[Maiden's Cape] Without A Fight (Philomena)

[Ignotus Everto]

For a chime, Ignotus was silent. His astral arm returned to its casing of flesh, and his arms hung limply at his side. There was no rise or fall of his chest, nor blinking to show activity.

Was she right? Was it all just loneliness? It was true he had few friends as a boy, and he still cared little for his new ones, but he didn't feel lonely. He was Ignotus Everto! How could he still be nursing a wound from sixty years ago?

Quite easily, really. For all his might, he still had no one. For all his charisma, he was still all alone. If he were to die, who would mourn him?
"But you won't."
He was immortal. He would never die, and he would transcend humanity... As it was said in the Treval Codex:
"The sky belongs to those who can look up, and below there is only the lie. Yes, we were both unloved gutter trash. But that is where the similarities end. I looked up and took the sun and stars. You kept your eyes fixed firmly on the dirt below. No longer!"

He seized Minnie's arms, a jolt of lightning cracking between his hands and her body. Not enough to paralyze or harm, but enough to wake one up. A thin mist of Djed leaked from Ignotus, nudging at Minnie's emotion, urging her out of her torpor and attempting to impart excitement into her.

"You will know true strenghth for the first time in your poor life. You will have everything you ever wanted, and more. Together, my dear, we will cure the plague, fix East Street, bring Zeltiva higher than it has ever been before. We'll be heroes!" For the briefest moment, the image swam in Philomena's vision. Herself, clad in Regent's robes, surrounded by a cheering, admiring crowd. Loved. Adored. "This is the beginning of a new age, Minnie-Wren." what was gentle urging before was gaining momentum. Boiling up in her stomach. Burning, raging, bubbling elation. "OUR age!"

[Philomena]

Minnie simmered slightly, just barely at first, the strange feeling of sudden energy in her at first subtle, strange.

//The stars. The dirt. Is that all I've looked at all this time? Oh… Igon Everto, I have looked at the stars, I have looked. But you thought you would steal them. I only watched them move.//

The man grabs her arms, the stab of pain from jarring her injured right hand mixing insignificantly with a sudden sense of power and energy. From the outside, her eyes grew wider, and something crept into her face, a hazy something that slowly, slowly, ever so slowly extended. The vision was visible in her eyes, almost, and it made her smaller, made that childishness in her eyes almost… almost charming in a way, almost beautiful. Almost.

And then he said the name, then he said Minnie-Wren. The energy was to strong, was too clear, but the name… it made it different, it redirected her. She felt the last guttural rush of power in her body and was taut in the man's arms. And then she laughed. She laughed, long, and hard, and rolling, and filled with a deep, overpowering scorn, scorn that filled the ship, scorn that dripped darkly from the candle sconces.

The storm was growing higher now, and the ship reeled and rocked on it's moorings, the wind moaning outside the cabin, pelting saltwater against the boards outside, and her laugh was like that wind, less like an emotion, than like a force of nature, something set free in her.

"Oh, you petching shyke. Don't, you DARE use that name. It is not for you, you… how do I insult you? You would think I would insult you by calling you a failed fisher boy, a son of the gutters. Those things, they are honorable. You are worse than that. You are a walking lie, one propped up by your own gods-be-damned stories. You pitiful, weakling of a less-than-child. Don't you DARE use that name! Two sets of lips on this earth alone, two sets, may call me Minnie-wren, and yours… yours defile the only beautiful thing I've had."

She laughed again.

"You looked at the stars, eh? Is that where you saw your little Benjamin? Is it where you saw your little friend you burned in his house? Is it where you saw the orphan girl you pimped out to the Evalin, so she'd make you her whore? You kill me, go ahead. But don't you DARE call me Minnie-wren, you parasitic old bastard."

And she welled up her throat, and spit at his feet.

[Ignotus Everto]

Ignotus tamped down his knee jerk reaction to turn Minnie to ash. It would be so easy, so satisfying, and yet... Completely counterproductive. So instead, he stood there, waited for her to finish, only moved to avoid the spit on the floor and let his hands drop again... And said, ever so softly. "How does it feel, Philomena? How does it feel to swing back at those that taunt you? Those that hurt you? It feels good, doesn't it?"

He did not take hold of her emotions now. It would go against what he wanted to achieve. Instead, he gave her a little subliminal nudge. He's right. Ignotus is right. It would not make her agree with him... But it would give her an unconscious bias towards it. And then he watched and waited.

[Philomena]

She faltered a moment, the power and force of that momentary pulse gone now. Her body deflated, the force of her gone. Still, the bitter, hopeless edge of her smile still clung to her lips, like stare of a dead woman's eyes.

"You're right. I'm no better than you. Go ahead, Igon Everto. Make me smaller. That's all you're good at. It won't make you any bigger."

[Ignotus Everto]

"Oh, no no no no no Minnie..." Ignotus chortled, shaking his head like a horse bothered by flies, "I'm not trying to make you smaller... Quite the opposite. How do you feel now?" The Nuit waved his hand dismissively, his upper lip curling into a sneer as he turned his back to Philomena and began to walk away. "Empty. Helpless. Dead. Weak. But when you finally took it upon yourself to fight, to show those that doubt you what you're made of... Then how did you feel?"

The Hypnotist whirled around, a rabid gleam in his eye. "Vital! Vigorous! Alive! Strong! I am a talking corpse and I know this Philomena! There's two types of people in this world! The weak, and the strong! The strong decide, the weak do as their told! Igon Everto was the weak! A pathetic canary who lost a net in a fit, and was beaten and bruised for his uselessness! I am Ignotus, I did battle with the divine and won, I command the respect of the city, I am the strong!" Another burst of power. Momentary. Indeed, involuntary.

"I made my choice fifty years ago, now it's your turn! What do you want to be?" Ignotus was rounding in on her again. "A worthless shell of a person, shifting meaninglessly through life? Or someone who controls their own destiny?" Another suggestion. Another needle sticking itself in her subconscious. The strong. There was one thing Ignotus hated more than a threat, and that was a quitter. By the Gods, this woman wouldn't be one. "The choice is yours. What do you want to be!?"

[Philomena]

The wind came crying, crying, crying across the harbor, and Minnie's mind crawled to the sound of them, calling, calling.

//Words, words... nothing, nothing... nothing matters...//

She half-smiled, now.

//The old wind... Minnie-wren, remember that?//

It was Lanie's voice in her head. She knew, now, that it was not real, there was no magic in it, no telepathy, no spiritual haunting. The voice was what she made for herself, she knew that. She wouldn't hear Lanie again, not with her ears, only like this. But this didn't feel so much like a tragedy, anymore. It was alright. It would be alright. This was a way for a story to end. She could accept that. She, who never felt sure she was even in a story, felt... a sort of pleasant warmth around her at this. She was perhaps a little mad. That was alright. Madwomen coudl tell stories too. And finally, perhaps, here, she had found one to tell.

"Yes, Lanie. Yes, I remember. The old wind... the old wind, in the sails of the silver ship."

A few tears crawled out of her childish eyes, and down her wrinkled face.

"Mr. Everto. I hope someone loves you one day."

And she closed her eyes. And waited.

[Ignotus Everto]

Minnie's simple statement was met with a gnashing of teeth, a twitch of the lower eyelid. And an irritated growl. "Why are you so difficult."

Ignotus dragged a greying hand over his face, a weary sigh escaping his lips. "Three have."

The Nuit shuffled his way to Minnie's side and slumped down against the rocking wall, taking a moment to look up and listen. He hated storms. Absolutely hated them. If he was on the surface, he would probably have been pulled out to redirect this one's anger. No matter, though. Ignotus looked down to examine his own interlocked fingers. "One, my mother. She alone saw my genius, even at such a young age. But that is not unusual. One, forty years ago, a woman named Adwin. I had to leave her after turning. She would not turn with me, and I knew that she would die eventually while I lingered. It would not do to remain attached. I do not know what happened to her... Though I met her son."

"My son."

"And then a young girl from fifty seven years past." Ignotus smiled sadly. "Her name was Philomena."

[Philomena]

"A mother and two lovers?" She laughed. It was a gentle laugh now though, and when she looked back to the man, her eyes had changed again, in a subtle way. That infancy was disappearing, like white clouds in the wind of the storm. Behind them, now, she looked older. Not mother old, older still - like a grandmother, almost, old and filled with the sadness of having lived and the t ender pity that the elderly have for children sometimes.

"Do you know, Mr Everto, I never had either? I'm not complaining -- well, I would, I confess, have liked to have a mother someday. I shall have neither now! The students, they'd laugh to know they were right all this tme - I really am a dried up old prud. But..."

She shifted, achy, in her chair. She blushed slightly, "Mr Everto, you will laugh at me for asking. But I think we both know, this little game is winding down in your favor soon. First, would you let me... Let me write a story? I have ink and quill, and a book, in my bag. No tricks, I promise. I only... It would mean something to me, to leave the world as I've lived in it. Tell me this... This last story, and let me write it: the Three Loves of Ignotus Everto. Then, you may have done, and keep. H book yourself or... Well I'm not in a position to make demands. By I can at least beg. That is" she chuckled gently, "Perhaps the advantage of being small and weak."

[Ignotus Everto]

A short, barking chuckle met Minnie's comment regarding two lovers. "One lover. Philomena was a friend. One of my only ones."

Her assertion of her lack of gents at her door was met with mock shock on Ignotus' end. "No!" he gasped. When she made her offer, the Nuit listened with the sort of smile one might see on an old grandpa. A testament to his age. "Don't beg." he said with a trace of a smirk. "That just makes you look ridiculous. I'll share the story with you, but it's a long one, and I'm an old corpse with a dislike of storms. I'm sure it's a sentiment our dear sailor shares with me."

Ignotus creaked to his feet again and rolled his shoulders, "Find me in the East Wing some time, and I'll tell you a story about a little boy with a dream."

And then he departed the cabin.

[Philomena]

If Minnie had been standing she would have had to sit. Being already sitting, she simply slumped slightly. Minnie Lefting has a tendency towards fatalism, and 30 seconds before, she had been entirely sure she would be dead before she slept again. This left a peculiar mix of sensations. The first was simply boggled surprise - not really an emotion at all, so much as an utter lack of context for her identity to exist in.

This was followed quickly by a strange sort of disappointment. She was left wondering, perhaps, why she was so ready for the man to kill her.

"Did I… even want to beat him?"

She wondered the words aloud, though just barely. Perhaps not. Perhaps… this had felt like an easy way to let someone else take responsibility for ending her story. She stood, now, weakly, and took her stick back up, tottering slowly to where the knife was stuck deep into the wall behind her. She took it and pulled on the handle, leaning her weight into it. The knife pulled free suddenly, and she was left toppled onto the floor with it in her hands. She turned herself weakly to a kneeling position. The boat rocked now with a gust of wind. The knife glimmered weakly in the last dying edges of the light outside, as she stared at it, stared hard.

Then, she sighed, shaking her head.

"No, I was wrong. I have been wrong. This is not my place. I am no Diran. Qalaya, forgive me, forgive me, I was wrong."

She thought about the things the man had said, most of them fuzzy in her brain, right now, with overwhelming fatigue, but most especially about the Evalin. The Evalin, could it be that she was the one who had wanted Lanie's blood, who had taken Hannah's? Minnie was not a practiced hand at the straightforward denial that ignoring the possibility would have required, so she only nodded. It was not this Everto who would have killed her. It was the Evalin who would have laid her on the narrow table in that room, who would have pressed her lips to Minnie's neck, and torn the flesh and lapped, and lapped, and lapped the warmth from her…

Minnie closed her eyes, the vision of it suddenly vivid, real, powerful and maddening, the cold lips, the black tongue, the long, stolen body lain over hers, holding down her arms with powerful claws of hands. Her breath sped up even, the thought was so present, so real, so… she stopped herself, and found her arms wrapping around her stomach, her neck extended, her ching raised beneath a low moaning lip.

"Oh, Qalaya… you will forgive me, I know you will. For you have punished me, Mother Qalaya. Oh, how you have punished me, now."

She was exhausted. She had a quilt there in the cabin, and she crawled to it, hooking her bag with her black hand. She lay her head on the bag, and fitfully pulled the quilt over her, breath still coming too fast.

"Shh… hush… hush, you…" the wind murmured against the cabin walls., "Shh… hush… hush you… Nothing, nothing, nothing…. sleep, sleep, sleep…"