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Post by Val on Apr 10, 2020 20:42:37 GMT
Destrian tried to ignore Cyra as he dragged the limp body step by step toward the trees. When they made it into the thick of the woods, he sound a spot where the earth was soft enough to dig and let the man's leg fall back to the ground at an unnatural angle.
Cyra's constant ranting was getting on his already strung out nerves and he rounded on her, his eyes gleaming dangerously, "I'm not your fucking parent!" he yelled at her, "Why don't you try taking some accountability for your actions instead of blaming everyone else for your problems? You became a danger to society, and that's why you're stuck with me and I'm stuck with you. I'm sorry every single day for the things that I've done. Are you sorry?" It felt good to finally raise his voice and shove her accusations back in her face. He was done tiptoeing around Cyra; if she wanted scream, then he would do the same. "You're fucking pathetic."
He turned away from her and drove the shovel into the earth, scooping out a pile of dirt and tossing it in the direction of Cyra's feet, hoping she'd back off. The tether between them was practically humming with energy, as though the magic was waiting to be released in response to the raging emotions. He continued digging rapidly, sweat dripping from his forehead as he tried to get the task done as soon as possible.
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Post by starrea on Apr 10, 2020 23:31:50 GMT
If Destrian thought that she would back off, then he would be disappointed. No matter how loud and how long he yelled, she would always yell louder and longer.
“Trust me, I fucking know you aren’t my parent. I didn’t have any fucking parents and I got stuck with you, and you didn’t even want me so you fucking abandoned me.” She hissed, watching him with a seething glare as he dug the grave. She paused, composing herself a little before pressing on. Her voice wasn’t loud but her words were dripping with years and years of anger.
“Trust me, I know exactly what I did and I don’t blame anyone but myself. I leveled towns and I crushed people. I don’t even know how many lives I’ve destroyed and I don’t care. Why should I when not one single fucking person has ever given a shit about me, not what I did or what I can do? The choices you made shaped me into the person I am today. So if you’re so fucking disappointed and disgusted in me, blame yourself.”
Out of all the times she had thought of Destrian during her time in isolation, she had never once thought she wanted anything other than his suffering and eventually, death. But now words were flying out of her mouth faster than she could process them and she started to realize that underneath it all, maybe she did want something more than vengeance.
“Just stop acting so fucking surprised that I turned out like this. It’s not like I stood to a chance to be anything else.” Cyra finished with less steam than when she started and shifted her weight, staring at the dead man. She couldn’t even really remember his name anymore but he didn’t matter. She felt the bond between them charge with energy and her body begged to break into her smoke form and show Destrian just how strong she was. As usual, the curse tightened around her neck like a pair of hands but she didn’t stop trying until her lungs burned for oxygen. When the pain faded, she did it again and again and again.
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Post by Val on Apr 12, 2020 0:44:31 GMT
"Stop fighting it!" The words exploded from him as Cyra continued to battle the curse over and over again, causing his whole body to react to the point of pain. By the time Cyra finished speaking, Destrian had carved out a shape long enough to fit the dead body. Now, he had to dig deeper. What was the saying? Six feet under? Maybe he could dig deep enough that it would drown Cyra out entirely.
He paused to wipe sweat from his eyes, preparing himself to fire back at her. He had so much to say, it made him feel borderline hysterical, "Oh, trust me. I blame myself for a lot of things, but your fucking murderous rampages are not one of them." He drove the shovel back into the earth, his arms screaming from how quickly he was trying to dig, "You do realize I didn't have any fucking parents either?" He laughed humorlessly and shook his head, "I had no one. I was treated like an experiment; a slave. All because people like you exist."
He was unloading the emotions all at once with no regard for anyone but himself. Was that how Cyra felt all the time? Just spewing complaints about her miserable life until someone took pity? He constantly used his energy to bottle it up inside, but Cyra had managed to push him over the edge. "You want to know the difference between you and I? I try to be better. I want to be better. I'm not surprised you are the way you are- I'm disappointed."
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Post by starrea on Apr 12, 2020 1:33:51 GMT
The only reason Cyra abruptly stopped fighting against the bonds of the curse is because of how desperate Destrian sounded. She hadn’t thought he would have been able to tell, let alone feel, when she tried to push her limitations but something in the way he yelled at her told her otherwise. She watched him continue to dig like a mad man. Hard work had never appealed to her but he kept pushing himself to dig faster and faster.
“I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? You were experimented on because of me and I was locked in a mountain because of you. Call it even.” She drawled, one eyebrow raised in an unimpressed manner as he finally sunk down to her level. Emotional instability wasn’t a good look for him.
After all of these years, she still didn’t know a lot of things about her childhood and the place that brought them together. She hadn’t ever really thought about it or cared much, but since being back she had noticed that it seemed to be a sensitive subject for Destrian. Every time she tried to think back to what happened, her mind drew a blank. She didn’t even remember what happened to her, but Destrian clearly hadn’t forgotten what they did to him. It made her wonder exactly what happened all those years ago.
Her emotions were still flaring but as she watched Destrian tip over the edge, she calmed down every so slightly. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she glared at him, “People like me? Fuck off. I didn’t have a fucking choice. I am what I am. And I also didn’t have a choice when I got dumped on you. It’s not my fucking fault.” She snapped, arms crossed over her chest.
She scoffed, “Take your disappointment and shove it up your ass. You don’t know me or try to know me well enough to earn the right to be disappointed in me. You want to talk about disappointment? I was disappointed when I screamed after you and you kept walking down that damn mountain. I was disappointed when you didn’t come back the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month. But you know what? Being disappointed didn’t change a fucking thing. And now it’s ten years later and I don’t know a fucking thing about this world or how to be a person and you’re still trying to act like you’re this great person with a terrible past but you haven’t actually fixed anything. You’re still the same piece of shit who left me ten years ago.” Her voice was low and deadly, eyes burning into the back fo Destrian’s head as he dug.
“I bet you can’t even give me one good reason to change, and your moral bullshit doesn’t count.” She challenged, only because she knew there wasn’t one. In the end, she knew Destrian wouldn’t give her what she wanted. It would have been smarter to walk away but Cyra couldn’t. As much as she hated him, Destrian was the only person she had in her life and after spending ten years alone, she needed him.
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Post by Val on Apr 13, 2020 2:12:21 GMT
Destrian had fallen silent again, trying and failing to ignore her incessant talking. He was already burnt out on arguing, but Cyra never did seem to get tired of hearing her own voice. The pile of discarded dirt was growing beside him and his muscles began to scream from the relentless activity. He wanted to keep going, but his fingers refused and he ended up dropping the shovel. He slumped to the ground, sitting on the edge of the shallow grave and staring into the upturned earth.
"I know what I did. I know who I am. But if I give up on trying to be better, then what's the point?" His voice was quieter now and he hung his head, causing his dark hair to shroud his face in shadows. He looked like he wanted to say more, but stopped himself, already disgusted with himself for stooping to her level. Perhaps they should call it even. After all, neither of them deserved pity or anything else from one another. It was beginning to seem like they were on even playing ground with the amount of animosity they held for each other. There was no point in placing blame.
He turned in response to her challenge, staring at her with his unsettling dark eyes, "Do it for yourself. You have to find meaning in your own life, I can't do that for you. You say you don't know how to be a person; well, now you can learn." He glanced toward the corpse, his eyes narrowing, "This is not how you become a person."
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Post by starrea on Apr 13, 2020 4:05:36 GMT
Winning the argument wasn’t as sweet a victory as Cyra had imagined. Destrian was already exhausted from trying to out-hate her but Cyra was just getting started. She watched him crumble from both physical and mental strain, finally giving in and collapsing into the grave he had dug. The heaviness that Destrian shouldered seemed to be contagious and most of Cyra’s red hot rage simmered down.
Cyra rolled her eyes at Destrian’s words, clearly unimpressed. What was the point of being better if she had no one to be better for? Especially since she clearly had a little bit of a moral defect and didn’t care enough to do it for herself. In fact, she was quite comfortable with who she was and what she did. Change wasn’t something she would have ever considered had it not been for that little bothersome curse that tied her to him.
“You’re doing a crap job,” She deadpanned, but she wasn’t yelling anymore, “what I’ve done has never bothered me. I’m okay with what I am. So what do I do if I don’t want to change? Because I don’t have meaning in my life or anyone who gives a damn about me, least of all you.” Her accusation wasn’t as hostile as she was before, but rather just stated as a truth. She followed his gaze to the dead body, shrugging, “His death was more significant than his life. He showed me how easy it was to manipulate men. It doesn’t really take much. If he’s lucky, he’ll have someone who misses him. But he doesn’t look lucky to me, and I’m willing to bet that no one noticed that the world has one less person on it.”
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Post by Val on Apr 14, 2020 3:13:39 GMT
It wasn't so much the man himself that mattered; it was the guilt that Destrian would now have to shoulder. It was a mental tick mark to his innocent body count list, which had long been dormant until Cyra showed up.
He shook his head absently, feeling as though he were reasoning with a brick wall. He didn't really care what Cyra valued; that was her problem. "Then find someone to care about. That's what I did," he responded. If she was capable of caring about someone other than herself, then maybe that's where she would find peace. If not, it wasn't his problem. He had enough to deal with without stacking Cyra's problems on top of his own.
Destrian stood back up, taking a deep breath as he picked up the shovel. He cast one last glance at the body before continuing to dig at a more reasonable pace. He wished that Cyra would meet someone capable of putting her in her place. Weak men like Owen didn't stand a chance. Cyra was naive enough to believe she was untouchable, which he knew wasn't the case. Someone, somewhere would cut Cyra down to size, give her a reality check, or even scare her. He could only wish. "You should raise your standards then." he commented.
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Post by starrea on Apr 14, 2020 4:05:05 GMT
It was like a strong gust of wind blew through and all of Cyra’s fight was extinguished. Her anger was replaced a heavy depression and her body physically sagged when she realized that she Destrian really didn’t care about her. It was stupid, really, because she knew he didn’t care about her. She didn’t want him to care about her and she didn’t care about him. But for some odd reason, despite all of that, it still hurt.
Being angry was so much easier than being depressed. Everything, even breathing, was a million times harder than it was a second ago and any motivation she had just evaporated into thin air. She sunk down to the ground, eyes glued to the man in the grave. Dead people always looked so peaceful and she envied it.
“Yeah, maybe,” Cyra agreed quietly, too tired to keep fighting. It didn’t matter where her standards were at because in all honestly, she was probably far below most people’s standards. Cyra spent all of her energy into hating everyone that left her to distract herself from the one common characteristic; herself.
The worst part was that Cyra didn’t know if she wanted to change. Or how to change. Or what to change. Her emotions were constantly changing and with them, her entire view on herself and the world. Decisions and justifications that made sense one second were nonsense the next. It was just another part of life that Cyra had no idea how to navigate and no one to lean on for support. At least when she had been imprisoned on the mountain, she had the illusion that once freed, she would be surrounded by those who cared for her. But now, it was painfully clear why she was alone. In that moment, as they both stared into the grave of the man Destrian killed, it was hard to say who hated Cyra more - Destrian or herself.
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Post by Val on Apr 15, 2020 19:47:08 GMT
Destrian allowed the silence to stretch on, feeling the anger drain out of him now that their fight had seemingly ended. He continued to dig the grave, casting Cyra a glance every so often, finding it strange to see her so quiet. He still didn't pity her, but he did wonder if it was still possible for them to make amends. The idea seemed so far fetched, but what other option did they have?
Once the grave was dug, Destrian climbed out of the hole and dragged the limp body to it's new resting place. He rolled the corpse into the grave with a thud, staring into the pit for a long moment. No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't summon any empathy over the death. Without another glance, he began to shovel the dirt back into the grave.
By the time the task was complete, Destrian felt absolutely spent. He patted the earth down and pushed some leaves and twigs over the disturbed earth to hide the evidence. Sweaty, dirty, and exhausted, he sat down near Cyra and let out a long breath, "We're never going to be friends, and I'm never going to be a parent for you," he told her quietly, "But that doesn't mean we can't work together. We must work together," he emphasized, looking at her expectantly.
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Post by starrea on Apr 16, 2020 17:09:18 GMT
Cyra didn’t look at Destrian once as he dug the grave. Her eyes remained fixated on the dead man in front of her, limbs strewn about haphazardly and eyes still open. The world hadn’t missed a beat when he had died, it kept right on spinning. It didn’t matter who he was in life because in the end, he died insignificantly and would be swallowed up by the Earth and there would be no evidence he had even been here at all.
Time lapsed and before Cyra knew it, Destrian had kicked the body into its final resting place. No words were spoke as layer upon layer of dirt was shoveled onto him until he was gone.
Cyra pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped an arm around them as Destrian sat beside her. The depression was so thick it was almost tangible, like a weight on her chest that made each breath a challenge. She wanted to cringe at his words but she sat frozen, scared that if she moved she would shatter into a million pieces. It was pathetic how much she yearned for any sort of connection or validation. It was even worse that the only person she had in her life was Destrian.
She nodded along to what he was saying because there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t hurt him and she couldn’t make him care about her and she couldn’t turn back time and make him not abandon her in the first place. She couldn’t even make him sorry about it. He’d already threatened to put her back there and she knew he would and he’d live another ten years and she would be as forgotten as the dead man in the grave whose name she couldn’t even remember.
“Okay,” She finally said, still staring at the fresh gravesite and wishing she was angry. Anger was so much better than depression. It was so much easier to hate Destrian than to hate herself.
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Post by Val on Apr 17, 2020 4:34:04 GMT
Destrian fell silent again, not used to having to spur the conversation when it came to Cyra. He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to keep speaking to her, but he'd been drained of all energy and his lips felt looser than usual, "Please don't try to kill me again," he stated quietly, his eyes unfocused as they stared at the fresh grave.
"When they tied you to me, they told me that we had become one," he continued, his voice sounding detached as he recalled the haunting memories, "They told a lot of things. The truths and the lies started to blend together until I could hardly think for myself. But...I think they wanted to kill me; to see if you would die with me. They never got the chance. That was the night we escaped." It was strange to say it out loud after so many years. He'd never shared the details of his complicated past, but Cyra was the only one that could even begin to understand; if she remembered anything, that is.
"Maybe I was just paranoid," he said after a moment, "But they never intended for me to leave. They wanted to control you, and if they couldn't do that, their only other options was to destroy you." It was the most information he'd ever shared and it felt even more cathartic than snapping the man's neck. He had nothing to hide from Cyra, and so it was surprisingly easy to unburden himself to her. He was sure he would regret it later, but maybe it was enough to make her doubt her murderous plots.
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Post by starrea on Apr 17, 2020 17:47:38 GMT
Cyra hadn’t expected Destrian to stay after the body had been buried. She was prepared to watch him walk away and leave her like he always did. So even though she didn’t show it, she was surprised when he sat down beside her. The silence between them was uncomfortable; Cyra had nothing left to say and Destrian clearly didn’t know what to say.
She did not respond one way or the other to his plea. Her eyes vacantly stared at he freshly disturbed dirt and it was questionable as to whether she even heard him at all. Destrian finally spurred a reaction out of her when he mentioned where they had come from. Her eyes widened at the plot - one she hadn’t even known about. The idea that killing Destrian would result in her death had never even occurred to her. She was sort of hoping that once he died, the curse would dissipate. Now that her death was a possibility, she couldn’t kill him. In fact, she needed to protect him.
A mix between young, drugged, and probably trauma had made it almost impossible for her to remember anything from those days. What she did remember were incomplete flashes and disjointed scenes. It was like only having a couple pieces of a much larger puzzle, one she had never had the desire to finish. Anxiety bubbled in the pit of her stomach, the same anxiety she got whenever she tried I push those memories. Something inside of her didn’t want her to remember.
“I don’t remember much... they kept me pretty drugged.” She didn’t even entirely remember the moment in which she was cursed to Destrian. Everything blurred together into one drug-induced haze. The night they escaped was a little clearer and she remembered Destrian holding her hand and pulling her. She remembered how hard it was to move as fast as him, how her legs wouldn’t listen. She remembered how she didn’t question anything, not why they were leaving in the middle of the night or why they were climbing a mountain. It wasn’t until after he left her that all of the drugs really wore off.
A memory hit her. One she hadn’t remembered before. “When I first got there, they couldn’t control me. They had to use old magic. They tried to force something down my throat and it didn’t work.” The words were rushed and she tried to grab ahold of the memory before it slipped away, “After that, they kept forcing things down my throat. Some of it was alcohol, I think, because it burned like stuff I drank tonight. But it didn’t make me drunk, then or tonight. And the magic burned when I tried to move. And then they would make me sleep.”
She hadn’t realized she had started to cry but a tear dripped off of her chin onto the ground.
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Post by Val on Apr 18, 2020 17:35:23 GMT
The way she spoke, so fragmented and scarred, brought up vivid memories of her as a child. He glanced at her and watched the tear make its descent, finally feeling something stir within the depths of his heart. Destrian would never allow himself to cry, but he felt his throat thicken and he swallowed back the unpleasant feeling.
"They did a lot of things to you," he stated quietly, not going into any further detail. His aversion to mind altering substances stemmed from the abuse he'd witnessed and endured. It had been constantly ingrained in him to view Cyra as the enemy, and the hatred was so deep seated that he struggled to see past it every time he looked at her. The fog was slowly clearing and it left him with the realization that they were both victims of the same enemy, and the unspoken guilt of what he had done.
"I couldn't protect you," he tried to reason, more so with himself than with her, "I could barely protect myself." When he'd escaped, all he wanted to do was disappear, which he knew would've been impossible with a target like Cyra attached to him. Living in a constant state of survival mode had taught him to be entirely focused on his own self preservation, with little regard to others. The apology he owed her was floating in the air between them, but he couldn't bring himself to say it, knowing it would force him to face the reality that he'd struggled for so long to bury.
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Post by starrea on Apr 18, 2020 18:14:00 GMT
The memories were out of focus and disorienting but the fear she felt back then hit her hard. It was so thick she almost choked on it and it pushed all of the air out of her lungs. She tried to breathe in but she was paralyzed. The harder she tried to pull air in her lungs, the more she realized she couldn’t. The panic escalated and she desperately clutched at her chest, clawing at it, as if that would help. Several terrifying seconds later, her body finally obliged to the wants of her screaming lungs and she choked air down.
Cyra didn’t know when she had started to shake, but she was now. She hadn’t felt fear in so long, she hadn’t even remembered that she had been scared until a minute. It made her wonder what else her mind was hiding from her but if it felt anything like this, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“They made me sleep. And it made me sick but because I was bad, no one cared.” She closed her eyes and she could see herself as a child, she could hear her begging someone not to put her to sleep. “I couldn’t do anything... I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t make it stop.”
She wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks as if she finally remembered who she was sitting next to. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself a little. That was the past, and even if she couldn’t remember it, it didn’t change things.
“Do you remember the first time we met? I don’t remember it.” She asked, still staring vacantly at the grave. She couldn’t look at him because if she did, she would shatter into a million little pieces and she couldn’t have any hope that he would help her out herself back together.
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Post by Val on Apr 18, 2020 23:51:08 GMT
Destrian tensed as she endured the panic attack, watching her out of the corner of his eye but feeling frozen and helpless. He didn't know how to comfort her, even if he wanted to. There was a wall in his mind when it came to Cyra, leaving him unable to be there for her in seemingly any capacity. If it had been Ari trembling beside him, he would have held her in his arms and told her it was going to be okay. With Cyra, he became stiff and silent, waiting until she calmed down to release the breath he'd been holding in.
Her question brought up more unwelcome images: Cyra as a child, the higher ups of Paragon, his old friend. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to speak, "Yes. They brought you to us. They told us what you'd done and what you were capable of. I remember thinking...how could this little girl do all that?" he trailed off, opening his eyes wide to make the image vanish from his mind, "There were others like you. Others that needed to be contained. But they always seemed most preoccupied by you. Obsessed, even."
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