thecapitol | Give thy thoughts no tongue

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Give thy thoughts no tongue

Who| Initiate and OPEN
What| Initiate got told to go to speech therapy lest he find himself avoxed again. His escort signed him up. He's not enjoying this.
Where| Around any lobby, lounge, cafe, library, or park -- you decide!
When| Wibbly wobbly time -- various points before and after dying gruesomely in the children's arena
WARNINGS| Language.

The books are piled high around him. There's enough he could build himself a small tower, or he could rearrange them into a wall what he could sit inside. Truthfully, he ain't above none of those things, but he's on business right this minute.

Some very frustrating, slightly painful business.

Normally, when he takes to reading-- which is often-- he keeps quiet, letting the words roll all into his skull of their own willing. Reading out-loud just drew attention on things he didn't need attention for. In this case, however, he ain't got a choice. Alex hadn't outfight said, get this done or you'll be made a mute again, but there was still the threat there, and if he had to talk with the motherfucker again, it might not go so well. But the other reason was that he hadn't actually signed up willing. It had been done for him, and it was awful, and he'd be happy to never ever motherfucking do for one of them sessions again, with the Capitolite "speech therapist" making like he was some kind of stupid and couldn't talk just as well as any.

Like he did the fluctuations deliberate. He didn't. Doesn't. But they happen, all scarred on him by the power of his voodoo, and he can't just make it stop. Voodoo scarring don't fade. This is a futile task.

Still, he's here, reading Shakespeare aloud and miserable.

"WHAT-- gh-- what do you read my lord? WOR-- rrr-- FUCK!" His voice has never sounded quite so hoarse. His face is twisted up like he's in physical pain. He breathes deep through his fangs. "Words, words, words. WHAT IS THE M- OTHERFUCKING...! Whatisthematter,mylord, betweenwho!"

He drops the book and let his face fall in his hands. So what if everyone can hear him whine? They can hear him doing this shit, which is even worse. This is never going to work.

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Of what Kurloz taught he remembers only the basics. Yes. No. A few simple words, and without practice he's losing even those. It was something to do in the arena, though, and he's grateful for having had that distraction.

Distractions. He knows they have to have this talk before things go too much further in whatever direction they're currently going in, but he knows it will break the friendly atmosphere and push them back into an awkward, uncertain place. He likes one so, so much better than the other. Still, it has to be done.

"It has to do with relationships. Our relationship. It's something we need to speak about soon but I'll understand if you'd rather not now. I just wanted to clear some things up, to get us onto more stable ground before things go much further."

The smile what he managed to pull up slips away into the ether. He seems to shrink down, even if the very idea of him appearing smaller is utterly ridiculous. This is the exact sort of thing he' rather run from.

Which probably why he should let it happen. Reluctantly, he nods. Okay. I understand.

"Actually," He croaks, "Something what I wanted to say too."

Oh, good. So it's not just him coming and ruining Fraysong's day with uncomfortable discussions, not if they both have something they want to talk about. That puts him just a little bit at ease.

"We'll take it in turns, then. I'll start." Okay. Here we go.

"Since before the last arena, I've been seeing Roland to distract and steady myself, and he and I have grown very close. We aren't quadranted and I don't think we ever will be -- what we have isn't exactly pale and it isn't exactly red, it's some kind of mix that doesn't fit neatly into either. To him it's the only way he knows to be someone's friend, so if anything I suppose it's a kind of human feeling we trolls don't have a word for. It's not at all like what I feel for you: for you I'm nothing but pale, as pure as that kind of pity can be."

It makes his stomach flip to say it so plainly. This is the first time he really has, he realizes. So. It's out in the open now that they're both complete failures at this ashen quadrant.

"Since what happened between you and I at the crowning, we've been avoiding interacting until I could speak to you. If what I have with him makes you uncomfortable, I'm willing to cut off contact with him entirely." Willing but not exactly happy at the prospect, if his expression and subdued tone are anything to go by.

"I value what you and I have managed to build too much to ruin it because I'm a failure at keeping my emotions strictly confined to quadrants. I don't know how much attention if any you gave my previous relationships here, but it isn't uncommon for me to care for many people in one quadrant or for one person in many quadrants, or in a way that quadrants can't truly define. Feeling so strictly pale for you is something that's unusual for me. I thought that you should know before this went too much further, in case it changes things. I would never keep things from you and I would always ask your blessing on romantic decisions that would impact you, but I understand if it's too strange to want to deal with at all."

Edited 2014-11-13 10:04 (UTC)

Oh, Roland, he thinks at first, that motherfucker's a chill dude. If perhaps one what also worried too much. Signless tells him about quadrants and, idiot he is, he doesn't understand why.

Until the last words of that knock him on his ass.

He stares dumbly, simply blinking. The Signless continues on about Roland, saying it can be stopped if he ain't feeling it, but the Initiate is still back there with the confession. Signless wants his opinion. He should give it. Quick, you stupid motherfucker, think of an answer.

"YOU... You pity me?"

Good going. Fucking nailed it. Right in the walk prong.

This isn't what Signless was asking him. He can't all quite remember what he was even going to say. He keeps looping back. I'm nothing but pale, as pure as that kind of pity can be.

He knew his own feelings and he knew he talked the Signless down, but he didn't think...

"...REALLY?"

"Yes." There's no hesitation. He's decided that the best thing he can possibly do here is be honest, lay everything out as plain and clear and true as he can, and he can't truthfully say that his feelings are anything but pale. They probably have been for longer than he's even known; he wouldn't be surprised what with his track record for these things sneaking up on him.

"I pity you. You have been through so much and you have so much hurt and I want to help you carry that hurt. I want to be someone that you trust and confide in and when you feel sad or angry or just tired I want to be someone you can come to for support."

He laces his fingers together, looking down at them because it's easier than looking at this troll he cares so much for, whose hurt he has so often been responsible for.

"I want to make up for all of the sweeps that I wasn't there when I had promised you I would be. You shouldn't ever have to feel alone like that again."

He stares, breathless. His mind works to make sense of it all and fails, utteraly and completely. It hurts and it's unfair and he just...

"... I missed you so fucking much, brother best," Says the child in him, shoving him out of the way. The Signless is just sitting there across from him, not even far up at all, and so he lurches forward, reaching out for the other troll. His hands go to cup his face. "LOOK AT YOU. You've gone all living without me. FEEL LIKE A GHOST AT TO YOU. You with your motherfucking chin bristle mutations, what the fuck, man, like you wasn't weird the motherfuck enough." His laughter breaks. Gone all to crack does it like it hurts. It does. He has to stifle that laugh what ain't after too long.

"I WANT YOU. I've wanted you a long time." He knows that. Of course he knows, he knows all of this. "THE FIRST I FUCKING SAW YOU, YOU WAS PREACHING TO A BUNCH TROLLS WHAT WOULD'VE CHEWED YOU UP SO FAST. You with your nubby ass horns all too fucking soft all over and up inside like nothing I'd ever known. YOU WITH YOUR BRIGHT VEINS, ALWAYS HAVING TO RUN, ALWAYS HAVING TO HIDE, ALWAYS HAVING TO FUCKING DOUBT. I ain't care about Roland. I AIN'T CARE THAT YOU PITY THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD. I never did, not that much. WELL, MAYBE A LITTLE. But if it was me you came back to up at the end always... WHAT MORE COULD I HOPE?" His face twists. It hurts something awful. But he lets go. He lets go, pulling his hands back to his ownself and he settles to sit upon haunches.

"...BUT I CAN'T DO IT NOW." His voice cracks. It takes him in stops and starts, with trying to continue. "...You're being so far, bro. BROTHER YOU IS LIKE TO BE LEAGUES DISTANT FROM I IN SO MANY WAYS. I wish we could just... GO BACK. Just me and you again, nothing between us. WHEN ALL WE GREW UP TOGETHERLIKE. When... you'd ask me to take you to the coves and you'd make to play in the tidal pools. TRY TO SHOW ME HOW NICE THEY WAS. Even as all what I could motherfucking think about was keeping you safe and how we was horns over our heads in the fucking shit of it. WHEN YOU'D START SINGING, AND WE'D MATCH WORD FOR WORD. Back when I could still sing with you. WHEN YOU'D TELL YOUR STORIES ABOUT ALL THE PLACES WHAT YOU'D GO TO AND THE PEOPLE YOU GOT TO MEET. When you was all about helping this motherfucker to be getting gander at onto the miracles good up in the world."

Kankri could do that, his mind whispers. He has to ignore it. For real this time, it's not about damning Kankri it's about saving. Just like it used to be. His breath shudders and his fists are clenched so tight.

"YOU GET IT, DON'T YOU? You get what's being the motherfucking deal," He croaks. "I REMEMBER A WRIGGLER, KANKRI. But you're all grown with me gone to have missed it. THAT SHIT AIN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. Not all fast instantlike and not for sweeps... I DON'T WANT TO PAINT YOU AS WHAT YOU AIN'T ALL OVER AGAIN. So I need to know who you is first. THAT'S BEING OKAY WHAT TO ASK. Right?"

Edited 2014-11-16 18:28 (UTC)

It's strange, because right now he feels more like that wriggler than he has in sweeps. If he could go back to that time and put everything right and ask Kurloz to come with him before everything went to shit like he should have, he would. Instead, they have this.

"Fraysong..." he says, and then he laughs, a soft laugh that isn't exactly mirthful but isn't exactly sad either. "I'm still that wriggler. Did you know I spent sweeps out to sea in a terrible little boat because there were trolls across the water I hadn't spoken to and I thought the danger was worth it to get to them just in case they needed me? Do you know how many times I spoke out when I shouldn't have and someone else had to drag me to safety just like you did? I've grown older and I've grown harder to keep myself safe and I've grown so tired, Kurloz, but I'm still the same person I ever was -- just like you're the same Kurloz I knew then, deep down."

He might not have believed it, or wanted to, thinking that who he was is up ins. But he's not the Alternian he was no more, all that gone crack-shattering the fuck up and in the wreckage leaving him. But it's not enough that just he can see it, Signless can now too. That's what matters. That's what's important. Starting over, starting fresh.

And Mirth he wants his friend back. He reaches out again, to Signless's face. His hand lifts.

And he slaps. Not hard enough to injure, but enough to reprimand and get attention.

He snaps all at once, "THE FUCK DID I SAY ABOUT GOING NEAR THE OCEAN. How many times I gotta get salty 'bout this at you? A FUCKING BOAT ACROSS THE SEA? To preach on over at some other place? MOTHERFUCKING GL'BGOLYB COMING UP TO USE YOU AS A BEAK-PICK IS THE LEAST WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED, YOU MESSIAH DAMNED TOOL."

His breath comes in a huff. He holds the Signless's gaze for a long moment. Then, he moves forward-- no need to worry about getting caught on sharp edges with him, no rough edges but his motherfucking stubble-- and wraps his arms around his friend, head going by Signless's shoulder. He clings tight, like something might rip the other troll away.

Into the muffling fabric, he says, "I'm really tired too."

Before the Signless can even think to defend his foray into seafaring he's wholly distracted by those arms around him (and maybe that's a mercy because how could he defend it, there's no way to make taking to the Alternian ocean sound any less insane than it is).

It's as though his whole world has shrunk down to just the two of them. It's not serendipity, he doesn't believe in serendipity, but it's still right right down the residual sting in his cheek. He leans that cheek against Fraysong's hair, loops his arms around the other troll's shoulders.

"I know. You push yourself so hard, Kurloz." Fighting hard in the arenas, keeping active in the downtime between, throwing himself into the dangerous underbelly of the rebellion horns-first. Running his throat ragged trying to fix a vocal tic.

"Your voice is sounding a little better."

He does believe in serendipity. Or he did, before. He'd believed it once for this troll. He'd believed it for Mituna. His future self had neither, but this self what he is now does. Is it possible to have two? Is it even being alright? He doesn't know.

All what he knows is that Kankri is here, warm in his arms, head by his. He's getting called by name, by this motherfucker, and it's being okay. It's being good. This is it. What he wanted so long. What haunted him in his futures undone.

"BOUNCE BACK QUICK UP ON HURTS. You know I do. CAN'T KILL NO CLOWNS EASY," He says, letting the fluctuations go as is natural.

He has a moirail. Mirth...

His eyes squeeze shut and he speaks. "I'm coming apart. I'M SO FUCKING SCARED ALL THE MOTHERFUCKING TIME, SIGNLESS. I ain't never been so scared in my whole motherfucking life. I AIN'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. I'm going up against everything what all I know. I AIN'T HARDLY KNOW WHO I UP AND BEING IS NO MORE, BUT A BUNCH OF PIECES." He confesses this, all of this, at last. All of emotion does he confess what he couldn't before. But then all of sudden he laughs. "But I'm so happy, Kankri. I'M SO MOTHERFUCKING HAPPY RIGHT NOW. So many miracles what is mine-- what is ours. THIS FEELS RIGHT."

Edited 2014-11-30 06:30 (UTC)

"It does. I didn't think..." Didn't think they'd ever be able to speak easy like this again. Didn't think they'd ever want to.

"It really is a miracle to be able to find happiness even here, despite all that fear and pain. A bunch of pieces is still something. A bunch of pieces can be gathered up and put back together into something new and wonderful, with help."

He knows that intimately, knows what it's like to feel empty and shattered and also know that he has to somehow make what's left of himself able to keep going. Dragging a working self out of the wreckage of an old one is hard, incredibly so, but not half so much if one has the support of others.

"Miracle to find it on anywhere," He says. A bunch of pieces is still something. He laughs, soft, quiet, but relieved. Yeah, it is something. Brother's being right. Pieces may not all be repaired but they can be made something new.

Something good. He always liked that sort of thing.

"DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD BE SO NEITHER," He says, and he starts to pull away. Not completely though. Rather, his hands find the Kankri's. He takes them up in his, pulling them to him. It just takes a turning over of the hand, and he kisses each wrist, chaste, soft, and apologetic.

His breath catches in his throat. He may not have lived his execution, but he knows it -- has heard accounts, seen pictures in that 'biography' the Capitol wrote for him. He knows the significance of what Kurloz is doing and it's stopped his brain cold.

That's romantic as fuck. His lips part as though he's about to say something, but nothing comes out for a good ten seconds. He gives up and instead just shifts his hands, curling his fingers tight with Kurloz's and squeezing.

He's not sure what the silence means, but he understands the touch. He gets the squeeze of them hands. His fingers lace again. He leans forward to bump his forehead against Kankri's.

"Never again will I make intention to motherfucking hurt," He says in hushed tones. Hopefully, it would mean he'd never again hurt the motherfucker up at all.

"Never again," he agrees, and it's meant as an echo of that promise on his part.

He brushes their noses together and then, in a moment of inspiration, tilts his head up to kiss Kurloz's forehead.

"You carry so much pain -- no more of it will come from me."

His breath catches first. Not-quite but almost sharp on the inhale. It shudders and ends in the faintest little trill.

Oh Mirth. Oh Messiahs he pities this troll so much.

He laughs light. "COME ON NOW. Can't keep all that to your ownself. GOTTA MOTHERFUCKING KEEP SOME AS FOR ME."

Edited 2014-12-28 07:52 (UTC)

The laugh is infectious. He smiles as some of the heaviness drains from the air, leaving behind it a tangible relief.

"We'll split it even, then."

He settles, smiling, light and happy and warm as motherfucking in all presence of the Signless. Kankri. His new motherfucking moirail. It's all miracles up and on the fuck out.

Split up pains even. Sounds right and fair to him.

"Bitchin."

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