pheasantboy | [ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

While Goro's investigations were one thing... she had her own ways. Mementos's presence made her feel uneasy. It hadn't been all that long, after all, since the Usurper had risen from its depths and nearly destroyed the people she most held dear, and here it was again, back.

Yaldabaoth's presence did not lay at the bottom, feasting like a tick upon humanity's desires, but there was something near the bottom, powerful and angry, and it bore looking into.

So she stepped through the layers, to where she knew it lurked. Vicious, and bloodthirsty, so much so she could almost taste it on the air- but not the Reaper, not the creature more famous for stalking these tunnels. Familiar, though, somehow...

Renée made her approach, unconcerned by the apparent danger.

And right at the bottom, so far down that you pass through Yaldabaoth's Hall of the Grail and start going up again, as far as you can possibly go, sits a Shadow.

He doesn't discorporate, as he usually would when they come after him. No, this one's different; he knows it. He watches her approach on the flickering screens around him, back pressed to the nest of cables running out to the Palace; when she emerges from the elevators, he meets her eye, tired as hell. Not Lavenza, who he remembers, no—but like Lavenza.

"What do you want?" He isn't a Shadow either, not really. More like most of a boy, trapped by a Shadow's constraints.

There was a moment of understanding, as she beheld what was before her... and, in the moment that followed, a sadness she couldn't quite keep from her face.

"I felt a strong presence in the area and felt it would be a good idea to investigate, that's all. I have something of a personal vendetta against the sorts of creatures that lurk at the bottom of Mementos... but it seems it's nothing like what I was worried about."

What the shit? He erupts to his feet, shimmering and blurring and losing his form. "You came down here just to pity me? Fuck you, then! You're all alike, pulling strings to watch us dance!"

0ver and over and over. Like the thing that brought him here. Like Shido. Like that god he never even met. Like... and he screams again, not at her, discorporating outward before collapsing in a limp heap. He certainly rages like a Shadow.

"I didn't even know you were down here, Goro," she replied, a touch testily- but she stepped off the platform and onto the tracks just the same.

"If you really want to know, I was worried that some of Yaldabaoth's stink remained in this place. Fortunately, that's not the case."

Huh. So she didn't even come here for him. He pulls a little tighter into his knot on the gleaming floor, sending her a yellow-eyed glare from beneath his hair.

He doesn't want to think about that god. That's like... he doesn't want to think about it, so he won't.

"You're full of shit. All you people are. You might be strong, but I'm still the danger here." All right, maybe not to her. He wants her to stay away, to come close; to fight him, whoever and whatever she is. Anything that will feed him.

"You're right, of course. I, after all, am only a danger to those who would challenge me. You, on the other hand..."

She knelt, some distance away. Close enough, but a respectful distance. "I think, if you couldn't sense what I was, you'd be trying to kill me, right now. What happened to you?"

It's like goading an animal at the zoo. He won't bear her simpering, her pity, her lies and presumption!— all of it burns on what passes for his skin. Hissing and blurring, he tries to recoil back into the cables behind him, but there's nowhere to go.

With a shudder and a scream, he disincorporates into a black mist that melts into their surroundings and is gone. The room shakes around her. But any human navigator could tell he's still there, shuddering in the walls.

What did happen to him? And why does he want to tell her so badly?

That... stung. It hurt, seeing him like that, even if he and her Guest weren't the same person-

She knew firsthand what Goro Akechi could be. This feral, half-mad creature...

"I know you're more 'you' than any Shadow should be. I can tell that much. What I want to know is... why? What on earth caused this? Goro... please. You don't have anything to fear from me. You may not be the same person as my own Guest... but I am still sworn to help you, however I can."

His voice echoes from the walls around her, as the gleaming floor shakes, and the cables clatter. I don't need your help! I don't NEED ANYONE!

And yet, she held her ground. "You're not going to scare me off, Goro."

Her amber eyes scanned the tunnels... and, with exaggerated care, she placed a small bottle upon the floor. Barely enough to hold a few swallows of a silver-white liquid that glowed, faintly, in the dim light. A few precious mouthfuls of soma.

And then she sat down against the opposite wall. Simply waiting.

... goddammit to fucking hell. His entire being quivers in the walls. As if he's so easy as to be tempted out by such a common trick.

But it shines. He remembers thinking how attractive soma was, the one time he saw it—not that it had been wasted on him. He saw what it did, though. And he's... so hungry. In silence, the black mist he became drips out of the walls, coalescing around the soma, bottle and all. The mass glows for a moment, for the briefest of seconds. And then he reforms, in the shape of a boy; her boy.

Except for the yellow eyes, of course, and the hate still graven on his face—even if the edge has been taken off it. He lies there on the cold floor, soothed as much as he can be, watching her like an owl would watch.

"What do you want? Not that shit about wanting to hear my story. I mean, what do you really want?"

She let him settle, let him make the approach- and didn't move, until he asked.

"My name is Renée. I am... a Velvet Attendant, assigned to Goro Akechi. I attend. The fact that the one I first met is a different person from you is... a distinction I don't consider to be a difference. Therefore... I feel a need to help you, if I can."

He'd figured as much. A Velvet Attendant—is that what they call themselves, given there's clearly more than one?—like Lavenza.

His gloves claw silently against the floor, like a cat's paws kneading; they feel as much part of him as his face. "I've lost count of the number of you who want to help me, and none of you have the guts. You certainly don't have what it takes."

To kill him, that travesty walking on earth that stole his name and his body. It's self-evident.

Ah.

Her expression softened, slightly. "Would you like me to kill you, Goro Akechi? To do so is certainly within my power. But... that is not a solution."

She sighed, closing her eyes. "Perhaps if I understood your full nature, we could find one. And if I exhaust all options and find no solution... I know that my Guest would rather death, than slavery. If there is no alternative, I will grant you this peace."

And his eyes go wide, wide, wide with wanting, as he props himself up on one arm. It would be so easy to accept her pity, to take what she offers. But then what of that fucking thing that claims to be him? And who knows better than he does what it means to kill a Shadow?

Plus, he didn't defy Maruki just to bow and scrape to another powerful entity, did he? His face screws up in determined distaste. "You'd have a price. I'm a Shadow, not an idiot! Besides, what happens to my ego"—the part of him that walks above, the conscious mind—"if you kill me? That's no solution."

"No," she replied. "It isn't. But if it would free you- I would offer it willingly. No price. I would only ask... that you allow me to explore other options, first. That would violate my oaths... but I made the decision already that they don't matter to me as much as you do."

"Don't say that shit!" It's almost the worst thing to endure, all these intimations that she cares. Nobody cares about him; that much he understands. Ren proved—

Disbelieving, he waits for the explosion. It doesn't come; he mutters almost to himself, testing the memory of Ren like it's a bad tooth. "Huh. That's strange."

She tilted her head, curious. "What's strange, if I may ask?"

The Shadow draws itself up into a ball, peering at her, wide-eyed and mistrustful.

"Him. That piece of shit. Ren Amamiya." He spits the name like a curse. "I can't usually think about him. What did you do?"

Edited 2024-02-07 00:45 (UTC)

Her brow furrowed again, honest confusion crossing her face. "Nothing. Why wouldn't you be able to think about..."

Her eyes widened. There it was, plain as day, really. The description of the one that was 'pleasant and sweet', which had been so at odds with everything she knew. The cognitive control room around them. The pain, the rage, the complete unwillingness to trust- it settled in her gut like ice, sick and wrong and she couldn't... keep the visceral horror from her face.

It wasn't possible. It didn't compute. That boy had saved her father. Lavenza thought the world of him, surely- surely there was no conceivable universe in which he'd-

"What did he do to you..."

Oh, it's so funny, the horror on her face as she begins to understand. It will delight him to tell her the truth, to submit himself again to what he knows now to have been one of the greatest of his delusions.

Though he laughs at first, his outrage builds as he speaks. "What, did you know him? Did you think he was a good boy? A sweet little Trickster?" Unable to contain himself, he comes close to losing his form. "He's weak! Pathetic! He never had what it takes, and he left me to pay the price!"

Edited 2024-02-07 01:00 (UTC)

"No, I... never met him. I only knew of him secondhand, but..." Goro's Magician. How could such a relationship have gone so disastrously wrong? "Whatever. The case was for us, the Trickster was wrong to do that to you. And I am so. sorry. That you have suffered under that man's control like this. I will-"

She inhaled. Calmed herself. "I can't take that back. I can't undo what's been done, nor would I ever want to take that away from you. But I could never let this- let you- continue in this state. If there's a way to your freedom... I will help you find it, if I can."

The whole of him trembles at her words, black-gloved hands forming claws as if he wants to rip the floor apart.

"There's only one way out. You know that. No matter what I do, I'll never be free again." He laughs quietly. "No more than I deserve, of course."

"Yes, well, that's bullshit. There's going to be something we can do. I know of at least one Shadow who manifested a human form all his own. This is possible, Goro. I don't know exactly how, just yet... but there will be a way. I could also talk to my Guest about this. He's..."

She hesitated, for a moment, considering how to approach the topic. "He's come from a background very similar to yours. He would understand, I think, better than most, and want to help you as well."

[ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

Oh boy here goes a fucking mistake

WHY HELLO come into my cognitive control room

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