arm dripping hot life onto the cold stone between them. His eyes still wept of their own accord; he pulled him close and the four humors of their passion—blood, tears, venom, saliva—coalesced between them in a trembling kiss. Part of him wanted to help Seven in return, to dry the tears and subdue the sadness, but another part of him felt electrified in his rage. Ultimately selfish, Victor parted from his lover with a grin beneath his upturned brow, cupping the blood-stained jaw between his hands. A short look flashed at the poor woman beyond, to see her intentions and guess at her expression. “She will not leave,” he whispered, “We have to make her.”