Isobel Brandt \\ Persephone (praxidike) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-06-01 12:54:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | persephone |
i'm keeping myself to myself
Who: Isobel & Persephone.
What: A god does its vessel a favor. Maybe.
Where: Inside Isobel's head.
When: A day following the murder in 104.
"Isobel."
She opened her eyes, but darkness lingered. Isobel blinked, then rubbed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, believing herself to be blind; except that she could see her hands, could feel them. Turning about, her mouth frowned, incomprehension written across her face.
"Isobel."
Turning yet again, Isobel started as she saw the woman from her dreams. Dressed in a simple blue robe, clasped with silver at either shoulder, her skin darker than Isobel's from an eternity of working in the sun. Her hands were gently folded in front of her, and she was smiling.
Isobel's gaze skittered, moving to and from the entity in front of her, to the darkness surrounding them, trying to understand what was happening. Earlier, as prophesied by Rafe, uniformed police officers had stopped by, asking if she'd seen anyone in the halls earlier in the afternoon. Anyone who didn't belong in the building, or anyone who did. There had been an incident across the hall. Someone was dead. They couldn't give her more details than that, and Isobel's imagination had run wild. Rafe had simply said someone had gotten hurt, inside his apartment; he didn't say how or why, and she could barely imagine Rafe being involved in something like that.
In the wider scheme of things, it was troubling at best. Between the floor changes, the odd dreams, Bryan's attentions and now the utter destruction of the business she'd spent the last few years of her life building, though, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Isobel had held it together long enough to answer the police's questions, to show them out with a smile, but they could tell she was shaken. Who wouldn't have been? Her limbs trembled, and the smile on her face was as plastic as they came. She'd never mastered that particular L.A.-ite skill.
Once they were gone, she'd closed and locked the door, wishing she could bolt it or add something more to prevent the outside world from coming in. She had no idea if Bryan was involved with the incident next door; the idea that it wasn't him was no less reassuring, implying instead that there were other troubles that she now needed to be aware of and prepared for. She simply didn't have the mental capacity for it, not anymore. So she'd sat on her couch and burst out crying, Hanni weaving around her legs and licking at her face in an attempt to comfort her. Strange that it had been this and not Bryan putting Spring Growth to the torch that would finally make her crumble. She wanted badly to run back upstairs and find Obed and just pretend that nothing else existed if only for an afternoon, but she knew she'd sunk that option for herself.
So she'd cried herself to sleep on the couch, Hanni curled up next to her as one of her skinny arms wrapped itself around his tiny, furry body.
And now she was here, staring a woman she'd only seen in her dreams in the face.
"I'm sorry that we had to meet like this," the woman said, the curve of her mouth gentle.
"Who... who are you?"
The woman's smile widened, sympathetic, pitying. She took a step forward, a movement from which Isobel did not retreat, and took Isobel's hand in one of her own. She was impossibly warm, so warm Isobel wondered if she was running a fever. The woman squeezed her hand, the other going to Isobel's face.
"You know my name, my story, or, at least," the woman said, fingers winding around a piece of Isobel's hair, "parts of it. I think you'll know the rest, soon, but..." The smile turned sad. "I know it's been a lot for you to carry. I wanted to ask if you want me to help."
Isobel's brows drew together across her forehead. "Help... how?"
"I can make it lighter, maybe for a little while. Make it easier to manage. I just have to take some pieces out."
Isobel's eyes widened, fright passing over her face. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but the woman continued.
"It won't hurt. And it will save us both."
Either something in Isobel's face read like consent, or the woman took her own prerogative, because in the next moment she was pressing her palm to Isobel's forehead; Isobel's eyes rolled back in her head, and she saw nothing, not the person standing before her and not the ways they were tangled together, both physically and mentally and spiritually. Her mouth dropped open, not in a scream, but in a silent 'oh' as what the woman had been offering became oh so very clear. It all rushed through her, every memory up to a point, though when she could not have said. There were pieces she tried to snatch back, to keep, to say that she, the woman, Persephone, was taking too much. Going too far.
But then it was over, and it was all gone. Not gone, completely; but removed, sealed away, so that her mind had more room to work.
"Isobel."
She opened her eyes, and it was still dark. There was a woman standing in front of her; something about her was so familiar, but Isobel couldn't place her no matter how hard she tried. Even still, there was something comforting about the woman, like a close, much loved relative. Isobel smiled.
"Do I know you?"
The woman smiled back, clasping Isobel's hands between her own.
"No," she said in answer, the scene around them fading. "But you will."