Post by Vyn on Feb 26, 2011 20:31:23 GMT -5
Characters: Jovan, some Kamina and Nico
Word Count: 1074
Reader's Note: Warning for excessive amounts of angst and bad writing.
Jovan woke in a cold sweat.
The sheets around him were covered in a thick coagulated blood and his empty stomach knotted painfully in fear. He rolled out of bed and threw the dirtied sheets from his bed before retreating to the shower. This had become his ritual.
Pitiful.
The water was bitterly cold but he welcomed the sting of the icy water. It snapped him out of sleep, erased the nightmares and, for a moment, silenced the voices of fear and doubt that had plagued him ever since that horrible day.
Suffocating in that horrible ink, Jovan had momentarily been assaulted by his own doubts and fears. Though they were not new to him, they were louder than they had ever been before. In the past they had driven him, furthered his desire to prove them wrong, but now they seemed to cripple him. He could no longer shrug them off as the paranoid delusions of a perfectionist mind because they were becoming true.
In his mind, the pivotal moment was the very moment he fell from the monster.
His paws had leaked a strange ink and, in it, he had discovered his new and constant companion. In it, he had discovered his own potential for monstrosity. All those years of fighting what he feared to be fate had failed him in one spectacular moment:
He was becoming a monster.
From that day onward everything was a reminder. An outburst of anger or fear or, on the worst occasions, even pain and he would begin to leak once more. This time, however, it was not ink but blood. It spread around him, even dripped down the walls, and not only terrified everyone around him to the point of fleeing but also left him trembling and weak in the knees for hours after. It was the same terrifying curse that woke him up night after nightmare plagued night to send him stumbling to the shower shaking and covered in blood.
So here he sat and the doubts spun round and round in his head like a record on a victrola.
If he really was a monster, was he fit to be a King? What if he failed everyone? What if he went insane? What if everything his Aunt had told him had been true?
A quiet burbling from just outside the shower slowly pulled him out of his spiraling self-loathing and he turned to stare at the Blobling. As it always was, the inky little creature sat on the shower's edge just outside the reach of the water. Today it was a runny puddle of ink with nothing more than a small head, tiny dripping ears, and two very concerned looking blue eyes. It tilted its head upside down before the eyes floated back to the top of its 'head'. Jovan wanted to hide from those eyes and the horrible reminders it brought with it but instead he found himself slipping down to the floor of the shower with his head rested where the creature could snuggle up against him without fear of the water. It crooned in a manner he was certain was supposed to be reassuring.
Despite himself he smiled.
The inkling continued to stare at him with large questioning eyes until he started to feel guilty for simply laying around in the shower as the day pushed on without him. Already the light was shining in through the window. He sighed and nudged the little thing away. "Alright. I understand, Rorschach. No more self-pity." Was the little thing taking lessons from Kamina or something?
Keeping busy seemed to be the key to his sanity. He moved quickly from the shower and straight to the day's work, stopping only to drop off his bloodied sheets in the laundry room. The Court was still struggling to recover from the chaos of those horrible days but Jovan thrived beneath the workload. He was helping and when he was helping he didn't have to think about his flaws or anything else, really.
Perhaps that was why he forgot all about the brief letter that had arrived to announce his brother would be stopping by for a visit. It would be the first time since the incident that they had gotten the chance to see each other. In the first few days, it had been all that kept him going. As the weeks progressed and work became more demanding, he managed to forget all about it until a warm cry haled him.
"Jovan!"
A surge of joy filled the young King instantly and he turned to see the adorable four-eyed deer prancing across the otherwise empty Garden. After so much horror and confusion, nothing could've warmed his heart more fully than seeing Nico.
Through drug-laced glasses, the scene before her eyes played out like an abused cliche in every fairy tale she'd ever read. Two brothers rushed to greet each other in a backdrop of glorious sunlight and red red roses. Yet, as they met and embraced in a tangle of limbs and tentacles, the fairy tale melted away into nightmares. The look on Jovan's face could've turned sunlight in shadows and he recoiled a few steps from the fragile-looking deer boy.
"N-Nico," she could hear from her sunny patch "Nico! You're bleeding!"
A tentacle reached out to touch the blood that was seeping from Nico's four very wide eyes. "Wha--?" He didn't get much further before the scary stuff began to seep around from the ground around Jovan. Nico was frozen in horror as the rose garden turned into a nightmare of blood. He looked from the blood to his brother, mouth open with words left unspoken before shaking his head terror and turning to flee the rose garden.
Jovan wailed something unintelligible but she was fairly certain it was the boy's name but he was left staring at the emptiness where his brother had been and looking as if all the world had just ended before his very strange eyes.
Because Jovan had told her to, she waited for a long time for the scary ick to fade away and then slowly made her way out of the patch of roses she'd been napping in.
"Don't worry Jovan. You're the knight in shining armor. You'll always think of something even if it takes a while." When he turned to watch her approach there was a sort of hopelessness in his eyes that did not belong there. Without hesitation she leaned in to lick his cheek. "This isn't a story. It doesn't have to end in tears."
Word Count: 1074
Reader's Note: Warning for excessive amounts of angst and bad writing.
Musings of the White Knight
Jovan woke in a cold sweat.
The sheets around him were covered in a thick coagulated blood and his empty stomach knotted painfully in fear. He rolled out of bed and threw the dirtied sheets from his bed before retreating to the shower. This had become his ritual.
Pitiful.
The water was bitterly cold but he welcomed the sting of the icy water. It snapped him out of sleep, erased the nightmares and, for a moment, silenced the voices of fear and doubt that had plagued him ever since that horrible day.
Suffocating in that horrible ink, Jovan had momentarily been assaulted by his own doubts and fears. Though they were not new to him, they were louder than they had ever been before. In the past they had driven him, furthered his desire to prove them wrong, but now they seemed to cripple him. He could no longer shrug them off as the paranoid delusions of a perfectionist mind because they were becoming true.
In his mind, the pivotal moment was the very moment he fell from the monster.
His paws had leaked a strange ink and, in it, he had discovered his new and constant companion. In it, he had discovered his own potential for monstrosity. All those years of fighting what he feared to be fate had failed him in one spectacular moment:
He was becoming a monster.
From that day onward everything was a reminder. An outburst of anger or fear or, on the worst occasions, even pain and he would begin to leak once more. This time, however, it was not ink but blood. It spread around him, even dripped down the walls, and not only terrified everyone around him to the point of fleeing but also left him trembling and weak in the knees for hours after. It was the same terrifying curse that woke him up night after nightmare plagued night to send him stumbling to the shower shaking and covered in blood.
So here he sat and the doubts spun round and round in his head like a record on a victrola.
If he really was a monster, was he fit to be a King? What if he failed everyone? What if he went insane? What if everything his Aunt had told him had been true?
A quiet burbling from just outside the shower slowly pulled him out of his spiraling self-loathing and he turned to stare at the Blobling. As it always was, the inky little creature sat on the shower's edge just outside the reach of the water. Today it was a runny puddle of ink with nothing more than a small head, tiny dripping ears, and two very concerned looking blue eyes. It tilted its head upside down before the eyes floated back to the top of its 'head'. Jovan wanted to hide from those eyes and the horrible reminders it brought with it but instead he found himself slipping down to the floor of the shower with his head rested where the creature could snuggle up against him without fear of the water. It crooned in a manner he was certain was supposed to be reassuring.
Despite himself he smiled.
The inkling continued to stare at him with large questioning eyes until he started to feel guilty for simply laying around in the shower as the day pushed on without him. Already the light was shining in through the window. He sighed and nudged the little thing away. "Alright. I understand, Rorschach. No more self-pity." Was the little thing taking lessons from Kamina or something?
Keeping busy seemed to be the key to his sanity. He moved quickly from the shower and straight to the day's work, stopping only to drop off his bloodied sheets in the laundry room. The Court was still struggling to recover from the chaos of those horrible days but Jovan thrived beneath the workload. He was helping and when he was helping he didn't have to think about his flaws or anything else, really.
Perhaps that was why he forgot all about the brief letter that had arrived to announce his brother would be stopping by for a visit. It would be the first time since the incident that they had gotten the chance to see each other. In the first few days, it had been all that kept him going. As the weeks progressed and work became more demanding, he managed to forget all about it until a warm cry haled him.
"Jovan!"
A surge of joy filled the young King instantly and he turned to see the adorable four-eyed deer prancing across the otherwise empty Garden. After so much horror and confusion, nothing could've warmed his heart more fully than seeing Nico.
Through drug-laced glasses, the scene before her eyes played out like an abused cliche in every fairy tale she'd ever read. Two brothers rushed to greet each other in a backdrop of glorious sunlight and red red roses. Yet, as they met and embraced in a tangle of limbs and tentacles, the fairy tale melted away into nightmares. The look on Jovan's face could've turned sunlight in shadows and he recoiled a few steps from the fragile-looking deer boy.
"N-Nico," she could hear from her sunny patch "Nico! You're bleeding!"
A tentacle reached out to touch the blood that was seeping from Nico's four very wide eyes. "Wha--?" He didn't get much further before the scary stuff began to seep around from the ground around Jovan. Nico was frozen in horror as the rose garden turned into a nightmare of blood. He looked from the blood to his brother, mouth open with words left unspoken before shaking his head terror and turning to flee the rose garden.
Jovan wailed something unintelligible but she was fairly certain it was the boy's name but he was left staring at the emptiness where his brother had been and looking as if all the world had just ended before his very strange eyes.
Because Jovan had told her to, she waited for a long time for the scary ick to fade away and then slowly made her way out of the patch of roses she'd been napping in.
"Don't worry Jovan. You're the knight in shining armor. You'll always think of something even if it takes a while." When he turned to watch her approach there was a sort of hopelessness in his eyes that did not belong there. Without hesitation she leaned in to lick his cheek. "This isn't a story. It doesn't have to end in tears."
