[prp] missed appointment (eve + melany)

[Melancholies]

Shiloh was on campus when he got the text from Jamie, but it didn't lessen the fear or the anxiety or the impending heartache. The music building was huge, who knew where the ******** they would be? He'd combed the halls, busted into ongoing classes, pissed off his fair share of people, and dawdled around on the verge of a freak out as he tried to figure out where the ******** Melany was.

As he approached down one of the hallways, time started to slow out. Everything here felt dangerous. Everything here felt wrong. He could feel something oppressive from beyond the door, but he couldn't stop himself, not when he was watching the walls gray out around him. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe he'd have enough time.

He swung the door open with gusto, his cheeks flushed from his sheer amount of running around.

One look told him that things were decidedly not okay.

"You're..." The words caught in his throat. Nothing else came out afterwards.

cibarium

he's here

shibrogane

ready 2 die

 

[shibrogane]

"Shiloh," said the Spinel Lady. There was nothing left of Melany. It had all been subsumed into the thing between Shiloh and Eve. "Dear Shiloh. It's been so long. How are you enjoying my gift? Do you relish the power I have gifted to you?" Her attention was off Eve entirely now. Even though she still wore Melany's clothes, the orange tank top and pink cardi over skinny jeans, the powder blue ballet flats, she carried herself like she wore a gown. She carried herself like a woman who expected to be obeyed. "But you're standing," she said. "Little love, I think you know you belong on your knees."

cibarium

Melancholies

 

[cibarium]

"Shiloh..."

Eve barely knew him, but already knew: roping him in might very well have made everything worse.

melancholies

shibrogane

 

[Melancholies]

Not long enough. Say it. Not long enough. Stand up to her. The thought made him sick. The thought crushed his resolve before he had a chance to do anything. He thought he was strong—he was, comparatively—but putting things into motion versus the thoughts in your head were two entirely different demons.

For a moment, he did not obey. He looked to Eve instead, his face full of pain. Jagged. Scared, so ******** scared as his mind was rapidly trying to compartmentalize itself into neat little boxes. He didn't speak to her, but his expression said it all: Why? Why did he have to relive this. Why was he too late. Why were people messing with Melany. Didn't he say in the list serv to be carefully? Should he have been clearer?

There was a resounding sound as he fell to one knee, his head bowed reverently. "Madam..." He said quietly, his voice not quite like the rough ragged teenager that had spoken with Eve before in Equinox. He wasn't speaking to the Melany he had had sushi with before. He was speaking with the women who had broken him in like a dog.

His only saving grace was that he had the charter back in Court. He still had a chance, maybe. Silk's words echoed through his head as he fought between the tug of hate-save-hate-save.

"It's a gift that you've suffered for, I learned." He said quietly. He wouldn't call it a curse, not now that he knew the truth, "I respect it more than relish it."

Shiloh Beaumont was not meant to act mature. This was Shiloh after three long months in the Otherworld; the product of discipline, abuse, torture. This was someone who held as much reverence for the Spinel Lady as he did hatred, by this point.

shibrogane


cibarium

 

[shibrogane]

The Spinel Lady reached out and ran one hand through his hair, as gentle as she'd ever been, which was to say: her touch was soft, but it allowed not a moment of peace. There was no delusion here that she was kind. Then her grip on his hair tightened and she wrenched his head back, baring his throat.

"Oh, little Shiloh," she said. "You've always been my favorite. Even when you've been a fetch, my love, I have always treated you so kindly! And it pains me to do this, it truly does, but you see, this girl won't answer even a simple question. You know how I discipline those who defy me." She looked at Eve again, then. "It will upset me to kill him," she said. "For a few moments, I will be very sad, and doubtless the blood soaking my shoes shall be uncomfortable. If you do not tell me what I wish to know, I shall have those moments of discomfort." There she paused. "And he will be dead. And it will rest at your feet, little moonwalker--but you aren't even that anymore, are you?--just a human. Just a girl."

cibarium

Melancholies

 

[cibarium]

Damn you, Eve, sending that text. It really did make everything worse. She couldn't sit there and watch Shiloh be killed, not ever, especially not after Michael. The former moonwalker drew in a long, staggering breath, eyes on Shiloh's shoes, as she recollected.

"She was talking about Ezra. She... felt responsible for the breakup. I asked her why it had to be her."

melancholies

shibrogane

 

[Melancholies]

The rough yank was familiar. The tender delusion of softness was familiar. They were both from a time he had tried so desperately to forget, and yet he never quite managed it. He forget everything else instead—the important thing, he'd later realize—but in the moment he felt like they made him weak.

He swallowed uncomfortably, but despite the tense nature of his posture it... was obvious it was a practice routine. How often had he been beaten for Thorne's oversights? And vice versa, for that matter. "It would be unfortunate." He agreed, voice filled with effort from the uncomfortable strain on his neck, "I'd rather not see reality fall apart again." It was an off handed please tell Melany what she wants.

His eyes closed in a motion that would look rather peaceful if not for the current predicament. He was used to this hell. He knew that even if Eve submitted there would still probably be consequences. C'est la vie.

cibarium

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"How interesting," said the Spinel Lady. "Was that so difficult?" She let Shiloh go, smoothed his hair back into place, and leaned down--such a long way, how had Melany become so tall?--to press a kiss to his forehead. "Little darling, don't be afraid," she said to him. "I'll come home soon. But it's not time yet. I'm not ready to return. Enjoy the pretense of the girl; it'll all be over soon."

And just like that, all at once, time snapped back into motion. The Spinel Lady disappeared, sucked back inside Melany's skin, and the girl left behind collapsed into a heap on the ground, out cold.

cibarium

Melancholies

 

[cibarium]

"I'm sorry."

Eve was pale and shaking and she wasn't looking at Shiloh, even though it was clear that was who she was talking to.

"I'm so sorry."

shibrogane

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh did not move while Melany—The Spinel Lady—fixed his hair, her hands cold and her bones ice. Her warning chilled him. It felt hard to breathe. Time snapped back into place like it had never stopped; why was she hiding, then? Was it really to wait out the demise of the deer triplets, like Lace had implied? It's what she would have wanted, right? Melany fell, and Shiloh's attempt to catch her wasn't the most graceful, but at least she kept from smashing her head into the ground.

Every movement felt like it was through some viscous, unwilling liquid. His head felt like it was under water, slowly crushing under the pressure, but it was only when the Spinel Lady left that he finally crumpled, his posture turning in on itself, his muscles shuddering and his body shaking. Be strong, be strong, be strong. You have the charter. There's still a chance. Any pretense of the collected-but-fearful boy from before had been shed just like that. What was there before was a compartmentalized shell. Now he struggled to comprehend his emotions without freaking out.

"It..." His voice was quiet—so quiet—like the murmur of wind chimes when the wind was scarcely blowing, "It's..."

He shook his head, shoulders trembling.

"I'm okay..." He said, even though it didn't sound like it. It wasn't like anyone else had been fully faced with the hell he'd lived through for three months. He could tell the story, but to be there, to feel it, to know the manipulation and the fear and the struggle... it felt like a very vulnerable part of him, a very real part of him was just torn open for everyone to see.

"I'm okay..." He gently shook Melany's frame, "It's okay... are you okay...? Are you...?" He was mumbling himself around in circles, movements mechanical. "Did she hurt you..."

It was hard to tell if he was speaking to Eve or Melany or both.

cibarium

shibrogane

 

[cibarium]

Eve stared blankly ahead while touching repeatedly at her ears, her teeth; then she looked slowly down at her normal fingernails, their navy blue polish warped and wrinkled from the claws shrinking back into normal, blunt. nails. "She took her away," she answered, somehow managing to be surprised by it still.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh was silent for a long moment.

"I heard her voice before." He said quietly, "When I was with Melany. She said if she followed the voice then she felt like she could never come back." The small girl held up in his arms was so weak looking compared to the presence of the Spinel Lady. "She got out. She didn't get out last time but... but..."

Something cracked in his voice. "I wasn't fast enough." But he didn't cry or weep like he had last time. He didn't break, perhaps because he was already broken. He was insistently shaking Melany to try and wake her, even though it wasn't working. "I wasn't fast enough..."

He finally looked to Eve, his eyes dull, something remarkably fixed about this entire situation. He was shaken, but not surprised. What did that say about him? "Is... do you have someone I can call for you?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Eve sulked quietly as Shiloh beat himself up. What he was saying about himself was close enough to what she was thinking about herself for it to sting double. She couldn't bring herself to argue about who was more responsible, though.

"Leila," she said. "She might still be in lecture."

It was selfish, she thought. Melany had been knocked out cold by this whole disaster, and all Eve could think about was how she had given up all of her powers, all of her magic, for nothing. It was power she never even really needed. Maybe she deserved to have lost it.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"Leila.." He echoed, his eyes slowly coming back into focus. "I'll—"

He paused, words catching in his throat. "E-Eve...?" There wasn't anyway she couldn't have noticed what had happened. Melany had the ability to slow peoples powers, she had told him this, but... but this wasn't... "Your... your fox parts are gone."

Things only ever got worse and worse and worse.

He shivered, "I'm sorry, I'm okay." Deep breath, "I'm okay." Was it because he was a principal? The key, the one who unlocks things, liberation. He slung his backpack off and set it on the floor, dutifully setting Melany's head on it so she wasn't just resting on the ground. He stood.

"I'm..." Quietly, he hurried over to Eve. Between him and Melany and Eve, it looked like he didn't know what to do first with himself. "She can stunt peoples magic. But she's never taken it away completely, she never..." His hands wrung themselves, "It's gone, isn't it? All of it?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Not that she didn't feel impossibly small already, but Shiloh's assessment made Eve shrink as if she wanted fold in on herself and hide from his eyes. All the little holes and ragged absences were still there and felt mockingly glaring.

"Yes," she answered. "I can't even..."

That wasn't a tumblrism, that was her not wanting to list all the things she suddenly couldn't do.

melancholies