[ all right. she makes a mental note to not approach strange coffins as vampires trap the things. it makes sense when she thinks about it but she never considered it before. ]
I don’t do pets so… [ she trails off with a shrug. pets were a lot of work and she often forgets to care for herself after all. a pet, as much as she kind of wanted something cute to cuddle, would just be a new stress.
she leans down next to the couch and scoops up a small brown teddy bear. she smiles down at its little face and rubs it’s left ear between her index and thumb. ]
My parents got this for me when my nightmares got worse and I started to sleep walk. It used to be really bad —— dangerous, actually.
I was being called to. The other part of my soul was reaching out to me and I’d try to get to it. [ she shakes her head as if she knows how that all sounds without a real explanation but she continues ] I don’t get the call anymore because we’re one again but… whenever I deal with a lot of stress, the nightmares get worse.
I start to see them when I’m awake, D. Sometimes it’s just split seconds of the other world, like it’s waiting for me to open it up again, but other times it can last until someone snaps me out of it. [ it’s obvious she’s been meaning to bring this up to him but it seems especially important if she’s going to be staying in his weird extra dimensional coffin. ]
[D can understand the concept of the other part of a soul reaching out. While not exactly the same, the connection created between Nobles and their bite victims can cause a similar tether that draws one to the other.
He's quiet for several long moments before he speaks again.]
I have some questions if you feel up to answering. If not, we can go and you can get some rest.
[That's not an easy thing to do without killing someone. Becoming one again couldn't have been easy or pleasant either.]
I figured as much. [ she wouldn’t have brought any of this up if she wasn’t prepared for questions. she presses the stuffed animal against her chest, still idly rubbing at it with her fingers. ] Shoot, and I’ll answer the best I can.
[ she plops down onto the couch and looks up at him expectantly. ]
[ Sharon chews at the skin on her inner cheek for a long, thoughtful moment as she tries to find the right words to explain. It’s hard. she’s told very few people here in Trench and she thought it would get easier but each time felt like the first time, words catching in her throat and reopening wounds she knew would never fully heal. ]
That memory you saw, of the burning? When Christabella called me the whelp of the demon, she wasn’t completely wrong. [ it stung to admit. it felt a lot like saying it was all her fault (and she knew it was). ] They’d burned my other self alive when she was nine all for the great sin of being born. Her burning was meant to be some cleansing [ there’s a great bitterness in her words and her face twists up with a flash of pure hatred ] a ritualistic sacrifice to stop a great evil but the reality was they’d burned a child alive for their own amusement and she lashed out.
She tapped into all the hurt and rage and trapped them all in the other world, a world full of monsters just like them so they could feel even an ounce of the pain and fear they’d put me through. [ here, she slips from third person to first but doesn’t seem to notice and reverts directly after. truthfully, the third person explanation is more for his benefit than her own. she is that little girl and always has been. ] But she was as trapped as they were. Unable to move. Or speak. Suffering endlessly, body never healing, pain never ending, rage always building.
It took its toll. She thought some part of her deserved to be free from the endlessness of Silent Hill, from the endlessness of The Order and her vengeance, and so she split her soul apart. She took out all she thought was good and put it out into the world in the form of a newborn.
Me. [ that was longer than she’d meant it to be so she gives it a moment for him to process all the new information. ]
[That is so very different from anything D would have guessed. Ghosts who die in terrible and unjust circumstances are stronger and more vengeful, but the ability to split themselves and have that part be reborn isn't something he's heard of before.]
She was wrong about you. I've seen true demons, they're not uncommon where I'm from. Whatever you are or aren't, you aren't a demon.
[Still, this is very different from anything he expected it will take him some time to think about it.]
And you're together again, so all of you made it out of there.
[ she’s not sure whether she agrees with him or not — you get called something so often you eventually begin to believe it — but it does seem to provide her some hint of comfort. she pulls her legs up onto the couch as if to make herself smaller. ]
She never wanted us to merge. It’s what the Order had wanted since they’d learned that I existed. I was meant to live a life free of the suffering she took on for me and she would stay there torturing the Order and keep them trapped there. [ the Order did a good job torturing one another, though. they’d grown so rabid in their faith they turned on one another for the slightest sign of corruption or sin. ]
But they’d found ways to get out for little bits of time using strange blood rituals I still don’t understand. They’d hunted for my dad and I since after Rose had rescued me from that burning in the church. We were on the run for nine years before they caught us and they took my dad, not me.
I had to go back willingly. [ more because they’d grown to fear even her as Sharon. ] And I’d do anything for my dad. So I did. And when Alessa found out, she was so angry and afraid that she was willing to kill me to keep us from them but she couldn’t.
I forced us to merge, giving the Order exactly what they’d wanted: the vessel for their god. Incubator is the term Claudia used. [ the word is flinched out like it’s some still fresh wound. not mother not vessel, she was meant to be an incubator. ]
Luckily, she underestimated me, I saved my dad and Vincent and then I wound up here. [ it’s all much more complicated than how she explained it but she was trying to keep a very long story as brief as she could while relaying the important pieces. ]
[D isn't one to show affection, but comfort is something he can do. With Sharon curling herself up to appear smaller and talking about something so difficult, he's not going to withhold what little bit of comfort he has to offer. When she's done speaking again, D lays his sword and its sheath across his lap and reaches over with his left arm to put it around her shoulders.
He knew she had been through a lot but he hadn't known the extent of it. That's the kind of thing that would be rare or strange to hear even in his dimension where monsters and supernatural rituals are common.]
You must have a very strong will to have accomplished all that.
I just have one more question. When did your guardian begin to exist.
[ the touch comes unexpected and she tenses instinctively but that tightness fades in a single breath and she leans lightly back into it. she knows D well enough to know he’s a man of distance and she appreciates the touch because, despite her tendency to force distance herself, she is big on touch and affection. given all she’s experienced in life, it’s no surprise she likes to feel that someone cares.
she looks to him with a thoughtfulness in her shadowed blue eyes, lower lip tucked between her teeth as she thinks. ] I’m not sure. [ her gaze turns distant as she wracks her memories for an answer ] My memories from back then, they’re hazy; indistinct. Most of them are… are just feelings.
It’s possible he was created the moment I forced the world to change. I mean, a lot of that plane is just a reflection of me and my suffering and I’d needed someone, anyone, to help me.
And I wanted them all to hurt so badly. I didn’t want my pain to stop, I just wanted them to suffer too. [ there’s shame there but it’s minute. she’ll never regret her actions, not completely. they deserved what happened to them. ]
If you can't remember it you might have blocked it out to protect yourself.
[D has had people cry on him before and he doesn't mind. He wouldn't mind if Sharon leaned on him for that but doesn't think she will. So he's offering the touch he wouldn't normally volunteer.]
You might still have a connection to that place instead of merely remembering it. It was the place where you suffered, and so when you suffer your mind is drawn there or to those memories.
[Sharon's guardian makes D think she's still connected, but he's not quite ready to voice those theories.]
Maybe. [ it’s something she’s considered before. there are gaps in her memory. she’s always chalked it up to how much was happening. between the relentless physical pain her body was going through post-burning to the mental anguish, it made sense to her that some things got lost. but it’s possible that some of her actions back then had scarred her more than she could handle. ]
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. [ she whispers like it’s some fearful thing or a dangerous secret the rest of the world shouldn’t be privy to ] I sometimes wonder if it’s with me, that wherever I exist it exists. That maybe one day something will happen here and push me over some imaginary ledge and I’ll drag the people here into that hell.
[ that frightens her as much as it comforts her and the comfort she feels disturbs her. ]
I can't say that's impossible, but it's not as dire as it sounds.
The odds that no one here has an ability that could get us out are very low.
[D could probably do it, but Sharon's connection to this place make his options risky to her in this hypothetical situation.]
We can work on exploring your connection to your guardian and the other world if that's something you want, but that's a path that might leave you unable to return to how you are now.
But they’ll see, D. [ her words are still a whisper and her eyes are wet and wide, the fear in them plain. ] They’ll see what I am there.
[ her fear is less that people will be trapped there and more the possible judgement that would come after. the looks. the whispers. even the faintest possibility that she’ll be seen like Alessa had been, a demon and a monster and the living embodiment of sin, makes her heart start to race and palms sweat. ]
I don’t want to be seen as a monster again and I’m afraid that’s what I am. If I open that place up, that’s what I’ll be again.
[ as he finishes speaking, Sharon holds his gaze, blue eyes searching his features for any sign of falsities as if it’s an action she can’t help, a distrust she can’t shake even after all these years. she’s only ever confided these fears to Rose and even then she’d fretted. when she finds none, her expression breaks apart, fear unfurling into an amalgamation of sorrow and relief.
tears pool at the corners of her vision and before she starts to cry she launches herself forward to wrap her arms around him in a desperate embrace; clinging to him, burying her face. ]
[ no sobs wrack her body; she doesn’t shake as she weeps. her tears are nearly silent and she lets them go until she has no more left inside. even with no more tears left, she remains pressed against him, clinging. she’s always kept her expectations of others in check, careful to never have too much faith in them. Dahlia made sure her trust would be tenuous with even those she’s grown to care for, always expecting some betrayal or abandonment in the back of her mind.
Rose and Chris had given her fresh faith, however, and D has helped strengthen that faith.
after a time, she finally pulls back, cheeks still damp, eyes puffy. she avoids eye contact now, almost as if she were ashamed of herself. she rubs the fabric of her pajamas between index and thumb in an anxious manner, eyes downcast. ]
Sorry. [ she forces the apology out, the word tight. ] I guess I’m… I’m feeling worse than I thought.
[ between the grief and the exhaustion and relief brought on by D’s words, she’s drained. ]
If you have everything you need we can go. Don't go to the upper floors of the tower uninvited. My other guest is worried he'll accidentally harm people.
[He expects Sharon to give Nico enough space. He's seen the two of them talking, and she of all people can understand the worry of power going out of her control and harming others.]
The second floor and everything below it are free to use.
[ were she feeling even a little okay, she may have pressed him about his other guest or playfully joked about her habit of breaking rules. instead, she just nods numbly before she stands up. ]
I’ll grab my shit. Give me a minute. [ she exits the living room with a shuffle and, by the creaking sounds of the staircase, heads upstairs. it only takes a few minutes before she stumbles back down them, a leather bag slung over a shoulder, stuffed hastily with clothes and various essentials and one very old, very powerful seal she’d never feel safe leaving out of her sight for long.
when she returns to the living room, she scoops up a worn teddy bear that had been nestled under her blankets and shoves it, too, into her bag. ]
Right. I’m… I guess I’m ready. [ the idea of staying somewhere else feels strange. she knows she won’t be gone forever, maybe not even for long, but somehow it still manages to make her feel heavy; emotional. ]
[D waits patiently and doesn't go poking around Sharon's home. There's no reason.]
Let's go.
[He leads Sharon out. The coffin has been moved around a few times over the past month but the house it's in now is a close enough walk from its nearest lamp post.
The inside of the coffin is ornate and very gothic in its style, for all that the tower and its surrounding garden also manage the feel of a nice summer home in the mountains. It's always daylight inside, but with the magical sleep D will be putting Sharon under that won't really matter.]
[ even in her grief, she still somehow manages to get a little starry-eyed when they enter the coffin. she's never seen anything like it but once she's over her awe (which takes several minutes of curious exploration), she'll finally turn to him. ]
So... how does this sleep work? Does it last a long time?
We can make it shorter, but I had planned for you to sleep until morning.
[Vampires have a tendency to be extravagant in their decoration, and while this coffin is somewhat modest by comparison to a lot of Nobility's tastes it's still very luxurious by most other standards.]
No. No, I think morning is a good idea. [ She really needs as much rest as she can get right now. She's run herself ragged. ] It'll be nice to finally sleep through the night for once.
[ Even when she's not grieving, or in a state of high stress, her sleep is always broken. Nightmares are always on the edge of her consciousness. As she got older, they woke her up much less, but it happens more often than it doesn't.
She'll peek through the rooms on the first floor, still in visible awe. She's never been anywhere quite so nice. She never grew up in squalor but many of the homes Chris could manage to get them into had seen better days. She picks a room and drops her bag into a chair. ] It's not such a bad place you got yourself.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-08-11 11:52 pm (UTC)I don’t do pets so… [ she trails off with a shrug. pets were a lot of work and she often forgets to care for herself after all. a pet, as much as she kind of wanted something cute to cuddle, would just be a new stress.
she leans down next to the couch and scoops up a small brown teddy bear. she smiles down at its little face and rubs it’s left ear between her index and thumb. ]
My parents got this for me when my nightmares got worse and I started to sleep walk. It used to be really bad —— dangerous, actually.
I was being called to. The other part of my soul was reaching out to me and I’d try to get to it. [ she shakes her head as if she knows how that all sounds without a real explanation but she continues ] I don’t get the call anymore because we’re one again but… whenever I deal with a lot of stress, the nightmares get worse.
I start to see them when I’m awake, D. Sometimes it’s just split seconds of the other world, like it’s waiting for me to open it up again, but other times it can last until someone snaps me out of it. [ it’s obvious she’s been meaning to bring this up to him but it seems especially important if she’s going to be staying in his weird extra dimensional coffin. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-12 04:00 am (UTC)He's quiet for several long moments before he speaks again.]
I have some questions if you feel up to answering. If not, we can go and you can get some rest.
[That's not an easy thing to do without killing someone. Becoming one again couldn't have been easy or pleasant either.]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-12 09:48 pm (UTC)[ she plops down onto the couch and looks up at him expectantly. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-13 09:23 am (UTC)How did you get split, and how did you reunite with yourself.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-13 02:16 pm (UTC)That memory you saw, of the burning? When Christabella called me the whelp of the demon, she wasn’t completely wrong. [ it stung to admit. it felt a lot like saying it was all her fault (and she knew it was). ] They’d burned my other self alive when she was nine all for the great sin of being born. Her burning was meant to be some cleansing [ there’s a great bitterness in her words and her face twists up with a flash of pure hatred ] a ritualistic sacrifice to stop a great evil but the reality was they’d burned a child alive for their own amusement and she lashed out.
She tapped into all the hurt and rage and trapped them all in the other world, a world full of monsters just like them so they could feel even an ounce of the pain and fear they’d put me through. [ here, she slips from third person to first but doesn’t seem to notice and reverts directly after. truthfully, the third person explanation is more for his benefit than her own. she is that little girl and always has been. ] But she was as trapped as they were. Unable to move. Or speak. Suffering endlessly, body never healing, pain never ending, rage always building.
It took its toll. She thought some part of her deserved to be free from the endlessness of Silent Hill, from the endlessness of The Order and her vengeance, and so she split her soul apart. She took out all she thought was good and put it out into the world in the form of a newborn.
Me. [ that was longer than she’d meant it to be so she gives it a moment for him to process all the new information. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-14 05:35 am (UTC)She was wrong about you. I've seen true demons, they're not uncommon where I'm from. Whatever you are or aren't, you aren't a demon.
[Still, this is very different from anything he expected it will take him some time to think about it.]
And you're together again, so all of you made it out of there.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-14 12:30 pm (UTC)She never wanted us to merge. It’s what the Order had wanted since they’d learned that I existed. I was meant to live a life free of the suffering she took on for me and she would stay there torturing the Order and keep them trapped there. [ the Order did a good job torturing one another, though. they’d grown so rabid in their faith they turned on one another for the slightest sign of corruption or sin. ]
But they’d found ways to get out for little bits of time using strange blood rituals I still don’t understand. They’d hunted for my dad and I since after Rose had rescued me from that burning in the church. We were on the run for nine years before they caught us and they took my dad, not me.
I had to go back willingly. [ more because they’d grown to fear even her as Sharon. ] And I’d do anything for my dad. So I did. And when Alessa found out, she was so angry and afraid that she was willing to kill me to keep us from them but she couldn’t.
I forced us to merge, giving the Order exactly what they’d wanted: the vessel for their god. Incubator is the term Claudia used. [ the word is flinched out like it’s some still fresh wound. not mother not vessel, she was meant to be an incubator. ]
Luckily, she underestimated me, I saved my dad and Vincent and then I wound up here. [ it’s all much more complicated than how she explained it but she was trying to keep a very long story as brief as she could while relaying the important pieces. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-15 02:45 am (UTC)He knew she had been through a lot but he hadn't known the extent of it. That's the kind of thing that would be rare or strange to hear even in his dimension where monsters and supernatural rituals are common.]
You must have a very strong will to have accomplished all that.
I just have one more question. When did your guardian begin to exist.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-15 07:58 pm (UTC)she looks to him with a thoughtfulness in her shadowed blue eyes, lower lip tucked between her teeth as she thinks. ] I’m not sure. [ her gaze turns distant as she wracks her memories for an answer ] My memories from back then, they’re hazy; indistinct. Most of them are… are just feelings.
It’s possible he was created the moment I forced the world to change. I mean, a lot of that plane is just a reflection of me and my suffering and I’d needed someone, anyone, to help me.
And I wanted them all to hurt so badly. I didn’t want my pain to stop, I just wanted them to suffer too. [ there’s shame there but it’s minute. she’ll never regret her actions, not completely. they deserved what happened to them. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-17 06:48 pm (UTC)[D has had people cry on him before and he doesn't mind. He wouldn't mind if Sharon leaned on him for that but doesn't think she will. So he's offering the touch he wouldn't normally volunteer.]
You might still have a connection to that place instead of merely remembering it. It was the place where you suffered, and so when you suffer your mind is drawn there or to those memories.
[Sharon's guardian makes D think she's still connected, but he's not quite ready to voice those theories.]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-19 02:39 am (UTC)I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. [ she whispers like it’s some fearful thing or a dangerous secret the rest of the world shouldn’t be privy to ] I sometimes wonder if it’s with me, that wherever I exist it exists. That maybe one day something will happen here and push me over some imaginary ledge and I’ll drag the people here into that hell.
[ that frightens her as much as it comforts her and the comfort she feels disturbs her. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-22 06:58 pm (UTC)The odds that no one here has an ability that could get us out are very low.
[D could probably do it, but Sharon's connection to this place make his options risky to her in this hypothetical situation.]
We can work on exploring your connection to your guardian and the other world if that's something you want, but that's a path that might leave you unable to return to how you are now.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 12:40 am (UTC)[ her fear is less that people will be trapped there and more the possible judgement that would come after. the looks. the whispers. even the faintest possibility that she’ll be seen like Alessa had been, a demon and a monster and the living embodiment of sin, makes her heart start to race and palms sweat. ]
I don’t want to be seen as a monster again and I’m afraid that’s what I am. If I open that place up, that’s what I’ll be again.
I don’t want to lose myself to that darkness.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 04:07 pm (UTC)[D is still holding her, he brushes some of the hair hanging down around her face back slightly with a gentle movement from his other hand.]
No one needs that to be a monster. You've seen them. They tell themselves they're doing what's best or make some other excuse for what they do.
I won't tell you not to fear being seen as a monster. It's the life a Dhampir lives, and it's not a pleasant one.
But as long as you're my apprentice I won't let anyone hunt you as a monster. If you lose yourself, I'll bring you back. I promise.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 01:57 am (UTC)tears pool at the corners of her vision and before she starts to cry she launches herself forward to wrap her arms around him in a desperate embrace; clinging to him, burying her face. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-29 04:44 am (UTC)He wraps his both arms around her to hold her close as she hides her face against him.]
no subject
Date: 2022-08-29 11:07 pm (UTC)Rose and Chris had given her fresh faith, however, and D has helped strengthen that faith.
after a time, she finally pulls back, cheeks still damp, eyes puffy. she avoids eye contact now, almost as if she were ashamed of herself. she rubs the fabric of her pajamas between index and thumb in an anxious manner, eyes downcast. ]
Sorry. [ she forces the apology out, the word tight. ] I guess I’m… I’m feeling worse than I thought.
[ between the grief and the exhaustion and relief brought on by D’s words, she’s drained. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 03:02 am (UTC)[D doesn't like the sight of people crying, but he's not going to be the one to tell them not to cry when they need to.]
Are you ready to go get some sleep now? It won't make it all better, but at least you'll be less tired.
[And no nightmares.]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:18 pm (UTC)Yeah. [ a grouping of nods this time ] Yeah, I am. It’s been a while since I’ve looked forward to crashing.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 06:33 pm (UTC)[He expects Sharon to give Nico enough space. He's seen the two of them talking, and she of all people can understand the worry of power going out of her control and harming others.]
The second floor and everything below it are free to use.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 08:08 pm (UTC)I’ll grab my shit. Give me a minute. [ she exits the living room with a shuffle and, by the creaking sounds of the staircase, heads upstairs. it only takes a few minutes before she stumbles back down them, a leather bag slung over a shoulder, stuffed hastily with clothes and various essentials and one very old, very powerful seal she’d never feel safe leaving out of her sight for long.
when she returns to the living room, she scoops up a worn teddy bear that had been nestled under her blankets and shoves it, too, into her bag. ]
Right. I’m… I guess I’m ready. [ the idea of staying somewhere else feels strange. she knows she won’t be gone forever, maybe not even for long, but somehow it still manages to make her feel heavy; emotional. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-14 01:59 am (UTC)Let's go.
[He leads Sharon out. The coffin has been moved around a few times over the past month but the house it's in now is a close enough walk from its nearest lamp post.
The inside of the coffin is ornate and very gothic in its style, for all that the tower and its surrounding garden also manage the feel of a nice summer home in the mountains. It's always daylight inside, but with the magical sleep D will be putting Sharon under that won't really matter.]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-14 03:02 am (UTC)So... how does this sleep work? Does it last a long time?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 06:18 pm (UTC)[Vampires have a tendency to be extravagant in their decoration, and while this coffin is somewhat modest by comparison to a lot of Nobility's tastes it's still very luxurious by most other standards.]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 12:08 am (UTC)[ Even when she's not grieving, or in a state of high stress, her sleep is always broken. Nightmares are always on the edge of her consciousness. As she got older, they woke her up much less, but it happens more often than it doesn't.
She'll peek through the rooms on the first floor, still in visible awe. She's never been anywhere quite so nice. She never grew up in squalor but many of the homes Chris could manage to get them into had seen better days. She picks a room and drops her bag into a chair. ] It's not such a bad place you got yourself.
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