711/Where Everyone Wears a Mask

Where Everyone Wears a Mask
Date of Scene:	01 October 2014
Location:	Fall
Synopsis:	Two monsters meet.
Cast of Characters:	178, 470

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Pinkie (470) has posed:
    Halloween... A place in the Multiverse where the spookiest of holidays is celebrated almost year round. A place where everyone wears a mask and fright becomes laughter and merriment.
    It's so much like what Nightmare Night is now.
    But there's someone who's not joining in the festivities. Despite the jingly jester's raiment, the figure lounging up in the branches of a dreary brown-leafed tree is not smiling. She's not prancing nor capering. There is no juggling nor merriness here as revelers wander to and fro beneath her. Her clothes are drab, once bright and merry, now the happy colors are long worn and faded, as she simply lays on the branch, letting her arms and legs dangle to her sides, a white porcelain mask in hand, and lank pink hair shrouding her face.

Noh (178) has posed:
    When you're a monster, where do you go, to be, to feel, and act normal? Halloween is a good place to go. Te sound of a jingling bell somewhere near the Jester's tree is the only warning, before a whorl opens up, and a small figure drops down, landing with a crouch, and then stands, rubbing her arms for warmth. Her clothes are rough, her face seems, somehow older now than she's appeared to others before, and her eyes have yet to lose the orange glow that remains behind when the Demon is in such high spirits. Noh Body stands for a long time, alone, before she lets out a long breath, and sighs, walking slowly-- but as she passes under the tree she stops; pauses, tilts her head, and then slowly looks up toward the being above. After facing a Dire Werewolf, and a hungry Wendigo intent on gobbling her up in one bite, the sight of the the slightly familiar form should really give her a feeling of 'what the hell is with my luck'.

    ...INstead she's quiet amoment, before she speaks: "... You know, they say, 'we all wear masks,' metaphorically speaking." She pauses. "... Or that could just be, how do they say? Bullshit I am spouting from some moving picture.."

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    Upon being addressed, the dangling figure doesn't move for a moment. But then slowly lifts that mask. Holding it up, staring at the face. ... Or the lack of once. It's a faceless smile, sinister and menacing, adorned with a dull blue teardrop just beneath one eye.
    "Is that so...?" She murmurs, voice a soft rasp- clear without the mask to muffle it, at least for a moment, before turning it in her gloved hand. Thusly, it slides into place, obscuring features as she sits up, loppy ears swivelling as she rolls on her perch to rest on her chest. Slightly familiar might probably be changing into a dead ringer for someone Noh has encountered before as the Equestrian Assassin peers down at the dhampir, propping her chin on one palm. "Though I guess a good question to ask around here would be when does someone stop wearing a mask, and when does the mask start wearing the person?"

Noh (178) has posed:
    Noh peers up, and then looks away, shrugging, as she comes to sit down at the roots of the tree. Oddly comfortable place for someone to sit with an Assasin, a KNOWN assasin, especially when they're the person who's supplied photos of said assasin to... much of the world through Syndicate exposure.

    Noh will always be known as the one with bad judgement in character.

    "That, I could not answer you, my friend," She pauses with a faint smirk, "I am still trying to decide what of me is the mask, and what of me is real anymore. Three hundred years, it does not get easier. Especially not when the demons in your head are real..." She chuckles softly. Friend? "... You. You are a Trickster, too. I saw something... But I. Cannot tell them what I saw. It is, Trickster's Code."

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    "It was a rhetorical question." Noted a beat later. Though the killer clown doesn't seem to display any signs of minding someone sitting at the base of her tree. Never the less, one of those sinister black blades now rests, balancing on the tip of one gloved finger. "Oh no, I understand very well." She then replies, tapping the forehead of her mask with her other hand. "Demons in your head, I mean. Except mine likes to speak in riddles. --Actually that's just what she asked me right now." Added on as a secondary thought amid twirling that knife in the fingers of one hand.
    "Though I don't have three hundred years under my belt. I'd probably go crazy if it was that long." Now though, she's staring, tilting her head to an inquisitive angle. "Saw something?" The question is almost dry in her throat. "I had to teach a very un-funny lesson to the last pony that saw something. I had to teach him a little rule- a simple one, but a very painful one to learn: no peeking."
    A snap of her fingers and the knife is in her other hand, precariously perched on her pinkie. "But I guess if you follow the Trickster's Code, we won't have a problem tonight will we."

Noh (178) has posed:
    A nod, and Noh, seemingly unaware of the blades, keeps watching the ground out before her. "... The code is firm; you do not ever spoil the tricks of another; you do not ever tell them how the Magic is done. You do not ever give away the end to the story," NOh pauses, then looks up pointedly at Pinkamena; eyes glowing faintly, casting an orange hue to her dark face. "You. Have an interesting story. I have not yet figured it out. But I sense that there is something in it of hurt and betrayal. And perhaps. Familiarity." She watches the clown above; eyes alight on those knives, and perhaps brazenly, or perhaps simply unable to be scared any further tonight, she adds: "... You sang her a lullabye. While she lay dying. I have heard the song before, it took me a while to remember it. I had to wander around in the other Equestria a while, but then I remembered. It is something the mothers singto their foals. Between you two.. There is history. I do not know what the history is. And it is not mine to tell the story anyway, if I did figure it out."

    She shifts her eyes to Pinkamena's. "... Your eyes... They are.. A very interesting shade of Green, my friend."
    She looks away, back to the ground before her. She's quiet. As if she's thinking. As if she's leaving the clown an opening. Before she speaks again: "... How did you get the scar?"

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    At first. At first the response is a low and rasping chuckle. A sound akin to crinkled paper fluttering on a cold wind.. But it's soon after followed by a sigh. Weary, heavy, and so very tired. Now, drumming fingers on a cheek, the knife goes away, slide back up the cuff of her sleeve with a simple and very well practiced flick of one wrist. "Well at least someone sticks to the code. I wouldn't be surprised if those dumb Harl-Equines that survived started talking."
    A low chuff and she rolls onto her back. "I should have killed them myself before I left."
    Nevertheless, now Noh well and truly has the Assassin's attention. "Oh, you know that one?"

    o/` ~ "Hush now quiet now..." ~ o/`

    "Mmmhm. It's a good one. A mutual friend of ours sang it to me when I was a little filly." She admits. But then, the slight, almost imperceptible shift of the mask should say something. A change in expression occurs- green eyes widen just a fraction.
    "Well. I tell a lot of silly lies and half truths-- sometimes I get caught and it puts me in a bad mood. But I'll be honest just this once... I'm not a changeling~." Pinkamena admits before hissing with sickly chuckling. But that stops dead in her throat when pressed on what's behind the mask. And several tense beats of silence come to pass. When she speaks again, the voice is still quiet, but injured.
    "It was her fault. It wasn't her hand or hoof. But it was all her fault."

Noh (178) has posed:
    A slight smile. "One thing I learned, a long time ago. Secrets, they are meant to be kept. And Tricksters, like you, like I.. we must have our secrets, or else, what good are we, hm?" She stares ahead, watching the world about them, the dark night, the faint laughter in the air, the even fainter sound of ringing doorbells. "... I have heard it, yes. I. For a while, Equestria, the other Equestria, it was the only place I was allowed to go, because I get into trouble, so easily, in other worlds. It was nice, to walk by a window, to hear a mother, sing her foal to sleep." She's quiet for a long moment. Oh, she seems not to notice the thin, dangerous path she treads, but perhaps, perhaps she knows.

    "I see. I told you, I thought I sensed history between you. I am, sorry, that whatever happened, happened. And I know it would be... Stupid, I think that is the word, to try and talk you into forgiveness." She smiles slightly. It's an odd smile. "I know that there are some things, one cannot ever forgive."

    "... I did not think you a changeling. I have heard of them, I have never met one. I just notice, your eyes... They are. Not the eyes I have seen before. But again, that, is not my story to tell, now is it?" She looks up and grins. Fangs are visible in her grin. The monster she is, so old and tired, feels worse now, or perhaps a bit better.

    Her gaze shifts away, her head leans back to the trunk of the tree. "... I am, very bad, at being Union. I should have tried to trap you, or fight you. You tried to kill two people. But. But the song you sang her... For some reason, that you sang it to her, the lullaby... For some reason, it keeps me from acting. Perhaps because, Maybe, in a way, you do not hate -Her-, but, what she has -become-? What she once was, it is... Gone."

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    It's a terrible path. Noh toes a line that could very well incite the masked killer's cold and merciless wrath. But for now it would seem that 'Laughing Stalk', as the Syndicate reports nicknamed her is in no mood for violence on this Nightmare Night.
    "Oh." There she pauses. There's no more knife, but now a single playing card balances on the tip of her finger. A Joker. "Oh I've seen the other Equestria." She admits after a long moment. "I don't know what I hate more, the fact it exists to taunt, or the fact that it's gone to me. ... Isn't that just hilarious?" But then the clown scoffs. "I can -never- forgive her. After The Sisters left her arrogance made everything worse. She's -still- arrogant. I look at the younger Twilight and I can't tell if she's... At risk of doing the same. I look at that happy Equestria and see everything I used to know and love. And all I can ask is 'why can't I have that anymore?'"
    This clown isn't laughing. That teardrop on her mask is very apt. "But that's where you're wrong."
    She lets the Joker fall, the card fluttering to the ground in slow concentric spirals, landing face up at the Dhampir's side. "I hate what she's become. I hate her for what she is. But I guess I always hated her since the -first- day she set hoof in ponyville." Pinkamena hisses. "She took everyone I loved away from me."

Noh (178) has posed:
    Noh looks down to the card, and picks it up in her hand. Ninble fingers dance the card from one to another lazily- She has watched the gypsy folks she lives with, had learned to mimic them. It's a strange mevement, but slow. Then she mms softly. "I." She pauses, she chews her lips, and then closes her eyes.

    "I am sorry for that loss. I cannot give answers for how to bring it back. I do not think killing the Archmagister will bring back your lose life, or those you lost. I do not think killing her will be a just action either but. I cannot deny you your actions, I cannot stop you. It is, Alas, not my story.. I am but a spectator." She hums a little in thought.

    "... Perhaps, when you finall find peace though, and, I am sure you will, you can leave your Equestria behind, and start new somewhere else. You seem, a determined sort. And I do believe you will find peace somehow." She pauses. And then frowns a little, thinking back..

    Thinking back to what she had done earlir that night. She sighs. And her head dips to her hands.

    "... I do not think you are the monster, everyone else thinks you are, Pinkamena Diane Pie. You have chosen a path, and you will follow it. But you are not a Monster. And I am. Curious. About your world. About why these things happened. But I do not think they are an exact future of what is to come for the other Equestria. Twilight, that Twilight, has people to keep her in line. Her friend the cat boy, Staren... Him, I would worry about."

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    "Just?" The frost to her voice is enough to chill the air. Now the jester sits herself upright. "Do you even know what she did?" And for a moment, it looks like the murderous clown readies to launch herself into a tirade. But she squelches it- gripping the branch in one hand with a strength firm enough to make it creak- threaten to crack even. A deep, steeling, breath and she resumes drumming her fingers on the branch once again.
    "Justice withered and died in my Equestria. When Ponyville flooded and everyone drowned. When Rainbow Dash turned into the greatest military commander in this history of Cloudsdale. When Applejack became warlord of the plains. Fluttershy lost her kindness. When Rarity was -broken-." Hissed frigidly before she rolls onto her back.
    "Killing her won't bring anything back. But. If Harmony is broken because of the Element Bearers, then I guess the only way to fix it is to get rid of them isn't it." She scoffs.
    "Staren. I like that one but at the same time he's..." A grunt and she stares at her palms. "The other Twilight... I can only hope she doesn't turn into that. I had a perfectly good chance, you know- to strangle her in her sleep. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Noh (178) has posed:
    Noh is quiet, she listens, she nods. She inhales, and exhales, before slowly moving to stand. She shakes her head. "I do not think Justice is dead. But I do think there is something wrong with your world. I do hope though, that in trying to find it, you will not lose who you really are," She pauses, and then looks up at the Jester, giving her an odd smile. "... I think, I would be sad, to see a Trickster lose themselves. We are so few, the true ones, the ones who can keep quiet." Noh pauses, then holds the Card up, "I think, I will keep this." She says, softly, tucking the card away. Then, shoving her hands in her pockets, she starts to walk slowly away, only to pause in thought again.

    "... You could not kill that Twilight... And it is that which makes me know, you are not a Monster."

    She mms softly, "... We all have our demons... When you come to terms, to work in coexistance with yours... You will be surprised, what you are capable of. And that is when the Story really _will_ get interesting.." And then, slowly, the Dhampir walksinto the dark, heading for the town.

Pinkie (470) has posed:
    "I sang to her... Because I wanted her to know hat when she died that it was a ghost of Ponyville that killed her."
    This time though, Pinkamena does not roll over to face the Dhampir. "It's funny because it's sad. I've already lost who I am. Why do you think I wear a mask?"