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selfpreservationist) wrote2008-01-24 04:01 pm
selfpreservationist) wrote2008-01-24 04:01 pm
[RAVEN'S HEART GAME - SESSION THREE]
The first thing you hear is the sound of rain faintly hitting the exterior of the house. The soft pitter-patter is almost soothing, in a way, but it’s quickly followed up by rumbling thunder in the distance. You open your eyes, and for a second all you see is a flash of light--at first it seems like it’s lightning, but then you see something. A vision of a man dressed in rags, hunched over, waves of demonic power rolling over him. He howls, and something terrible starts to grow out of him: the bloody roots of a massive tree. An immense wave of panic hits you, and you can’t move, you can’t speak, you can’t breathe--
And then it’s over. It’s over. You’re fine.
The sound of rain returns. (This time it’s definitely soothing, compared to what you just saw.) You’re standing in the foyer of a mansion, a wide open living room in front of you. The door behind you is faintly ajar, leading outside.
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I knew Hana was going to be someone special to me not long after we met. It was not the eccentricity, the bubbly personality, or even the gentle way she coaxed me out of my shell. It was the pain I saw beneath her smile. I recognized it as soon as I saw it: someone with a broken heart, just like mine. I think it only natural that I would gravitate towards that, towards someone who had suffered the kind of pain I’ve always held within me. But neither of us know how to heal our own wounds, and so I think we have both unintentionally caused the other even more pain. For that, I would beg her forgiveness. We both argue that the other one is the sun to our moon, but if she thinks of me as her sun, then I confess I am honored. I just hope I can live up to it, and help her shine the way she’s meant to. And despite our ups and downs, no one makes me laugh quite like she does. No one shatters my glumness like her. I come back to the question she asked me again and again… would I marry her, if I could? Maybe, if we can both find a way to heal. Once, she was my wife in all but name; the queen alongside whom I would reign in the Underworld. But that was a fantasy used as a tourniquet--something to stop the flow of pain coursing through both of us. Now, she doesn’t have to resign herself to ruling Hell, and I don’t have to resign myself to dying. It was uncomfortable to realize that I was using my own resignation as a crutch, and how it soured my feelings towards her. She deserves better than that. I deserve better than that. I don’t want us to rule over the Underworld anymore; I want us to rule as humans, side by side, in a human world that we can thrive and flourish in. She may not be my wife, but she will always be my queen.
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SHE IS.
ABSOLUTELY.
NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW ANY OF THIS.
BUT IF KNOWING HELPS HER FOR WHAT SHE NEEDS TO BE DOING HERE THEN.
you know what she'll just never tell him HOW ABOUT THAT. or maybe she should? NO. THAT WOULD MAKE THINGS WEIRD.]
Dead tides, man.
[let's look at vergil.]
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Ah, Vergil. My Heaven in Hell’s Despair. More of my tears have been shed over him than anyone else. On my worst days, I look at him and feel bitterness rise in the back of my throat. “You rejected me. You abandoned me.” I can think of nothing else, try as I might. On my best days, he is a joy. Sometimes I am filled with the overwhelming urge to hold him in my arms, weak as I may be, and kiss him. I want to tell him that I love him and that I will always love him. Pathetic, isn’t it? But that’s what I am, after all. I am my own man, but nothing will sever my connection to Vergil’s heart. I don’t want to be severed from Vergil’s heart, honestly. As painful as it can be, it is who I am. How I came to be. I don’t want to throw that away, even as I resent him and I cherish him in equal measure. Sometimes I hate that he wants me to be my own person, as it feels like just another way to push me out of his life, like he pushed me out of his body with Yamato. And yet, without that separation, I would never have come to know the man he is now. I would never have come to love him the way I do, if he did not push me. The more he grows, the further away from him I feel… and the deeper I fall for him. What kind of man am I, if not Vergil’s?
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There is something very romantic about the idea of nursing an unrequited love for the rest of one’s days, and if I live long enough to pine for the days of my youth, I’m certain the one thread of lost love I’ll still be clinging onto is Nero’s. I have never been so proud and so ashamed as when I am with Nero. Proud that I could be a part of his life, proud that I could be someone he trusts, proud that I could call such a man my son, proud that I can support him, proud of who he has become and the strength he carries. And ashamed that I have hurt him, ashamed that I cannot banish my desires, ashamed that I cannot push them aside and want what is best for him, ashamed that I prefer to call him my brother instead of my son in the vain, selfish hopes that one day that could be a boundary he would be willing to cross. But these are feelings I’ve accepted, more or less, because more than anything else I want to be there to watch him grow and thrive and live a long, healthy life. If there is one Sparda who deserves everything the world has to offer, it must be Nero. I’ll never forgive anyone who tries to rob him of that right. On my deathbed, if the last thing I saw was Nero’s smile, I could die happily… or I could push myself to live just a little longer. Just to see it for a few seconds more.
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Dante: Originally, it was just a game. Even when I learned of what I am, where I came from, my feelings for Dante were like the shallow depths of a much greater sea I refused to wade further into. Oh, I’ve hated him, resented him, wanted to kill him, just as much as Vergil does, but I’m not as attached to those feelings anymore. How easy was it to bring him low, down to my level, when I saw how he looked at me? And he said it himself--I was everything about Vergil that he liked. So things took a different turn; I craved his attention, his affections, and somewhere along the line it became less of a game… it became something else. Something real. When did I start just enjoying myself around him? When did I start thinking of him as another half of my soul, the way twins should be? When did Dante become someone to seek solace in? I know it’s foolish. I know he shies from that kind of vulnerability just as much as Vergil, even moreso, and yet he comforts me. When I was dying, in my quiet moments of grief, I daydreamed of crawling inside his heart and resting there, safe and protected. If Vergil wouldn’t take back this frail human heart, perhaps Dante would.
Glory: Glory is, in the simplest terms, the greatest gift I’ve ever given to this family. It isn’t fair to take credit for that, and I know it, but I don’t think even she knows why I suggested it to her in the first place. Of course, I felt something in her that resonated with me; call us “kindred spirits” if you like. Of course, I wanted to fill that emptiness she felt. I love her, as my most trusted friend, as my sister, as my lover. But up until recently, I never thought of myself as having a future where I would be part of anyone’s family, not even my own. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust: thus was my fate, eventually. There’s no coming back from such a death, and if Vergil wouldn’t accept me anymore, my soul would just disappear. And I know all too well the damage that would have done. So, I made a contingency plan. Someone to take my place, to mend the hurt, to keep the rest of us fools together. An insurance policy, if you will. Glory was it. In a way, we were both outsiders to the family, but important in our own ways, so I thought she would be perfect. And she was, just not in the way I was prepared for. I should have known, after all; it was her love that saved me. I’m sure I’ll be repaying her for the rest of my life… of our life. Not that I mind. She deserves every ounce of love this world, or any other, has to give. I can only hope being part of this family gives her some sense of fulfillment.
Shrike: Oh, Shrike. My knight in shining armor. Sometimes I don’t know who I’m more envious of: her, or Nero, when I see the way they look at each other. For all her strengths, her compassion and kindness, I have seen the way she barely holds herself together with jagged, broken pieces, and I wish I could be the glue that pieces them back into one. I worry sometimes that I am not what she needs. But I am, after all, a greedy man. And as long as she will hold me in her arms I cannot bring myself to push her away. I’ll take everything she gives me and hoard it like precious gold, vain thing that I am. I’ll fumble through poems for her. I’ll even write my own clumsy verses, just so I can tell her what she means to me and have it mean something. And when her pieces fall again, I’ll hold her and cry with her. I long to see what she looks like walking down that aisle, robed all in white and satin. It is not that I wish to be the one she walks towards, or that I wish I could be her husband. I can only imagine how happy it will make her, and I want to be there to see her flourish, in all her radiant beauty. I want to watch it closely, and cherish the memory for the rest of my days. Like I said: I am, after all, a greedy man.
Noah: I’ll never forget the moment he told me. That his heart belonged to another, one from his world he’d always love and be beholden to, and yet he yearned for me anyway. He wanted me, wanted to cherish me, wanted to love me despite everything. I can think of no higher honor, especially not from someone as devoted as Raha. My Raha. It was a playful thing at first, making claim to him, but as time carried on I went from casually possessive to wanting to be by his side--not just as a lover, but as someone who could help him shoulder whatever burdens he possessed. His kindness, his generosity felt boundless at times, but I saw what the weight of sorrow did to him. For the first time since I awoke in this place, I felt the need to do something for someone else: not for my own sake, but for theirs. I consider myself a selfish, greedy man, but for Raha I learned what it was to be someone’s solace… and for that I can’t thank him enough. I want to be the kind of person he feels he never needs put on airs for. I want to be the kind of man he can confess his feelings to, even the ugly ones. That I’ve succeeded occasionally and seen glimpses of his heart, the parts of himself he’s held in check for so long, is immensely gratifying. Every day I am not with him feels like an ache that’s slowly growing, until it will carve out a hollow core inside me. But perhaps the next time we meet, I’ll have become someone he won’t even hesitate to lean on. Whoever his true love is, I hope they know what fortune they have. I know I certainly do.
I DID AND IT'S GLORIOUS
There was nothing there that she could use, after all. Not to help him, anyway.]
Re: I DID AND IT'S GLORIOUS