1708/A lock with no key. A puzzle missing pieces.
From Multiverse Crisis MUSH
| A lock with no key. A puzzle missing pieces. | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 03 March 2015 |
| Location: | Hundred Forged Fire Manse |
| Synopsis: | Amalthea and Ainsley have a Chat |
| Cast of Characters: | 151, 395 |
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
Whatever happened on Terra Majora could not have been good. It's not out of the ordinary to find Amalthea in the depths of her Manse. Though tonight it looks as though the unicorn's office and man-cave in the lower levels is in a state of disarray. Papers are spilled, the desk is a mess with a toppled can of soda, and the telltale traces of glimmering silver blood are splotched in trailing path that leads right to her.
Her armor is off, simply shrugged aside, various holes punched clean through the breastplate.
Despite the alarming appearance of things, aside from the bandages thickly swathing her chest to keep the leaking to a minimum, she's mostly fine, slumped back in her favorite leather recliner. ... Physically fine anyway.
The open decanter of antifreeze and the half-empty glass in her hand, combined with a terribly dark introspective look says, things might be otherwise.
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
Ainsley followed the trail of blood to Amalthea's location, where the clouds of discontentment seemed to be boiling fiercely. The lizard girl didn't know it consciously, but she could tell that she might be stepping into a stressful situation when she follows the trail to visit her mentor and friend. She eventually reached the place the unicorn was resting, taking the lightest of steps, but making her presence clear enough that she doesn't startle.
"Hello," she says in a soft voice, "Do you need someone to talk to?" she wonders, in a gentle voice, not looking at Amalthea, and instead at the mess all around the place. The look on the lizard woman's face is worry and sorrow, like the state of the place troubles her more than any darkness she has seen before. She seems so tentative, like she absolutely does not want to cause offense.
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
It should be worrying. It should be very worrying. But the intrusion to her deepest darkest lair results in a stir. A slight shift that says the unicorn is very much awake. And perhaps not too keen on visitors. But Ainsley does not get chased away, when that lone blue eye flicks up, a deep rumble and irate chuff simmering in the mechanical mythic's throat and chest before she endeavors to make herself a little more presentable, by sitting up.
"Hello, Ainsley." Her reply is gruff, but there is an unquestionable listlessness to her, a look of mixed discontent, partial anger, and utter bewilderment worn upon her visage as she tugs one leg up to hug to chest in an idle fashion, albeit with a small wince. "I am afraid that I might have... Difficulty discussing what troubles me. But I am not proud enough yet to turn down an ear of one who's company I can say I enjoy."
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
The lizard girl winces a little at the tone the unicorn has, just the emotion of all this affecting her pretty deeply. In Ainsley's effort to try and understand emotion, though, she steps further into the room, and finds somewhere to stand nearby with her hands clasped in front of her. Well... she's hovering slightly off the floor, as opposed to sitting anywhere in the room.
"I am here to listen," she murmurs, and gives the best smile her reptilian features will allow at the stressed unicorn. Gentle and patient is the aura around the creature who has all too often succumbed to wilder emotions. "At any pace you are comfortable with."
In any silent moments, she looks around at the messy state of the area, having to suppress the powerful urge to tidy up the room, because her subconscious knows this is a symptom of the unicorn's discontentment.
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
It takes much to shake a timeless beast such as a unicorn into such depths of silent internal thought. And whatever it is must be harrowing to her very soul. Nevertheless, Amalthea motions for the spare chair aside from hers. Though she remains silent for a long moment of tension, the flustering look of confused emotions working across her face paints a turmoil that no mortal could ever possibly face, and can only hope to never experience.
"I am vexed, Ainsley. Well and truly vexed, and it is a state I find myself sinking into only futher as time drags on. And at times make me question my decision to timidly poke my head out from my forest all those years ago."
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
Ainsley doesn't understand the depth of Amalthea's turmoil, but it seems that she is trying whenever she looks at the unicorn's face, searching her features. She takes the offered chair, settling into it and watching in the silence with that sad smile. When the unicorn speaks, a nod of acknowledgement is given from the lizard as she soaks in what is being said, some serious thought being given to various aspects of this, those thoughts shown in the Quetzal's bright blue eyes: Amalthea's ageless state, and how that shapes her emotions... and her wild heart as a unicorn and not a human.
But she doesn't say a word, simply waiting for more elaboration, or more silence, at the pace her mentor decides is appropriate.
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
How to explain it. How CAN she explain it? If anything, the attempt to put it into words seems to only cause more distress; enough so to make Amalthea rise. Without Ironclad Oath's pain suppression to wash over her body, she hobbles, a wounded limping course that has her pace back and forth, heedless of her body still in the midst of repairs, too distraught or perhaps simply too innured to pain by this point to notice it.
Her hair is a tangled mess, her eye is wide, showing white, and loppy ears pin back as she snorts.
"I watch them every day. I live among them, I see them change and be so fluid and malleable. I know they are fleeting. Ephemeral. Some would deem them even trifling, chaff and vermin, but I am not that vain yet. Yet still, I watch them, I see the best in them, and I am given hope..."
She pauses, suddenly going still, deathly so where she stands as the agitation melts away in an instant to be replaced with a somber and silent sorrow. "And then they devolve and show nothing but the worst of themselves."
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
Ainsley watches Amalthea's state and sees, perhaps, the point at which immortal creatures differ from the mortals around them. The point that makes it hard for them to relate to each other. She creases her brow as she thinks on how frustrating it must be to cope with all of this pain for so long, over and over... She lets out a sad sigh, seeming to sympathize with the idea, now that it has been explained to her. One hand rubs another, her eyes briefly close, her feathers puff up for a second. Like goosebumps.
She does not dare speak up now, simply watching still patiently, the wounded creature showing a state that hasn't been shown before.
She smiles still, somehow able to do so even with how dark this subject is... like she knows some input, and she's politely waiting to be asked first.
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
For a time. She remains right where she is. Still. So very still. Unmoving- moreso than a statue; in that way that only a doe can stop dead in the woods, doing nothing but breathe and stare into the distance. But slowly, that eye creeps sidewards, looking to the Quetzal for a long and silent moment.
The frustration is boundless; this simple inability to truly connect finally wearing down upon her to this point, and in a very animal moment of frustration she finds it in her to snarl. It is not a pleasant sound. Somewhere between a wolf and a tractor-trailer, it rumbles in her chest as she seats herself once more. "They smile. They laugh. They love one another one day. And in the next they bicker, hiss, snipe, and claw one another. It is too fast. It is too fast for me, humans and mortals are just too fast."
Unicorns are simple creatures. Such simple creatures; set in their ways, stagnant at worst, slow moving at best. The fast fleeting pace of a mortal life makes it so difficult to understand, and finally she breaks.
"I watch everyone around me, and I feel like an outsider so very often. I love them, I cherish them, even though a mortal's life is but a breath to me, Ainsley. That is the pain of immortality, did you know that? I do not understand them. I truly do not, no matter how my faking it seems to fool them."
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
Ainsley's smile only fades from the snarl. She puffs a sigh after that, again, and listens to the simple frustrations of a creature that has lived and likely will continue to live much longer than she will. She doesn't seem unaffected by it, the anger not washing over her, but she doesn't back away from it or fear the one exposing this part of their heart.
"May I provide an attempt at insight?" she offers, smiling some. She offered to listen, so it's only polite to ask before speaking up.
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
It's... Not anger. It's nowhere close to anger. It is a well and true bewilderment. An inability to understand so complete and total that to an immortal like Amalthea is is utterly distressing. These are the kinds of things Fae beasts should not be bothered by- the kind they do not let affect them because most treat the lives of mortals like a trivial and minorly intriguing amusement at best.
Amalthea loves them. Dearly. That is her pain, And for a moment it is as if she forgets Ainsley is there, venting her frustration at the room all around her. Until the offer for insight. Her eye flicks up, gaze brought back into focus as she slowly steels herself with a breath. "You may. I may not understand it, but you are welcome to." She murmurs after a beat of long silence, draining the last of her glass in a long, slow, slug of the noxious green contents.
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
"You are more alike to the creatures that cause you so much frustration, from my perspective, than any other of a similar lifespan."
"You have fought beside us, smiled with us, protected us, taught us, and felt both the light and darkness that we can create. When you could not understand mortal creatures, you became frustrated... but that is no different than how we live. You are experiencing part of what mortals experience far too often between each other."
"We live with only an understanding we gain from interacting with each other. We must accept our short lifespans are all we have. We must laugh, cry and scream as strongly as we can, because we may not get another chance. The only heavily important difference between the mortals you love and yourself is the urgency."
"I cannot say you are completely the same, but we all feel this as well. This feeling that we cannot understand others. This frustration that boils in our gut, because our perspectives are too limited to fully grasp the perspective of other limited beings."
"You do understand us, about as well as we understand each other. In fact, you are uniquely qualified to understand mortal creatures if you can accept the bad with the good."
Ainsley smiles again at the unicorn, "I have faith in the strength of your heart, Amalthea. Know that you are not truly alone."
- Amalthea (395) has posed:
A slower breath, and the unicorn closes her eye, a slow and weary sigh filtering through teeth a sshe decides to pour another helping from the decanter at her side. This time the sip is slower, her other leg tucking up to rest her shin on knees. "You'd be surprised what can be learned over the course of twenty years. ... Very little if you think about it."
But then she shakes her head. "Mortals are fluid. Immortals are static. This is more difficult for me than words can express. I. Try. I do, but it is difficult." She says, faltering for a beat. "It is not the same, no. There is bad, there is good, I have always known this, but it is like a whiplash of confusion and jumbled sensation." She vents almost petulantly. "I am weary, I suppose. Someone I considered to enjoy the company of used me again. Used others I love dearly. Almost maliciously, in his ignorance. It is not easy for me, Ainsley. ... Your insight is... Appreciated. I will think on it more."
- Ainsley (151) has posed:
"I cannot fix this feeling you are having, though I wish I could provide you more comfort," Ainsley tells Amalthea, with that usual strange honesty she has to matters like this. "But, as I said, my perspective is limited as a mortal creature. As much as I wish I could, I cannot read the hearts of others, or even my own heart." She smiles and then stands, and steps over to reach out and touch Amalthea's shoulder, if allowed.
"Even if you cannot endure, I will be your friend, Amalthea," she says, softly. "I will leave you to rest now." She nods to the weary unicorn and turns to leave.
