Log: Complete

[noh-dancer.livejournal.com]

When; Nov. 7th ( evening)

Rating; PG-13 for language

Characters; snarky_padre_v Vincent, noh_dancer Scarab

Summary; Funny how massive physical trauma can make someone question thier place in the grand scheme of things; The first civil conversation between Scarab and Vincent.

Log;


The tiny chains on her mask clinked as Keico padded silently through the stone corridor.

Her new 'family' had been in and out all day, and when she would be called down for some sort of message or errand, there was anywhere from Her Lord, The Reed, and Serpent themselves speaking with glance, facial expression and thought, to only a small group of the 'children' ( as Alessa refferred to them. ) clustered around the door and peeking in.

The first time she had been called, Teacher had been with her, and as they both knelt before The Red God, she hadn't been able to help glancing briefly at Vincent where he lay curled on his side....
At the time she had wondered what the man had possibly done to upset the nightmare that badly.

After she found out....she was just angry.

Vincent was an insufferable little shit...but no one deserved that.
It was cruel...and wrong.
She wasn't sure how conscious the pitiful little huddle of blanket was through a lot of the silent mental exchanges at the time....but when her Lord told Teacher to go to the underground and start 'getting organized' ( whatever that meant..) she had volunteered to stay within the cathedral and look in on Vincent in between her other tasks.

She was pretty sure this surprised everyone but Teacher, but she didn't much care.
So here she was in full mask and weaponed regalia. Not for Vincent's sake, but she had been busy not only talking to other beings in the city, but following Teacher around the underground...lets just say the 'children' were a bit touchy-feely with her, and she had already removed a few fingers in response.
If they did not fear her, after all, they would not obey her in lieu of Teacher when needed.

She had another tray in her hands, this one with a little bottle of the few narcotic pain-killers she'd had from her old EMT kit, plus a clean glass, and some of her personal stash of Absolut. ( Her favored western type of alchohol)
Long ago she had started keeping the box stocked in her apartement, and as much as she had been cut up and shot since coming to The City, it had come in handy.

A little ways away from the partially opened door, she had to catch herself, and let her steps be a bit louder...maybe then Vincent wouldn't be so worried about who it was coming to see him.

Vincent had spent the short while he'd been up making a voicepost- he found his journal intriguing even if few of the rest of the City had the time or the inclination to respond to the usually theological rants the man posted. Well, he was a priest. Somehow the whole 'today I did this and saw that.' type of flat narrative was apparently not his speed (altho one can assume Keico may have at least heard from Alessa he tended to complain about her from time to time...) Whereas he was far from recovered- how DID one recover from such a brutal attack as he had taken? -he had at least moved beyond laying curled up and making weeping sounds. In spite of not being a fighter, and plainly, as he had been warned looking to the Corinthian, anyway, as prey, he was made of stronger stuff than he appeared to be. There were others, surely, who would not have been awake, aware and cognitive so soon after such a debiliation... "who's there?" logically Vincent couldn't see who had entered his room, but his hearing was getting better. Making do... altho they served absolutely no purpose now, Vincent had his glasses on. Force of habit, or at least a sense of security. He probably didn't know, but one of the lenses was broken, and they'd have been unseeable through even if he had the eyes to see, stained as they were by dried blood.

"It's Keico." She responded softly, and had to brace the tray a little before crossing the circle. It didn't hurt per say, but it did tend to make her shiver.

She had removed her boots back in her room before even heading down here inthe first place, so her bare feet on the carpet didn't make much noise.
The soft sound of her pant's cuffs did if she remembered to scuff.
A tiny part of her hoped he didn't remember, or hadn't 'heard' her volunteer to look in on him, but Teacher had mentioned something about Vincent being really close to the boss..well, here's hoping?

" I brought you something...For..uh...pain."

She crossed to the bed, and carefully knelt to sit on her heels before setting the tray down.
" ....And I figured you could use a little something stronger than water to drink."

"Thanks," he said, a little brusquely. well. if anything it wasn't quite his usual cocky tone. Needless to say the attack had taken some of the bite right out of him.
He seemed more weary than withering. And well he might have been- could one truly sleep soundly with no eyes to close? "You heard what happened, right?"
Vincent wasn't aware she could see what had happened-nothing to dull your self awareness like being unable to see yourself. "I guess you're probably pretty glad. He was your friend, wasn't he? and I got what was coming to me."
He didn't sound as though he believed he deserved this, although the fact he thought Keico might meant he at least had some awareness about how unliked, unlikable he was among the small circle he knew. Still. for all his bravado, the City had bested him, and far too easily.

For a long time...maybe too long she just stared at him.
It wasn't as if he could tell she was studying his blood-caked glasses, but a small part of her ingrained manners made her look away before mentally kicking herself.

He was a complete asshole to her....and she felt sorry for him.
Yes, Cori was her best friend...but she firmly believed that what the nightmare had done was just plain cruel.
No matter what the stupid metaphysical politics involved, there was no excuse for this.

...And damnitt, she had more integrity than that! She wasn't about to let Vincent make her feel guilty for not saying something.

" No....No, I think what he did to you was cruel. You weren't doing anything to him, and he..he..-" she let that thought trail off, then tried again.

"You know....He threatened to kill me today if I stood with Xulchilbara." she said softly.

" ..And I threatened that if he hurt anyone else of my family again, I'd kill him myself."
If Vincent had any kind of tact, he might just leave that particular wording alone.

Hold out one of your hands, please?" She took two of the painkillers in her own maimed hand, and waited with a shot of Vodka in the other. ( Not the strongest of meds, but it would help more than asprin) and waited for his permission to touch him.

"So it's come to that, has it. Choosing up sides..." he chuckled. He sighed. Carefully set the microphone thing he'd been given down.
He had no idea how or if he'd be able to see any replies. Not like he'd ever gotten all that many to begin with. He was new in the City. and far too quickly, Xuchilbara's utterly.
But what else was he to have done? The Red God, moreso than anything, anyone else he had ever known, had spoken to him, him so exclusively.
How could he not? He was a god of the Hill, after all. And Vincent, consecrated to, used by, abused by, and eventually, by some odd quirk of fate, the very last survivor of The Order... what else could or would he have done?
He wished somehow he could talk to the various factions at odds with each other.
Get them to see him, him, not just some sad casualty to be pitied, or some fool puppet of Xulchibara's whose injury was a strike in the face of the enemy the god was to some... but what good would that do?

Might as well be Guy Fawkes, trying to talk his way out of the bonfires that came, again and again each year without fail.

Might as well be Alessa, trying to stop the Order from allowing her to be burned.

"All things have their price..." Vincent muttered. For the first time, in a long time, he actually missed Sister Claudia.
Of course the crazy zealous bitch had stabbed him...but could she have done any differently?
He had at that time wanted to stop the gods, prevent paradise. She was, in her way, as manipulated into her actions as any good little soldier marching unto its fate. "Gunpowder treason..." he added, still more or less talking to himself.
He took the pills Keico was offering him, then asked, "Is that mask still here? The one that man gave me for bonfire day. I know I missed the festivities, but I still want to go out. I just... I don't want people staring at me. Like I'm some kind of freak."
Aaah, but he was now, wasn't he? Poor eyeless freak.

"Oh. I had some kind of vision. or a dream, I guess. Someone needs to know." When Vincent had been younger he had had some psychic ability, and the Order had used him for it. He was used to just passing these things on summarily. Was there any real arrogance behind his arrogance? He was only what fate had made him...
"Will you help me to walk outside? Can you read me any replies in my journal?" he asked, and for once, there was no snark in his voice at all.

....Ok, she might feel sorry for him.
She might agree with the sentiment of price.
....But she didn't agree with this self-pity, and self-righteous thing he was very obviously working on.

" First: Sure, I'll read you your replies. "
She reached out and took his hand without bothering to ask permission.

" Second: Do you honestly think you're the first person to be maimed, and then known of all over this place?" Her tone wasn't angry, or irritated, just practical as she let him have a good long feel of her three-fingered hand, then raised said hand to her shoulder where the large star-shaped knot of scar-tissue was visible just under her collar.

" I'll take you wherever you want to go...but your not going to hide behind a mask, because your too damn afraid to let people see you."

" I am the third person who actually died here, Vincent...but I didn't let that stop me from getting up and moving on, despite everyone's condolences, and oh-so-sincere apologies for not 'saving' my fragile mortal ass from being crucified, and impaled on rebar.......Your nothing special out there, but if you'd step back and look at the big picture, you might just see that in here-" here meaning the cathedral, the room, and the circle of the marked.-" you've got people to help pick you up and dust you off....If you'd just treat them like people, instead of irritations."
She let go of his hand, and truly wasn't concerned if he kept touching her scars or not.
She had known a while ago that Vince may like women, but it wasn't his prefferred swing.
( She had spent too much time with a gay nightmare and his mage boyfriend to not pick up a little more gaydar)

"You, and I don't know all of what's going on here, and if you think your just being used by Xulchibara, your dumber than you look."
Maybe there was an element of mutual benefit to that particular relationship, she couldn't rightly say, but she had seen something honestly scary about her beloved lord today.
He may take Vincent's blinding as the message it was, but she had been the one to carry more messages, and requests over half the city to any and every healer, witch, magician, or doctor that would keep silent for enough of a trade.

"Your the only one that gets to stay in here as long as you want, pal.....some of us don't get that kind of invitation."


Vincent did sort of gasp at what he felt...because when he had been sighted he had been so full of himself he had never bothered to notice.
Vincent was learning all kinds of new stuff from this, wasn't he?

"I...no. I know I'm probably not the first. or the last...that's the problem. I was the last. the last one to make it out of Silent Hill, anyway. or so I thought. I AM the last priest of the Order.
One gets a bit demanding when one finds themselves an only child, I suppose.

I don't think our Lord is using me. That is to say if he is- and he is- it's not in any way I haven't approved, accepted, and allowed to happen to me.
He makes me feel good. Not just in a sexual way- that much must be known by now too, huh?- but about myself. I haven't felt that in a long long time now.

I know I'm no one special. I wasn't amongst the Order either." he chuckled, "Walter Sullivan...I tried to contact him. He doesn't know me, no- he's years my senior, and as a killer of priests, not likely to be the sort to be friends with me anyway- but it was still sad.
He wanted nothing to do with me. moreover, nothing to do with Him- he thinks this is more of the evil the Order has wrought. Maybe I just wanted someone to hear my side of the story, you know? Someone who knew.
In the end I'm a bit of a hometown boy, I suppose. None of you who have never known the Hill will begin to understand what happened there. Excuse my arrogance, but it's true. We survived a nightmare. And here I am, desperate enough to hope a momma-fixated psychotic would get that. All because he's from the 'hood, as they say...

But I'm sorry. I'm ranting.
If you're lucky, it's the meds, and I'll konk out snoring and drooling so you can be free of me again... I didn't feel this was a part of anything, just an isolated attack. that man- your friend- saw me as weak, just as you said people would.
He saw me as weak, and he used that. What I don't like, you see, is how out of proportion it's likely to grow. This has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with how the other gods here are taking our Lord's... divine presence, is all.
It's his glory I'm concerned about, not my own. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die." stick a needle in my eye he thought on the tail of that, and almost giggled crazily. He managed to stifle it, pretending it had been a tickle in his throat.

She smiled, then reached up to remove the curving metal-and-chain mask. She needed a smoke, and highly doubted her Lord would scold her for lighting up in here.

" Well, in case you hadn't figured out how to do it, all of us have some level of...I guess 'connection' is the right word."
True enough. Since she'd sat down near him, the mark on her lower back had been pleasantly aching...but she didn't ask if his did, just incase his marks were somehow different.
" I'm pretty sure all 'us kids' know you and He get up to some pretty intense stuff.....but I personally don't pry."
Truth again...she had actually felt a little 'backlash', so to speak, when Xulchilbara and Vincent were getting up to whatever it was they were doing the other day, but purely by accident.

Keico and her mentor had been conversing in dreams, and being the good little gaurd dogs they were, they generally kept 'an ear open' for anything on the part of thier three charges....well, that ear had gotten a bit of a psychic scream in it right then, and both teacher and apprentice had shut down real quick.

She listened to his past, and for what must be the thousandth time since all this had started, wondered just what exactly happened in Silent Hill; to her it was a far away place in a whole different world...but for everyone else it was the common point that connected them...well, outside The Red God.

As to the blinding incident..well...

" Cori did act impulsively, and I think you're right. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."
She lit the cigarette she had tapped out of her standard battered pack, and settled more comfortably to lean against the mattress.

".....I really think that His function in the grand scheme of things is to show people, and other gods I suppose, things they don't like about themselves." A shrug, that from her position against the mattress, he could probably discern as an absent gesture.
" Nothing likes to be reminded of the things that aren't all about sweetness and light....but I have never had any illusions about what I am; I'm a killer, and not boasting myself, I'm a good one."
Inhale, exhale away from Vincent's face.
" I don't have much patience for this metaphysical politics stuff, but for the first time in my entire life....I feel like I have a family."

She gave a smirking grin, that while probably lost on him, it would still be in her tone.
" I got a father, a sister, and two brothers all at once....right down to a pain-in-the-ass sibling who I would really like to smack upside the head a lot....but I can't help but still feel like he's family, and that means no matter how much we might hate each other, I'll still kill anyone who hurts him."

Damn, getting downright sweet, there....but even if this little bit of truth came back to bite her in the ass one day, it still didn't change the truth of it right now.


"And that would be me, I take it?" he chortled, "I'm not as young as I look."
He was, in fact, as young as he looked.
But, having been a priest right up until the end of things in Silent Hill, he had convinced himself that the whole calling one's flock children thing had somehow given him the seniority the words implied...

"Can you read this to me? I can't see it..." Well, yeah. Obviously he couldn't see it. Finding vocabulary to match his new state of being was going to take awhile too.

He fumbled for his laptop, hoping to pass it to her.
Trusting enough, anyway. Up until Henry had showed him he hadn't even known there were such things as warded posts, so likely as not he had written none, but there was always the chance there were things on there she shouldn't see written to Vincent... but he had no fear of her reading them.

For an inherently sneaky guy, Vincent was all too trusting of others.

"I need to reply. Should I reply? Maybe you should. I can't read the words..."

Vincent thought about what she had said. "Tell them...Tell them I'm resting comfortably. abiding in my faith. That I will pray night and day for forgiveness for The Corinthian and his heinous act against me, after all, he knew not what he was doing...." Vincent stopped waxing theological, and smirked, "I guess that's a bit much, hmm? He knew exactly what he was doing. I just doubt he's going to want it to escalate anymore than I will."



Wisely, Keico kept silent on her own age....
Passing the laptop had been an awkward affair with her cigarette in her good hand, and a blind man trying to hand it over.
Still, she managed not to drop it, and sat on the floor reading aloud for a few minutes ( and a bit of confusion at the offer to "make him see" for Vincent.) she replied first to Henry, then spent a little while trying to remember something important about the person who had made that odd offer.....Something really important.
"Um...I think you should ask Him about this one...or maybe Alessa if He's busy." she advised, and elected to leave that particular one alone.
A few minutes of reasonably comfortable quiet, and Keico started to laugh softly to herself.
" Er, I tell you what, Vincent, I'm going to set up some commands for you so that you can lock your entries and replies a whole lot easier" She was having trouble keeping that laugh in. It wasn't really funny, after all. Just pure luck Vincent hadn't let something really vital slip out without meaning to.
While she typed a little more...she couldn't help a little bit of curiosity from slipping out.
" Er...I don't mean to pry, but..." a quick draw on her cigarette out of worry that she would ruin the first adult conversation she'd held with Vincent since meeting him.
" Do your marks kind of...'glow'...around me or the others?"


"It feels warmer, if that's what you mean." he could have- almost made some snide little comment about not being able to see anything, much less glowing, but this was the first time the girl wasn't annoying him utterly, why spoil a good thing? Besides, he needed her, not that he'd have ever admitted it... "I...I still see...something. like when you look at a light for too long and the shadow of it etches into you like a memory.

I was dreaming too. I still dream in pictures, but when I wake it's just darkness.
I can feel the muscles in there still trying to work.." he reached for, almost rubbed his sockets, then thought better of it. "But I'm sorry. You didn't ask me about that.
Who is this Delirium? Do I know her? She can make me see again? What kind of promise is that?" he was intrigued, of course.
Vincent didn't know what , if anything, Keico was replying with to the replies. If it wasn't a voice post, he would have no access to it, and this upset him.
"Surely if anyone could heal me it would be him." he added, "So if he hasn't, it surely can't be done."

She simply nodded, and made a mental note to tell Henry that Vincent's mark was similar to thiers...but less active, or maybe just plain different?
The dreams...now that sounded a little spookily familar.
" Honestly I would talk to Him before you talk to her...I think she's related to Cori's Lord somehow, but I could be wrong." She didn't think so...but better safe than sorry...well, more sorry in Vincent's case.
She took another thoughtful draw off of her cigarette, and wondered if she was supposed to be talking about her 'errands'? Xulchilbara had told her to be discreet, but did that apply to Vincent himself?
....Better safe than sorry.
" Maybe you should ask him about that too?"