when the sound of you and i dies out.
[ toska . habushu ]
your sweet violent house believes the signs we see in the cards believes the signs we read in our dreams but we seem to follow the stream
When she left her home after the morning's meditation with the other Embers, she was always pristine-- hair smooth, skin touched by the dew of dawn, figure obscured only by the lightest of linens, body defined by the light of sunrise creeping second by second over the horizon.
When she came home, it was a different story entirely.
Always, she came home bloodied, impure. Her skin pale from the strain, body broken by the battlefield. Her dresses always returned irepairable, torn into strips to pull together wounds that needed a physical connection to be knit back together by the Firefly's intrusions. She was a splatter mess of oil stains, black pooling around the beds of her nails, blood caked into the tips of her hair. Often, she came home in military jackets borrowed from nameless men and their faceless wounds, thankful offerings to the woman's sacrifice to their damaged, corrupted bodies.
And always, there was a look in her eyes that was almost absent, imperceptably catatonic.
Barely there.
She dragged her bones back to the Treehouse in silence, a duty achieved, smooth shouldered and soul sodden, where she would suffer one of the only indulgences she permitted herself in these darkest of times: a bath.
It was the smaller of the two bath-houses that she tended to lean toward, to avoid any contact in the moments she needed to recuperate from the agony she'd absorbed through the course of fourteen hours. But so late at night, most of the dear Embers had already retired.
She slipped the jacket from her shoulders as she passed the arch of the doorway. She'd have to remember to return it in the morning.
Toska and Habushu frequented the same bath house for the same reason. When all was said and done, neither of them wanted to deal with the rest of the swarm.
If she was made filthy from the suffering of others, he had no one but himself to blame. His hands bled a dozen shades of color into the water, scrubbed away by ancient purifiers and turned into who knew what. Metals turned powders, tinctures and chemicals and paints and inks seeped from his stained skin, toxic and beautiful.
There was poetry there somewhere, but he didn't care to grasp it.
It wasn't the first time they'd crossed paths there, or even the first time he'd examined the subtleties of her exhaustion, but it was the first time he spoke. Would she even hear it?
"You look like shit."
She was almost too tired. A withering glance was barely contained in favor of that same placid, emotionless construction of a face she presented the world, and she regarded him even as she began to loose the ties from the front of her tattered dress.
"It is not yet late enough to be the end of your day."
She turned her back to him as she slipped the gown from her shoulders, placing it over the jacket. Every dimple of her metal spine broke the smoothness of her back, even as she rolled her shoulders back.
The small woman had no qualms with nudity, but the single wave in the calm of her sea was petulant that she was faced with something that wasn't silence under cover of the steam.
Anyone else would have let it go and let her rest, but did anyone else ever see her like this?
They held her in such respect, such awe that he wondered if they could even think of her as fallible. Featureless like her namesake, face as expressionless as a chitinous mask. Did they see the cracks like he did and ignore them, or was it his familiarity with suffering, the intimacy of his understanding of exhaustion and pain that made them stand for him like the ribs of her spine?
Or, the question posed itself unasked, perhaps it was his familiarity with her.
"Making inks tonight. Can't afford to mix pigments." He said evenly as he watched her, snakes eyes. Watching the cracks.
"Anyone who tells you fireflies don't sleep is a liar. Maybe you should take the hint."
"My preferences are not imposed upon me." The words were dry as she removed the rest of her clothing, slipped her feet from her unlaced boots. Silent, all somber skin and tattered edges, she came to the edge of the pool. "I will sleep when my body deems it a necessity. Just as you do."
Of course, she wasn't calling him a hypocrite as she lowered herself into the water. She was bereft of judgement for the man across the pool from her-- all she could be was a series of observations made at significant points in conversational time.
The water came to her jawline, almost boiling. All she could do was close her eyes to revel in the warmth of it.
Habushu almost seemed to disappear from her mind's view, only reminding her of his presense with the slightest ripple in the water's surface.
Which was fine by him. Happy to watch as ever, he took the opportunity of her unselfconscious nudity not to ogle her figure but eye the impurities, the marrings. Oil and blood, soft muscle underneath thin skin. Threadbare, worn thin. She enjoyed it in the same way he enjoyed his inks and inspirations, not because it brought him joy or pleasure but because he was a slave to it.
Both of them crushed beneath the weight of who they were, one of them lunging after its descent to earth and the other crumbling beneath it.
He wasn't certain how long it was that he went without speaking--minutes, probably, though he wasn't sure how many--before he spoke again.
"You're staying with me tonight."
One of those pale eyes cracked open just slightly to loose a look at the man, protesting the sudden disruption of the quiet-- before she processed the content of his words.
"No."
She sat up in the pool a little, leaning her head back against the edge as she closed her eyes once more. A deep sigh,
firefly chest aglow like dragonsbreath beneath her sternum.
"I liked the painting."
"The color was the important part." And the statues, the abstraction and stylization of them, the dark shapes rarefied with hair-thin strokes of that intoxicating, vital red. The hands, gnarled and dark and more shadow than substance. A part of the negative, and just as absent of life for it.
Like her. The only thing keeping her alive was that dragon heart of hers, roaring against entropy as she wound back the clock.
"Fuck you too." He dismissed the thought without venom, waving it aside. There was steel in her but it was tired, battered. Still strong, unyielding, but he could see the cracks. "I need your help. No, it can't wait until morning."
And he knew how she couldn't say no to a plea,
even if she could see through how false it really was.
"What have you done that requires you to ask for my assistance?" She leaned forward, lean frame obscured by the clarity of the water. She was refracted, glinted, coruscated by the dimness of the lamplight, gold shimmer of reflection on her pallid cheekbones.
"What did you do that can't wait till the morning?"
"This is hard enough for me already, don't cheapen it."
His voice was dry and it was his turn to close his eyes, his breathing slowing in contemplation. The best thing about public baths was the heat, constant, how it never cooled in the chill air and ran to tepid nothing. Of course she would see through it, there wasn't anything to see through.
There could be, it wasn't like he didn't have one finger on a domino towards disaster at all times...
But it would be nice if there didn't have to be.
"Tell me when you're done and we'll go."
"There is nothing wrong with you," she concluded, quiet. She didn't need to run herself through his vital systems to know that. She could tell from his demands and the order in which they presented.
She was a virgin body,
but she knew of intention--
even if she knew Habushu's was innocent enough.
Those trembling hands ran up over her shoulders, crossing her body and her hummingbird throat.
"Why do you want me to stay the night?"
Responses boiled up like ripples in the water and he didn't say a one of them, letting then die on the water.
So she could rest.
So he could rest.
So he could smooth away the cracks, fingertips caked in caulk until he could hear her speak over the groan of her metal spine.
So he could rage and rumble and batter and howl without having to remember her like this.
He who makes a beast of himself. Better to cloak himself in selfishness than feign a heart he knew was fleeting.
"Tell me when you're ready to go."
Grey sky gaze paled in the steam, she sighed as she scrubbed her fingers through her hair. To detangle, to clear the caked grime of the dusty northern border, to wash away the memory of Descoria. Her eyes lingered on her companion as she pursed her lips, wordlessly admonishing him for turning her hour of silent creature comforts into a fifteen minute prelude to whatever adventure he had the impulse to create for them.
When she stood, her gaze remained.
Her face was always severe. She was sharp edges, hollow cheekbones under those lidded doe eyes, but she always softened.
Even now, she was soft despite her bone markers, brackish hair wet across her throat.
"Shall we?"
True to his word, he waited until she moved to leave. It was a ritual of hers that he'd interrupted, but having a goal had always made him strangely intrepid. Perhaps that's how she felt in the face of her duties--the rest of the world falling away, ceasing to matter before necessity. Cause dictating action.
What a hollow way to live.
Not a muscular man, his body ran to insomniac leanness, his lifestyle leaving little on his bones but the wiry muscle put there by life among the trees and the occasional demands of his arts. He swam in his robe, the deep green swallowing him as he stepped out into the night with her, moving barefoot over the wood and metal walkways with practiced ease.
Maybe she was more honest when exhausted. He liked to see her struggle to control herself instead of the other way around.
"If we're not careful the others will start realizing all the fun shit happens at night."
She'd barely had time to pull on those tattered leather shorts, thin camisole, and her unlaced boots-- but she knew he would wait, if she took her time. She folded the jacket over her arm as she stepped out into the clarity of the night, the breeze brightening her eyes where the steam had clouded them.
Those healer lips said nothing, hummed nothing as she simply followed the sounds of Habushu's footsteps through the criss cross of rope bridges and platforms that made this tree their home. She bowed her head to the statue of the Buddha when they passed, respectful even under cover of night.
If he was quick, then she kept pace-- but with a more measured step, a tempered grace that had her following with enough room to choose her own path to the same end.
He didn't have to keep an eye on her to know she'd arrive. He'd said the magic words, after all.
As they converged at his home, two spider web paths twining to one destination, he stepped inside unceremoniously and allowed her to follow. The inside was always changing, a never ending assortment of projects half finished, pigmented ungents and tinctures rattling about on shelves, carefully separated from bowls of brilliantly colored powders, spices, inks. It smelled of metals and incense and spices and flesh, and if it had aired out a bit since Stille had dragged him out of hermitage by the hips it was still warm as the womb, amniotic and enveloping. The floor was a mishmash of muted cushions, the rare space between them as often as not filled with a small pool of color, the only ordered space a multi-tiered work bench. The bed proper was only distinguishable by its raised edge, the surface of it boiling over in thick fabrics.
He stepped inside, unknotting his shoulders as best he could as he breathed out tension he had forgotten he carried.
"Sit wherever. I suggest the bed." He waved to it all without looking, stalking stork-like amidst the chaos with casual precision to rummage amidst one of the shelves.
Casual caution at Habushu's hotbox of curiosities crossed her brow as she stepped over the threshold. How long had it been since she'd been here? Years, years. More often than not, the only places Toska frequented were the meditation grounds, the battlefield, the bath-house, and her own home. Any other visits were rare affairs--
Chronic disease was healed quickly or not at all.
Major repair was resolved or terminated.
She didn't tend to make repeat home visits.
The Firefly found a seat on a cushion, spine resting against the wall, cross legged. Not on the bed. Jacket laid to her side, she rested her hands on her knees and gazed without question, head slightly tilted, at her quaint host.
He emerged with a pair of small glasses and a sealed jar of clear liquid, condensation lining the inside to trickle down and become part of the whole again. Orange peels hung suspended like scientific samples, flower petals and small pods of spices resting in it. Pouring a small bit for them both, he flopped expertly to the cushions and proffered one to her.
"Yes, I need you to drink it. No, it's not alcohol." He pre-empted with a slight roll of his eyes. "Tell me what you taste."
The words transmuted the airy vapor of her lamplight gaze into something else, formed a sentence imperceptably written along the curve of her brow and the slightest microtwitch of an eyelid.
This is what you needed help with.
She sniffed it, still staring at the artist.
"What is it if it is not an alcohol?"
The smallest amount passed between her lips, the bitterness tamed slightly by the sugar and the orange. But she only allowed the drop-- the art of masking flavours was invented for medicine and liquor, and she required neither.
"Poison." Of course she was suspicious, but it still irked him somehow. Whatever tenuous bond of antagonistic friendship they had certainly didn't facilitate trust, but it didnt stop him from bristling at the insinuation. He took a sip of his own drink, breathing in the scent of orange.
"It's a drink, Toska. You drink it, like water, only it tastes better, or it should. I'm pretty sure my taste buds are still blown out from last week. Finish it--the flavor is supposed to change by the end."
He took a draught of it himself, licking at the bitter orange flavor mixing with the underlying bitterness, brightened by sugar he'd taken from a poultice of other fruits. A little lie, of course, but the benefit of being a sarcastic asshole was the he was usually lying a little bit anyway.
His taste buds really were pretty shot, though. Fucking useless.
Toska happened to enjoy the taste of water. The simplicity of it, the crystal purity.
"I've never killed a man who wasn't already dying," she mused as she looked at the liquid in the glass. Flitting back up to Habushu, her eyes were placid, unamused even as her mouth smirked. "But I understand that it is never too late to start."
And with those words, she tilted the drink to her lips and drank the rest of it down.
It was cloying, too sweet for her-- but the bitter quality still lingered in her mind. Who was she if she could not find in herself the will to trust a friend, no matter how combative he may be?
Who was she to question one who, in so many decades, had never harboured truly ill intent for her?
She was a good friend.
A foolish good friend, but Habushu suspected you had to be at least a bit foolish to be friends with him in the first place.
"Make it something juicy. You've had a hell of a sampling, might as well get some use out of it all."
There were plenty of things he wanted to say to her that he didn't, crushing each one as it rose up like an ant under his twisting thumb.
It was funny how much that vestigial heartbeat of his wanted this to be for her. A grand little rebellion, a quick coup to give the martyr the rest she wouldn't give herself even at the expense of her wishes and the sufferance of her wrath. It wanted to pretend that he wasn't lying to her, poisoning her.
Cute.
"Come tell me what you dreamed when you wake up."
"If I sleep tonight," she replied, quietly. She found in her joints, in the heaviness of her shoulders that perhaps she was more tired than she'd thought herself to be. She tilted her head back and swallowed. "Did you hear that Nona is dying? I'm expecting her tonight or tomorrow, I don't expect she'll last longer than that."
She slid her pale glances, glossed over in the sad reverie of watching the old children break down, over to Habushu.
"When we were still at the orphanage, she was like a doll. They gave her those placeholder limbs that were made out of that resin that made her look like a porcelain doll, until there was a donor for her upgrades. Remember? Ever since, there's been problems in the wiring." She swallowed. "And I've fixed what I could-- the little bits of her insides that have been wearing away. But I think she's done. The connections are dropping for longer and longer. Yesterday, her cerebral connection to her lungs failed for almost five minutes. She could've died then if it hadn't kicked back on."
The Firefly rubbed her eyes as she forced herself to stand, leaning heavily on the wall.
"If you would like, you can wait with me-- to say goodbye."
Of course he remembered Nona.
He remembered everything.
"I'll wait for you." He corrected, voice the same as ever as he watched the drug creep in. Perhaps the little doll would last long enough to see her savior again, but time was rarely so kind. He remembered watching the others compliment her on the tiny additions, remembered hearing them turn to consolations as the delivery for her replacements were pushed later and later and finally didn't come at all.
He remembered painting them for her one night, and would remember painting them for her after she left.
Remorse was not in his nature. He made his decisions and stood by them, come hell or high water, and this was no different. There would always be dead--there would always be dying. That Toska chose to place herself in the middle of them and hold them up with a spine of iron...
Even she could only tether them for so long. And did it make them richer for it, or poorer?
"You should lie down, Toska. You don't look like you're going anywhere tonight."
"What have you done?"
She gazed at the floorboards, swallowing back any external show of betrayal, of anger, of hurt. She'd known it was medicine, the tincture. The bitter memory of it like mercury on her tongue.
"What did you do to me?" She surveyed her own insides, turning her healing spring to her own body now-- but those nanites were under conscious control, and her consciousness was slowly waning, even as she picked apart her own belly in her head, analyzing where the absorption was and how to combat it.
It had already seeped into her bloodstream and there was too much blood to clean before she would be incapable of giving the order.
She fought, though. One foot before the other, fought the fog from her head and steeled her mind, and she leaned against the doorframe. Maybe if she cleaned her veins, scrubbed every transmitting platelet one by one, it'd buy her enough time to at least make her way across the treehouse.
So she could at least be home if Nona came to die.
"I'm going home."
She should rest.
It didn't take a doctor to tell her that, though she would hear none of it. So conscious of the place she made for herself in the world and yet so absurdly, masochistically insistent on being a function rather than a person. She could believe it was for others all she wanted, but it rang false in Habushu's ears.
Punishing herself for her failures was one thing, but making Habushu watch was another entirely.
"This is pathetic."
She was in his arms a moment later--he may not have been tremendously strong, but she was a very slight woman.
"You're a shitty loser, you know that?"
Taking away her choice was far and away less noble than her attempt to maintain control of her mind, of her body. But even in these moments, when the well intentioned betrayal of her friend stung most sharply, she remained a statue, without furrow, without fervor,
and a blank slate for a voice plate.
"Take me home, please."
In the name of their forever blue sky and the combined consciousness that kept them safe, she was so tired. And despite the years of washing the humanity from under her skin, purging the desire from her synthetic bones with so many hours of meditation, she was left blank in the artist's arms--
consumed with an anger she could not yet bring herself to process.
"Please."
It was a well guarded secret that she feared the dark. Even as children, when they'd played in the orphanages dark corners and crawlspaces, she always had to light up the night-- regardless of if it gave their hiding spots away. When the matron thought they were dastardly beasts, no good trouble makers, the only thing that made that little girl scream was the locking of the closet door.
She'd laid in his arms then as she laid in his arms now. Hopelessly begging in her voice without words not to be separated from the yellowing candlelight that flickered across her austere features.
And that anger was victory.
"You're going home, I promise. Be quiet."
Like that meant anything coming from him.
Still, he slipped out into the night again and made for her little home, walking well worn paths with ease. If his own quiet irritation at her complete unwillingness to make the best of even this vicious little gift roiled beneath the surface, he blew out that candle with a sigh of relief.
When she was asleep, at rest at last, he wouldn't have to see those comatose eyes anymore. He wouldn't have to hear those hurried little whispers or minute whimpers, the ones he shushed even now in an instinct remembered from when he was an ill-mannered child, at home and at peace in punishment, and she a terrified little girl in the dark.
They were neither of them as far removed from that place as they thought.
He could feel the effects of the drug as well but minutely, recreational and practical use having built an impressive tolerance. If his step was slower than it might have been, his eyes a bit heavier, it wouldn't floor him the way it would the little Firefly.
He would be there when Nona passed. And so would she, one way or another.
Under cover of temporary darkness, in the warmth of friendly fire limbs and the cloaked protection of that liar's mouth, she found respite from her ever enduring exhaustion tilted against the sharpness of his collarbone, clutching his shoulder in those fingers that, in the terror of the night time, refused to let go.
They were never more than 100 steps from that first home.
They would always be children together.
what's it gonna be with the violence? what's it gonna be when the fire rides in? what's it gonna be like when the sound of you and i dies out?